Trump Orders Government To Stop Work On Y2K Bug, 17 Years Later (bloomberg.com) 460
The federal government will finally stop preparing for the Y2K bug, seventeen years after it came and went. Yes, you read that right. Bloomberg reports: The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paperwork requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their preparedness for a bug that afflicted some computers at the turn of the century. As another example, the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year. Seven of the more than 50 paperwork requirements the White House eliminated on Thursday dealt with the Y2K bug, according to a memo OMB released. Officials at the agency estimate the changes could save tens of thousands of man-hours across the federal government. The agency didn't provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn't a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice.
1200 man hours you say (Score:5, Insightful)
As another example, the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year.
So they layed off one guy...whoopdedoo! Looks at those savings! Who wants a paper-trail of who the pentagon pays money too anyway?? What a zany idea.
Re: (Score:2)
While paper trails are great, I do not think there is a reason for a paper trail for purchasing, for example, a cheap pen.
Also, the summary says that those regulations were already ignored in practice. This, in my opinion, is bad as selective following of rules can lead to a spiteful manager punishing an employee for ignoring the rules everyone else is ignoring. So, either follow the rules or change them.
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You should be modded up.
1,200 man-hours per year is LESS THAN one full time job.
For reference, a 40hr/week job is 1880 - 2080hr/year (5 weeks vacation - zero vacation).
I'm certain that the cost to make those changes was waaaay more than the cost of those 1200 man hours. I wouldn't be surprised if this article wasted more than 1,200 man hours of peoples time reading it. It's like trying to save money by shopping at whole foods so you can re-use the bags and save $0.05/bag, while paying more for everything el
And the Presidential directive was (Score:5, Funny)
Signed and dated: 6/15/17
Re:And the Presidential directive was (Score:5, Funny)
You've obviously not heard of the new months that have been recently added by executive order; Trumpember, Ivankuary and Covefebruary.
Y2K? (Score:2)
Seriously? Is there anything else they are preparing for that has already come and gone?
Russian Invasion of the US? (Score:2, Funny)
:-D
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not ready to assume it has come and gone. My first question is; is this related to unpatched systems that are continuing to provide incorrect data? Don't jump to being credulous of narratives, there are always narratives offered.
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Seriously? Is there anything else they are preparing for that has already come and gone?
There was a telephone tax that was to pay for the Spanish American War of 1898. I think it was paid off a decade or two ago, I'm not sure if the tax was removed.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Y2K? (Score:2)
That's kind of a stupid reason to have periodic status reports, though. It's a good reason to have a current status report, and to update that when the status changes.
Preparing for a Napoleonic Invasion (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously? Is there anything else they are preparing for that has already come and gone?
Well reputedly in 1803 the British government prepared for the potential invasion of Napoleon by creating a civil service position for someone to stand on the white cliffs of Dover with a spyglass and ring a bell if they saw Napoleon coming. The position was finally cancelled in 1945, 124 years after Napoleon died.
Re:Preparing for a Napoleonic Invasion (Score:5, Informative)
Well reputedly in 1803 the British government prepared for the potential invasion of Napoleon by creating a civil service position for someone to stand on the white cliffs of Dover with a spyglass and ring a bell if they saw Napoleon coming. The position was finally cancelled in 1945, 124 years after Napoleon died.
Yes well, they're British. As Terry Pratchett said, if they can't remember why they're keeping the tradition, that only makes the tradition more sacred.
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Not really it served no purpose by 18/12/1940 at the earliest when Operation Sea Lion was indefinitely postponed and thanks to Ultra we in the United Kingdom where totally aware of that.
At the latest the commencement of Operation Neptune (aka the D-Day landings) on 6/61944 brought to an end any pretence of the usefulness of the position.
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Probably there won't be a debt-related crisis within the next few years
Why? I can see no reasonable metric for determining when it will actually hit crisis..........
But what about Y2K38? (Score:4, Interesting)
Gotta keep track of those unsigned 32-bit int timestamps, they're going to creep up on you in 2038.
Re: (Score:3)
On 64bit systems we're good until December 4th, 292277026596.
But keep in mind, 32 bit timestamps are signed, not unsigned. This is important when constructing things like HTTP cookies when you want the maximum time, which is going to be 0x7fffffff.
The good news is that most programs that blindly trust that signed 32 bit value will just think it is 1901, there is no reason they would crash. Most of the servers and things that having calendar-aware timing that would set up a crash situation will have already
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Indeed. OS X years ago changed to using a double-precision float, which gives sub-microsecond precision for the prime epoch, and can even deal with Y10K and beyond.
As long as user software declares time values as time_t, Y2038 will work correctly if the OS can deal with it.
Re: But what about Y2K38? (Score:2, Informative)
Are you really that stupid?
I can't imagine.
There are A LOT more Linux devices in this world than Windows.
And secondly, that's not a 'linux bug'
Google is dropping Linux & GPL for its Fuchsia (Score:3)
https://arstechnica.com/gadget... [arstechnica.com]
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The problem isn't the operating system. On most computers, time_t is a 64 bit value, even on 32 bit machines.
Not true. If you download 32-bit version of any major Linux distro today in 2017 and write a program that spits out sizeof(time_t) the answer will be 4.
Leave it to ... (Score:2, Offtopic)
-- Adrian Tyvand
at the turn of the century (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't even have to RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
" the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid"
I foresee a _lot_ of 'small business vendors" cropping up over the years now.
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Eh... I think the main point is actually here:
"The agency didn't provide an estimate of how much time is currently spent on Y2K paperwork, but Linda Springer, an OMB senior adviser, acknowledged that it isn't a lot since those requirements are already often ignored in practice. "
Trump just agreed that it's okay for everyone to not file the reports they were already not filing. This is a non-story that shouldn't have garnered any attention or discussion.
Wow, huge savings (Score:2)
a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year
So, one single person working 24 hours a week. No wonder the US debt is so high.
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Shit! (Score:2)
"Trump Orders Government To Stop Work On Y2K Bug, 17 Years Late"
Damn, there goes my lucrative government job. I knew it was too good to last. Maybe I can get a contract for the Y3K bug.
This is dangerous move (Score:2)
I'm afraid that trying to fight with Parkinson Law, Trump would make himself a lot of enemies.
Bureaucrats would plot to shoot him as Kennedy have been shoot.
I got a Y2K bug in 2013 (Score:2)
Modes of failure like that can still run if the developers of the software are idiots and the QC people do not exist.
So stupid... (Score:3)
The headline is literally a stab at Trump to make him look like an idiot for touching on something that's 17 years gone, but the fact that worthless required documentation is being removed from government should be celebrated as a move towards efficiency. A government that is willing to admit stuff is useless and scrap it is a lot more useful than a government that bloats itself with process.
I'm waiting for everyone to come in and tell me everything Trump has done wrong now, but that's not my point whatsoever, so enjoy. (I probably will!)
Trump's order a,ready blocked (Score:4, Funny)
Municipal night court judge Munroe Slemp of Snakebit, NV has already responded to a petition from COBOL programmers by blocking Trump's order, citing his lack of IT expertise. The Ninth Circuit is expected to review the decision by sometime in November.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't trust Trump to make smart cuts. He's not a details and logic guy, and he or his minions favor "trickle down" solutions over those that benefit the little guy directly. He might accidentally get a few right, but so would blindfolded dart throwers.
Re: Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not hard to see how someone thinks if they have no filter
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue isn't that this is bad per-se. It's that it's not very good. As the article points out, no one was really applying these regulations. Ultimately, this is grand standing more than anything else.
I'm always happy to see redundant legislation go away, but don't get grand delusions that this is Trump somehow removing burdens and making the government magically super efficient.
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It's ''wreak havoc''. If you wrecked all the havoc that would leave only order, implying that everything was A-1, tickety-boo, shipshape & Bristol fashion.
Re: Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:4, Informative)
Guess who the real cancer on efficiency is. it's not the Republicans.
Bullshit.
If anything Republicans are the architects of government inefficiency. Democrats are only marginally better since they generally don't do stupid shit like holding votes to repeal or gut the ACA when there is no way the Senate or POTUS would go along with it. If the politician's goal was efficiency they would be working together to hammer out compromises before putting bills to a vote.
Reid had every right to do what he did, just as Lott, Daschle, and Frist did before him and McConnell does now. Just because a member of the other tribe had control of it then doesn't make it a good or a bad thing. I do agree that having one guy able to hold things up is not good, but it needs to apply to both tribes.
The House passing a bill that is completely unpalatable to the opposition that controls the Senate and/or the POTUS is fucking stupid and a complete waste of time. Pass something that doesn't contain poison pill amendments completely unrelated to the bill. Pass something that doesn't contain items completely antithetical to the other tribe's view.
In other words: Work together for the people, you fucking fucks.
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I'm always happy to see redundant legislation go away, but don't get grand delusions that this is Trump somehow removing burdens and making the government magically super efficient.
The journey of a thousand miles and all. It's clear that this is
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Interesting)
He most certainly not removing burdens with the new burden that government software will now have y2k problems again.
One thing the simpler man doesn't understand is that problems like Y2K (or 2038) don't go away once the date has passed. Too small storage containers used in already existing data won't magically transform. Someone needs to make that happen, each and every time old data is accessed. Do a study of things like census records, and you'll be hit by the Y2K bug.
The very preparation for Y2K caused additional problems. Uncoordinated preparation caused forms that suddenly changed from YY/MM/DD to mandatory YYYY/MM/DD at arbitrary dates in the late 90s.
This means that you'll run into the problem when handling and comparing data from the same sources from before 2000.
Relatedly, the "2038 problem" will also still be with us long after 2038, because of all the data stored in signed 32-bit time format won't magically transform. Someone needs to make sure it's done.
The regulations are probably too specific, and focus on the specific instance of the problem when a generic regulation[*] would have been better. But then again, politicians who couldn't see the bigger picture existed back then too.
[*]: Like "All data is to be converted to representations not subject to container size prior to processing, or a justification for and implications of the limited container size must be documented."
Among the effects, this could lead to a resurgence of BCD and CPUs who handle them natively again, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.
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Well, the Y2k stuff being removed is great. But the bit about reports for small business payouts? 1200 man hours == ~30 weeks of 40 hours/week work. Ie, you managed to cut one job That's great if it was redundant work--and honestly it should be. So great for Trump. Let me guess, I'm not leftist enough so it doe
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Here's my contribution: the Trump administration finally found something so trivial that they have a slim chance of getting it right.
It's not like you have a chip on your shoulder over this. "Boo-hoo-hoo, people are being mean to the president. It's not fair, how could anyone be so cruel? Anyone who says anything negative about the Fearless Leader is a Bad Person." I visualize you pouting and stamping your foot in frustration while you are whinin
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A stopped clock is right twice a day. On average.
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And the right hated Obama for everything he did.
Granted I think Y2K readiness is now time to put away.
But if I felt like it I could bring up those legacy mainframes who's Y2K patches only extended the problem out with a 2015, 2020, 2050 cutoff and rollover. With logic like
If year > 20 then
Set Fullyear = 1900 + year
Else
Set Fullyear = 2000 + year
Endif
So when these dates hit the programs will have issues.
But I doubt this problem should be a government priority.
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No matter what he does or how much sense it makes, the Democrats will find a way to bash Trump. This is an obsolete piece of regulation, but Democrats will somehow spin this into something bad. Washington is turning into a massive partisan witch Hunt thanks to the Democrats and their hatred for anything and everything Donald Trump does. There are regulations like this that need to be eliminated, but the left cannot bring themselves to admit that Trump might do something good. You leftists should be ashamed of yourselves. The American people have spoken and want Donald Trump as President. Get over yourselves.
If anything, this story shows Trump in better light than either Bush or Obama that he finally did something about it. The criticism of not overhauling this bureaucratic requirement can safely fall on bipartisan shoulders - both Bush Republicans and Obama Dems. In truth, I doubt any of the presidents themselves took the initiative here, although I wouldn't put it past Trump to have noticed it (the person who noticed the number of door hinges in his hotels might have caught this as well). Nonetheless,
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Insightful)
By "gamed the system", you mean "followed the system in place for 200+ years", right? And, according to your losing candidate, questioning this system is âoehorrifyingâ and "talking down our democracy" as recently as 2 weeks before the election?
Got any other deep thoughts to share?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Not an american but you guys should seriously consider getting rid of the electoral college. I'm no expert on american political history but it is my understanding that the system was originally put into place to safeguard a takeover by a tyrant. That is, the founding fathers were smart enough to understand that there are times in which the democratic will of the people may be hijacked, and this is where the electoral college could step in and make a more rational choice
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What is your point? First you state that the democratic will of the people is sometimes wrong and the electoral college should correct it. Then you say that the populist vote should win no matter what in a democracy.
These are conflicting.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal
The declaration of independence is not a legal document. If it were, we would not have had a need for that pesky civil war. An honest mistake.
The electoral college system, like nearly all political systems, was put in place as a compromise of many views. Preventing tyranny,
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:4, Interesting)
No, I did not say that's what I think, I said I'm under the impression that that's the reason behind EC's existence. But to clarify yes the people can sometimes be cheated into voting for candidates that should not be allowed to rule because they hold immoral/unconstitutional views (see, third reich among other things, Adolf was democratucally elected). HOWEVER, this is not the case now as what's happened in the 2000s is that the EC does the reverse, helping to automatically nominate a person that gets less of the votes without it having anything to do with consideration of the candidates but simply following preset rules.
No they are not. See, what I'm saying is precisely that the EC does not prevent a populist from winning in is current shape, it makes it easier by shrinking the amount of the popular vote one needs to secure to win the nomination. The EC on paper is an organ of governance which is supposed to be able to affect the outcome of the election based on their own judgement of the candidates, but it does not do so under any circumstances so it's just become an automated engine for wannabe-populists to gain power by winning the 'right' votes. This makes no sense and is in contradiction with what I understand to be the point of something like the EC.
I never claimed it is legally binding, I just loaned the phrase from there to reflect the fact that i do not think the EC in its current function serves the american ideal of people being equal.
They won't be ignored or abused. In a popular vote the vote of everyone counts the same, no matter the location. The idea of a democracy is that everyone has an equal say in the matter on the vote. The fact that a city has millions of people living in it does not logically translate to 'therefore the people in the countryside need to have more votes." The geographical location you inhabit should not bear any weight in a democratic vote in my view, It doesn't do so here (Finland) or anywhere else in the west, and you don't see the people in the countryside being 'ignored or abused'. The people in the countryside hold power in proportion to their numbers and still have the local municipal governments to represent them on a national level.
But this turns the system on its head giving undue power to those people. Why should someone living on the countryside have any more say in who rules over the entire country? The people in the cities are just as much citizens as the people in the countryside. Just because someone lives in a sparsely populated area does not mean their opinion of who should rule should count any more. That's what equality means, that's what democracy as a decision making method means.
There are other means of making sure that the majority cannot override the rights of the minorities. That's why countries have constitutions which guarantee rights to people and protect them from being eaten by majority votes. You're arguing that in addition to this the people on the countryside deserve to get to choose the president moreso than the people in the cities, which makes no sense to me.
I understand why the system is the way it is, I just think it'
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:4, Insightful)
But the EC is NOT a deliberative body. It is an honorary one. There's the source of your misunderstanding, I think.
The members of the EC are picked by the winners. Membership is temporary, the entire EC is dissolved once the election results have been reported to Congress. In fact, the ACTUAL vote to confirm the election is done by Congress, not by the EC. And yes, it is an actual show-of-hands vote. The job of the EC is to simply report the official results of each state.
That is why any electors who don't report properly are called "faithless" electors. They literally make a promise to faithfully report the results when they are appointed.
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:4, Informative)
the EC does not prevent a populist from winning in is current shape, it makes it easier by shrinking the amount of the popular vote one needs to secure to win the nomination.
I largely agree with your comment and reasoning, but the above is false. The EC has nothing to do with securing the nomination. Party nominations are done through party-specific processes which admittedly include delegate systems that look sort of EC-ish, except that those delegates actually do exercise free will in casting their ballots, so function more like the EC was intended to function. But changing or abolishing the EC would have no effect on the nomination processes.
Personally, as a resident of a small state, I'd like it if the EC were retained but EC votes were allocated proportionally to the per-state popular vote. One of the theories behind the construction of the EC was that it would give slightly more weight to the opinions of the voters in low-population states. In practice, the method of allocating all of a state's votes as a bloc causes the system to do exactly the opposite, which is why it's always a handful of large "swing" states that decide the election. Proportional allocation would give the small states a larger voice, and motivate candidates to actually campaign in them.
Failing that, simply going to a pure popular vote would also improve the small states' voice, just not as much. But it's clear that the EC, in its current form and application, is bad for everyone.
Re: (Score:3)
As far as I am aware each state decides independently how their EC members are determined. They can do proportional, winner take all, a mix of the two or flip a coin. The only Federal rules are about how many representatives each state has in the EC. People who keep complaining about how the EC is run need to get out and push for reform on the State level, not the Federal.
As for a true popular vote, that is a failing solution on so many levels that it shouldn't even be mentioned in true electoral reform.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The fact is the Electoral college worked exactly as it was supposed to. But if we did not have the Electoral college Trump would have campaigned differently and likely would have still pulled out a win. He knew CA and NY were automatic losses, so he didn't spend much time campaigning in those states (but he didn't tota
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:4, Insightful)
No they won't. Get rid of the electoral college and everyone gets an equal say in who rules. The fact that more people live in place A than place B does not mean that the people in place B should be given more power in a democracy,
Please explain to me how having less than a third of the populace support the president translates to 'a broad, nationwide support'?
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Insightful)
get rid of the Electoral college and a few big cities run the nation
No they won't. Get rid of the electoral college and everyone gets an equal say in who rules.
Campaigning would only occur in major cities, so they would have a much larger impact than now.
The fact that more people live in place A than place B does not mean that the people in place B should be given more power in a democracy,
It's called federalism, and it was put in place for a reason. The founding fathers realized that even though we are one country, we are composed of several different cultures with different values. A law that might make sense in a metropolitan area might not make sense in a rural area, so you don't want the population centers making all the rules for everyone else.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Poor Kiuas. :-(
It's happening already.
Happening in front of our very eyes.
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The electoral college is working as designed. If one were to ignore the votes in New York City and Los Angeles -- not even the states of New York and California, but just the two most populous cities across the fruited plain -- Trump wins by half a million votes.
The electoral college is an ingenious solution to the problem of small clusters of populations imposing their will on an entire nation.
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Informative)
This is very simple, actually. The problem statement is, "how to best conduct a single majority vote election across multiple, independent entities of varying sizes and densities of the population"? The answer is, "hold a majority election in every independent entity and the winner overall of each election is the winner overall of the race." But what if the entities are of _vastly_ different sizes and densities? Then the answer is, "weight the individual elections by population."
The Electoral College is a perfectly legitimate solution to the problem. Maybe you're getting confused by the notion of a "College". There is a body of people that forms a College, but exists only as a formality, because someone must keep a record and report the results of the election. The College, for example, is temporary and changes at every election. It is honorary.
Re:Leftists will bash Trump for this (Score:5, Informative)
The electoral college is an attempt to balance political power between rural and urban voters. Its an adjustment to a pure democracy designed to weaken the "Tyranny of the majority".
The biggest challenge the founding fathers faced was balancing power between urban and rural constituents. This is arguably our greatest challenge today. This is why each state has 2 senators regardless of population and representatives based on population. The number of electors in the electoral college in each state is the sum of its U.S. senators and its U.S. representatives.
In our last election, rural voters preferred Trump and that is why the rural voter trumped the urban voter to override the popular vote.
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The electoral college is an attempt to balance political power between rural and urban voters.
That's what many US school history books say. However, US school history books have to be approved by groups of political appointees in every state who are kind of famous for not wanting any uncomfortable truths put into them.
Turns out we have extensive documentation over the constitutional deliberations on this matter. A simple plebiscite for President was preferred initially by some, but would not fly with the slave states. At the time, only land-owning (white) men were generally allowed to vote, and th
Re:Historical Revisionism (Score:4, Informative)
The real reason the EC was created was appeasement of slavers
No mod points, but this is exactly the reason. Remember that slaves (obviously) and other people who didn't own land weren't allowed to vote in most states. So in a flat vote, voters in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania alone would probably have overwhelmed the votes of all the slave states combined. However, once you rig up this weird system where slave states get to count great masses of people who they would never consider allowing to actually vote (slaves, sharecroppers, etc), then suddenly 5 of the first 6 POTUS were native to Virginia.
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The left considers violence wrong except in very specific circumstances.
Of course (Vol. I)!
From John Hawkins [townhall.com]
1) "Michele (Bachmann), slit your wrist. Go ahead... or, do us all a better thing [sic]. Move that knife up about two feet. Start right at the collarbone." -- Montel Williams [michellemalkin.com]
2) “F*ck that dude. I’ll smack that f*cker’s comb-over right off his f*cking scalp. Like, for real, if I met Donald Trump, I’d punch him in his f*cking face. And that’s not a joke. Even if he did become president — watch out, Donald Trump, because I will punch yo
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That again? When the country's basic workings were still being laid out there was a conflict between raw population and geographic distribution.
It was an argument back then, and it will probably be an argument for as long as the country is in existence. At least it gives us something to argue about.
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If the densely populated areas have more people then it stands to reason they'll have more votes. I assume you don't have a problem with the idea of "one person, one vote"?
The electoral college system is "one person, one-and-a-bit" votes, where the smaller the state's population the bigger the bit.
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It's called Federalism. It's the United States of America, not, "America". A federation is a form of government where a collection of independent, equal states act as one on some issues and otherwise act independently internally.
Every State in the USA has its own court system, its own military, its own political body, its own police, and on and on, PLUS the federal government. People pay both State taxes and Federal taxes. They follow both State laws and Federal laws.
And the most important feature of Federa
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And, might I add, if the European Union was more like a Federation, if its leaders had to undergo popular elections across the entire EU every 4-6 years, then it would probably be more resilient. The US has survived for 238 years in its present form, the longest-running representative democracy in history. Federalism works.
Popular vote trivia, Approval ratings like Clinton (Score:2)
Not even American... but I do remember something about him losing the popular vote.
The popular vote is trivia. No one was trying for it, both sides were fighting for the electoral. If the popular had been the goal both sides would have waged very different campaigns, spent time and money very differently, visited different towns, cities and states, etc. And thus the popular vote in such a scenario would be completely different than in the actual election.
Talking about the popular vote is like saying after losing a football match, well we controlled/moved the ball for more yards/meters.
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Re:What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:5, Informative)
Y2K38 bug already leaked over into politics:
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/ar... [cnsnews.com]
“I asked CBO to run the model going out and they told me that their **computer simulation crashes** in 2037 because CBO can’t conceive of any way in which the economy can continue past the year 2037 because of debt burdens,” said Ryan."
So the CBO's forecase software could get *up* to 2037, but not past it, i.e. it couldn't compute figures for 2038. What's the more logical explanation, a "does not compute" error, or that they were using Unix 32 bit time?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not worried about it, by that point humanity will have already collapsed due to the Y2K36 NTP rollover.
Re: What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's on the desktop, of course. Amongst the serious computers Linux has, what, maybe 50% of the market share?
I suppose Android's been fixed.
Re: What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:4, Insightful)
I suppose Android's been fixed.
Yes, but a super majority of users won't be able to get the patch.
Google is dropping Linux, GPL, maybe Android (Score:2)
https://arstechnica [arstechnica.com]
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You're making the assumption that all applications and databases built are using the CPU register size as a data type for storage for Unix Timestamps. This, however, is hardly the case. There are plenty of 32-bit applications that use 64-bit storage, and 64-bit applications that use 32-bit storage for timestamps.
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Re: What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:2)
Why is it arguably the fastest? I don't believe there are any x86 instructions where the latency is lower for 32-bit arguments than for 64-bit arguments, except perhaps division, which is almost entirely irrelevant because it used so rarely.
There are cases where using smaller types improves throughput, but the number of places that are going to vectorize operations on timestamps can probably be counted on one hand.
Re: (Score:3)
No no no. Simply switching to a 64 bit linux will be enough for linux users to avoid the bug; a switch most already made.
The problem is going to be appliances, not just linux but *BSD too. And combined, the *nixes make up the majority of appliance computers, and many are 32 bit.
All sorts of things from routers to air conditioners might stop working. Or at least, operate at the wrong times until somebody changes the date.
Delay, not fix (Score:4, Funny)
Simply switching to a 64 bit linux will be enough for linux users to avoid the bug
Technically that's not a fix, it just delays the problem. Admittedly it's a delay of about 292 billion years but still...
Re:Delay, not fix (Score:5, Funny)
Simply switching to a 64 bit linux will be enough for linux users to avoid the bug
Technically that's not a fix, it just delays the problem. Admittedly it's a delay of about 292 billion years but still...
I hear that will also be the year of the Linux Desktop.
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OpenBSD has been patched for this, even on 32 bit platforms.
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Not at all because many bits of code might treat / assume that time_t is an int.
The ISO standard pretty much says that it is, and even insists that its signed. It just doesnt say how big.
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Windows used to blow up after 49.7 days.
There are millions of embedded devices using Unix Epoch and a 32-bit signed value. Y2038 is a much bigger problem than Y2K, and now that we use security certificates just about everywhere, you'll find a lot of inaccessible devices that think they have certificates that are too far in the past.
We're pretty much doomed. I recommend investing in Amish technology like horse carriages and chicken feed.
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All the IoT shit will go belly up? Hallelujah! The future is looking bright!
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If by "IoT shit" you mean your router, your network switch, your PVR, your car, your industrial control system, your ship navigation eqipment, your medical equipment etc.
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Re: What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:5, Funny)
If it has systemd you wouldn't be able to read them anyway.
Car (Score:2)
your router, your network switch, your PVR,
In theory : yes.
In practice : those will probably have been changed a couple of times between now and 2038.
Officially on the ground of "new standards and feature"
(read: DRM scheme changing requiring you to rebuy PVR and set-top boxes)
your car,
Though note that a car is actually a data center on wheel full of different computers.
Linux is usually very popular on the infotainment system (the big screen with your music player and satnav)
But on the low-level critical components, other OSes (mostly real-time OSes like QNX)
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Re: What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:4)
And how many of them will be around in 18 years?
Maybe half of them will still be around then, I don't really know. We still find Amigas running HVAC systems [popularmechanics.com].
If I'm a business owner and the badge reader on my warehouses work fine for 10 years, why would I replace them? I figured they would still work fine for another 10 years, only to find out that nobody can get into the building in 2038. And that's funny, all the repair people are too busy today to do anything about it. And I can't seem to leave a voicemail to the badge suppler because it keeps hanging up.
Hopefully the traffic lights work. Depends on if your particular state's government is competent or not.
2%?? Linux is a lot bigger in servers / embedded (Score:2)
2%?? Linux is a lot bigger in servers / embedded systems. And a lot of embedded systems.
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2%?? Linux is a lot bigger in servers / embedded systems. And a lot of embedded systems.
Not to mention embedded systems.
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That bug is only an issue if you use Linux. Windows does not have that problem. If you use Windows, this isn't a problem. Linux has, what, maybe 2% of the market share? This isn't a big deal at all.
There is some truth in this.
Somehow Microsoft managed to update their compiler to make time_t 64-bit on 32-bit platforms without the world ending.
At some point Linux ABI was updated to support files exceeding 2^31 bytes while retaining full backwards compatibility so I I'm not buying insurmountable technical justifications other than simple lack of will.
Stance in Linux land as far as I've look into the issue seems to be either switch to a 64-bit platform or bugger off with little to no interest in a solutio
Re: What about the Y2K38 bug? (Score:5, Insightful)
so I I'm not buying insurmountable technical justifications other than simple lack of will.
It boils down to the fact that correctly handling time is complicated. Leap years, seconds, gregorian nonsense, .. the rules just pile up higher and higher. Nobody wants to touch that code and I dont blame them.
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That bug is only an issue if you use Linux. Windows does not have that problem. If you use Windows, this isn't a problem. Linux has, what, maybe 2% of the market share? This isn't a big deal at all.
This problem only effects 32-bit Linux. Most desktop and server users are now using 64-bit Linux. The main effect of this is likely to be on embedded systems.
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