On Fri, 05 Jan 2018 11:27:38 -0700 Eric Oyen wrote: > oh boy. This sounds like another Y2K problem, only this one has some > reality about it and real consequences. Y2K was completely real, and would have had real consequences if our society hadn't taken three years to fix most of it. We were fortunate that in those days society was willing to put in hard work to fix a future problem, rather than "kicking the can down the road." Between 1984 and 1991 I wrote plenty of software using 2 digit years. So did everyone else. Much of the Cobol from the 1960's onward used 2 digit dates to save memory, which was very precious back then. Much of that software was still used in 1999, and some is still used today. It got fixed. It's speculation what would have happened if our entire society hadn't pitched in and fixed most software in 1997-1999, but it's my opinion that if we'd done then what we'd surely do now (call it somebody else's problem, keep prioritizing our own little lives and those of our corporations, and do nothing), we'd be bartering gold for tuna and water for bullets. None of this is to imply that Meltdown and Spectre aren't a very big deal. Just don't think Y2K was no big deal because we did the necessary work to fix it proactively. SteveT Steve Litt December 2017 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss