Apocalypse Then - Remembering the Y2K Hysteria

Pyromaniacs ^ | 1/7/09 | Phil Johnson

[TonyInOhio]

Remember?

I do - I'm a ham radio operator and at the time was Emergency Coordinator for my county. We ran a statewide communications net during the evening of 12/31/99, just in case public radio systems went down.

My hamshack needed tidying, so I was cleaning and moving gear while monitoring the net. All was well until I reached to move a heavy piece of gear, whereupon I felt a twinge of pain in my lower back. The pain went away as Midnight passed, and off to bed I went.

When I awoke, I knew something wasn't right in the lumber region. It was a pinched nerve, and it kept me flat on the floor all day, watching bowl game after bowl game, like a mummy hooked on football. :)

Thus passed Y2K.

[IYAS9YAS]

Younger programmers today, and those yet to be born, will have another Y2K-like opportunity in another 30 years or so.

Please explain for those of us who are not programmers.

[JRandomFreeper]

No one told him a gun and hunting license was required to take critters...

Since when? I've borrowed some of the King's Squirrels here without permission or firearm. And they are Good Eats(tm).

/johnny

[JRandomFreeper]

The 1970, Jan 1st clock rolls over another bit. Geeks count seconds since Jan 1st, 1970. Yeah... I know... weird... but we're geeks. You expect us to count weekends?

So... anyway, the largest number of seconds that you can display is going to over-run the buffer. Chaos will ensue.

I can fix that problem for you if I can just marry your daughter for a short while until your beer fridge is empty. Seems fair.

/johnny

[Lexinom]

Many computers keep dates stored in seconds since January 1, 1970. The size of the number is typically four bytes, or 32 bits. A bit is a digit of either 0 or 1. (the last bit is the sign bit, unless using unsigned math which cannot be assumed.)

2³¹ seconds (%01111111 11111111 11111111 11111111) from January 1, 1970 is what date?

[stylin19a]

:) yep...we windowed to that year in some apps.

[Lexinom]

Heh :-D

[Augustinian monk]

“One of the hard-core Y2K aficionados in the group actually left his wife when it came to light that she did not share his fear of the coming apocalypse”

Yeah, thats the ticket.

[XR7]

“One of the hard-core Y2K aficionados in the group actually left his wife when it came to light that she did not share his fear of the coming apocalypse”

Yeah, thats the ticket.

That's the thing that caught my eye too.
Crazy.
Actually know of a similar situation.

[buccaneer81]

That’s funny. A guy I knew moved out to the Iowa countryside, convinced he could live off deer, pheasants and nuts and berries after Y2K. No one told him a gun and hunting license was required to take critters...

What was he going to do? Wrestle the deer?

[backhoe]

Oh Noes! It's

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Ditto turkeys w/ my .22 Marlin. I shoot the CB cap and they never hear it coming.

[dilvish]

When I got in Y2K discussions with people I used to make them look at the expiration date on my drivers license. AZ had recently switched to DL that expired when you turned 65 which for me and most Arizonans was a date that started with 20. Then I’d say: if ADOT can handle it, which you can see they already have, what makes you think nobody can or has?

Nobody ever had an answer to that. None of them ever admitted they were full of crap after 1/1/00 passed without incident either.

[conservativeharleyguy]

Yeah, for Y2K my neighbors bought closets full of food, and saved hundreds of gallons of water, and generators, and drums of fuel, and blankets, and huge piles of firewood.

I just bought lots of bullets and a mean dog.

There is no wrong reason to buy ammo.

[Dixiekraut]

Yeahhhhh...

Forget Y2K..let’s focus on GLOBAL WARMING!

It’s “series”...could be “hughe”!

:-)

[JRandomFreeper]

What was he going to do? Wrestle the deer?

You'd be amazed at what a pointy stick with a little wrapped twine can do when placed across a game trail.

Just saying...

/johnny

[IYAS9YAS]

I can fix that problem for you if I can just marry your daughter for a short while until your beer fridge is empty. Seems fair.

You'll have to wait 16 and a half years for the marriage. I wouldn't bother, as the beer fridge is defended by Razor wire, 220 volts, and a 64 digit encryption code that fires pepper spray for a wrong entry.

As an afterthought, putting the pepper spray thingy in was a mistake as remembering 64 digits gets difficult after several beers.

[Borges]

By my estimate that’s about 136 years. So subtract the 39 that have passed since 1970 and we have about 97 years to go.

[JRandomFreeper]

So can I have some cardboard and shoe polish to make a "Will code for beer" sign?

/johnny