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21st Century starts here, sort of (actually, like Millennium, not until
2001, but what the hey...)
We survived here, so far. I'll let you know what the new century looks like
-- as soon as the smoke clears. Possible glitches can of still occur midnight
GMT, given that a lot of systems run on this time. Not to mention when business
powers up again after the holidays.
So far, the only Y2k bug I've seen here is that a few programs show shortform
dates incorrectly. Their display went from 31.12.99 (99-12-31)
to 01.01.100 (100-01-01) -- Oops. Otherwise it's kind of cool
with a "binary" date <g>.
One example is the WS_FTP client, but changing preferences there to 4-digit
years gives a correct 2000 date.
The smoke cleared in due time, even though some did their best to add to
it far into the early dawn hours, but the day here is still gray and grungy.
After last night, one almost expected the clouds this morning to be dangling
remains of rockets, and the odd shot-down plane or incendiary grilled bird
in the back yards (shut up, Salem).
Edward's main reaction this morning was the (expected) anticlimactic "it's
just another day". I see that thought reflected in a number of postings among
the daynoters, who note that all the Y2k worries have apparently come to
naught.
A fair amount of this non-incident result may be due to the vast amounts
of money and time spent to secure critical systems once the potential problem
was given priority above all else. But we "knew" already then that much of
the media-driven Y2k hysteria was just that -- hysteria, with little basis
in fact.
That said, throughout 1999 we have had minor glitches of one kind or another
as various systems started using date intervals that stretched into 2000.
These were rectified in one way or another. But remember we had glitches
for other reasons as well. For the rest of this new year, we are likely to
experience further annoying but non-critical (we hope) glitches at unexpected
moments, some due to Y2k, some due to other reasons.
We can also take the long-term perspective, that mankind as a whole is but
a glitch in the overall scheme of things <g>.
Some reported Y2k minor glitches:
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US official timekeeper, the Naval Observatory, reported the date as
19100 on its website. -- This is the same problem that I noted for
some program date displays.
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Japanese system collecting flight information for small planes failed.
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Australian bus ticket validation machines failed.
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Over 150 slot machines at race tracks in Delaware failed.
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A Spanish worker was summoned to an industrial tribunal on 3 February, 1900.
-
A South Korean district court summoned 170 people to court on the 4 January,
1900.
-
Telecom Italia sent out bills for the first two months of 1900.
-
Some credit card transactions failed in the UK and US, and probably other
places.
The Gartner Group predicts that less than 10% of Y2K glitches will
occur in the first two weeks of January, with 55% hitting over the rest of
the year. "Most Y2K errors are pretty dull," says one
expert, Bruce Webster, co-chair of the Washington-based Year 2000 Group.
"A program stops working or it makes a bad calculation. None of this
means planes falling out of the sky or nuclear meltdowns." He expects
the biggest system failures to occur gradually, over a period of days and
weeks.
An interesting animated film popped up on the TV this afternoon, quite
unexpectedly, and it was only chance that we saw it. Called (in its official
release 1995) Arabian Knight, there is more to this one than initially
apparent. Highly imaginative visually, the retro late 60s look (sort of
reminiscent of Pink Panther and other period classics) is not really that
retro -- the innovative animation work was actually started over 30 years
ago (as the Thief and the Cobbler) by producer Richard Williams
and had a convoluted history leading to its final release. Therefore, although
many viewers will perceive it as a clone trying to ride on the success of
Disney's Aladin (1992), the true relationship is quite the reverse.
Original owner Warner removed producer Williams from the project after budget
and time overruns, and the film got essentially nowhere until after Williams
completed Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988. The animation work (done
by many masters of the art over the years) was then finished, but completely
recut by Mirimax with voiceovers and songs, and sort of slid under
the door as a summer release, hoping no doubt that nobody would see the
inspirational connections to the earlier box-office hit Alladin
(Mirimax is owned by Disney). Thankfully, there was no visible
attempt to add a genie and a lamp to the remix.
I wouldn't mind looking through the film again sometime with the sound turned
down, just to properly appreciate the visual comedy, although Vincent Price's
rendition of the evil vizier is really excellent. Even in its recut version,
this is an enjoyable romp, and it has an actual storyline.
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