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5/21/2007

Code Geek Struggles to Get People Freaked about Y10K

Islington: "Way tripping" over Y10K

(Dallas, TX) Systems programmer Randall Islington first learned about the potentially deadly coding snafu nearly a decade ago.

"Y10K scared me back then, and it scares me even more today," he admitted. "Eventually we are going to run out of 4-digit years, and then you are REALLY going to see the shit hit the fan."

The year 10,000 problem, or Y10K, is the collective name for all potential software bugs that may emerge as the need to express years with five digits arises. Islington said that his warnings have failed to rouse concern among his coworkers and friends.

"The Y10K problem cannot just be dismissed, as there are legitimate reasons to plan far into the future," he noted, citing software that examines the long term handling of nuclear waste. "And just how can the NFL prepare the next ten millenia of schedules with software that crashes due to date errors? Check and mate, sir."

Are YOUR real-time PC clocks Y10K compliant? What about your new microwave? Well???

Islington believes that the collective efforts to slve Y2K-related issues have "turned everyone into technology-trusting zombies."

"Everybody I talk with is all 'oh, they'll fix it in time' or 'dude, that's 8,000 years away' or 'get away from me, you spit-spraying paranoid geek,'" said the despondent coder, adding that programs like MS-Excel already have Y10K bugs. "But they don't realize just how close we came to Armageddon. Next time, Bunky? We aren't going to be so lucky."

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# posted by Subcomandante Bob : 6:59 PM
Comments:
I'm more concerned about the impending Y2K threat in 2047 0r 2048, depending on how you begin counting the years.

(In hex, that would be 7D0, which doesn't SOUND scary, still, we'll never know until we get there, now will we?)
# posted by Blogger Hooda Thunkit (Dave Zawodny) : 6:28 AM
 
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