Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Y2K II (or the DST '07 bug)
Remember Y2K? In the computer world, at least, Y2K was a pretty important milestone to pass without bringing civilization down to its knees. One part was the programming that had to be done in order to convert 2 digit years into 4, but another large part was operating system patches that needed to be installed. By the time Y2K got onto the regular technologist's radar, the OS patches were already in place, they just needed to install them in the next 2 years (assuming you started your planning in 1998).
Now, a different kind of challenge comes our way, and we're not even aware of it. 3/11/Y2K.7 or DST07 (for "Daylight Saving Time 2007" - isn't it cute how I cut off the century marker for this new bug?)
It's like a leap hour that we are going to get for free, so if you get charged by the hour for some things (like phonecalls, or I dunno - Internet Porn?), you may not be charged for the wee hours of the morning on March 11th, which is where the new daylight savings will occur this year. On the contra side, you may get charged an extra hour if you're on the phone when the old daylight saving switch comes and goes on the 25th (correct me if I'm wrong on the dates).
So, o.k. airplanes won't be falling out of the sky or anything, but that wasn't a realistic threat in Y2K either. The threat, however benign, is out there and I think my TiVo is going to pay the price.
On a side note: I'm very sad to hear that http://bonsaikitten.com/ is no longer active.
Now, a different kind of challenge comes our way, and we're not even aware of it. 3/11/Y2K.7 or DST07 (for "Daylight Saving Time 2007" - isn't it cute how I cut off the century marker for this new bug?)
It's like a leap hour that we are going to get for free, so if you get charged by the hour for some things (like phonecalls, or I dunno - Internet Porn?), you may not be charged for the wee hours of the morning on March 11th, which is where the new daylight savings will occur this year. On the contra side, you may get charged an extra hour if you're on the phone when the old daylight saving switch comes and goes on the 25th (correct me if I'm wrong on the dates).
So, o.k. airplanes won't be falling out of the sky or anything, but that wasn't a realistic threat in Y2K either. The threat, however benign, is out there and I think my TiVo is going to pay the price.
On a side note: I'm very sad to hear that http://bonsaikitten.com/ is no longer active.
