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US to build Y2k Command Center Bunker
munchkin writes "CNN has a story from their computing section on the U.S. government's plans to build a Y2k bunker. Apparently, the bunker will be used for Y2k "event managment", better known as "panicking stupid people" and/or "drunken rioting". " What's even more interesting is that this is being considered as the first test of Clinton's drive for a "cyber defense", an initiative that was starting last May.
Yikes.
see you sometime in y2k
Better stock up know for when your 32-bit stuff won't work in 2038. (the *real* problem)
Then again, Windows 9x/NT doesn't work anyway in any year.
You don't know that there will be millenial nuts. Sure, a thousand assholes (mille+anus=millenial) might have two thousand nuts, but they might have none at all, depending on their equipment. Me, it's the millennial (mille+annum==millennial) nuts that I'm worried about.
"The New Millenium (=thousand assholes) Channel" sounds like porn. How about changing your anus into an annum?
No, they'll be happy, because in 2001, they finally get to celebrate the third millennium. The extra party supplies will come in handy.
Oh, there will be millenial nuts. I can't wait for the Michigan Militia to react to this (me living in Lansing...)
Why do they think something crazy will happen in 2000, except for computer fuck-ups? It's not even the millennium. Remember, we never saw 2000: A Space Odyssey. You know why? Because Clarke's no idiot.
Unless you get the thousand assholes together that a "milleENIUM" comprises, you won't have any nuts. The new millENNIUM in 2001 mihgt be different.
Don't you think that the original short story was better?
I heard somewhere once that september was a really bad time for some code. Particularly Sept 9, 1999 (or 9/9/99). Would anyone mind clarifying this for me?
So, if Clinton's backing some sort of "cyber defense" initiative, is it safe to assume that there will be some sort of government-backed internet sabotage come y2k to lend credence to said defense initiative?
There's no rush really, those things can last 12 years if you store them right.
Vegas will be ~ 40 degrees that time of year. Most of the rest of the US will be colder or CONSIDERABLY colder.
Now that it is put that way, a stockpile makes good sense with or without Y2K. There's always the unexpected blizard (or expected blizard if you live in Minnesota).
The Michigan Militia would be the last thing on my mind if I lived in Lansing.
Just look what happens to those MSU students at FOOTBALL GAMES!
you just wanted to use the word 'antepodian', right?
Here's what I figure
1. It will be summertime
2. Not a part of the world anyone is going to attack.
3. Lots of agricultural production
4. Reasonably politically stable.
5. Less computer reliant.
6. Fun place to be anyway.
7. If nothing happens and I won't have to eat all that canned food I would have bought or sell my bunker for a song.
as far as i'm concerned, there's more real usable wealth on a linux cd than there is on all of the fictitious paper money on wall street.
y2k-bunkers and world bank committees have to be a cover for something else, maybe a financial blowout, who knows what, but the ongoing rotation of the great clock in the sky is not it.
shortwave radio (wwcr or wgtg?) had a show where a guest speaker reported that fema just ordered 20 million body bags from dow chemical. if so, that's more than were used in all of the wars this century.
what's the world bank doing setting up surveillance bunkers, under cover of y2k? just last week "our" fed supposedly bailed out another world bank hedge fund, this time tiger fund of asia. 20 billion, and poof we have a happy banker. then the banker complains on investing 2 billion to reopen the danube river, which is the mississippi of eastern europe.
Brother, can you 'pare a dime?
I've heard that some ancient, stupid databases take a date of 9/9/99 to mean "delete record".
Clinton knows about as much about tech (especially Y2K) as I know about the strange cellular division on my toes.
....
government + tech == clueslessness (or sssomethingsss).
ps mariah carey sucks. whoever gave *her* a contract? (nice voice, though).
wish she'd suck me
How dare you offend a decent state...
'nuff said...
An Okie from Muskogee
9/9/99 == 990909 to a database. Not quite 9999, try again.
I have a monkey.
being from minnesota i plan on stocking up on fire wood and getting plenty if gas to go looting in my 4x4 if the worse happens
This whole thread smacks of www.y2ksurvive.com, heh.
Watch and see not much happen on Jan 1 other than the mostly ordinary.
Many Many(s) of people have been planning and preparing for this thing.
It's the bugs that hit if (It is Sunny in Vancouver) and ((raining in Toronto) and (Snowing in Calgary)) or some other thing that will probably do more damage on Jan 1, 1900 than the Y1.9K bug.
We have been through our code with a fine toothed comb and fixed every possible Y1.9K thing we could find.
All our clients have done extensive testing on the thing and have found nothing wrong. (except the Y20000 display bug on 2 out of 300 screens in the system)
However, The number of non Y1.9 issues they came back with while testing for Y2K things is most astonishing.
The good point of this Y2K thing is that clients are now actually spending the time to do full regression testing on their systems and reporting bugs so that they can be fixed.
Probably by the time we hit Y2K much of the world's software/hardware will be more stable than it otherwise would have been.
Those who have done no testing of their systems should probably sell their stock before 1899.
What we need after Y2K is an excuse to get people to continue doing full regression tests of their systems on a semi regular systems. Otherwise all of civilization could be be destroyed IF( IT IS "SNOWING IN EDMONTON") AND (YELLOWKNIFE HAS "HEAT WAVE")
I have never been there but a heat wave in Yellowknife is not neccessisarily above 0 degrees celcius.
( This a halfly insatld new machine snow ignore thelack of a apelling cheque. The sawftware isknot instald yet.)
substitute "semi regular basis" for "semi regular systems"
And I though all those people having reserved trips that day just wanted to take advantage of the Jetlag to party twice...
So, should we all buy airline stock in December?
The Y2K event is Jan 1, 2000.
But the new millennium isn't until Jan 1, 2001.
The word is not "antepodian". It's "antipodean".
Think about it. "ante-" is before, whereas "anti-" is opposite.
You write: "The greatest danger of Y2K is derranged [sic] millenial [sic] nuts" :-0
Gosh, that's sick.
You write: "I guess ESR isn't a ``millenial'' nut... "
Well, some people think ESR is a bit of an anus, but probably not a thousand of them.
You do understand the difference between anus and annum, don't you?
One N is an arse, two of them is a year.
What's "tobasco sauce"? Is that like "Tabasco sauce"?
That's not what's going on. It's like calling your second wife your third one. It's a counting error. It doesn't matter where you start. You don't call the twelfth man the start of the second dozen. He's the end of the first.
Last I heard about planes was IBM telling your IFA that they needed a heavy upgrade of hardware to become Y2K compliant for their traffic control systems. And they didnt have the money then to upgrade it.
Is this situation stillaround? Will all planes be
grounded due the the fact that bringing em down with the computers on will be more tricky.
Or was this just someone talking out their arse?
Brad
No, it's really tobacco sauce, which is like eau de cigarette.
Is it? I've been in Britain for the last 35 years and as yet I haven't noticed anyone whose more than mildly concerned. Most of us just look at those of you stockpiling dried bean in the US and give a knowing smile ;-)
So, is this bunker gonna cost more that the impeachment investigation/proceedings?
.....rookie.
.357 and 9mm.
I have 1500 rounds for my AK, 1000 for my AR, 500 rounds of 00 12 gauge, 200 of
OO-AH!
Oh, yeah, I have the stuff to reload it all.
Let the flesh crazed zombies come on! I didn't mention a few other "goodies" I have laid in.
R O L A I D S
Get you an AK. It is simple to use, has resonable recoil and is accurate enough.
.357 magnum. The cops traded them on on fancy semi-autos they can't hit shit with. Mine is just worn enough to shoot smooth as silk. I can put 6 shot in the same hole at 25 yards with it.
If you don't know guns, get a pump shotgun and practise with it. For most of what you will need to do (i.e. close up work) a shot gun with 00 buckshot cannot be beat.
A generator will draw thugs like a moth to flame.
Screw Glocks. Get a police surplus Smith and Wesson
FACT: The Y2K Center will be operating out of Mount Weather. It is an underground military base carved deep inside a mountain near the town of Bluemont, Virginia, just 46 miles from Washington DC. Mount Weather is also known as the Western Virginia Office of Controlled Conflict Operations.
Hell, everyone with their head out of their ass should be prepared. Lots of thing can happen (storms, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, nuclear war, asteroid impacts, alien invasion, etc.).
It costs about $300, including storage materials to lay in a year supply of basic commodities (wheat, corn, rice, beans, salt, sugar, oil). With the exception of the cooking oil, which should be replaced every couple of years, this stuff will stay good for DECADES!
Add a decent water filter and you can survive most disasters.
Don't depend on Uncle Sugar, depend on yourself!
Lay in you r supplies, then party without worry!
"Those who fail to plan, plan to fail" - ?
If you think the American attitude is bad, check out the Continentals. France is so socialist they're strangling themselves.
That one ain't so bad either.
Before Clinton can build a US cyber-defense he has to relax cryptography controls so that Americans can compete on their merits. Telnet is still the defacto standard when it should be ssh by now, you have to download the crypto libs from elsewhere, development moves offshore, etc., etc...
It's too bad Al Gore didn't invent cryptography too, we might be a lot more secure.
WTF do you expect them to say, "No, you will be in the dark for a LONG time."
It's like with "60 Minutes", "Mr. Smith, we have evidence you embezled $10 million from widows and orphans, is it true."
"Why yes, now that you mention it. I will go right now and turn myself in".
To all of you who think the world will change from complete normalcy to absolute chaos at the stroke of midnight on Jan 1, 2000, keep in mind this FACT: due to a little thing called the international dateline, Japan and Australia will see the year 2000 several hours before the US. IF there's any real problems anywhere in the world as a result of the Y2K bug, folks in the US will have the head start. More than likely we'll be able to see that there really is no reason for panic, and we'll have almost an entire day to calm our fears.
Ironically the most technologically reliant part of the world, and arguably the one most responsible for the Y2K bug, the Silicon Valley will be among the last to see the year 2000.
Of course this won't stop the media from blowing every little problem out of proportion. I'm sure that every Windows crash, every hard disk failure, every blown fuse on Jan 1, 2000 will be blamed on Y2K. And our biggest problem will the the gun-toting paraniod and their self-fullfilling prophecies of riots.
The mormon bunker post got an audible chuckle out of me, I'm an LDS BYU student and hadn't seen the cDc thing before... Thanks for posting it!
2 7-Work_and_Responsib.html
Though there are some y2k freaks out there I think for most LDS it's more about self-sufficiency and keeping your family going. When my dad lost his job, food storage helped. My family has also had supplies on hand to help other people when needed. I also served a 2 year mission in Venezuela, where many members of the church would buy something extra each day to put into their supply. This way it wasn't a run on the supermarkets and many said it helped them from starving when the supermarkets became empty or overpriced due to massive inflation. For many members of the church in developing nations, y2k is already reality.
Paul somes it up pretty well:
"If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith" (1 Timothy 5:8).
http://www.lds.org/en/3_Gospel_Principles/U07_C
Interesting comments.. "how out of touch americans can be." I wasn't aware that gun ownership created an alternate reality or automatic psychosis. Or that not owning a gun creates some kind of idiotic moral superiority. I am an American who owns several guns, and I don't think that fact makes any difference to my brain chemistry, as opposed to your idea of fun being "getting high."
Last point: Hitler was one of the first world leaders to proclaim universal gun laws... to provide for public safety. Real world huh?
Well, I don't have a firm idea about what will happen, because it is a totally *unprecedented* event in history. It could be that absolutly nothing happens. But I would rather have a store of beans and water sitting in my pantry for the next year cause I didn't need it than need it and not have it.
AS/400 use that to mean end of time.
Just a few days ago, Slashdot had an article about Government Backs Down On Network Monitoring Plan. If you read the CNN story U.S. plans Y2K bunker, Clinton aide to tell Senate, you will see these are the same government plans! Oh, so our government wants to set up secret monitoring stations to monitor the entire world for "cyber attacks". What does this have to do with Y2K preparedness?? NOTHING! This plan sounds like a "spin" on the FBI/NSA/Echelon monitoring. How can monitoring from a remote bunker identifiy global Y2K problems?
This is Dr. Strangelove all over again!!
chris
Ahh.. Good. I'm not the only one who noticed this little media-added scare was fsck'd up.
So why should I worry?
I do not like guns, but I would like to protect myself.
Will there be food shortages due to power failures and crashing computers halting shipping? No There will be food shortages because stupid people expecting armagedden will raid stores and hoarde food en masse.
.45cal hollow points. Later.
:/
Will failing financial computers grind the economy to a halt and cash become unavailable from ATMs and even from tellers? No, banks will run out of cash because stupid people will withdraw large sums of cash just before the end of the year.
The conclusion? Other people are the biggest Y2K problem around. They will create the precise situation they fear most by overpreparing for it. Unfortunately the people problem is still a real one and caution forces me to join them thus fulfilling their lunatic prophecy in a deliciously vicious circle, though not to such an extreme level. Thanks everyone, I gotta go get me 500 rounds of
:) For the sarcasm impaired... maybe.
Hey, don't talk about ESR that way! :-)
I guess ESR isn't a ``millenial'' nut... just a normal nut like the rest of us
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
We used ``9/9/99'' to signify ``lifetime dues paied'' in my OA lodge... I've seen 9/99 used for non-expirable things in several places. My guess is that people with theoretical non-expirable things such as credit cards or insurance will suddenly find in October that it has expired.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
The best part is you get those little tobasco sauce things.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Of course, if you are still worried about the Worst Case, make sure you don't dick with handguns -- if the pepper spray turns out to be insufficiant, plan on having enough firepower to repel a mob - semiauto rifles and the like with plenty of ammo (don't get me wrong, a Glock 17 or somesuch probably isn't a bad idea, either).
In any event, that's probably going to far. Personally, I think that nothing really major will go wrong. Still, I'm worried because I think that people might go overboard just because of the incredible amount of buildup this one has gotten. I'd rather be overprepared than underprepared...
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I figure with a few of my friends and a good plan of attack, we could get a great deal of the good stuff (palms, flat-panel displays, notebooks, etc) loaded into the truck before the National Guard arrived -- screw limiting myself to what I can carry. From there, we head to my nice Y2K-complaint storage locker with the Y2K-compliant key Master Lock bolt and hold tight until my Y2K-compliant fence can set me up.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Posted by Synsthe:
Than don't, and be a sheep like everybody else. "If it doesn't affect my herd, what does it matter to me?".
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Of course, the code is broken.
/. keeps us ontrack.
It is planned to be that way.
Actually, the code has always been broken and they don't have a clue how things get done today. They scurry around, spending money on this and that y2k consultant, whose experience includes how many previous millennium changes?
The code is broken. Yay.
Have you ever seen chewing gum and kite string keeping things running? It'll probably do the same come January.
The code is broken. It has always been broken. Nobody knows how to fix it. It shouldn't even work today; but, somehow,
Keep up the good work. When you fix some code, feel free to post it to the list }:
Best Regards, mds
Sewage flows into river; Computer Failure Blamed
Sewage Spill Linked to Computer
(The above mentioned Y2K sewage problem may be found at Y2K test sends sewage flowing in Los Angeles.)
--Phil (RISKS readers know that there are all sorts of programming bugs lurking around--not just Y2K.)
355/113 -- Not the famous irrational number PI, but an incredible simulation!
(wtf did this really happen? or what.. if not my responce)
Sort of. I forget where. They shut down their computers and tried to run the plant manually. Sombody forgot to open a gate (valve) and someone else forgot to monitor everything. The sewage backed up behind the gate and overflowed into the park.
Think older and think data entry. On some old data entry systems, you entered 9999 in a date field to indicate no more entries. The input routine would quietly translate that to 09/09/99 since neither the day or the month could be 99.
Depending on which side of the input validation sub the end of entry condition was detected, it MIGHT be looking for 09/09/99 as end of entry.
In other systems, 09/09/99 (after entry validation) is considered to mean forever or for the indefinite future or perhaps never.
Nobody had heard of SQL when some of this stuff was written. Sometimes, storage was so desperatly tight that leading zeros were squeezed out of any stored data in memory if it could be done unambiguously, no matter how much processing time it might cost.
Also keep in mind that many of these programs were written when 'dirty tricks' that just happened to work were accepted programming practice in many shops. Things like 'knowing' that an overflow can't happen in this register here.
The paranoia is getting outa hand...
Well naturally, Clinton is going to want to be there. And with him around, the ratio of men to women will likely be something to the effect of 1:10....
Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Yeah, right. If the worst fears of Y2K are realize (hah!), there'll be such chaos that the People in Uniforms will overreact and make everything worse.
At least, this sets another dangerous precedent of the Fedrul Govmint thinking they're supposed to control the populace instead of the other way round.
Thinkin' hard about Canada or Ireland...or maybe Fiji.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Come the year 2001, thousands of people out there will be overcome with despair, because they will be stuck with generators, water purifiers, rifles, candles, and many other things whose value will drop to 20% its current value.
They will have had to eat all those awful MRE's, and lima beans, and rice they stocked up, for a whole year, as well as all that canned food.
Soon they will go completely postal.
And then, the President will find this bunker mighty useful.
This could be my candidate for clueless geek statement of the year. Do you honestly think that $multi-billion international banks do everything on paper???? Astonishing.
And -- sorry to burst your bubble -- hopelessly, pathetically incorrect. You really need to stop and pursue that little "wonder" wandering around in your head: why are these companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars? Is it to buy lots of paper to do their accounting when the "nuts" come to take their money out of the banks? Get a grip, man.
Don't you read newspapers? Didn't you ever hear before Greenspan insisting that 99% isn't good enough for banking? Do you think he was talking about paper?
Did you know Greenspan was a mainframe programmer himself? What *do* you know?
Railroads? hmmm.. steam/electrical engines that run on a straight track. Oh sure they need to keep on schedule, but it was done for a hundred years by watch, I doupt they will kill over anytime soon.
The trains *cannot* be run manually anymore in anything approaching their modern computerized speed and efficiency. First, they fired all the switchmen in the 60s when they went digital. They don't have the personnel. Second, they've removed the manual switching mechanisms everywhere. These aren't just assertions. They're facts. The system works on computers. If they don't get their systems fixed, either the trains don't run or they don't run at normal speeds.
Yes, the sewage spill really did happen, within the last month or so. Don't you ever read a newspaper? Y2K testing in California. "OOPS". 3-1/2 million gallons of raw sewage in a park.
You need to wake up, friend. Start paying attention to the world around you. Banks really do use computers. Sewage really did spill. We really do need those trains running, and we don't know if they're going to be ready.
Umm.. Mirror???
Yes, well, I did expect that the enlightened throng here at Slashdot would stoop to this. Try dealing with facts -- though I am really not sure you know any about the world around you; you seem surprisingly unaware of how things work.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Please show me where a non-y2k-related bug has resulted in 3-1/2 million gallons of sewage being dumped on the ground.
Please show me your average, run-of-the-mill bug that has corporations spending billions of dollars in an effort to correct it.
Being glib is very different from actually dealing with the issue. It has not ceased to amaze me that the Slashdot crowd is so astoundingly apathetic about this issue. I can only conclude that it is an apathy borne out of ignorance. I can't say I recall ever seeing an actual argument presented here as to why GM, Chevron, Citicorp, the FED, and all the rest are just wasting their time and billions of dollars. Instead, I see "chewing gum and kite string." I see someone else suggesting that banks do everything on paper. I see ridiculous, unsubstantiated claims of "of course they'll fix it." Maybe they will; but far too much of the evidence suggests otherwise.
Not everything is hunky-dory.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
I see no reason myself why the railroads can't roll the dates back as you suggest. Maybe they'll do just that; but that doesn't explain federal concern about their efforts. But I hope you're right (but I'm not depending upon that either).
Getting the money *to* IRS is one thing. The big question is what they're going to do with it once they've got it.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
But you don't seem to know that your average programming bug isn't systemic. It's not distributed uniformly across virtually all systems in all industries and in all governments. You ought to know that things break, and that when they break sometimes the consequences are breathtaking.
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Well, for real-time systems like the railroads, I would think that by far the safest solution would be to simply set the date back. What does switching equipment care, whether it's 2000 or 1973? (If my memory serves, 1973 was the year which had the same day of week configuration as 2000 - if I'm off by a year or two, don't worry).
Fortunately for the IRS, the systems actually used to collect most taxes are run by private industry, not the IRS. Employers collect the withholding taxes and send them to the government. I have no doubt they will continue to do so, since the penalties for not doing so are draconian. The IRS's own systems are another matter, of course.
D
----
Everyone who didn't get a refund on their Win95 CDs should donate them to help run this "Y2K Bunker".
Nothing but the best for our leaders...
Jay (=
SOME power will undoubtedly be interrupted. But I've heard reps from our own power company that they a) this company is ready for Y2K, and b) they have a contingency plan to remove themselves from the national power grid should there be a cascade effect from other facilities that are causing problems. Of course, just how accurate this is remains to be seen.
Did anyone catch the following sentence?
At the heart of the new phase is the Y2K Information Coordination Center (ICC), the Washington-based hub of a multimillion-dollar crisis management bunker to be operational by Oct. 31 and wind up by June 2000.
A government program that actually ends? The new millenium might be a strange time indeed!
Make sure you chose something as old as TU154 where all the bloody electronics are analogue ;-)
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
So, it's pretty much agreed upon that there will be nuts with guns going crazy because of two digits. My questions is, does preparing yourself and house for a possible outbreak of stupidity (rioting) make you part of the problem? I imagine many of the "loons" we are referring to are people with the mindset that the peoblem will be caused by other people and they are just protecting themselves.
Of course, as history has taught us, there is a hefty chunk of people who seem to just sit around waiting for a reason to riot. Not a pretty thought if you live near a city.
I say we all just stay home that night, have a gun or two handy in case there is some kind of threat to you while in your home, and enjoy yourself. This is a really historic event, I for one am going to enjoy it, but it would be stupid to not give at least some thought to my safety.
FinkPloyd
"We should have shotguns."
I agree. I've always viewed the shotgun as the perfect home defence weapon.
FinkPloyd
That one ain't so bad either.
Personally I like that one.
FinkPloyd
the US government trusts their own systems enough they think they need a Y2K bunker? Bill Clinton is a raving idiot, I feel horrible for defending him in the Monica scandal. Someone needs to kidnap this hapless okie and teach him something about technology, even though his vice president invented the internet. First the Clipper chip, then the CDA, now a Y2K bunker. You would think the billions of dollars spent on SDI would have leftover a few bunkers in case of a global nuclear war...which is slightly more destructive than stupidity.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Individually people are smart. Collectively people are dumber than a box of hair. Y2K wouldn't be so bad (worst case, the airports are not working for a couple days, prisoners escape, I was never born....... :-) except for all those damn people. (I'm entp if you can't guess)
Once the Y2K "crisis" blows over, there are going to be a lot of former consultants really desparate for programming jobs, and willing to work for next-to-nothing. There goes the high demand wor IT workers.
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
>plan on having enough firepower to repel a mob - semiauto rifles and the like with plenty of ammo (don't get me wrong, a Glock 17 or somesuch probably isn't a bad idea, either
:)
"We should have shotguns."
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Well, I live in Toronto, and as much as I would like to spend New Year's Eve 1999 in
the Bahamas or somewhere toasty, I'm wondering how our antepodian brother and sisters
will react.
I'm thinking I'd rather spend it in a Northern clime, simply because I think the warmer
weather might incite more problems with drinking/partying/riots, etc.
Then again, parts the U.S. are still fairly warm in winter,so...
Just a thought.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
But That's the American way isn't it? :) Everyone is a helpless boob! Aren't we?
Austin
Well thats just the -first- wave of shit to hit the fan .... a lot of programmers use a 'special sequence' for a error or infinity etc ... the special sequence used within dates is often 9999 .. thus the date 9/9/99 .. this could setof a lot of bank computers thinking our accounts have infinite cash, or error out, and think there's no cash what so ever :)
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
It always amuses me slightly that some people are so picky about the date being exactly 2000 years after a date which has no significance to many people (including most of the people I know who are that pedantic about it), and which is probably inaccurate anyway.
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
Nightfall is a terrific book by Isaac Asimov & Robert Silverberg. In the story, the inhabitants of a world with six suns are faced with the darkness of night for the first time in 2000 years. It is an interesting discussion of human behavior in the face of crisis and unknown. There are many similarities to progress of the current Year 2000 paranoia, and the points it makes are rather frightening. Definately a terrific read if you're into speculative science fiction at all.
Uhm.. Dates (including 9/9/99) are represented by many different systems in many different formats.
;)
Some systems might store it in a fashion subject to misintrepetation if the representation which indicates that date also is some sort of 'escape' sequence.
So how many people are fixing the Y10K bug while they fix the Y2K bug.. Oh, you wanna have to do ALL that work AGAIN??
Sure.. "None of these systems will be in use". Gee, where did I hear that before.
Obviously everyone reading this post will be dead long before then anyway..
I doubt that it will be only women who are in a panic.
Take for example the vastly male, and hopefully well informed audience we have here on slashdot...many are still debating whether they will take their money out of the banks...
Great post! I was laughing my head off for a quite a while after I read it. The text was very funny, although not entirely accurate. Just a little off-topic, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
;-> ), not just the apocalypse.
------Begin off-topic stuff-----------
I know several devout Mormons and have learned some stuff about the church from them. As far as I can tell, the cDc text is pretty accurate, except for a few things:
1) The food supply is for any situation where purchasing food is not possible or convenient (lack of money, natural disaster, or being too tired to go to the store
2) 'Righteous' non-Mormons will be around too after the "end of the world".
3) 'At hand' could mean anywhere from tomorrow to 100 years from now (or longer).
4) Eden is just the center of a larger "paradise".
These aren't really that important to know, I just wanted to post them in hopes of discouraging less-informed posters from saying something stupid.
---------End off-topic stuff---------------
Back on topic now, I become extremely annoyed with all the commercials on tv that portray Y2K as the end of the world, such as those Kia (I think) car commercials with the family in the bunker or the long line of people withdrawing all their money from a bank. I'm about ready to start loading _my_ 12 gauge and go put the people who make these commercials out of their (my) misery, as well as those who think that they should build bunkers and withdraw all their cash.
Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. --Douglas Adams, _Mostly
Anyone remember hearing about power plants going out when they did testing? Not all of them have been tested so at the *very least* power will go out. Add that onto people going nuts simply because of the time and the cold outside winter weather when it all goes down and a bit of a problem starts to surface.
My county is setting up serveral Y2K stations for those who need it at area police/fire stations and I think it's a very good idea and it shouldn't be mocked.
And that's my 2 cents.
~Kevin
:)
...the only sense I could make of it was that CNN wanted lots of hits form panicky readers.
That, or, perhaps it was a sublimincal message to those panicky readers who are going to read it that they should, if they hadn't already, go dig a huge hole in their back yard and build an actual bunker, and stock it up with their favorite Y2K stuff.... hoo! what a laugh..
Although, I do wonder myself sometimes if it isn't worth it to do a little something in case the power goes out.. like, a manual, hand-operated pump for water, maybe a generator. That's about all I'd go to the effort for though...
and that's _my_ $0.00002 cents worth. =)
Insert mind here.
And it's the media's fault of course.
And now it's gone too flipping far that it's impossible to spin it the other way.
Where will I be? I don't know. I've made no plans. Here where I live, it's usually snowing like a summabeeotch, so most likely I'll be holed up in my house anyway watching television and drinking until January 3rd. If I'm not here I'll be enjoying myself not worrying one iota about the computers, the people or the universe.
Let them all kill themselves. That will mean no traffic during rush hour on Monday when I go to work.
--m
Check out the Lance Armstrong Foundation
kayaking
Yeah, FEMA (Federal Everything Management Agency), as in, the Feds will manage everthing centrally from DC.
Does this strike anyone else as totally asinine, that these people even remotely think that they can direct the Y2K "coping" efforts of over 250 million individuals scattered across 50 states? What a complete crock.
The real danger in these centralized efforts is that if the shit really does hit the fan, people will look to this central bunker, the Prez, and his central-planning sycophants for directions, rather than relying on their own knowhow and common sense.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
I used to work for a bank, and briefly for a medical school. I now work for the local gas and electric company. At all three of those places, the general understanding of where the potential problems are has been quite clear, and they are being worked on in a very sane and rational fashion. At least in my immediate area, the lights are unlikely to go out, the banks aren't going to "lose" your money, and the hospitals will be operational. I'm not worried. Anyone who lives in my area (Rochester, NY) who is worried about any of the above shouldn't be.
That said, here's the stuff I am worried about:
1. Rochester, NY is a pretty high-tech area, given the schools and industries that live there. It's no real wonder, then, that we're OK and not too given to panic. However, parts of the country that are not as technology-intensive or knowledgable might have problems.
2. If you think other parts of the US have it bad, Europe and Japan have serious Y2K problems. Especially Europe, from what I've read, since they were silly enough to try to do the Euro conversion last year instead of concentrating on Y2K.
3, Due to issue #2, as well as the sudden "bust" in demand for programmers once Y2K fixing season is over, the economy is likely to, in the long term, do Bad Things. I jokingly made a "Y2K food stockpile" last spring and was very grateful for it when I lost my job in June. I'm replenishing it for use in the event of a similar situation.
4. I am very concerned about the Crazy People. There seem to be several different sets of them: the fundies who are expecting either the Anti-Christ or the second coming of Jesus, the anti-technology sorts who are looking for an excuse to have everyone go back to the land, and the "darkside" sorts who are convinced that all of a sudden there is going to be a Shadowrun-like scenario and it will suddenly become possible to throw fireballs and there will be a Great War between law and chaos blahblahblah, are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
5. Due to the fundie version of the above, if enough of them can get into enough power based on all the hype, real damage could get done to religious and intellectual freedom in the United States. This is NOT something I want to deal with.
6. The nuts that head for the hills to avoid the "rioters." The opportunists who break into the houses of the nuts and start looting. My boyfriend tried to convince me to leave the city on 12/31/99 but I am not going to. I'm going to be at Baron Devon's New Years Eve Party with most of the rest of the local SCA group, and if the lights go out and all the other nasty stuff happens, we're well-equipped to deal with it. We've got candles, camping equipment, and weapons if necessary.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
This is part of the reason I'm partying with the Baron this New Year's. Lots of interesting weaponry is sure to be on hand.
Think swords. Battleaxes and crossbows are good, too. And make sure you look like you know how to use whatever it is you've got. Plenty of SCA-folk can tell you funny stories about stopping various would-be attackers and theives with medieval weaponry.
Hey, even in Pulp Fiction, a katana made a much cooler weapon than a chainsaw. *grin*
Shock value is a Good Thing, sometimes.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
I can just imagine the calls from cenile 50-something housewives to 911
"911"
"help!"
"whats wrong?"
"its y2k!"
"how can I help you?"
"its year 2000! all those computers are going to crash and the power and phone lines will go out and stuff! help me!"
"ma'am, the phones are working right now"
..
you get the point. imagine every woman who screams and cries who has called tech support thinking they broke their computer. they'll be harder on 911
Does the part--Koskinen said the center "should serve as a framework for future cooperation between critical infrastructure industries ... and the federal government" -- scare anyone else? I'm not too much of a conspiracy theorist, but.... Anyway, with all the talk about Y2K, I felt this an appropriate quote from a cDc text.
---
So the Mormons honestly believe that The Hour is almost at hand. What are
they doing about it? For one thing, each family is under orders to stockpile a
year's supply of food. (Don't believe it? Go get the fantastic documentary
_Sherman's March_ by Ross McElwee, available at better video rental stores.
There's a small segment in McElwee's film where a Mormon woman he's dating
explains that the end of the world is coming soon and shows him the food her
family has been stockpiling for it.)
When I first read about this, I have to admit that an appealing thought
crossed my mind: don't bother stockpiling food and water in case of natural
disaster -- instead, plan to wrestle them from the nearest Mormon family. But
then I read about their "72-hour kits", the reasoning behind which is explained
in the book _In Mormon Circles_ by James Coates:
A primary principle of civil defense is that the
key to surviving catastrophe isn't just laying in
supplies to tide one over the period during which the
irradiated landscape cools down, but rather taking
steps to withstand the rigors and dangers of the first
three days. It is those initial seventy-two hours of
upheaval and rioting as the unprepared struggle to
take away the supplies of their more prudent neighbors
that pose the greatest threat to long-term survival.
To me, this means one word: GUNS. Suddenly, the thought of forcing my way
past the door of a Mormon family's basement-turned-barricade turned from glee
to horror. Assuming the Saints survive those first hectic days after the bombs
fall, they'll have to lay low for a while, consuming those tasty rations while
we Gentiles are wiped off the face of the Earth.
After the smoke clears, however, the Mormons are planning to trek over to
Salt Lake City. After taking a head count and giving each other much-deserved
mutual high-fives, the Saints will travel en masse to the historical site of
Eden, where they will come to dwell in paradise on Earth.
They'll probably take I-70, passing eastward through Topeka, Kansas. The
survivors of Armageddon, those chosen few directed by God to dwell in Eden,
will find it in the hometown of Harry S. Truman: Independence, Missouri.
---
I guess that means on Dec 31 I will be sitting in my house loading my 12 gauge and getting ready to pick off any mormons I see or maby in a full riot suit(Never can be sure what the locals will get rilled about).
Riot Suits, now there is a smart y2k investment.
Good luck to you all.
SPAM openly welcomed. I do charge a 500$ proof-reading fee though. Any complaints may be directed to the brick wall to y
9th September 1999 is represented as 090999.
:)
The only date that could be represented on a computer as 9999 or 99999 was 9th April 1999, which was the 99th day of 1999. (99th day of 99 or 99th day of 999, depending how the date code works.) I'm not aware that there were any problems anywhere in the world regarding this date, although I would be interested to read about some, should anyone have any links.
Consequently my company was slightly bothered about 9999 (with good reason, it was used, and was fixed way back in 98), but isn't worried very much about 09/09/99.
We aren't that bothered about the millennium, really, either, but then again, we've been working on the problem since 1996. One thing that did concern us, though, was the supposedly compliant release of a major control application, while quite happily turning from 31/12/1999 to 01/01/2000, also went from 31/12/2000 to 02/01/2002. THAT was scary
Another problem which might be a concern for some people, is 29/02/2000, which is a valid date. Depending on how accurate the date code is in some applications, this date coud conceivably not be recognised.
A little anecdote for your amusement. I am not sure of its validity, but it's funny nonetheless:
A processor of peas decided to test their completely automated pea processing plant for Y2K compliance. They cranked the date on the system up to 31 Decembet 1999 and watched it roll over. They let it carry on for a week, just to make sure. No problems. Then they rolled the date back. Immediately, the waste peas (unprocessed peas that are over X hours old) increased to 100% of the total peas input into the system. It took a week to work out what the problem was.
They eventually found a kludgy bit of code in the 'goods-in' system which said 'If the today_date in the processing application is greater than the today_date in the goods-in application, increase the today_date in the goods-in application.' There was no corersponding code that dealt with a date discrepancy the other way round, so when the processing application was set back to 1999, the goods-in application remained in 2000.
Consequently, when the goods-in application did its calculations to work out how old the peas were (by comparing the today_date in the goods-in application with the barcoded date on the truck) it got confused about dates and routed the entire load to the waste bin.
Apparently it cost the company in question several hundred thousand pounds in waste goods, lost revenue and remediation.
"What's that sound, mommy?"
"That's Y2k coming, honey"
"Whelp, I guess we'd better get down in the bunker, Eunice."
"Mommy, I forgot Fluffy!!"
"Don't go out there, dear, it's not safe!"
Y2K--Coming to a computer near you.
-awc
I read the article trying to figure out why it is being called a 'bunker' and the only sense I could make of it was that CNN wanted lots of hits from panicky readers.
I don't know.. I haven't really seen any estimates as to how much money it will cost. However, this *seems* to be just as bad as the impeachment trials in terms of wasting money and time.
Rajiv Varma
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd be irresponsible, too. -- Lichty & Wagner
That quote was from the bottom of one of the slashdot pages, and I think it describes this situation perfectly. This project is just appealing to all those people who say "better safe than sorry." As far as I'm concerned, this y2k bunker will add more paranoia and fear to the uninformed U.S. population, heck maybe even the world. Of course, to go back to satire, what's wrong with throwing a few billion dollars here, a few billion dollars there.....
Rajiv Varma
Around midnight December 31st, I'm going to get on IRC and nuke every single person in every single "Y2K Panic" and "New Millenium" channel. :) :) ;)
It's funny, people used to think that the world would suddenly turn Jetson-like in 2000 - now they're worried about computers inadvertently destroying the world. It's not often that you get to see the entire world swing from foolish optimism to idiotic panic in the space of a few years
I think you can figure out how to email me
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this is typical American attitude. we've become a society so dependant on our government, that half of our citizens can't wipe their ass without Clinton's approval. The government takes our money and wastes it, uses it to make us a laughing stock. gives it to foreign countries by the billions of dollars. all this stuff is a load of crap. If the government were run like my bank account we'd be in MUCH better shape. My bank account gets a boost every 2 weeks, I pay my bills first, then I withdraw some for the average bottle of gin or gas or a night in a restaurant. I don't give it away to anyone but the closest friends, and that very rarely, simply because I EXPECT my close friends to be able to manage their own paychecks. If my account happens to become short of money or close to short of money. what do I do. I stop spending. I stop giving. Our government continues spending. Continues giving billions to other countries who cannot seem to manage their pocketbook.
this is idiocy.
and we wonder why we are broke.
the US is beginning to suck.
Fook
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
about 1/3 of the population will freak due to idiocy, 1/3 will add to the freak to be prepared.
the other 1/3 will know y2k will not be a problem but will be screwed by the first 2/3. which third are you going to be in?