That's very good. I was working with print controllers running Solaris. The ones we didn't get around to patch in time didn't work properly. I would imagine that there would have been loads of other stuff that wouldn't have worked properly either. Still you can belittle all the effort that went into this all you like
yeah. that was my point.
A bit of software going slightly loopy because it didnt recognise the date correctly and being fixed with a patch, is entirely comparable to airplanes falling out of the sky or missiles spontaneusly firing, like a bunch of idiots in 1998 would have us believe would happen.
Theres a certain episode of Family Guy you might wanna watch...
yeah. that was my point.
A bit of software going slightly loopy because it didnt recognise the date correctly and being fixed with a patch, is entirely comparable to airplanes falling out of the sky or missiles spontaneusly firing, like a bunch of idiots in 1998 would have us believe would happen.
Theres a certain episode of Family Guy you might wanna watch...
yeah. that was my point.
A bit of software going slightly loopy because it didnt recognise the date correctly and being fixed with a patch, is entirely comparable to airplanes falling out of the sky or missiles spontaneusly firing, like a bunch of idiots in 1998 would have us believe would happen.
You don't know all the software that would have been affected and how that would have affected everyone because the companies responsible got on with the job. It doesn't require aeroplanes falling out of the sky for consequences to be important and if you don't realise this you don't understand how much technology controlled our infrastructure even then.
The millennium bug is a good example of how we can prevent problems with some forethought, an example of the opposite is the way we are reacting to climate change and allowing short term greed to affect the future of our whole planet.
On my FB people are talking about having to put all their electrical items away from "something" that is going to hit us on Saturday.
OK I'm crap at understanding things like this, my mind just dosnt take data in. No matter how hard I try to read I just skim it.
Can someone explain in very simple terms.
I could be wrong, but earth has a magnetic field around it that might take the brunt of this thing that's going to happen. I doubt anything will happen because of people having their electronic items on.
yeah. that was my point.
A bit of software going slightly loopy because it didnt recognise the date correctly and being fixed with a patch, is entirely comparable to airplanes falling out of the sky or missiles spontaneusly firing, like a bunch of idiots in 1998 would have us believe would happen.
Theres a certain episode of Family Guy you might wanna watch...
While you were amusing yourself with your toy computer the grownups got on with the job of making sure there were no bad consequences. Not sure who suggested aeroplanes would 'fall' out of the sky, sounds like something from the imagination of a teenager who didn't know what they were talking about.
I find this sort of thing kinda interesting because, let's face it, these type of "urban myths" don't just appear out of thin air.
I guess it's another product of the internet age, where somebody, somewhere, suddenly thinks to themselves "Hey, I'm gonna see if I can get squillions of people to do something for the yucks" and they deliberately create these stories and then sit back, laughing to themselves, at the amount of times the thing gets re-tweeted and passed around.
I am finding it extremely difficult to read this thread whilst under the floorboards of my house wrapped in tinfoil and cling film, and, mi goggles keep steaming up an all.
I predict that absolutely nothing will happen. Anyplace. There's always been things like this. I remember reading about some group in Victorian times who thought the World would end on a particular day. They went in masses and sat on some hill someplace to wait and guess what, nothing happened, so they all came down the hill and went home.
Actually I think that's hilarious, and I wish I'd been there.
You don't know all the software that would have been affected and how that would have affected everyone because the companies responsible got on with the job. It doesn't require aeroplanes falling out of the sky for consequences to be important and if you don't realise this you don't understand how much technology controlled our infrastructure even then.
The millennium bug is a good example of how we can prevent problems with some forethought, an example of the opposite is the way we are reacting to climate change and allowing short term greed to affect the future of our whole planet.
I agree with your general point - it was a real problem and a lot of software needed to be fixed - but it is also the case that a lot of the hype was ill-informed. Much was made at the time about embedded systems, and how they couldn't be fixed, and some people worked themselves into a right old lather about it - including some who really should have known better. Ed Yourdan (of Yourdan Structured Method fame in software engineering) was amongst those predicting the end of civilisation. He even decamped his family to a remote location to spare them the worst consequences of the impending apocalypse. There were people who were convinced that domestic appliances were going to fail, even though in most cases there was no provision for them to even know the date, let alone act on it. And there were plenty of people willing to fleece the gullible to fix their non-existent Y2K problems.
I could be wrong, but earth has a magnetic field around it that might take the brunt of this thing that's going to happen. I doubt anything will happen because of people having their electronic items on.
Well, this particular "thing that's going to happen" probably won't have much effect.
But people who operate power grids and oil pipelines routinely take action to prevent damage to their systems from geomagnetic storms. So "space weather" does matter. And that's why we have satellites way out in space to give us advance warning.
In 1859, the Carrington Event "super solar flare" caused widespread failures in the Victorian Internet (or "telegraph system", as it was then known.) This was the dawn of electrical civilisation. The consequences of such an event would be much worse now.
Maybe but we've thousands of quid's worth of electrics and then there's the net, phone and all that stuff. The fish tank needs electricity to run and there's also food in the freezer which would have to be thrown out if anything happened to power. Nobody seems to care about that
I was only about 15 at the time of the Millenium bug first making headlines (about '98), the first thing I did was at home on my Amiga 500+,. I changed the date to Dec 31, 23.55 and waited.....Nothing. It all carried on as normal. At school tried it on an Acorn, exactly the same. OK these might not be in the same leauge as Air Traffic Control or the computers that control nuclear missiles but the notion that the world was going to end because computers might read the year 200 as 1900 and go into meltdown was (and is) ridiculous.
It's difficult to know where to begin to explain just how uniformed this post is
It's difficult to know where to begin to explain just how uniformed this post is
I actually saw a uniform on a post once. It was in a field. I think it was supposed to be a sort of scarecrow. It wasn't working though as there were three crows sitting on it.
Anyhow, seriously, nothing is happening in North London. At least not in our street. It's totally quiet. Wait a moment, that's a bit odd
Well let's just start with the implications of the drinking water and sewage treatment works being out of action.......
That's a defeatist attitude ;-) , How do you think they survived say 200-300 years ago ?
Boil water for drinking, and dig a hole for your toilet, It amazes me that if for whatever reason we did find ourselves without electricity, how many people would actually die, because we have become so reliant on something that could disappear virtually overnight.
That's a defeatist attitude ;-) , How do you think they survived say 200-300 years ago ?
Boil water for drinking, and dig a hole for your toilet, It amazes me that if for whatever reason we did find ourselves without electricity, how many people would actually die, because we have become so reliant on something that could disappear virtually overnight.
did you watch revolution on sky 1 if not you can catch on pick tv now.
it's about what happens if the electricity goes off and does not come back on again.
did you watch revolution on sky 1 if not you can catch on pick tv now.
it's about what happens if the electricity goes off and does not come back on again.
Yeah i did watch it, i quite enjoyed it upto the part where they cancelled it.
Having said that the human race survived hundreds if not thousands of years without electricity. Would it really be so bad if we went back to living like that, we have become too dependent on it to the point where we wouldn't survive without it, Well some of us wouldn't anyway.
Maybe it's what we need to survive who knows, Just switch it all off ;-)
The last time we had a bad one of these my Commodore 64 wouldn't stop typing the letter E. That lasted two minutes and it was really boring.
At 2:44 am on March 13, 1989, a severe geomagnetic storm, due to a coronal mass ejection from the Sun, struck the Earth.
This severe geomagnetic storm caused the complete collapse of Canada’s’ Hydro-Québec electricity transmission system causing $10M worth of damage and leaving millions without power for days.............a few Commodore 64s' were affected as well. ;-)
That's a defeatist attitude ;-) , How do you think they survived say 200-300 years ago ?
Boil water for drinking, and dig a hole for your toilet, It amazes me that if for whatever reason we did find ourselves without electricity, how many people would actually die, because we have become so reliant on something that could disappear virtually overnight.
For a start millions would be dead within3 weeks from medication that is refrigerated, type 1 diabetics once the insulin spoils,kidney dialysis, those about to undergo intersive surgery. Then the typhiod and cholera would start.How do you water 66 million people with 3 litres of safe water daily?.How do you pump petrol, sewage, water from your tap? Once the frozen meat and cattles eaten. 66 million people needing food every day. If the lights went out tonight and stayed out millions would die in the first few weeks....and millions more in the following months.
A cold winter.No power stations. No gas feed to homes ( electrically pumped and pressured).
Our existance relies on electricity.For almost everything.That's why we need 2 new nuclear power stations no matter what anyone says otherwise. To protect us and our children. Anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously deluded, or a fool.
For a start millions would be dead within3 weeks from medication that is refrigerated, type 1 diabetics once the insulin spoils,kidney dialysis, those about to undergo intersive surgery. Then the typhiod and cholera would start.How do you water 66 million people with 3 litres of safe water daily?.How do you pump petrol, sewage, water from your tap? Once the frozen meat and cattles eaten. 66 million people needing food every day. If the lights went out tonight and stayed out millions would die in the first few weeks....and millions more in the following months.
A cold winter.No power stations. No gas feed to homes ( electrically pumped and pressured).
Our existance relies on electricity.For almost everything.That's why we need 2 new nuclear power stations no matter what anyone says otherwise. To protect us and our children. Anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously deluded, or a fool.
I'm neither Foolish or Deluded, we live on a planet with approximately 7.2 billion people and Finite resources, if the population continues to increase as it is now , How are we going to feed those people in say 100 years from now ?
We keep being told that we are killing the planet , Greenhouse gases, global warming/climate change, etc, because We rely too much on things more than what we should.
Electricity runs our lives from the moment we're born till the day we die 24/7, It can't go on, but we need it more as the population increases.
If the Electricity was turned off tomorrow, Yes, Millions would die, there would be disease, it would be a hard difficult life, But the Foolish and Deluded are the ones that say this wont happen. When in reality it could happen tomorrow.
Comments
A bit of software going slightly loopy because it didnt recognise the date correctly and being fixed with a patch, is entirely comparable to airplanes falling out of the sky or missiles spontaneusly firing, like a bunch of idiots in 1998 would have us believe would happen.
Theres a certain episode of Family Guy you might wanna watch...
All so a Simpson halloween special.
You don't know all the software that would have been affected and how that would have affected everyone because the companies responsible got on with the job. It doesn't require aeroplanes falling out of the sky for consequences to be important and if you don't realise this you don't understand how much technology controlled our infrastructure even then.
The millennium bug is a good example of how we can prevent problems with some forethought, an example of the opposite is the way we are reacting to climate change and allowing short term greed to affect the future of our whole planet.
I could be wrong, but earth has a magnetic field around it that might take the brunt of this thing that's going to happen. I doubt anything will happen because of people having their electronic items on.
While you were amusing yourself with your toy computer the grownups got on with the job of making sure there were no bad consequences. Not sure who suggested aeroplanes would 'fall' out of the sky, sounds like something from the imagination of a teenager who didn't know what they were talking about.
I guess it's another product of the internet age, where somebody, somewhere, suddenly thinks to themselves "Hey, I'm gonna see if I can get squillions of people to do something for the yucks" and they deliberately create these stories and then sit back, laughing to themselves, at the amount of times the thing gets re-tweeted and passed around.
Actually I think that's hilarious, and I wish I'd been there.
But people who operate power grids and oil pipelines routinely take action to prevent damage to their systems from geomagnetic storms. So "space weather" does matter. And that's why we have satellites way out in space to give us advance warning.
In 1859, the Carrington Event "super solar flare" caused widespread failures in the Victorian Internet (or "telegraph system", as it was then known.) This was the dawn of electrical civilisation. The consequences of such an event would be much worse now.
I'd quite welcome a World without Electricity, Would it really be that bad?
Well let's just start with the implications of the drinking water and sewage treatment works being out of action.......
I tried it on an alarm clock and my head actually exploded!
I actually saw a uniform on a post once. It was in a field. I think it was supposed to be a sort of scarecrow. It wasn't working though as there were three crows sitting on it.
Anyhow, seriously, nothing is happening in North London. At least not in our street. It's totally quiet. Wait a moment, that's a bit odd
That's a defeatist attitude ;-) , How do you think they survived say 200-300 years ago ?
Boil water for drinking, and dig a hole for your toilet, It amazes me that if for whatever reason we did find ourselves without electricity, how many people would actually die, because we have become so reliant on something that could disappear virtually overnight.
did you watch revolution on sky 1 if not you can catch on pick tv now.
it's about what happens if the electricity goes off and does not come back on again.
Yeah i did watch it, i quite enjoyed it upto the part where they cancelled it.
Having said that the human race survived hundreds if not thousands of years without electricity. Would it really be so bad if we went back to living like that, we have become too dependent on it to the point where we wouldn't survive without it, Well some of us wouldn't anyway.
Maybe it's what we need to survive who knows, Just switch it all off ;-)
At 2:44 am on March 13, 1989, a severe geomagnetic storm, due to a coronal mass ejection from the Sun, struck the Earth.
This severe geomagnetic storm caused the complete collapse of Canada’s’ Hydro-Québec electricity transmission system causing $10M worth of damage and leaving millions without power for days.............a few Commodore 64s' were affected as well. ;-)
Christ, I wouldn't. Millions would die in 3 weeks and we'd be in the dark ages.
For a start millions would be dead within3 weeks from medication that is refrigerated, type 1 diabetics once the insulin spoils,kidney dialysis, those about to undergo intersive surgery. Then the typhiod and cholera would start.How do you water 66 million people with 3 litres of safe water daily?.How do you pump petrol, sewage, water from your tap? Once the frozen meat and cattles eaten. 66 million people needing food every day. If the lights went out tonight and stayed out millions would die in the first few weeks....and millions more in the following months.
A cold winter.No power stations. No gas feed to homes ( electrically pumped and pressured).
Our existance relies on electricity.For almost everything.That's why we need 2 new nuclear power stations no matter what anyone says otherwise. To protect us and our children. Anyone who thinks otherwise is seriously deluded, or a fool.
I'm neither Foolish or Deluded, we live on a planet with approximately 7.2 billion people and Finite resources, if the population continues to increase as it is now , How are we going to feed those people in say 100 years from now ?
We keep being told that we are killing the planet , Greenhouse gases, global warming/climate change, etc, because We rely too much on things more than what we should.
Electricity runs our lives from the moment we're born till the day we die 24/7, It can't go on, but we need it more as the population increases.
If the Electricity was turned off tomorrow, Yes, Millions would die, there would be disease, it would be a hard difficult life, But the Foolish and Deluded are the ones that say this wont happen. When in reality it could happen tomorrow.