"Terry Collins" wrote in message
...
Gunner wrote:

For the best info, misc.survivalism is a rather knowledgable newsgroup

ROFL. Funniest thing you've said in a while.
m.s is the refuge for all the Y2K and like hysteria.

Y2K has come and gone. Now is the time to start getting ready for Y3K.

Steve.

Emmo wrote:

You are incorrect. Global warming is as make-believe as the Y2K problem
was.

There were no changes that needed to be made because of the 2 digit date -
it was solely an opportunity (mostly pushed by Lou Gerstner at IBM) to sell
services.

Who would have any desire to see government's role expanded to control
CO2 emissions?
I am trying real hard to figure this out.
I know Dubya said in 2000 that he was the guy for less government, and
if you want more government, vote for the other guy.
I just can't figure out what sort of person would have ANY bias to
promote a false problem so that government could control each private
car, furnace, and fart.....
This is just a guess, but could it be the socialists and communists?
How would their agenda be advanced if government controlled everything?
Would they abandon science to advance their agenda?
But liberals are always so honest.

--
Be careful what you pray for, it can happen.

John Smith wrote:

"Clark Magnuson" wrote in message
...


10,000 years warm
100,000 years ice
10,000 years warm
100,000 years ice
10,000 years warm
What's next? Global Warming?

It would be great if Global Warming were more than liberal orthodoxy,
but it isn't.
We will get another ice age, and the earth will support a tiny fraction
of today's population.

--
Be careful what you pray for, it can happen.




Ostrich!


I am predicted biblical destruction, and you think I am hiding my head
in the sand?
Or is it just knee jerk name calling for someone who does not choose to
give up private property for the benefit of meeting the needs of human
garbage?






--
Be careful what you pray for, it can happen.

I suppose this thinking is a sign of modern times in wealthy countries.
That is we are so isolated from nature (in our climate controlled
homes) and protected from just about all our former natural predators,
that we have to start making up things we need protection from.
Probably its an instinct we can't get rid of,


Human nature is destructive. It can create socialism.

Perhaps it is our instinct to control others that made the founding
fathers try to protect us from the sort of control freaks that would use
Global warming as an excuse to enslave us.
In 1972 I saw the full court press of college try to brainwash me into
thinking that the world was going to end unless we intervene with
government.
Who has a nicer environment, the old USSR or the USA?
Where do you want to live?
It seems that all men would be tyrants, just like 200 years ago.

Liberals make Hell on earth.
The are zombies that eat the brains of those who would go to college,
watch TV, go to the movies, or listen to NPR.
Listen to the wimpy right spew the truth and get beat by the fast sound
bites of the leftist propaganda.
Today NPR dug up a climatologist who believes in global warming. Those
are hard to find!
And no challenge to the his one sided propaganda.

--
Be careful what you pray for, it can happen.

jim rozen wrote:

In article BKzQd.403476$8l.39351@pd7tw1no, Randy Zimmerman says...


satellites were doing it. No worries we are going to have mass starvation

from overpopulation by 1980. In between California was going to sink into

the ocean.


Does gunner know about this?



Jim


California will never 'sink' or fall over into the ocean. California by way
of plate tectonics between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate.

I just made a road trip down south and back - passing one part of a mountain outcropping
and the other half a hundred or so miles later.

I live on the Pacific plate and move toward Alaska in a more or less direction.

During the last big earthquake we had - 8.4 or 7.8 when they finally decided -
the county I live in moved 7 feet (2 meters !) to the north west.

Martin

--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Emmo wrote:

Global Warming is as much of a problem for the world as Y2K was...


Hum - when the north pole ice (that floats) melts - there won't be much
change in the level of the earth water. - rationale : logic : take a glass,
add ice cubes, add water to 1/4" of the top. Glass never overflows when
the ice melts.

What might do more to us is the South pole and the flooding from Mt. Everest
and the others around it.

Martin

--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 10:31:53 +1100, Terry Collins
wrote:

Gunner wrote:

For the best info, misc.survivalism is a rather knowledgable newsgroup

ROFL. Funniest thing you've said in a while.
m.s is the refuge for all the Y2K and like hysteria.

Question for you Terry...there was about $600 Billion dollars spend on
Y2K remediation in the 4 or so years prior the event.

Can you honestly tell me, that without that remediation, things would
have been just warm and fuzzy?

http://www.mitre.org/tech/y2k/briefi...fused_RAM1.pdf


http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.... bjectType=ART


Now about hysteria and paranoia

http://www.google.com/search?q=tsunami+&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-27,GGLD:en&start=10&sa=N

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...lifornia+fires
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/view...udslide-050112

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation...g=Van%20Plunge

**** NEVER happens, does it?

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 13:02:08 -0800, "Bob May"
wrote:

The Vikings, for example, hit the northern
area of Newfoundland (they called it Vinland) and found grapes growing
profusely. Today, grapes only grow up to the New York area without a lot of
work protecting them from cold.

During the same time period of several hundred years or more, England
had a thriving wine ag industry.

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

During the last big earthquake we had - 8.4 or 7.8 when they finally
decided -
the county I live in moved 7 feet (2 meters !) to the north west.

Martin

Quit that its crowded enough up here already ;-)
Ken Cutt

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:23:39 GMT, "Martin H. Eastburn"
wrote:

jim rozen wrote:

In article BKzQd.403476$8l.39351@pd7tw1no, Randy Zimmerman says...


satellites were doing it. No worries we are going to have mass starvation

from overpopulation by 1980. In between California was going to sink into

the ocean.


Does gunner know about this?



Jim


California will never 'sink' or fall over into the ocean. California by way
of plate tectonics between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate.

I just made a road trip down south and back - passing one part of a mountain outcropping
and the other half a hundred or so miles later.

I live on the Pacific plate and move toward Alaska in a more or less direction.

During the last big earthquake we had - 8.4 or 7.8 when they finally decided -
the county I live in moved 7 feet (2 meters !) to the north west.

Martin

When you were standing in my back yard..you were a measured 3.7 miles
from the San Andreas Fault.

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

"Tom" wrote in message
...
Bob May wrote:

Before you go off the deep end,........................
.................................................. ........
Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Somehow, I get the idea from your signature that you have no solutions
nor the nous to obtain same considering how long you've been using it.
I take it, you drive a Ford F150...

Hey. What's wrong with F150s?

Besides, it's not our fault that Bob doesn't know how to do a simple search
to answer his own sig line.

Steve.

In article , Gunner says...

Question for you Terry...there was about $600 Billion dollars spend on
Y2K remediation in the 4 or so years prior the event.

Can you honestly tell me, that without that remediation, things would
have been just warm and fuzzy?

Well, it employed a lot of computer programmers.

I think the entire thing was cooked up by those folks.
They decided they were working themselves out of a
job about 40 years ago. So they built in a few 'traps'
to be sure they'd be needed down the line.

We just found the first one. Wonder when the
Y2.414K problem's gonna crop up....

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

On 17 Feb 2005 05:11:23 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , Gunner says...

Question for you Terry...there was about $600 Billion dollars spend on
Y2K remediation in the 4 or so years prior the event.

Can you honestly tell me, that without that remediation, things would
have been just warm and fuzzy?

Well, it employed a lot of computer programmers.

I think the entire thing was cooked up by those folks.
They decided they were working themselves out of a
job about 40 years ago. So they built in a few 'traps'
to be sure they'd be needed down the line.

We just found the first one. Wonder when the
Y2.414K problem's gonna crop up....

Jim

So you are claiming that the issue was intentionally caused by
programmers 5-15 yrs prior?

Interesting

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

I figure that I have maybe 25 years left on this rock. 25 years in the span
of geologic history is a nanosecond. Nothing is going to really take place
in my lifretime.

If you are so afraid of global warming, I suggest you go get an air
conditioned closet, lay in some supplies, go in there and lock the door, and
never come out.

For those of us who like to live every day and enjoy life, it will go on as
usual.

I just saw on TV where an asteroid will pass within 24,000 miles of the
earth in 2029. If there is anything that one should be concerned about, it
is something like that. An asteroid collision could end life as we know it
in about six weeks. They say that the asteroid should be visible from Great
Britain. I hope I am around then, but doubt it. In the meantime, I shall
continue my hedonistic ways of beer, football, fishing, motorhoming,
metalworking, traveling, enjoying my grandchildren, eating, making love, and
all the other stuff.

I hope you are comfy in your closet. You could always move to Kalifornicate
and run around waving your arms in the air like all the other loonies.

Steve

In article , Gunner says...

So you are claiming that the issue was intentionally caused by
programmers 5-15 yrs prior?

Well actually it was. "Back when I was a boy" (or as my daughter
says 'back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...') every bit of
memory cost. Figure all those data files had a date in there, if
you could save 32 bits somehow in each one, that adds up after
a while.

Hence the XX year format rather than XXXX.

But honestly I figure they just wanted to see that they'd
have jobs right around the year 1999.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

In article ,
Gunner wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:15:17 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner" wrote in message
. ..
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:23:19 -0600, stanley baer
wrote:

My friends think I am a bit of a nutcase when I mention what is on my
mind and either dismiss me as being overly pessimistic or are resigned
to going down with a sinking ship. I feel better if I am getting
prepared. What strategies would you guys suggest.

First of all, global warming is a myth. We are actually heading into
the next ice age.

Branching out into environmental science, are we, Gunner? g!

Of course. If the Greens/Leftwing fringe kooks/sky-is-falling/types
can use junk science, I can too. Its only fair

GUnner

What's junky about the global warming science?

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/

What's junky about the global warming science?

A front page article in the Wall Street Journal on 2/14

In Climate Debate, The 'Hockey Stick' Leads to a Face-Off


went into great detail about how the data has been mis-represented. The
original scientist has made some corrections, but now won't even share the
data he originally used. (I am not a subscriber to the online edition, so
can't post the article here.)

Global warming is a litmus test for junk science. Humans simply do not make
enough CO2 to affect climates. Edward Teller has pointed out that one good
nuclear blast, imitating Krakatoa, could put enough dust in the air to cool
off the globe for years. Every penny spent to mitigate this non-existent
problem is wasted, and should have been spent on issues where the problems
are real.

What's junky about the global warming science?

A front page article in the Wall Street Journal on 2/14

In Climate Debate, The 'Hockey Stick' Leads to a Face-Off


went into great detail about how the data has been mis-represented. The
original scientist has made some corrections, but now won't even share the
data he originally used. (I am not a subscriber to the online edition, so
can't post the article here.)

Global warming is a litmus test for junk science. Humans simply do not make
enough CO2 to affect climates. Edward Teller has pointed out that one good
nuclear blast, imitating Krakatoa, could put enough dust in the air to cool
off the globe for years. Every penny spent to mitigate this non-existent
problem is wasted, and should have been spent on issues where the problems
are real.

--1) Don't buy beachfront property
--2) ?

--
"Steamboat Ed" Haas : I want to return to
Hacking the Trailing Edge! : the time before time...
http://www.nmpproducts.com/intro.htm
---Decks a-wash in a sea of words---

Here's a good dissertation on some of the problems with the science
surrounding the issue of global warming:

http://www.crichton-official.com/spe...s_quote04.html

B.B. wrote:


What's junky about the global warming science?

This is a really good and interesting take on the issue. I am grateful that
you posted it. FWIW, today the news is that polar bears are threatened by
global warming and so should be added to the endangered species list...

Here's a good dissertation on some of the problems with the science
surrounding the issue of global warming:

http://www.crichton-official.com/spe...s_quote04.html

B.B. wrote:


What's junky about the global warming science?

On 17 Feb 2005 10:20:58 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , Gunner says...

So you are claiming that the issue was intentionally caused by
programmers 5-15 yrs prior?

Well actually it was. "Back when I was a boy" (or as my daughter
says 'back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...') every bit of
memory cost. Figure all those data files had a date in there, if
you could save 32 bits somehow in each one, that adds up after
a while.

Hence the XX year format rather than XXXX.

But honestly I figure they just wanted to see that they'd
have jobs right around the year 1999.

Jim

Confirming..that programmers intentionally set up the 2 digit format
to ensure job security at Y2k?

Jim....wear a helmet more often.

Gunner


Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 12:35:51 -0600, "B.B."
u wrote:

In article ,
Gunner wrote:

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 10:15:17 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:23:19 -0600, stanley baer
wrote:

My friends think I am a bit of a nutcase when I mention what is on my
mind and either dismiss me as being overly pessimistic or are resigned
to going down with a sinking ship. I feel better if I am getting
prepared. What strategies would you guys suggest.

First of all, global warming is a myth. We are actually heading into
the next ice age.

Branching out into environmental science, are we, Gunner? g!

Of course. If the Greens/Leftwing fringe kooks/sky-is-falling/types
can use junk science, I can too. Its only fair

GUnner

What's junky about the global warming science?

When you find some that actually Involves science, we'll talk.

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

In article ,
Gunner wrote:

[...]

What's junky about the global warming science?

When you find some that actually Involves science, we'll talk.

I'll pass on it, then. I don't want to get wrapped up in dragging OT
political junk in here. I just wondered if you had any specific
comments.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/

In article ,
Tim Killian wrote:

Here's a good dissertation on some of the problems with the science
surrounding the issue of global warming:

http://www.crichton-official.com/spe...s_quote04.html

B.B. wrote:


What's junky about the global warming science?

I wouldn't call it a "good" dissertation.

"Consensus" He does a really good job of laying out how the term has
been abused and molested by politicians, but all that established is
that we now have two versions of "consensus." One version is a bunch of
scientists going "Yah, that sounds good, but I haven't checked it out,"
while the other version is a bunch of scientists going "Yeah, I reviewed
it and it's correct." Rather than point out that both versions are
floating around in discussions and when you hear "consensus" you need to
figure out which one you're hearing about he simply implies that
anything billed as "consensus" is crap.
In fact, he states: " There is no such thing as consensus science. If
it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus.
Period." Well, it isn't period, because there is occasional overlap
that you'll need to allow for.
It's also kind of funny he uses E=MC^2 as an example of non-consensus
science because some parts are still unproven and just kind of accepted
for now. Look up the "Gravity Probe B" experiment for more details
about that.
He also goes and makes a somewhat large leap of logic early on when
discussing Drake's Equation. He (rightfully) points out that an
equation of nothing but unknowns is worthless. However, then he links it
to nuclear winter predictions by pointing out an equation the debaters
implicitly used while arguing. But the difference is that it's not an
equation of all unknowns; you can experimentally determine how much ash
would be generated and how it would be distributed within some error
margin. You might wind up with an error margin so large you get useless
results, but you'd have a starting place to refine your experiments to
reduce that error to a useful level. So, not necessarily useless as
Drake's Equation. Could be, but he can't connect enough dots to show
it. However, that doesn't seem to dissuade him from carrying on as if
his case is bullet proof.
And while all the repeated examples of people who've given bull****
predictions in the past is amusing, it's also meaningless. Hiding
behind science or not, bull**** predictions are all over the place and
for every argument out there you can probably find a bull****ter or two.
That doesn't necessarily mean everything (or even anything) else is
bull**** as well, though he does imply it. Again, a big logical leap.
His take on models is a half-assed take, kind of like he did with
"consensus" above. Yeah, models that just model the future are useless,
but models that are legitimate get compared with collected data to
verify their accuracy are and then used to extrapolate a plausible "what
if" scenario. A big user is NASA who has been using orbital models to
fling satellites around the solar system for some time now quite
successfully. Not all models are the creation of programmers trying to
justify their own jobs with a flurry of numbers as he implies.
Anyway, he goes on and on, building his own model (which he thinks is
junk, I suppose) of what amounts to a set of symptoms of junk science,
then he points out that global warming suffers all of these symptoms.
He mentions that global warming fits his template of nuclear winter,
SETI, and whatnot, but nowhere in that entire dissertation does he draw
up any specific examples of global warming theories that actually are
junk science. All of it is just a big maybe. So, I really don't see at
all how this shows what's junky about the global warming research that's
going on.
That said, I do agree with some of his conclusions, even if I think
the way he got to 'em is iffy.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
http://web2.airmail.net/thegoat4/

Gunner wrote:
On 17 Feb 2005 10:20:58 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:


In article , Gunner says...


So you are claiming that the issue was intentionally caused by
programmers 5-15 yrs prior?

Well actually it was. "Back when I was a boy" (or as my daughter
says 'back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...') every bit of
memory cost. Figure all those data files had a date in there, if
you could save 32 bits somehow in each one, that adds up after
a while.

Hence the XX year format rather than XXXX.

But honestly I figure they just wanted to see that they'd
have jobs right around the year 1999.

Jim


Confirming..that programmers intentionally set up the 2 digit format
to ensure job security at Y2k?

Jim....wear a helmet more often.

Gunner


Why's that? they now make them with a tinfoil liner?

Really if you want to know the real scoop, it wasn't the programmers at all.
Bunch of nerdy kids would never come up with something like that,
No had to be the hardware designers.
This mores law stuff is just too close to be true,
The truth was they could have made mega byte chips way back in the 50's
but they just wanted that planned obsolesces.
Just how gullable can you be to believe that clock work doubling every
18 months wasn't artificial.

Ken Cutt wrote:


During the last big earthquake we had - 8.4 or 7.8 when they finally
decided -
the county I live in moved 7 feet (2 meters !) to the north west.

Martin

Quit that its crowded enough up here already ;-)
Ken Cutt
In BC are you -- we will by pass and wave on the way by - only
for one thing -
I'm moving out finally.

Martin

--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Gunner wrote:

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 06:23:39 GMT, "Martin H. Eastburn"
wrote:


jim rozen wrote:


In article BKzQd.403476$8l.39351@pd7tw1no, Randy Zimmerman says...



satellites were doing it. No worries we are going to have mass starvation

from overpopulation by 1980. In between California was going to sink into


the ocean.


Does gunner know about this?



Jim



California will never 'sink' or fall over into the ocean. California by way
of plate tectonics between the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate.

I just made a road trip down south and back - passing one part of a mountain outcropping
and the other half a hundred or so miles later.

I live on the Pacific plate and move toward Alaska in a more or less direction.

During the last big earthquake we had - 8.4 or 7.8 when they finally decided -
the county I live in moved 7 feet (2 meters !) to the north west.

Martin


When you were standing in my back yard..you were a measured 3.7 miles
from the San Andreas Fault.

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"
It is about twice that East of me here at home in northern Ca.
It runs on the inner side of the coastal mountains in this part of Ca.

Used to puddle jump it twice a day to and from work.
I'm about 5 or 6 miles from the coast on the western foot hills of the
coastal mountains in Santa Cruz County.

Martin

--
Martin Eastburn, Barbara Eastburn
@ home at Lion's Lair with our computer
NRA LOH, NRA Life
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder

Bob May wrote:

Before you go off the deep end,........................
.................................................. .........
Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Somehow, I get the idea from your signature that you have no solutions
nor the nous to obtain same considering how long you've been using it.
I take it, you drive a Ford F150...

Martin H. Eastburn wrote:
Ken Cutt wrote:


During the last big earthquake we had - 8.4 or 7.8 when they finally
decided -
the county I live in moved 7 feet (2 meters !) to the north west.

Martin

Quit that its crowded enough up here already ;-)
Ken Cutt

In BC are you -- we will by pass and wave on the way by - only
for one thing -
I'm moving out finally.

Martin

Well if you are passing by might as well stop long enough for a " cold
one and a bite to eat "

Ken Cutt

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 07:58:57 GMT, "Martin H. Eastburn"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

It would be great if Global Warming were more than liberal orthodoxy,
but it isn't.

Yes if things don't change.

Which they won't. Somebody HAD to make politics of it, in a silly,
sweeping way.

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 22:23:19 -0600, stanley baer
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Mya answer was simple. 30 yeaars ago I decided that globale warming
was only _one_ problem on Earth, and did not have a family....

I know that global warming is not talked about too much in the US, but
you guys seem like a pretty well informed bunch and I am curious what
your ideas would be concerning the following.

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 19:53:34 -0800, "Tom Dacon"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

It's not going to happen that fast. The media people get a little hysterical
about it. I'm a believer, but it's not going to be happening on anything
like a short time scale. You and your family and their children and THEIR
children, to many generations, will be long dead before there are any
serious effects,

You know this how?

Also, sometimes, media hysteria and other people's hysteria can be the
only thing that makes the mass of people aware that anything is wrong,
and thus _maybe_ slow the problem a little.

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 04:12:17 GMT, "Randy Zimmerman"
vaguely proposed a theory
.......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

You have been listneing too much to Suzuki!!! Do a google search on the guy
and read some of the counter information.
At 57 I have heard them all.
WW2 caused massive climate change. The atomic tests were doing it. The
satellites were doing it. No worries we are going to have mass starvation
from overpopulation by 1980. In between California was going to sink into
the ocean.

But is there not just a slim chance that "listening to too much
Suzuki" could be some of the reason we did _not_ starve by 1980? For
instance, the latest US cars are getting amazing fuel consumption.
This seems to be laregely caused by pressure to get fuel-efficient
cars. This is not all economic. I reckon people would have happil,y
gone on grumbling and using great v8 gas guzzlers if nobody stood up
and shouted about problems.

Get on with your life.

That's a lot of the problem.

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 21:51:38 -0600, "B.B."
u wrote:

In article ,
Gunner wrote:

[...]

What's junky about the global warming science?

When you find some that actually Involves science, we'll talk.

I'll pass on it, then. I don't want to get wrapped up in dragging OT
political junk in here. I just wondered if you had any specific
comments.

I think my comment above pretty much covers it.

Gunner

Rule #35
"That which does not kill you,
has made a huge tactical error"

jim rozen wrote:
In article , Gunner says...
So you are claiming that the issue was intentionally caused by
programmers 5-15 yrs prior?
Well actually it was. "Back when I was a boy" (or as my daughter
says 'back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...') every bit of
memory cost. Figure all those data files had a date in there, if
you could save 32 bits somehow in each one, that adds up after
a while.

You'd only save that much memory if you were foolish enough to use BCD
or some other inefficient storage scheme. You can store a whole lot of
years in 16 bits, even without going to the trouble of normalizing to a
common date (as Unix did). The problem was, they probably used 16 bits
of space to store the 2 digit year values anyway: "Gee, let's store
numeric data as an ASCII text field, that'll simplify life *so* much."

Hence the XX year format rather than XXXX.

But honestly I figure they just wanted to see that they'd
have jobs right around the year 1999.

I disagree, it was probably a hardware constraint (16 bits max on a hard
drive) plus a shortsighted perspective on how long the machines would be
around. Honeywell decommissioned the last of its GECOS mainframes (many
dating from the '60s) just before Y2K by replacing them with Oracle
applications and databases running on Unix boxes. A smart move, in my
opinion, and I had nothing to do with the decision or the implementation.

Right now I'd feel safe in limiting my databases to Y64K (16 bits) and
it wouldn't be about assuring some contract work when the limit is reached.

Pete

"Pete Bergstrom" wrote in message
...

You'd only save that much memory if you were foolish enough to use BCD
or some other inefficient storage scheme. You can store a whole lot of
years in 16 bits, even without going to the trouble of normalizing to a
common date (as Unix did). The problem was, they probably used 16 bits
of space to store the 2 digit year values anyway: "Gee, let's store
numeric data as an ASCII text field, that'll simplify life *so* much."

Hence the XX year format rather than XXXX.

But honestly I figure they just wanted to see that they'd
have jobs right around the year 1999.

I disagree, it was probably a hardware constraint (16 bits max on a hard
drive) plus a shortsighted perspective on how long the machines would be
around. Honeywell decommissioned the last of its GECOS mainframes (many
dating from the '60s) just before Y2K by replacing them with Oracle
applications and databases running on Unix boxes. A smart move, in my
opinion, and I had nothing to do with the decision or the implementation.

From 1973 to 1977 I worked with the McGraw-Hill circulation database for 26
magazines on a daily basis (something over 2 million records, a mainframe
system with an elaborate subsystem of satellite tapes and temporary working
files). Each record had 23 fields; all but the address and name fields were
cryptic codes. Subscription years were stored as two-digit codes, the last
two digits of the year.

Software managers who were commenting on the Y2K problem before the turn of
the century said, for the most part, they had to squeeze the fields down to
the smallest possible size to keep record sizes down and that they never
anticipated that the software would still be used a quarter-century later. I
don't know what the whole story is but it sounds very reasonable, having
worked with those guys every day back in the '70s.

--
Ed Huntress

In article , Ed Huntress says...

Software managers who were commenting on the Y2K problem before the turn of
the century said, for the most part, they had to squeeze the fields down to
the smallest possible size to keep record sizes down and that they never
anticipated that the software would still be used a quarter-century later. I
don't know what the whole story is but it sounds very reasonable, having
worked with those guys every day back in the '70s.

My understanding from talking to the folks who did a lot of this
is that you are correct. They were just trying to save two digits
in the data, multiplied by a lot of data files.

Remember, when you bought a PC then, it had no hard drive.
Those were aftermarket. 20 megs of hard drive space was
huge.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

On 18 Feb 2005 12:19:40 -0800, jim rozen wrote:
In article , Ed Huntress says...

Software managers who were commenting on the Y2K problem before the turn of
the century said, for the most part, they had to squeeze the fields down to
the smallest possible size to keep record sizes down and that they never
anticipated that the software would still be used a quarter-century later. I
don't know what the whole story is but it sounds very reasonable, having
worked with those guys every day back in the '70s.

My understanding from talking to the folks who did a lot of this
is that you are correct. They were just trying to save two digits
in the data, multiplied by a lot of data files.

Yes. I specifically remember being taught to use 9999 as a flag
in the date field as "done with job". The last entry in a table would
be 9999 which was the exit condition for whatever routine was operating
on it.

I guarantee that if anyone was still using several programs I wrote
when Y2K came around, they had problems on September 9th of 1999.

Remember, when you bought a PC then, it had no hard drive.
Those were aftermarket. 20 megs of hard drive space was
huge.

Heh...I didn't get a hard drive until about 6 years into it. No
floppies for the first 3 or so, it was all on magnetic tape. At
150 baud.

Global warming is a litmus test for junk science. Humans simply do not make

enough CO2 to affect climates.

If there could be a coming together of liberals and conservatives, conservatives would have to admit that there is science to evolution and liberals would have to admit there is no science to global warming. We could respect for other peoples faith, be it liberal or conservative, we just don't want our nose rubbed in it in schools and in the news.


--
Be careful what you pray for, it can happen.