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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.
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:
That's more than 38 years away. You seem to be lacking confidence that the problem won't be fixed in almost 4 decades from now?
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
Posted by Synsthe:
You seem to think the developers working on the Linux kernel and what not (which have the y2038 problem) are procrastinators on the same level as MS application developers?
--
Mark Waterous (mark@projectlinux.org)
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-->
Probably not. You can usually fix the problem by recompiling all your programs with new system headers.
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 2038 problem stems from the fact that a 32-bit UNIX system stores time in a 32-bit integer. Time 0 was 01/01/70, also referred to as the 'biginning of the epoch'.
Each second, the 32-bit integer is incremented by 1 bit, counting time, in seconds, since the beginning of the epoch. (The term epoch is official, and found throughout UNIX documentation w.r.t. time)
The problem comes when the seconds number fills up. The full 32-bit value is 4294967295, so this many seconds from 01/01/70, the second's counter will fill up. This falls in 2038 - mis spring I think.
We're not quite sure how systems will react when this happens. It's very much a y2k type issue. Hope this clarifies the matter.
On a related note. Other exciting opportunities looming in the future are the Sept, 9, 1999 problem, the GPS problem, and the phone-space problem.
In some systems 9999 is a special sequence. While most of these use dates of 09/09/99, there's the potential for trouble.
The 24 Global Positioning System satellites count off the number of weeks since (I think) 1/1/80, in a single 8-bit byte. This byte will rollover this fall. Everything should be ok afterwards, but at the moment of rollover there is potential for trouble as well. This issue is limited to how ground stations interpret their GPS input. If, for example, an airplane computer suddenly thinks that it's falling (even for just a second) this may cause it's autopilot to freak.
A few years into the next decade, we will run out of phone numbers. With everyone having multiple lines into their home, fax machines, lines dedicated to the PC, cell phones and beepers - it's easy to see how this might happen. We will have to come up with a new phone number system before the number of available numbers runs out.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
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!"
HMM havn't heard about the 2038 problem? Could someone please explain for a non programmer? (I know 2048 is 11 bits, but I don't see how this is a problem either?
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.
Ah, but nobody will still be using these old 32-bit systems by then...right?
ROFL - and when the weatherby breaks because you had to fire too many rounds thru it without cleaning it, and you cant get parts for the 375, what ya going to do? Thats what the cheapie remmie, AR or AK are good choices. Same reason you go with the 1911 .45 or a Glock 9mm.
.40S&W or my Kimber (federal hydrashocks in both) - you wont stand long. Same goes for 300m and the AR-15, or my M1A and the 7.62 NATO over your rich man's plyathing weatherby (better wound ballistics). By the way to get that close you gotta go thru a lot of mud out here in the country - gunk up you pretty toys something bad. Not mine - I bag deer (and a couple years ago an elk when I got a tag) with my M1A, scrubbing thru the rain and mud in Wyoming.
And as for the chipmunk part, lets see you stand 25 yards away from me an my Glock 23
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
Yeah, but they'll leave it until 2037 to try to fix it.
It was meant as a general comment on human nature - i.e. never do today what you can put off to tomorrow!
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
:)
Since an integer is 32 bits on most systems, that leaves a maximum of 2^31-1 seconds.
1970 + (2^31-1) / 60 / 60 / 24 / 365.25 = 2038
Hands in my pocket
...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
Power probably won't go out, wanna know why? When was the first time that a power system used a
computer? They sure as hell didn't start with 'em.
Don't know about the first time, but I do know that a lot of time sensitive microcontrollers are in place all over the electrical grid - many on transformers high up on telephone poles and such (mainly for time sensitive service related issues). Here is the kicker, though:
On the grid, in order to start a power plant up (after a blackout), another power plant has to supply power to it, so it can begin operating. If this backup system fails (it is an interelated grid thing which I only begin to understand), then those plants can't come back online. I don't know if you remember the blackout that happened in the western states a few years back - but that was caused by a cascade effect, because a treebranch fell on a line!
And what about the computers that run our nuclear generating stations? Have you thought about them?
Indeed, there are many computers in the electrical grid - if you think otherwise, you need to wake up to the truth!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
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
Heh, that's what they thought when the Y2K issue was started. "These systems will no longer being in use."
For the record, I'm going to New York City.
Power probably won't go out, wanna know why? When was the first time that a power system used a computer? They sure as hell didn't start with 'em.
There was a huge panic at what problems may occur, and then we realized that the problem was actually really small, and then we realized that it's easy to fix, well, mostly.
The bank I work for is pretty good for y2k, regulators say that we're "better than anyone else we've seen. They offered me double-time to stay here and work on the 31st. Fuck that, man, I won't have another chance for something like this.
Then again, I wrote a proposal for them to send me to New Zealand with a laptop on US-central time, just so I can report in first hand, and have a little fun too . . . of course, I'd need some company . . .
too bad they ain't that gullible
later
Dan
(mainly for time sensitive service related issues).
Billing, bah, we don't need no stinkin' bills.
And what about the computers that run our nuclear generating stations? Have you thought about them?
Indeed I have, actually, right after I posted, I remembered that there's one about, oh, 30 miles from where I live & work. Doh? Doh.
Indeed, there are many computers in the electrical grid - if you think otherwise, you need to wake up to the truth!
"You want the truth? You can't handle the truth! Bah! I deprive your truth handling abilities!"
But, on a lighter note, I don't think that many computers are on major parts of the grid, because if there is, then they're stupid, because computers crash (yes, all of them, I never got a "kernel panic" in windows or Be, I'll tell you that.)
All you really need for a power plant is some fuel and a generator, a computer complicates things unneccisarily (I can never spell that word). But then again, I just talked to the guy from Commonwealth Edison about this very issue, so what do we know?
later
Dan
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
I think you can figure out how to email me
PGP Key:
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?