The Year 2038 Problem

[Generic Usenet Account]

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

[Stephen Sprunk]

"Gerry Quinn" <ge****@DELETET HISindigo.ie> wrote in message
news:MP******** *************** *@news.indigo.i e...

Does liquid hydrogen ignite spontaneously in air? I wouldn't have
thought so.

Not in the scientific sense, but if you vented a significant mass of H2 in
an urban area, e.g. around automobiles, transformers, electric relays or
switches, etc, then ignition is almost guaranteed before it dissipates.

S

PS- We really need to find a more appropriate newsgroup for this thread.

--
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin

[Richard Bos]

Alan Balmer <al******@att.n et> wrote:

On 28 May 2004 05:00:04 GMT, Joona I Palaste <pa*****@cc.hel sinki.fi>
wrote:

I am quite sure I've heard stories about everything having an
electronic timer stopping working in 2000.

Probably you did, but surely you didn't believe all of them.

Of course not..

http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_y2k.shtml

Of course there were scare stories, and lots of ridiculous rhetoric,
but that's true of any issue the media decides to hype. Much of it
wasn't true, and sensible people knew better.

Precisely. This is exactly what

> Although the Y2K scare turned out to be vastly overblown,

means. The _scare_ turned out to be vastly overblown. There was a real
problem, but it was mostly solved before the media even got hold of it;
and then there was a media scare.

Richard

[Casper H.S. Dik]

"Bob Day" <xx*****@yyyyyy y.com> writes:

Pull your head out of the sand for a moment, and take
a look at: http://www.grantjeffrey.com/article/y2kretro.htm

The article does not list the failures which occured as the
result of Y2K fixes, some of which were completely unneeded (merely
cosmetic); so I don't think it's a fair assesment; it certainly
does not proof that a "fix as event occurs" would have been as
dramatic as some would have it.

Casper
--
Expressed in this posting are my opinions. They are in no way related
to opinions held by my employer, Sun Microsystems.
Statements on Sun products included here are not gospel and may
be fiction rather than truth.

[Richard Bos]

Alan Balmer <al******@att.n et> wrote:

On Fri, 28 May 2004 07:17:18 GMT, rl*@hoekstra-uitgeverij.nl (Richard
Bos) wrote:

No, the reason _those_ did not happen is because coffee makers and spark
plugs don't stop working on 1-1-1900.

As I mentioned in another reply, I was ignoring that bit of rhetoric.
Should have said so at the time.

Ignoring the rhethoric makes no sense when the original remark was
_about_ the rhethoric.

Richard

[Richard Bos]

Leor Zolman <le**@bdsoft.co m> wrote:

On Thu, 27 May 2004 11:41:50 -0700, Alan Balmer <al******@att.n et> wrote:

I suppose the world would have appreciated it more if we'd let
everything go to hell and then became heroes by fixing it afterward.

I suspect just the opposite. In the ensuing uproar over renegade,
unprincipled, greedy software developers, government would just enact the
Federal Software Quality Commission to oversee and regulate the software
industry into submission.

Ah, yes. And all the world is the USA, of course. Snigger.

Richard

[August Derleth]

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 11:18:37 +0000, Richard Bos wrote:

Leor Zolman <le**@bdsoft.co m> wrote:

On Thu, 27 May 2004 11:41:50 -0700, Alan Balmer <al******@att.n et> wrote:

>I suppose the world would have appreciated it more if we'd let
>everything go to hell and then became heroes by fixing it afterward.

I suspect just the opposite. In the ensuing uproar over renegade,
unprincipled, greedy software developers, government would just enact the
Federal Software Quality Commission to oversee and regulate the software
industry into submission.

Ah, yes. And all the world is the USA, of course. Snigger.

Ok, then: Regulate the US economy into submission.

Better? ;-)

--
yvoregnevna gjragl-guerr gjb-gubhfnaq guerr ng lnubb qbg pbz
To email me, rot13 and convert spelled-out numbers to numeric form.
"Makes hackers smile" makes hackers smile.

[SM Ryan]

# > Does liquid hydrogen ignite spontaneously in air? I wouldn't have

No, but it will volatise and diffuse with oxygen more quickly. Fire occurs
at the surface of the fuel and oxidiser, so the greater the surface, the
faster the burn. The same gasoline which burns cheerfully and nonexplosively
in a bucket makes a powerful fuel-air bomb if diffused as a vapour before
ignition.

Gasoline and propane vapours will sink until they ignite. Hydrogen vapours
will rise. That means if gasoline and propane can spread out underneath
a car and then burn upwards through the car, incinerating anybody unlucky
enough to still be inside. If hydrogen can vapourise and rise to a safe
distance before igniting, it might be spectacular but leave the car
occupants unharmed.

The situation depends on the physical distribution of gasses, liquids,
and oxygen as much as the chemistry.

# > 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.

Large amounts of any flammable material are dangerous. Texas City was
hit with a 4-kiloton blast when a load of fertilizer caught fire.

--
SM Ryan http://www.rawbw.com/~wyrmwif/
Don't say anything. Especially you.

[Dan Pop]

In <Hy********@cwi .nl> "Dik T. Winter" <Di********@cwi .nl> writes:

In article <dk************ ********@bgtnsc 04-news.ops.worldn et.att.net> hu*****@NOSPAM. att.net writes:

Dik T. Winter wrote:

In article <ch************ *************** ******@slb-newsm1.svr.pol. co.uk> Christian Bau <ch***********@ cbau.freeserve. co.uk> writes:
> There is one company that proudly produces a very VERY expensive
> non-Y2100 compatible watch. It is a mechanical watch, and displays year,
> month, day and weekday correctly until March 1st 2100. At that time,
> some part has to be replaced, but the replacement is already included in
> the price when you buy it today.

What will it do in 2800 (or 2700, i disremember), when the Greek Orthodox
church and the Gregorian calendar will disagree?

The two calendars disagree right now. As far as I know, there
are branches of the Orthodox Church which never recognized
Pope Gregory's adjustments.

But there are also branches that recognised the adjustments, but diverge
in the year I mentioned.

Even the branches that recognised the adjustments ignore them when
computing the Easter date. As a result, all the Orthodox people have the
Easter at the same time, but not the Christmas (which is Dec 25th for some
and Jan 7th for others).

Dan
--
Dan Pop
DESY Zeuthen, RZ group
Email: Da*****@ifh.de

[Nonymous]

> When I was in middle school, mid to late 70's, they told us with

completely /authoritative tones/ that if the world were entirely hollow
and filled with oil that it would be used up before the year 2020.

Gee, wonder where they thought all the emmissions would go?

[Nonymous]

> >>> I assume that $20 is after inflation, which means it'll be on par

(in constant dollars) with what we pay for petrol or ethanol
today. Hardly a problem, though I'd expect us all to be running
on hydrogen by then; ethanol is a transition fuel.

And where does the power to extract that hydrogen come from?

Nuclear power plants.

Now you are really trying to pull my chain. Better known as a
silly way to boil water.

'boil water'? How does one get hydrogen from vaporized water? Electrolysis
would be the way it would likely be extracted. i.e., run an electric
current through some water and the H2O molecules start to break apart with
the hydrogen atoms attracted to the negative current and O2 attrracted to
the positive. Capture the hydrogen gas at the negative current and you have
your hydrogen. Where do you get the electric current to do this? Doesn't
take much... try some solar panels.