As per Google's Usenet archives
[ http://groups.google.com/googlegroup...ounce_20.html], the
first discussion of the Y2K problem on the Usenet was on January 18
1985 [ http://groups.google.com/groups?thre...0%40reed.UUCP]. That
is a good 15 years before the problem manifested. Even then, it
turned out, we were scrambling for cover when the D-day was
approaching.
Although the Y2K scare turned out to be vastly overblown, we do have a
massive problem ahead of us ------ the Year 2038 problem. On Mon Jan
18 21:14:07 2038, the Unix seconds-since-epoch count will "roll-over".
After that, the time on the Unix systems will read as Fri Dec 13
14:45:52 1901.
IMHO, if we want to avoid the last minute panic that we witnessed
towards the end of the last millennium (while pursuing the Y2K
problem), we should begin the process of debating the viable solutions
to this problem NOW. It will take a long time for the consensus to be
built, and to come up with a solution that most (if not all) people
find acceptable. We also need considerable time to test out all
possible solutions in the real world, to decide if the solutions
really work as expected. We may also need to develop a suite of
recovery strategies should the problem manifest in some system on that
fateful Monday morning. All this takes time. So, as the late Todd
Beamer would have said: Let's roll.
Bhat
Nov 14 '05
248  10556 
Mabden <ma****@sbcglob al.net> coughed up the following: "Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg************ ****@replacetex twithnumber.hot mail.com> wrote in
message news:aJ******** *********@nwrdn y03.gnilink.net ...
[snip vile attacks]
And, no by the way, I've seen purists attack even posts that were
labeled as "OT" under the argument that OT doesn't excuse a post
deliberately in the wrong ng.
OK, Topic Nazi! I get your point,
You conveniently snipped away the sentence
I certainly don't feel that way.
that came right after that. Now WHY IS THAT? Could it be that you LIKE
misrepresenting the truth? That's called lying, and you should know
better.
you want the "purity" of the
newsgroup to supersede the rights of posters who go off on tangents!
Don't kill the messenger, but people will sometimes have "side
conversations" that are not particularly "on- topic". That is just
life, and the way people are.
AND I AGREED WITH THAT. I even elaborated on why. I have no issue now,
nor ever, with people going off on a tangent in ANY newsgroup.
You Do realize that you're looking like a bigger and bigger idiot, don't
you? You must be pretty embarrassed by now.
Are you going to change the world, Net-Cop?! NO, I don't think so!
Is it *YOUR* job to police this newsgroup? NO!
Do I need this bad attitude after a hard day? No!
So keep your stupid opinions and attitude to yourself, Dick (Tracy)!
IT'S NOT MY OPINION. I SAID THAT I DIDN'T FEEL THAT WAY.
But YOU like to quote only CERTAIN sentences of what someone says.
Go ahead fool, show me where I was "a topic nazi". I was completely the
opposite!!!!!!! !
--
Forgetthesong,I 'lljustoptforth efrontallobotom y...
"Thomas G. Marshall" <tg************ ****@replacetex twithnumber.hot mail.com>
wrote in message news:J%******** ******@nwrdny03 .gnilink.net... IT'S NOT MY OPINION. I SAID THAT I DIDN'T FEEL THAT WAY.
Yeah, I know, I was just fucking with you. hehehe. Sorry.
--
Mabden
Mabden <ma****@sbcglob al.net> coughed up the following: "Thomas G. Marshall"
<tg************ ****@replacetex twithnumber.hot mail.com> wrote in
message news:J%******** ******@nwrdny03 .gnilink.net... IT'S NOT MY OPINION. I SAID THAT I DIDN'T FEEL THAT WAY.
Yeah, I know, I was just fucking with you. hehehe. Sorry.
Not a bad technique: get caught making a huge mistake and then say you
did it on purpose.
On purpose or not, you /might/ care for what others here think of you.
You and I weren't arguing in a void...
--
While using is ok, actually /writing/ free software is a disingenuous
activity. You can afford to write software for free only because of
someone else somewhere actually paying for it. Just say no.
On Sun, 30 May 2004 01:13:17 GMT, in comp.lang.c , "Mabden"
<ma****@sbcglob al.net> wrote: "Mark McIntyre" <ma**********@s pamcop.net> wrote in message
news:t2******* *************** **********@4ax. com... On Sat, 29 May 2004 09:48:24 GMT, in comp.lang.c , "Mabden"
<ma****@sbcglob al.net> wrote:
>"Stephen Sprunk" <st*****@sprunk .org> wrote in message
>news:22******* *************** ********@news.t eranews.com...
>
>> Transporting large masses of H2 isn't nearly as safe as petrol, for
>obvious
>> reasons
>
>I'm sorry, but what are the reason Hydrogen is less safe than petrol or
>natural gas?
Think "Hindenberg "
The Hindenberg didn't burn because of the hydrogen. You can't see hydrogen
burn (perhaps a little bluish glow).
The Hindenburg burned the cloth coating which was treated with the same
stuff we now use in rocket fuel.
Yesh, I saw that BBC docudrama too. I believe its still case not proven.
And you really think that the presence of a zillion moles of h2 didn't
assist somewhat?
Enough in this OT thread already...
--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.angelfire.c om/ms3/bchambless0/welcome_to_clc. html>
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On 2004-05-30, Mark McIntyre <ma**********@s pamcop.net> wrote: On Sun, 30 May 2004 01:13:17 GMT, in comp.lang.c , "Mabden"
<ma****@sbcglo bal.net> wrote:
The Hindenburg burned the cloth coating which was treated with the same
stuff we now use in rocket fuel.
Yesh, I saw that BBC docudrama too. I believe its still case not proven.
And you really think that the presence of a zillion moles of h2 didn't
assist somewhat?
Think about it a bit. There's lots of hydrogen that is _not_ mixed with
air, so it can't burn until it encounters oxygen somewhere. (If it'd
been pre-mixed 2:1 with oxygen it would've gone BOOM instantly, but it
didn't. Igniting soap-bubbles filled with that mixture is a class-room
display experiment around here, BTW.)
You can pretty much emulate what happens when you fill a plastic bag
with, say, natural gas and hold a flame to it. The plastic burns first,
then the gas, which slowly forms a nice ball of fire as it gets out of
the bag (or the bag burns away).
Eyewitness reports gleaned from the 'net tell us that it was first
the outer hull, and only after a while the hydrogen burn was visible.
Thinking about it a bit more, I'd say that the actual cause of the fire
(sabotage or ropes instead of wire) is less important. The outer coating
_was_ too flammable, regardless of also being too ignitable.
Which is pretty clear from the after-incident technical investigation.
Enough in this OT thread already...
Don't ask, then. :-)
--
j p d (at) d s b (dot) t u d e l f t (dot) n l .
*** rude topposting fixed ***
"q@q.com" wrote: CBFalconer wrote: Gerry Quinn wrote: Je***********@p hysik.fu-berlin.de says...
> Then do an assay of the amount of natural radionucleides that
> are hidden 'under the rug'. I've heard there's stuff called
> uranium with a half-life of 4000 million years, just hidden
> in rocks in unmarked locations all over the planet. If you
> have a granite fireplace, there's even some in your house,
> oozing radioactive radon gas into the air you breathe.
>
Well, if I am not completely mistaken, there's quite a bit of
a difference in the _concentration_ the stuff has been hidden
'under the rug' by nature (plus stuff like plutonium doesn't
seem to be very common there) and the one the waste products
are going to be stashedaway in. Or did they come upt with a
way to distribute that stuff evenly over a volume of a small
mountain range and nobody told me?
The irony is that that (dispersion) is precisely the sort of
thing that people object to! The result is that radioactive
waste is held in concentrated form and everyone is afraid of
it. If it were diluted, the environmentalis ts would protest
that where there were once a thousand tons of nuclear waste,
there are now a million.
Chernobyl did an admirable job of dispersing radioactive waste
over a fairly wide area. Places such as Love Canal demonstrate
the efficacy of burying and forgetting wastes in general. 20 or
30 years after the banning of leaded gasoline, many highways
border vegetation show the benefits of lead dispersion.
I think we must belong to the genus Homo Non Sapiens.
The United States does NOT use reactor designs like the one
at Chernobyl. Also, Chernobyl did NOT have a containment
building.
I didn't say it did. The point was that dispersal is no answer to
fission products, which depend on physics, not reactor
containment, moderators, etc.
Helsinki (AFP) May 24, 2002
Finland's parliament on Friday approved construction of a
fifth nuclear reactor, the first such plant to be authorized
in Western Europe or North America since the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986.
My condolences to the Finns.
--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?
In article <t2************ *************** *****@4ax.com>, ma**********@sp amcop.net says... I'm sorry, but what are the reason Hydrogen is less safe than petrol or
natural gas?
Think "Hindenberg "
If you pour a gallon of petrol on the floor, you can tap dance in it. If
you pour a gallon of natural gas on the floor, it dribbles out through the
drains in gaseous state. Trust me, I've done both. Heck I've even done it
with a gallon of iso-propanol (they're all handy coolants. The trick with
the last was to open the lab windows before I fell over dead drunk, and
then died of asphyxiation).
If you pour a gallon of H on the floor, you can kiss your ass goodbye as it
passes your head on its way to kingdom come. There /is/ a reason that the
LH test rig at RAL was about a mile from the rest of the lab, behind 20ft
thick earth banks, and inside a concrete bunker with one disposable wall.
Does liquid hydrogen ignite spontaneously in air? I wouldn't have
thought so. While I'm sure it evaporates faster than liquid nitrogen,
the cooling effect of a couple of inches of boiling hydrogen would
hardly be sufficient to stop you walking out. Not if you have shoes on
anyway! Of course there might be an alarming amount of fog...
The Hindenberg, in any case, was full of gaseous hydrogen, probably
safer than liquid, but anyway different. AFAIK, more than half of the
passengers survived, largely because a hydrogen fireball produces a
relatively small proportion of radiant heat.
- Gerry Quinn
CBFalconer wrote: *** rude topposting fixed ***
"q@q.com" wrote:
CBFalconer wrote:
Gerry Quinn wrote:
Je********* **@physik.fu-berlin.de says...
>>Then do an assay of the amount of natural radionucleides that
>>are hidden 'under the rug'. I've heard there's stuff called
>>uranium with a half-life of 4000 million years, just hidden
>>in rocks in unmarked locations all over the planet. If you
>>have a granite fireplace, there's even some in your house,
>>oozing radioactive radon gas into the air you breathe.
>>
>>
>Well, if I am not completely mistaken, there's quite a bit of
>a difference in the _concentration_ the stuff has been hidden
>'under the rug' by nature (plus stuff like plutonium doesn't
>seem to be very common there) and the one the waste products
>are going to be stashedaway in. Or did they come upt with a
>way to distribute that stuff evenly over a volume of a small
>mountain range and nobody told me?
>
The irony is that that (dispersion) is precisely the sort of
thing that people object to! The result is that radioactive
waste is held in concentrated form and everyone is afraid of
it. If it were diluted, the environmentalis ts would protest
that where there were once a thousand tons of nuclear waste,
there are now a million.
Chernobyl did an admirable job of dispersing radioactive waste
over a fairly wide area. Places such as Love Canal demonstrate
the efficacy of burying and forgetting wastes in general. 20 or
30 years after the banning of leaded gasoline, many highways
border vegetation show the benefits of lead dispersion.
I think we must belong to the genus Homo Non Sapiens.
The United States does NOT use reactor designs like the one
at Chernobyl. Also, Chernobyl did NOT have a containment
building.
I didn't say it did. The point was that dispersal is no answer to
fission products, which depend on physics, not reactor
containment, moderators, etc.
Reprocessing "spent" fuel rods will eliminate that problem.
Anyway the real future in nuclear technology is fusion.
Helsinki (AFP) May 24, 2002
Finland's parliament on Friday approved construction of a
fifth nuclear reactor, the first such plant to be authorized
in Western Europe or North America since the Chernobyl
disaster in 1986.
My condolences to the Finns.
In comp.programmin g Gerry Quinn <ge****@deletet hisindigo.ie> wrote: In article <2h************ @uni-berlin.de>, Je***********@p hysik.fu-
berlin.de says... > Then do an assay of the amount of natural radionucleides that are hidden
> 'under the rug'. I've heard there's stuff called uranium with a half-
> life of 4000 million years, just hidden in rocks in unmarked locations
> all over the planet. If you have a granite fireplace, there's even some
> in your house, oozing radioactive radon gas into the air you breathe.
Well, if I am not completely mistaken, there's quite a bit of a
difference in the _concentration_ the stuff has been hidden 'under
the rug' by nature (plus stuff like plutonium doesn't seem to be very
common there) and the one the waste products are going to be stashed
away in. Or did they come upt with a way to distribute that stuff
evenly over a volume of a small mountain range and nobody told me?
The irony is that that (dispersion) is precisely the sort of thing that
people object to! The result is that radioactive waste is held in
concentrated form and everyone is afraid of it. If it were diluted, the
environmentalis ts would protest that where there were once a thousand
tons of nuclear waste, there are now a million.
Problem is that you can't properly dilute it down to a level similar
to the concentration in nature. Even if you could bring all the stiff
into a soluble form and a make a very fine powder out of it and then
drop it in the sea it would still take a long long time until it's
dispersed down to an acceptable level. While mixing comes free, thanks
to the second law of thermodynamics, it takes quite some time. But if
you have to speed it up you need lots of extra energy. If that would
be different please explain why e.g. in the Irish sea due to the
Sellafield/Windscale plant (or whatever they call the thing nowadays)
the concentrations are still that high.
Note how frequently you see a casually implied estimate of the threat
from nuclear materials in terms of the mass of material multiplied by
the halflife.
And people complain about quite insignificant amounts of radionucleides
in seawater.
What's "insignific ant" is depends a lot on whom you ask. And it meant
something quite different in the fifties compared to what it means
now, even to the stout supporters of the use of nuclear power. It's
simply that nobody knows what levels are "insignific ant" since no-one
really understands all the mechanisms by which added amounts of radio-
active materials can influence living organisms. Some people (and not
from the crackpot fringe) even claim that small amounts are healthy -
having such a range of opinions shows quite nicely that nobody really
knows).
Regards, Jens
--
\ Jens Thoms Toerring ___ Je***********@p hysik.fu-berlin.de
\______________ ____________ http://www.toerring.de
"Thomas G. Marshall" <tg************ ****@replacetex twithnumber.hot mail.com> wrote: I no longer worry about OT posts in ng's. I've discovered that
often a subject is raised because of the /audience/ known to
exist in the ng, not its particular subject.
That is supposedly against the charter of the big 8. So be it.
I'm not against off-topic posts because of a charter, but because
it lowers the signal to noise ratio of a newsgroup. I want to
read about UNIX. If I wanted to read about hydrogen power vs
petrol, I would subscribe to the appropriate newsgroups.
Peter
--
Peter J. Acklam - pj******@online .no - http://home.online.no/~pjacklam This thread has been closed and replies have been disabled. Please start a new discussion. |
