I can't decide if I'm happy or sad that this isn't a Darren Daulton for President website.

I predict as much mayhem when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 21, 2012 as there was on Jan. 1, 2000.

Isn't there a "Y2K" moment coming soon for MS-DOS or unix?

So are the Royals supposed to win the world series in 2012?

Okay, I apparently missed something. Has Darren Daulton been wacko for long? What happened previously? This is all news to me.

2038. Dates on 32-bit Unix systems will hit max value and "wrap around" to a negative on 1/19/2038.

Okay, I apparently missed something. Has Darren Daulton been wacko for long? What happened previously? This is all news to me.

He's been quite publicly like this for several years. I think he's been wacko for longer than that, but they somehow managed to keep him quiet when he was playing. He's also been quite vocal about having used a lot of drugs in his life.

Okay, I apparently missed something. Has Darren Daulton been wacko for long?

Not sure how long, but Darren's eccentricities, to put it mildly, have been well known for several years. He's been spouting this type of gibberish for a while.

Has Darren Daulton been wacko for long?

Yes.

2038. Dates on 32-bit Unix systems will hit max value and "wrap around" to a negative on 1/19/2038.

I'm not too worried about having lots of 32-bit unix systems 30 years from now.

Okay, just caught up wiki-ly. Thanks. I had no idea.

I'm not too worried about having lots of 32-bit unix systems 30 years from now.

Hey, 64-bit systems will have the same problem sometime around the year 292,000,000,000...

So are the Royals supposed to win the world series in 2012?

Naw, 2013.

This just made my day.

Does he hang out with Carlton?

I'm not too worried about having lots of 32-bit unix systems 30 years from now.

True - air-traffic control still won't have upgraded to 32-bit UNIX by then.

The Only Thing We have to Fearmonger is Fearmongering itself.

Count me in the camp who had no idea he was bat-#### crazy.

True - air-traffic control still won't have upgraded to 32-bit UNIX by then.

Come one NextGen will be installed before you know it.

Are you an ATC?

2038. Dates on 32-bit Unix systems will hit max value and "wrap around" to a negative on 1/19/2038.

Thanks, I'll be 87 by then. I hope to be retired but I'll make sure I'm not in IT any more.

I'm not too worried about having lots of 32-bit unix systems 30 years from now.

That's what they said about COBOL 30 years ago.

At least his hair is still awesome.

2038. Dates on 32-bit Unix systems will hit max value and "wrap around" to a negative on 1/19/2038.

About 4 years ago I was part of a team that wrote a Content Management System for a newspaper. That's how I first discovered the "max-date value" in unix systems. Certain stories on the site were deemed to "live forever", so that's the end date those stories got. I assume if the newspaper is still using that system I wrote in 30 years, it's their own fault.

Sitcom idea: Dykstra and Daulton

That's how I first discovered the "max-date value" in unix systems. Certain stories on the site were deemed to "live forever", so that's the end date those stories got.

I used to use 99365 for similar purposes on MVS systems. Adding somedate.ENDDATEY4 = 9999365 field/value pairs was the least of my Y2K worries in the late '90s.

I predict as much mayhem when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 21, 2012 as there was on Jan. 1, 2000.

I remember the first Daily Show after New Year's in 2000 started with the graphic and voiceover guy announcing "January 3rd, 1900!"

After the 2000 season, Daulton was one of the final candidates for the Phillies managing job, before they hired Bowa....

Count me in the chorus of "I did not know he was bugshit insane", but with the caveat that having a member of the 1992-3 Phillies be bugshit insane does not exactly shock me into silence. Next thing you'll tell me is that John Kruk is not smart.

Next thing you'll tell me is that John Kruk is not smart.

He was entertaining in ATHF.

After the 2000 season, Daulton was one of the final candidates for the Phillies managing job, before they hired Bowa....

The Phils hired the wrong guy.

I'm pretty sure Larry Bowa would wear purple Nikes given half the chance.

These are the people who think the world will end in 2012, like in that movie, right? Dumb question but I kind of want to avoid the link.

These are the people who think the world will end in 2012, like in that movie, right? Dumb question but I kind of want to avoid the link.

I don't think Daulton likes to pigeonhole his fringeness into a single, unifiable group.

I think the odds are better than 50/50 that Dutch ends up leading a Heaven's Gate-esque cult with equally tragic results sometime soon.

I don't understand computers, but can someone explain why Y2K didn't happen, when so many people thought that it would (or at least, didn't know what was going to happen). It seems like we woke up on January 1, all the computers still worked fine, and no one ever talked about it again.

I don't understand computers, but can someone explain why Y2K didn't happen, when so many people thought that it would (or at least, didn't know what was going to happen). It seems like we woke up on January 1, all the computers still worked fine, and no one ever talked about it again.

The time clock at the bookstore I worked at went kablooey!

I don't understand computers, but can someone explain why Y2K didn't happen, when so many people thought that it would (or at least, didn't know what was going to happen). It seems like we woke up on January 1, all the computers still worked fine, and no one ever talked about it again.

For several years leading up to it, a lot of time and money was spent updating code to avoid the issue. The fear was that, as always happens with coding, something would be missed. Lots of "somethings" were missed, just none that caused major issues.

For several years leading up to it, a lot of time and money was spent updating code to avoid the issue.

Yes - it was a combination of overreaction from the media and the fact that companies spent gobs and gobs of money to triple check every line of code.

It seems like we woke up on January 1, all the computers still worked fine, and no one ever talked about it again.

Kind of suspicious, isn't it? Some of us hid in underground bunkers when the government erased everybody else's minds. We still remember how great the superinternet was until the end of 1999. You could download porn and argue about who deserved third place on your Rookie of the Year ballot at lightning speed. I will not be silenced!

My book “If They Only Knew” provides basic information regarding metaphysics, kind of a starter kit to introduce what is happening and what to expect as December 21, 2012 approaches.

Please do not turn the page - there is a monster at the end of this book.

YOU TURNED THE PAGE!!!!

Yes - it was a combination of overreaction from the media and the fact that companies spent gobs and gobs of money to triple check every line of code.

Most of it relatively pointless - we spent a fair amount of time reworking things that really, didn't need reworking... In the end, all we really accomplished was displaying a bunch of file dates in full form, rather than abbreviated form. Most of our code cleanup was removing what were now redundant defensive methods - once you decide to unspool dates fully - for working around the issue to begin with. It's not like plenty of developers didn't foresee the issue long before the media latched onto and hadn't already found relatively easy ways to account for it.

Ultimately, it was a matter of not so long ago, space being at such a premium that using 2 digits rather than 4 to express 'year' - an in a world where every byte counts, using '81', '82', etc rather than '1981', etc led to significant savings.

The idea that the entire electronic world was going to freak out if something wasn't done was laughable...

[37] Just blew my mind. I can't even fathom how someone else would know that book. Or then have the confidence to reference it for others to see. I remember that book from my childhood, but assumed that nobody anywhere would remember it. It seems so insignificant.

I'm always impressed when a line from Seinfeld or The Wire is thrown into a conversation w/o a set up....and I'm sure I miss 90% of the references around here. But 37 has just shook me to the core.

Grover rules, KronicFatigue, so you aren't the only one who knew it. ;-)

The time clock at the bookstore I worked at went kablooey!

Heh. Actually, I think the one post-Y2K "horror" story I heard was that someone got a $4 million late fee when he returned a video.

I also remembered, and was impressed by the reference in 37, though I'm not sure if it was from reading it as a kid, reading it to my kids, or both.

39 -- My god, are you kidding? It was a Sesame Street book, and ALL things Sesame Street were so big for so long. I read that one to my kids approximately 50,000 times in the 80s.

December 21, 2012

Game 6 of the 2012 Twins-Cubs World Series (after 45 consecutive rain/snow/freeze-outs)

Game 7, if necessary, to be played after the college bowl season and the Super Bowl because baseball can't compete with football.

We had some friends over the night of 12/31/99. I rigged up some fishing line to the TV's plug and pulled it right at 12. A few folks shrieked in fear as Dick Clark went black.

Darren Daulton = Dale Gribble

[37] - I had that book too.

I wanted to name my child Grover. Unfortunately (name-wise) we had a girl. Also, my wife would not allow such a thing. That book is truly awesome.

My next goal will be naming my son Edgar, if Grover isn't going to fly. Less impressive but more timely baseball association.

My co-workers and I have discussed Grover's monster at the end of the book. I do not think it is an obscure book.

My co-workers and I have discussed Grover's monster at the end of the book. I do not think it is an obscure book.

Definitely not. Awesome book. (Loved this Grover book, too.)

I dunno, my toaster stopped working yesterday. Could be a delayed reaction to Y2K.

Hey, I had that book as well. I had forgotten about that one, though.

I wanted to name my child Grover. Unfortunately (name-wise) we had a girl.

The woman who runs the blog Separated by a Common Language has a daughter named Grover.

space being at such a premium that using 2 digits rather than 4 to express 'year' - an in a world where every byte counts, using '81', '82', etc rather than '1981', etc led to significant savings.

On one system I inherited, we compressed stuff so much that we compressed out the decade digit, because we only needed 2 years' of running data. We had a 2-byte packed field (if I remember my mainframese correctly) consisting of YMMC, C being the pack digit indicating positive. We faced the Y2K problem in 1990!

RE: Post #32 -

Several people here posted good info about how the Y2K problem was fixed, but no one told "Best Dressed Chicken" what the problem actually had been. So, BDC, here it is:

A lot of computer systems, including almost all of those using something called Unix, stored dates in the "YYMMDD" format. "MM" was the month, expressed as "01" to "12". "DD" was the day of the month. "YY" was the LAST two digits of the year, with the computer just ASSUMING that the first two digits of the year were "19". So the code for April 1, 1987 was "870401". It didn't need to be "19870401". The computer systems did this to save storage space. Dropping two digits out of the year doesn't sound like much savings, but dates get used a lot in computer programs, and way back when, storage space was a huge problem in computers.

If this type of code was not fixed, when January 1, 2000 came along, it would get stored as "000101", with the machine assuming that the "00" at the beginning was to be preceded by "19". So all the machines would think that it was January 1, 1900, because they would AUTOMATICALLY place a "19" in front of the "00" and get "19000101" instead of "20000101"!

That was the problem that everyone was worried about, and that caused a bunch of programmers to get in some contract or overtime work fixing the problem. Every computer system had to look at every place in any of its programs that used the date, and make sure it was fixed so it could tell the difference between Jan. 1, 1900 and Jan. 1, 2000.

I hope that made sense to you. If not, I imagine there are enough people here who know the problem that someone will be able to spell it out in language that does make sense to you. - Brock Hanke

I would like to name my child Grover, preferably with "Super" preceding it.

[37] Just blew my mind. I can't even fathom how someone else would know that book. Or then have the confidence to reference it for others to see. I remember that book from my childhood, but assumed that nobody anywhere would remember it. It seems so insignificant.


Geez, I thought everybody had heard of that book. It's 2009 and my kid has a copy.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Hi, welcome back to "World of the Psychic," I'm Peter Venkman. I'm chatting with my guest, author, lecturer and psychic, Milton Anglund. Milt, your new book is called "The End of the World." Now can you tell us when it's going to be or do we have to buy the book?
Milton Auglund: Well I predict that the world will end at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This year?
Milton Auglund: MmHmm.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well that's cutting it a little bit close, isn't it? I mean, just from a sales point of view, I mean your book is just coming out, you're not gonna see any paperback sales for at least a year. It'll be at least another year before you know whether you've got that mini-series or movie of the week kind of possibilities. I mean just Devil's Advocate Milty! I mean shouldn't you have said: Hey the worlds going to end in 1992! Or better yet 1994!
Milton Auglund: This is not just some money-making scheme! Alright! I have a strong psychic belief that the world will end on New Year's Eve. [begins to cry]
Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, for your sake, I hope you're right. Okay. But I think my other guest may disagree with you. Elaine, now you had another date in mind?
Elaine: According to my source, the end of the world will be on February 14, in the year 2016.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Valentine's Day. Bummer. Where did you get your date, Elaine?
Elaine: I received this information from an alien. As I told my husband, it was in the Paramus Holiday Inn, I was having a drink at the bar, alone, and this alien approached me. He started talking to me. He bought me a drink, and then I think he must have used some kind of a ray or a mind control device because he forced me to follow him to his room and that's where he told me about the end of the world.
Dr. Peter Venkman: So your alien had a room at the Holiday Inn, Paramus.
Elaine: It might have been a room on the spacecraft made up to look like a room in the Holiday Inn. I can't be sure about that, Peter.

I was doing telephone tech support in 1999-2000. Although we'd spent months explaining to people what would happen & how to deal with it (if necessary), we still all had to be at work, bright & shiny, at 9am 1/1/00. NOTHING WAS HAPPENING (note: we could have foreseen this, because we were on the West Coast, and nothing happened in London, nothing happened in NYC, etc.). Finally, we drew straws to see who'd have to stay, just in case someone called. I got a long straw, and it made me very very happy (I'd been out until 4, and one pupil was still noticeably larger than the other).

I'm still bitter about all the Y2K stupidity. People really did think planes would just fall out of the sky, didn't they?

2009's Y2K is Zombies.

I'm still bitter about all the Y2K stupidity. People really did think planes would just fall out of the sky, didn't they?

Good lord, yes...

My dad, right up until New Years eve 1999, was insisting that I should have gallons upon gallons of water stored in empty milk jugs. He even brought me half a dozen when visiting late December that year.

It got to the point where I was actually ROOTING for some sort of impossible, magic electronic destruction... I'm mildly disappointed that some coordinated effort by a bunch of hackers wasn't undertaken to throw everything into turmoil.

I'm still bitter about all the Y2K stupidity. People really did think planes would just fall out of the sky, didn't they?

To be fair, it wasn't "stupidity" in the sense that something couldn't go wrong.
It was "stupidity" in the sense that people didn't realize that a LOT of people had spent the last 5 years (or more) working to get the problem fixed.

I was part of my company's Y2K team (insurance/financial corp), and back in 1995 there were an unbelievable number of problems if we didn't fix things. Our test server was spitting out tons of polices/letters with incorrect information. People would have received HUGE rate increases as their vehicles/houses would have aged hundreds of years, nevermind other systems simply crashing because of negative date comparisons.

For 5 years, we simply checked off every location in our code where YY needed to be YYYY, and got it done.
By the middle of 1999, we had moved 95% of the team on to other projects, and had only 2 people standing by when it rolled over to 2000. A bunch more had pagers and would be called in if anything went wrong.

Nothing did, but only because we took the time, money and effort to make sure.

When people say "it was a hoax/scam", I say "only in the media over-hype".

I'm still bitter about all the Y2K stupidity. People really did think planes would just fall out of the sky, didn't they?

It was mass paranoia. I was working at HP at the time, and in every sales/service office around the world, a crew was mandated to be on hand overnight, all night on 12/31/99 - 1/1/00, just in case a flood of customers called in with disastrous reports of computers going down. Even though we all KNEW it was fantasy.

As I understand it, many of those employees who drew the short straws and had to be in the office that night, well, shall we say they managed to bring a bit of a partying spirit to work.

My dad, right up until New Years eve 1999, was insisting that I should have gallons upon gallons of water stored in empty milk jugs. He even brought me half a dozen when visiting late December that year.

I threw a party that year. One of my friends randomly showed up with a gigantic bag filled with water. When asked about it, he said that he made the mistake of stopping by his parents' place on the way over, and they refused to let him leave unless he took the bag of water with him. His parents were definitely in the "We're all going to die" camp on the Y2K issue.

55. Every computer system had to look at every place in any of its programs that used the date, and make sure it was fixed so it could tell the difference between Jan. 1, 1900 and Jan. 1, 2000.

Is there a way you can explain how they did that, as concisely as the rest of your post? I mean... was it as simple as just making the program read the dates as YYYYMMDD?

#65: Different programs handled it different ways. Where storing a four-digit year was feasible, it was done. A lot of places, especially those with older systems, selected a "pivot year" by which to gauge the century. The client I was working with made the standard that if the two-digit year was less than 50, the year was assumed to be the 21st century, if two-digit year was 50 or over, it was assumed to be the 20th century.

For the code base I supported, I got permission to use a pivot year of 98 since I never used dates in the past.

There were other methods used as well, but I can't recall them any more.

I was working at HP at the time, and in every sales/service office around the world, a crew was mandated to be on hand overnight, all night on 12/31/99 - 1/1/00, just in case a flood of customers called in with disastrous reports of computers going down. Even though we all KNEW it was fantasy.

I always figured, if the boss isn't also required to be there, how much of an "emergency" could it be?

I mean... was it as simple as just making the program read the dates as YYYYMMDD?

From what I remember, that was pretty much it. However, it is a bit harder than it sounds, since not only do you have to change how the date is structured, but also every spot where that date is then read and used/references/checked/processes/whatever.

Considering the number of spots in which something like a date can be used, and the not uncommon problem of people not properly documenting their code, it can actually be quite a frustrating task to do something that "simple."

Hey, not commenting is job security.

er, um, so I've been told, because I'd never dream of doing that.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

I'm still bitter about all the Y2K stupidity. People really did think planes would just fall out of the sky, didn't they?

well, i lost consciousness that night!

Considering the number of spots in which something like a date can be used, and the not uncommon problem of people not properly documenting their code, it can actually be quite a frustrating task to do something that "simple."

Sure, but as has been pointed out earlier in this thread, every IT department in the world understood the problem, and had been anticipating it for years and years, and had been focusing resources on fixing it for a long time before December of 1999. The problem seems to be that the MSM media either didn't know this, or didn't care to know it, since hyping the situation as an urgent "story" was a whole lot sexier than presenting the banal facts, and lots and lots of people who didn't have a clue about the truth of the situation seemed to be eager to uncritically believe the worst of what was being "reported."

It spoke volumes about a dumbed-down, gullible culture. It was not the modern world at its finest.

2038. Dates on 32-bit Unix systems will hit max value and "wrap around" to a negative on 1/19/2038.

Apparently a 32-bit wraparound bug is making the new Motorola Droid's autofocus be bad for 24.5 days in every 49-day cycle (that's when a millisecond counter wraps).

Windows 95 would reliably crash after 49 days for the same reason, but that wasn't discovered until much later as nobody was mad enough to try to keep it up that long.

I just went to the main 2012er forum to see what it was like. It seems to mostly be a place to vent about how much they ahte Obama and how FEMA will put us all in concentration camps.

Incidentally, that is basically the same description I would give the Rapture Ready forums.

For some reason eschatology and right wing kookiness go hand in hand!

Y2K was a big deal / pain in the a$$ for public companies, too. The SEC put out specific guidance regarding risk disclosure, and companies had to disclose the risk in their public filings. And most incurred a not-insignificant expense to ensure that they wouldn't explode on January 1.

PS - thanks for all the furry, lovable monster love! (Wait - is this the right forum for that?)

It seems to mostly be a place to vent about how much they ahte Obama and how FEMA will put us all in concentration camps.

Just out of curiosity, what handle does Joey B. go by over there?

Well if the world is going to end in three short years anyway, who would give two shits about a little bit of socialism?

I'm not too worried about having lots of 32-bit unix systems 30 years from now.

It doesn't matter if it's running on 64-bit hardware. If the software has been compiled using 32-bit types, it will still have this same issue.

there will be no computers in 30 years. you heard it here first.

Why would we need 'em? Snake Plisskin should take care of that need in 2013.

So, what does a guy like Daulton do when 2012 comes and goes with no apocalypse (or whatver he says will happen, I didn't RTFA)? Re-examine his beliefs and his reason for them? Come up with a rationalization? I mean, if you think that God is coming on a certain date and he doesn't, you can probably rationalize that you didn't believe hard enough, God is punishing you, or something else. But this is a 5,000+ calendar cycle, I can't imagine what rationalization there could be.

He probably checks his math.

I didn't RTFA

+

He probably checks his math.

= you have now

If Y2K was such a hassle for programmers going in and changing the code, why'd you just add two digits? Now they'll have to redo the whole thing again come 9999.

Way to throw your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren under the bus.

If Y2K was such a hassle for programmers going in and changing the code, why'd you just add two digits? Now they'll have to redo the whole thing again come 9999.

That's cute - you think we'll have numbers in 9999?

Brock/55, thanks for the explanation, though it was unnecessary. Sorry if I was unclear -- I actually did know what the supposed problem was. I just didn't understand why the problem never came to fruition. I knew people had been working to change the date codes, but my memory is that right up to the end of 1999, many sane people still seemed to be unsure what would happen once the date flipped. I certainly didn't expect the end of civilization, but I was a bit surprised that essentially NOTHING happened.

That's cute - you think we'll have numbers in 9999?

I just read an interesting Slate article on that topic, about how to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste sites to people thousands of years in the future.

This thread is like the chapter of Genesis with people laughing at Noah while he built his ark.

With the exception of Noah being right.

I knew people had been working to change the date codes, but my memory is that right up to the end of 1999, many sane people still seemed to be unsure what would happen once the date flipped.

I don't know about sane people, but no knowledgeable people were the slightest bit unsure about what would happen once the date flipped. It was the ultimate non-issue.

Well if the world is going to end in three short years anyway, who would give two shits about a little bit of socialism?

If the world is going to end in three short years, why wouldn't the Royals spend as much money as they could to field a great team? In other words, if this offseason they start to spend wildly and they actually begin to buy players from the Yanks (the money is too good) then I think we should be both simultaneously excited (Holy ####! The Royals are going to bring glory to small market teams!!!!) and scared out of our minds (The world is ending!).