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Julie Send message Joined: 28 Oct 09 Posts: 34053 Credit: 18,883,157 RAC: 18 |
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Mike Send message Joined: 17 Feb 01 Posts: 34258 Credit: 79,922,639 RAC: 80 |
With each crime and every kindness we birth our future. |
kittyman Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 |
Remember Y2k OMG OMG OMG.........I have so many party dates to attend....... What's a kitty to do? "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster |
rob smith Send message Joined: 7 Mar 03 Posts: 22202 Credit: 416,307,556 RAC: 380 |
What do the Kitties do? Make sure there is a plentiful supply of bottle/tin openers... Bob Smith Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society) Somewhere in the (un)known Universe? |
kittyman Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 |
What do the Kitties do? LOL... I actually went to market and stocked up on multiple tins of kitty food on Wednesday. I am having some difficulty in teaching them how to open the tins themselves, however. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
Remember Y2k Pivot dates were short sighted. BOINC WIKI |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
They know full well that if we ever here on Seti found the WOW signal........ It would be suppressed by our government here. Planes would not fall out of the sky because there are humans behind the controls. However, many of the systems would have had to fall back to manual mode, and there are some systems (reservations for example) that would have failed completely. There were a couple of companies that went under because they could not fix their computer systems to be Y2K compliant. There were many problems that were fixed when fixing up the Y2K problems. The fact that it was invisible to almost everyone is a testament to the hard work of every IT department. Yes, it involved replacing much hardware and software, however there were going to be real problems if it was not done. BOINC WIKI |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
Didn't it only affect the way that software programs stored dates? When memory was tight, dates were stored as a 2 digit year, therefore xx/yy/99 was taken to mean 1999 not 1899. When the millennium arrived the date rolled over to 2000 which was stored as 00, which programs would interpret as being back to 1900 again. The worst that could have happened is that bills were sent out for being 100 years in arrears. Yes, but how dates are stored can affect a large number of calculations involving those dates. For example, if you have money in the bank in an interest bearing account, when the date rolled over from December 31, 1999 to January 1, 1900, your account would automatically have 100 years of interest deducted... If it was just for display purposes, the humans involved would look at it and say how interesting, but anything that was then used in a calculation would cause problems. [edit] Or, how about an insurance company automatically stating that your pain medications could not be refilled for the next 100 years... BOINC WIKI |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
Well, one of my tasks at the time was to comb a large Computer centre from top to bottom listing every machine, and what was running on it. I spent weeks going through hundreds of machines, I think we found about 5 that could usefully be upgraded. Most of the 2 digit year programs had been coded in the 80's and had long gone. Although I can see that travel companies and banks might have had a problem in theory, I think they were mostly on more modern systems by then. One of my tasks about a year and a half before the deadline was to actually fix some of the programs that had 2 digit years stored. The only reason that some of the outfits were fixed in time was that there was work that went on beforehand. Yes, there was a problem, it was not overblown by very much. The fact that it went well is precisely because there was a lot of work that went on fixing things before the s*** hit the fan. I had a CS professor that stated "Why are you spending the space for 4 digits in the year? You will never need to have 4 digits in the year in your career." This was in 1980 at the beginning of my CS schooling. It was obvious to me at that time that my career was NOT going to end before Y2K. It is this mindset that had many programmers writing code with 2 digit years into the 1990s, until the press about the coming Y2K problem got their attention. BOINC WIKI |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
Reminds me of some other famous statements ... some of which are contested. Hindsight is 20/20 as long as you are paying attention. BOINC WIKI |
Dimly Lit Lightbulb 😀 Send message Joined: 30 Aug 08 Posts: 15399 Credit: 7,423,413 RAC: 1 |
Since the mayan apocalypse didn't happen at least we're on track for Judgement Day :) Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club. |
Carlos Send message Joined: 9 Jun 99 Posts: 29832 Credit: 57,275,487 RAC: 157 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. The world will end! I just don't set a date. |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. I will. In about 5 billion years when the sun starts trying to burn iron and turns into a red giant. I don't know if humans will be around to witness it though. BOINC WIKI |
kittyman Send message Joined: 9 Jul 00 Posts: 51468 Credit: 1,018,363,574 RAC: 1,004 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. I am sure THIS human shall not be here. Unless the things I read about vampires are true. I don't sleep much, that's for sure. And I have been known to look at younger women like they are lunch. One almost came at me the other day when I got my hair cut. Not sure if she wanted a date or if she was afraid I was a sleeze and just wanted to eyeball me on the way out....LOL. In either case, I am taken by Lori, and did not wish to make a scene. "Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster |
Grant Nelson Send message Joined: 7 May 12 Posts: 8022 Credit: 4,237,757 RAC: 0 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. Very slim chance on that one. |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65746 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. Yep, this type star can't make iron, thankfully, since to fuse iron is impossible, when a large star tries(like a blue giant), it goes kaboom!! The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
John McLeod VII Send message Joined: 15 Jul 99 Posts: 24806 Credit: 790,712 RAC: 0 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. It isn't impossible, but it doesn't generate any energy either. BOINC WIKI |
Dimly Lit Lightbulb 😀 Send message Joined: 30 Aug 08 Posts: 15399 Credit: 7,423,413 RAC: 1 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. *calls Scotty on the intercom* I need more power *Scotty says something about the laws of physics* Now or we're all dead! *scotty does something with the warp drive that saves the crew* Woohoo! :) Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club. |
zoom3+1=4 Send message Joined: 30 Nov 03 Posts: 65746 Credit: 55,293,173 RAC: 49 |
You could go by my prediction. I have never been wrong. Main Sequence Yellow Dwarf stars like the sun, don't go boom, at best a white dwarf... The common use of dwarf to mean main sequence is confusing in another way, because there are dwarf stars which are not main-sequence stars. For example, white dwarfs are a different kind of star that is much smaller than main-sequence stars—being roughly the size of the Earth. These represent the final evolutionary stage of many main-sequence stars. Supernova=kaboom... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_II_supernova Massive stars generate energy by the nuclear fusion of elements. Unlike the Sun, these stars possess the mass needed to fuse elements that have an atomic mass greater than hydrogen and helium, albeit at increasingly high temperatures and pressure, and for increasingly shorter periods of time. The degeneracy pressure of electrons and the energy generated by these fusion reactions are sufficient to counter the force of gravity and prevent the star from collapsing. The star fuses increasingly higher mass elements, starting with hydrogen and then helium, until finally a core of iron and nickel is produced. Fusion of iron or nickel produces no net energy, so further fusion is unable to take place, leaving the nickel-iron core inert. The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's |
Dimly Lit Lightbulb 😀 Send message Joined: 30 Aug 08 Posts: 15399 Credit: 7,423,413 RAC: 1 |
So our sun won't go "kaboom". Phew :) Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club. |
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