ID:194505
 
The year 2000 is just about over! Hooray!

Heh, heh... anyone still remember how idiotic the proposed Y2K bug was? Sure, it had some slight effect, but that had to be the largest and grossest display of human paranoia I've ever seen.

Me, I just sat down and ate some KFC while playing on my computer. I couldn't believe how people had stockpiled thousands of dollars' worth of emergency supplies, most of which have probably ended up in the food banks. =)

Once a skeptic, always a skeptic! They say smart people are always skeptical, and pessimistic, too... not to mention conceited. I fit the bill like a charm! ;-)

(Don't you just love rambling?)
On 12/31/00 2:37 pm Spuzzum wrote:
The year 2000 is just about over! Hooray!

Heh, heh... anyone still remember how idiotic the proposed Y2K bug was? Sure, it had some slight effect, but that had to be the largest and grossest display of human paranoia I've ever seen.


Or it might have been one of the most effective responses to a potential disaster in human history...my own team at work had a Y2K bug slip through in our code (very minor), so I am sure that without all that scrutiny there would have been a much bigger impact. When a vast attempt to avoid a problem actually works, then people naturally tend to say there was no problem in the first place. I don't know of a single computer professional who wasn't concerned about the possible impact -- in fact, it was the people who work with computers who were staying off airplanes and the like.

Either way, I think it was a huge benefit to mankind. Thanks to the Y2K scare, we cleaned up zillions of old computer systems and modernized things in a way that would never have happened otherwise. Some companies were replacing boards that were 20 years old and had like 1k of memory and the like.

Anyway I really came to babble about the fact that now that I've been lazy for a while, and now that I'm done with some major household cleaning, I'm committing myself to putting out a new release of DragonSnot tomorrow with a bunch of new scoring stuff.
In response to Deadron
Or it might have been one of the most effective responses to a potential disaster in human history...my own team at work had a Y2K bug slip through in our code (very minor), so I am sure that without all that scrutiny there would have been a much bigger impact. When a vast attempt to avoid a problem actually works, then people naturally tend to say there was no problem in the first place. I don't know of a single computer professional who wasn't concerned about the possible impact -- in fact, it was the people who work with computers who were staying off airplanes and the like.

Either way, I think it was a huge benefit to mankind. Thanks to the Y2K scare, we cleaned up zillions of old computer systems and modernized things in a way that would never have happened otherwise. Some companies were replacing boards that were 20 years old and had like 1k of memory and the like.

Personally speaking, I had full confidence in the lack of a threat. As far as I know, the only computers that would be subseptible to the bug would be outdated computer systems in companies a bit too penny-pinching to care.

Not that I disagree, your points are noted, but I still think that it was WAY overhyped. I mean, I myself would ride a plane if I had somewhere to go; you can't have a plane dropping from the sky unless its turbines have non-Y2K compliant spark plugs. And that's just plain impossible. Power would not shut off, because only the monitoring systems are on a strict timer. That means runways and landing fields would stay lit, which means that even if ILS systems and whatnot shut off, it would be quite easy to land a plane; more difficult than normal, but still easy. Besides, when it was 5 AM December 31st over here, people in Australia would already be supposedly dying. Which didn't happen.
In response to Spuzzum
On 12/31/00 6:30 pm Spuzzum wrote:
I mean, I myself would ride a plane if I had somewhere to go; you can't have a plane dropping from the sky unless its turbines have non-Y2K compliant spark plugs.

I would have ridden on a plane too; yet I knew many expert computer programmers who changed their vacation plans around to make sure they were not on a plane...
In response to Deadron
We can't know what would have happened if we hadn't put all that effort into preparation. But I am one of those who *thinks* the bug's effects would have fallen far short of predictions no matter what we did. Including nothing at all. I imagine we would have had scads of amusing to annoying paperwork tribulations... getting a notice that your library book is 18,000 years overdue and all that... but I can't imagine too many injuries or any deaths being caused by the bug alone.

It's of note that some (Western, industrialized) countries had almost no preparation yet still had no problems worth mentioning. I think we're both more enmeshed with but less dependent on computers than the media like to imagine. We don't realize exactly how many little things in our lives are dealt with by computers, but we also underestimate our own resourcefulness.

If all the computers in the world disappeared overnight, I dare say that by morning new industries would already have sprung up to deal with the problem. Markets would find a way to ring customers up. Banks would find a way to exchange money. There'd be a great deal of hue and cry but a few months later we'd have forgotten we ever doubted our own ability to survive.

J

This doesn't have anything to do with BYOND, does it.
In response to Zilal
If all the computers in the world disappeared overnight, I dare say that by morning new industries would already have sprung up to deal with the problem. Markets would find a way to ring customers up. Banks would find a way to exchange money. There'd be a great deal of hue and cry but a few months later we'd have forgotten we ever doubted our own ability to survive.

Yep... as much as I love computers, there are plenty of ways to get things done without them. Check out "The Victorian Internet" if you want a peek at a level of technological sophistication that existed long before computers. It's a short, entertaining book--"lite history," you could say. It should be required reading for BYOND programmers! :)

Speaking of which, I've been mentally compiling a little list of movies that are related to the world-building process in one way or another. (I think we may have discussed this at some past GoB... can't recall.) Any other suggestions would be welcome!

Westworld
The Thirteenth Floor
Total Recall
The Game
The Truman Show
In response to Spuzzum
On 12/31/00 6:30 pm Spuzzum wrote:
Not that I disagree, your points are noted, but I still
think that it was WAY overhyped. I mean, I myself would
ride a plane if I had somewhere to go; you can't have a
plane dropping from the sky unless its turbines have non-
Y2K compliant spark plugs. And that's just plain
impossible. Power would not shut off, because only the
monitoring systems are on a strict timer. That means
runways and landing fields would stay lit, which means
that even if ILS systems and whatnot shut off, it would
be quite easy to land a plane; more difficult than
normal, but still easy. Besides, when it was 5 AM
December 31st over here, people in Australia would
already be supposedly dying. Which didn't happen.

I'm one of those techies that was not about to get onto a plane a year ago. Passenger planes are a bit more complicated than what you wrote. While I know it wouldn't fall out of the sky, there are numerous support computers on board a plane which caluclate numerous things - everything from telemetries to weather radar. I'd rather not be on a plane where both the primary and secondary weather radars were not working.

I wasn't worried about most systems like water and electricity. I was worried about banks who had their software written thirty years ago. I was worried about airports who's computers and systems are so old that it became a joke - major crashes have occured because a computer system was so old it hiccuped and the controller plotted a flight wrong and it crashed into another plane! That was a big media hype during the 80's and I never did hear that airports were getting newer equipment.

Mostly for me, it was an excuse to tell people to upgrade their systems to newer software so I wouldn't have to support the old stuff that doesn't work with my systems as well. I loved having one of my customers call and say the IS department won't upgrade the software and all I had to say was, "The software has not been tested for Y2K compliance." They upgraded.