Quote - "Actually, the problem was extremely trivial except for a couple instances. However, the media(useless media) once again did a wonderful job of telling how dead we are. *kills the media* "

Yeah, the problem was trivial after we pumped money like no tommorrow. Credit Card companies lost a lot of money and had tons of problems with expiration dates well before 2000, tell thim it was trivial.
Most likely, worst case for most systems would have been rendering the system inoperable (there is a date that you can set windows to render it inoperable, at least win95.) But we are so dependant on systems, that could have multiple problems in itself. The media may have exaggerated in some places (random nukes firing), but I feel they were not too far off worst case. Well, my point is that the problems in some cases could have been far from trivial.

Mike

it is hard to predict things like that. just like trying to predict weather. will that hurricane hit the florida keys? etc.

it is better to be prepared for a worst case senario than to be not prepared at all

in fact the alert of the y2k was made by a guy(i forgot the name)that developed the cobol , and he was the one that everyone called to fix theirs computers, but was this guy one of the responsible of that bug , and now he is full of money

resumed: we are idiots!!

-FORMAT 2.0: the best anti-virus that was ever created

Well, the 2038 thing is related to the fact that you only get 32 bits of data when it comes to the standard time structs in C/C++. The standard time structures started counting seconds in January of 1970... and really, we''re a little under halfway to running out of seconds... which will happen in the year 2038. You thought Y2K was a big scare? The 2038 problem is much bigger... though to be honest the media probably won''t hype it as much because they got burned this time and because 2038 isn''t nearly as catchy, significance-wise... let''s all remember that if the computer boom had come in the year 1870, 1900 would have been a 1.9k problem, which also isn''t nearly as catchy. I believe our calculations showed that if time is moved to a 64 bit count of seconds, we have about 4 billion years before we''ll have to worry about it.
By the way... COLEDateTime is not affected by 2038, but it has... errr... issues of its own.

-fel

If the problem is with the time struct, why doesn''t someone just release a patch for the headers with this struct, making it 64-bit?

"Knock, knock."
"Who''s there?"
"Windows 98."
"Windows 98 who?"

The time struct is what''s returned by the OS. So if you just patch the headers, the OS is still only returning 32 bits. So you need a fresh kernel. But once you''ve got a fresh kernel you need to recompile everything on that machine that conceivably used the old time struct. In other words basically everything except for "Hello world."

I was hoping for some major disaster that would kill half the population, and would result in a better race of humans that were less dependant on technology and more on people, and there would be no wars, everyone got on with each other, there was no and everyone lived happily ever after (except those who died or suffered horrific injuries etc)

Maybe it''ll happen on 2038.

George.

"Who says computer games affect kids, imagine if PacMan affected us as kids, we'd all sit around in a darkened room munching pills and listening to repetitive music....uh oh!"

Windows people should be afraid of Y2.1K ...

Visit our homepage: www.rarebyte.de.st

GA

quote: Original post by GEo
I was hoping for some major disaster that would kill half the population, and would result in a better race of humans that were less dependant on technology and more on people, and there would be no wars, everyone got on with each other, there was no and everyone lived happily ever after (except those who died or suffered horrific injuries etc)
Maybe it''ll happen on 2038.

Nah, half the population is not even near to enough. Homo sapiens replicates itself way too fast for that. And its too awesomely stupid on average to put a lid on it.
I wouldnt hope much on 2038 either, its full human generation away, given the speed technology evolves only arheologists will remember win98 by then. Anyways, any disaster that will come, be that eco or nuclear or comet or whatever, wont prolly be foreseen.
It always hits you when you lest expect it to.

-kertropp

C:\Projects\rg_clue\ph_opt.c(185) : error C3142: 'PushAll' :bad idea
C:\Projects\rg_clue\ph_opt.c(207) : error C324: 'TryCnt': missing point

Whats all this Y2k buzz about? Whats going to happen in 2048?

(hehee, if you didnt get it, nevermind.)


Anyhow, the 2038 problem looks quite severe, but at least we have more than 8 years to work on it. (Y2k was proposed in 1992, and no one did anything until 1998, heh).


About human procreation:
I''ve noticed that the worlds intelligentsia are a lot less inclined to procreate than some of the worlds less intelligent. I hate to say it, but i''ve worked in population statistics before, and did community service for homeless people, and the one stereotype that holds the most truth is this:

"Dumb" people (High school dropouts, people who didnt even go to school, etc) tend to have waaaaay more children than "intelligent" people. I think that the average difference between Bachelors graduates and High School dropouts was around 3 children.

wow.

I, myself, dread just thinking about having children.

I was once told something that sickened me, and im not sure if it is true, but it makes sense:

"Lower class" people (in the USA at least) tend to keep pumping out babies so they can get continuous welfare.


I don''t know anymore...

===============================================
"Tell brave deeds of war."
Then they recounted tales, -- "There were stern stands And bitter runs for glory."

Ah, I think there were braver deeds.