The version 10 bug. Worse then Y2K!

And to think we look to computers to solve problems. . . .

Worse than Y2K?

Stubbing your toe is worse than was Y2K.

What a scam that was.

Yeah, people thought that planes would be falling from the sky.

I got assigned the Y2K project at my work.
It was long and tedious but not very challenging technically.

I bet that was a relief.

Security Now podcast once pointed out linux have some kind of a counter/clock that was set to zero when linux was first compile and ran and in twentyyears or so the counter will reach it maxium number of seconds and linux will crash as a result.

Not as all clear about this as linux is not an os I had ever work before, so maybe someone that know linux could explain this more clearly?

In any case I am about to start using linux as a dual boot system along with XP as I am planning to move over from windows in the future to open source linux

Don't look at me mate. I can't explain anything about that. I would work round it.

Unix stores its time as the number of seconds since January 1st, 1970. It stores this in a 32 bit signed integer. The way a signed integer works, is the first bit is used to determine positive or negative (0 = positive, 1 = negative). Then the remaining 31 bits are used for the number itself.

Well sometime in the year 2038, the number will become too big for 31 bits, and will spill over into the 32nd bit. This will make the software interpret it as a negative number, and would probably break all sorts of things. Here is a picture that demonstrates this:



I believe the hope is that by the year 2038, everything will be using 64 bit processors. In that case, an integer would not be 32 bits, it would be 64. This would push the date at which the time 'overflows' to the year 292,277,026,596. If we are still using the same operating system by then, I think we have bigger problems on our hands

I think we have a bigger problem on our hands in 2012 or so. There won't be any problems in 292,277,026,596.

The real problem comes in just about 7,991 years.

I have been trying to get people to take this seriously, but no one is listening.

All those programmers who used two-digit years figured that by 2000 everything would have changed and there'd be no problem.

Right.

In the comments to my Y2K changes I put this statement:
The so-called UNIX epoch will end Tuesday, 19 January 2038.
I intend to address this problem by being dead.

They probably skimmed the comments, nodded wisely, and went on about their business.

Indeed.

Thank for the information on the linux 'bug"..

I should be dead or nead dead by 2038 so I am not too worst even if I change over to linux as I am thnking of doing.

Any fool can go on and on about techno-babel and most of us are not prepared to call them on their nonsense.

Fairly similar to Witch Doctors and Shamans.

Any field of human study that requires a vocabulary that is incomprehensible to the average citizen is a base sham.

In the past it was the priestly castes, and now it is the Legal, IT, and HR castes (to name but a few) who have followed suit.

There is no reason we cannot all speak the same language.

There is no shortage of egotistical jackasses who strive to reach an imagined state of grace by spouting crap in a lexicon that no one understands but are too intimidated to question.

Y2K stands as defining example of how techno-frauds are able to manipulate us.

We need to insist that all of these so-called professionals speak in a language we can understand.

There is never a reason for us to say: "I don't understand this ****, but this guy seems to know what he is talking about."

There are, undoubtedly, advanced concepts that the average Joe may not be able to comprehend, but such concepts, rarely if ever, are cogent in terms of public policy.

Democracy places greater value in the judgment of the averge Joe than a small body of the Elite.

It probably slows down some important advances, but overall it is of the greatest value to mankind.

Come on there is always terms in fairly narrow fields that will not be in the common/general language and other words that do not have the common meaning and that is not done for some evil reason but just to communicate within the field in question.

It is late and my mind is not working all that correctly but let me think of a very few examples.

In physics some of the basic building blocks of the universe are call quarks and they come in difference “colors” and some of them are “strange” and none of the words color or strange have the everyday meanings. We have string theory and dark energy and dark matter and on and on that have little meaning outside the field of physic.

The law/business/mathematic/all fields of engineering/economic and on and on have their own sub-languages and it is not done to block a layman out but to communicate in that field.

Just because you don't understand it doesn't make it similar to "Witch Doctors and Shamans".



Talk about a least common denominator.... speaking of which is mathematics a sham because the average citizen doesn't know its jargon?

What I'd come to post before being sidetracked with Finn's post:

Opera blogs about the browser sniffing gaffes here. If programmers can take anything from this I hope that it's the adoption of feature detection instead of browser sniffing.

But what should Opera do? They can't count on the rest of the world to do it right. Some of the interesting suggestions from the comments were to name it "Opera X" or just rename it and start over (e.g. "New Name 1.0").

I too was assigned this task and worked feverishly for two years. With very few modifications we made it through.

Bertrand Russell and Henry Fielding took time out to say that sort of thing.