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End of the World 162

Well, before the world goes awry and leaves us in a state of catastrophe, we recorded one last show. We talk about our own Y2K preparation and the recent DVD-related news. If you can still get to a computer, it might be worth a listen.
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End of the World

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  • please understand: I only did that to piss off the l33+ f1r5+ p05+ k1dd135


    -
  • by TAiNiUM ( 66843 ) on Friday December 31, 1999 @01:15PM (#1427532)
    i did some moderating, and the following was the result. notice the sequence of numbers that designate which posts i moderated. december 28?



    Moderating 99/12/28/1622239

    +1 (Informative) Servers are down where I work. (99/12/28/1622239-22, 3 points left)
    +1 (Informative) Site going down for 1.75 days (99/12/28/1622239-25, 2 points left)
    +1 (Informative) ebay (99/12/28/1622239-34, 1 points left)
    +1 (Informative) kepp it up (99/12/28/1622239-37, 0 points left) You don't have any moderator points.

    "Bringing E-Com Sites Down for Y2K?" | Preferences | 89 comments | Search Discussion
    Threshold: Save:
    The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. Slashdot is not responsible for what they say.
    ( Beta is only a state of mind )
    If your site is down, you need a new IS manager (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Bruce Perens (bruce@perens.com) on Friday December 31, @10:44 AHS (#26)
    (User Info) http://TECHNOCRAT.NET/
  • What a nice last thought, hearing Rob's voice before the world is blown to bits.. (or something)...

    Happy New Year everyone, I hope everyone has a safe and very enjoyable time tonight...

    -D.Alphaeus
  • We are running a medium sized ISP, and I'm on guard to{day|night}. Every services are running fine.

    What did we to prepare ourself to Y2K? Honestly not much, the more important part of our preparation was to not be dumb (hardware and software). The information available on the net was more than enough to be reasonably informed of what to really avoid (hard & soft).

    Do I think that our problems are over? Certainly not, I beg that "real" Y2K problem - real meaning: non obvious either by the symptoms or either by the cause) will emearge in the following days/month et even years.

    Nicolas
  • Well, i wanna hear this before the end of the year, so i think i'll use the winamp stream =)
  • by True Dork ( 8000 ) on Friday December 31, 1999 @01:37PM (#1427538) Homepage
    I personally think the real y2k problem for me is going to be the endless number of phone calls, knocks on my office door, and my name being yelled in order to tell me that they have a y2k problem. I predict Excel crashes will be blamed on y2k (even though it did the same thing in 1999), blue screens, slow loading web pages, printers out of paper, dogs that pee in the house, stubbed toes, etc...

    I have a solution. I call my fellow BOFH's to follow suit. Tomorrow I am going to a sporting goods store to buy a ping pong paddle that will be boldly marked "THE Y2K SMACK". It will be in my posession at all times. Blame y2k on something dumb, and SMACK!

    Any other suggestions of what to do to the users would be appreciated *grin*
  • Just wondering but how does MS-DOS not qualify as an OS? I know how Winblowz 3.x & 9x don't count as OSes, since they are merely GUIs which actually use DOS as their actual OS. If DOS isn't actually an OS then what operating system is running a DOS-based computer??

    I knew I secretly had Unix installed on my machine years ago!!
  • Who said MS-DOS wasn't an operating system? Hell I still prefer it over 95 & 98
  • 1 MIN TILL MIDNIGHT GMT!
    EVERYONE HOLD YOUR BREATH!!
  • ok you can breath again
    uh, why is /.'s clock so srewbied up?
    i got 7:05 est

  • Oh GOD its happened!
    Russia just accidently launched all of its nukes at Michigan!
    Everyone go to http://www.webefucked.com for details

    oh well its just Michigan
    no big loss

  • My first victim! SMACK!

    (see my above post about my y2k smack. I have a virtual one too! This is gonna be fun! Bwahahahaha)

    P.S. I'm not picking on you, I'm just being silly. I blame beer :P
  • by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Friday December 31, 1999 @02:10PM (#1427548) Homepage
    midnight GMT
    happened ten minutes ago
    the lights are still on
  • Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my 486's died!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the russain presi=dent stepped down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 missles launched from the US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we're all screwed!!!!!!!!!!!!! everything2 crashed again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the fones don't work in antartica!!!!!!!!!!! Geeks in space stopped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the rednecks are coming!!!!!!!!!!! oh well, at least my gameboy still works.
  • If the IRS isn't Y2K-compliant they'll be checking all of the returns by hand. And I can see them disallowing all kinds of deductions. If it is bad, but not as bad as you think, you may be stuck with the full cost of the shopping spree.

  • While you're there, pick up a baseball bat for the persistant ;)
  • by Katydid ( 80531 ) <Hegemon22@nospAM.yahoo.com> on Friday December 31, 1999 @02:16PM (#1427553)
    are in "On The Beach" by Nevil Shute, for anyone who doesn't know. There's also the crew of a US nuclear sub that happens to be deep underwater when the bombs begin to fly. Good book; I had to read it for school about eight years ago and it made quite an impression.
  • Hey, I know I'm not the easiest guy to get along with around here, but for those of you whose clocks haven't struck midnight, here's hoping that everyone has a very fun and safe time tonight. Seeya in 2000...

    Cheers, and this time I really mean it,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Well It is now 0019 UTC and the net seems to be up I have power and my computer is still working. So I think we will be ok. Congradulation to all the people that put is many many hours (and even years) of hard work so that the roll over went as smothly as it did. best of luck to all my fellow nerds in the new "20" prefix :)
  • Y2K for me
    Is over four hours away.
    I'm bored of this shit.

    Novell Netware in German = Guten Abend !
  • or a golf club!
  • Well it is 0025 UTC and every thing seem ok. The net is up, power is on, I do not see any ICBMs over head. Well I think that a congradulating is in order to all the people that spent many many houres and ever years working so that this roll over could go as somthly as it did good job.

    Well I just wanted to wish all my fellow nerds a good time in the new "20" date prefix :)
  • ok sory I posted this agen I thought this did not go thrue sorry

    Y2K problem yea thats it :)
  • It's not there. Got nothing on the site.
  • Blah! The world didn't end. It would have been convenient ;)
  • by The Uninformed ( 107798 ) on Friday December 31, 1999 @02:38PM (#1427566)
    2600 [2600.com] seems like the Y2K bug has claimed a page... heh...
  • by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Friday December 31, 1999 @02:47PM (#1427568) Homepage
    Yes, all you geeks out there, bored to tears and reading SlashDot for kicks -- you can still have some fun tonight.

    Top Ten Ways to make Y2K fun:

    10. Play REM's "It's the end of the world as we know it" loudly. Repeatedly. Until the VP comes in and begs you to stop playing that damned song.

    9. Point out, as UserFriendly did, that Y2K isn't till 2048, so you're going home.

    8. If your boss is a Pagan, at the rollover of each hour, drop to your knees and loudly pray to the Lord God for salvation from the "cursed bug". Make your speech flowery with thee's, thou's, and use the word "abomination" at least three times.

    7. Annoy your co-workers by reminding them that it's not really the millenium.

    6. Wear a black trenchcoat, especially if you are not in the habit of doing so. Glance nervously at your watch and threaten to leave early.

    5. At 11:59, scream loudly into the phone: "What do you mean, you have another Y2K jumbo Patch I need to install!?!?!". Then leave.

    4. Rent a rider truck. Drive it to work.

    3. Make regular comments about the sudden shortage of high-nitrate fertilizer.

    2. Get a 20 camera flashes (the kind that come on poles). Set them up outside your window. Set them off at 12:00 PM, while screaming "Get Down!"

    1. And the number one way to enjoy Y2K: Quit this stupid job. After all, you're a UNIX geek, you can find a job tomorrow.

    Surgeon general's warning: following these suggestions may be hazardous to your future earnings. This was intended as humour, and is not intended to advocate or condone any illegal activities.

  • I think its a joke. The line "If you have forced this error condition, you may be in violation of state, federal, and/or civil laws. Those outside the United States should check with their respective governments concerning their country's extradition treaty. Dissemination of this error is also strictly prohibited." is the tip off.
  • If you download the MP3 and look at the ID3 tag under Genre it says "Pop". Very funny Rob and Neal and whoever else.
  • sorry it moved
    here's the new site
    http://www.banjotime.com/FarrahsFan.htm

  • I meant Rob and Nate.
  • Or maybe for those of us who are hard of hearing, too?

    Egg, finally de-lelurking
  • Wow, The clocks in my Datacenter have been reporting 1/1/80 91:00 since the GMT rollover. If I was hourly I'd be racking up the OT! Wow, I've never stayed up untll 91:00 hours before, yet I am suprisingly not tired. Must be all the coffie.
  • Yes the site is still up, just can't get to it from www.2600.com, click here [2600.com] if you want to goto the normal site
  • I think Sir MEEPT!!!! meant "Outside the Wall", which is the little song that plays at the very beginning and very end of "The Wall".
  • Personally, I'm sitting here with a 2x4 giggling wildly. Of course, I do this all the time, but it has more of an effect tonight... At least my boss reimbursed me for the beer I brought into the office...Maybe I'll go downstairs and laugh at people (I'm in the middle of downtown Austin.)
  • Hemos, with all respect 'n such...

    You need a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or something. Badly. =)

    *BUT*... if you're that hard up (so to speak) for Lara's pixelized nipples, there are hidden goodies in the games where you can get your fill o' Croft pr0n. I can dig up the hidden moves and send 'em to ya in an email if you like =)

    --
    rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)

  • Went in this morning (.au time) to check everything. All okay until we tried to pass some store orders to the sorter (I work in a warehouse) hrmm...Not getting passed up to merge? strange, not pinging either.

    ...(5 mins later) Okay, who's the clown that unpluged the Hub???

    Took us a while to find :)

  • ...that the reason the world didn't end today was because the geeks were right all along, and the turn of the millenium is still a whole year away.

    Don't mortgage off those bunkers just yet, ye loonies.
    --
    It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
  • I plan to blame any problems I have with my servers at work on EL Nino.
  • So I boot up the ole' Windows machine here... everything's working fine (10pm EST, dec.31st), until that "Critical Update Notification" message comes up. Okay, sure... coulda sworn this wasn't here the other day.

    So I check in with Windows Update... and what's the critical update? It's a Y2K patch for Microsoft Outlook... one of the most often-used Microsoft applications in the business environment! I have to say, considering MS has been fairly good about getting Y2K updates out for their software (in some cases, multiple patches cause they didn't -quite- catch everything), I think releasing a patch just a couple of days before "the day" is horrific.

    Perhaps I should be staying tuned, just in case they discover something 'at the last minute'. After all, you gotta consider that, even though nothing major in terms of computer failures have been reported thus far, that probably just indicates that computers of any real value to society aren't running Windows... ;-) Daltorak
  • All I can say about that last show is that you guys are some sick puppies! but i9t was great, very interesting, and full of gibberish!
    Since we are the most technologically advanced country, (and based on Linux, I think we'll be safe and sound, so we can listen to more of these great shows...

    aye.. this Gin and OJ is getting to me head.. am I still typing right?

    Fook
  • by Dast ( 10275 )
    yet another fucking yy2k haiku

    made friends with jack d.
    hes such a grood friend to me
    i can''t see the screen
  • by Anonymous Coward
    in Japan that is. http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/31/japan .nukes.idg/
  • I don't know if anyone pointed out to the general public yet, but the fact that no y2k bugs are actually taking place might be taken by some people that it was a h0ax. But in fact, that means that everyone did what they were supposed to do, and squashed 90% of those out there. I say good job to all of you y2k exterminators.

    Now we all must brace for the impact of new years into California, where most will probably occur...

  • There used to be a counter counting down hours / minutes towards year 2000 ... it stopped working at about 18:00 CET ... displaying weird shit. Wonder if it's some hacker ... Imagine that, the panel starts displaying "I'm 3r77t I 0wn y0u!" Whoups, quickly pull out the plug!
  • It's a joke. This is what my junk proxy filter returns:

    GET / HTTP/1.0
    Accept: */*
    Referer: http://www.2600.com/
    Accept-Language: en-us
    Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
    If-None-Match: "7bcce-250-386d3c91"
    Host: www.2600.com
    Pragma: no-cache

    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Date: Sat, 01 Jan 2000 04:04:00 GMT
    Server: Apache/1.3.6 (Unix)
    ETag: "7bcce-250-386d3c91"
    Accept-Ranges: bytes
    Content-Length: 592
    Connection: close
    Content-Type: text/html

    It would have returned an HTTP Error of 500 for an internal server eror.

  • by TDR-X ( 47001 )
    Why not party when it's supposed to be :)
    HIC...up.
  • My server namelookup doesn't seem to be working had to use http://209.207.224.40/ to get here? Must be a local host problem.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    >Y2K for me
    >Is over four hours away.
    >I'm bored of this shit.

    It's ten-forty-three
    Midwestern central time
    Have another drink

  • Aw, no... here is the first millenium post for the East Coast I believe
  • It's here
  • the one and only time this will ever be a *good* post..

    Happy New Year All!
  • And all is well.. well the cell tower is out but it isnt very reliable
  • Well, to put it bluntly, Y2K came around and after all the talk about how it would screw up the world as we know it, Jack Squat occurred. No power outage, no missle launches, nothing. I hate to think how this going to be remembered by future generations. "And now class, we discuss 'The Panic of 1999' ". P.S. What happens to the cartoon "After Y2K" now? It's going to sort of end up like Star Trek, which has Earth breaking out into WWIII in the early 1990's (the origin of Khan I think).
  • Well, to put it bluntly, Y2K came around and after all the talk about how it would screw up the world as we know it, Jack Squat occurred. No power outage, no missle launches, nothing. I hate to think how this going to be remembered by future generations. "And now class, we discuss 'The Panic of 1999' ".

    P.S. What happens to the cartoon "After Y2K" now? It's going to sort of end up like Star Trek, which has Earth breaking out into WWIII in the early 1990's (the origin of Khan I think).
  • It was a short circuit. I happened to be watching awhile after they turned it off and the news folks said they had problems with rain and stuff.

    They got it working again around 1:30 AM or something like that Paris time.

    l8r
    Sean
  • posting from the afterlife..... sorry ;0)
  • Auld lang syne and all that crap.
  • Dammit. Did it again.

    I shouldnt' have posted anonymously. That first post of the year was mine! I swear.
  • It means, if you've been following along, that the real version of history is where the Techno Talking Babes (who I'd take over Lara Croft any day) have obviously saved history as we know it. Kudos to ESR for stocking up on lemons ;-)
  • No, it just means I'm out of a job. :)

    - PenguinDude, bored because my friends have decided to play trivial pursuit drinking game.

  • trash, air, Times Square crowd
    milling millions millennium
    waiting for the ball

    What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?

  • according to my calculations, you missed it by one. I saw a Jan 01, 12:00EST that was post number 126.
  • I'm still alive.

    My 'puter still works.



    If the world has ended, somebody tell
    me in the morning.
  • so far the only thing that has happened to me directly is one lost icq message i was looking foward to using my right to bear arms come on i like weapons and hey nothing likea national holiday to air that right hehe and i bought alot of ammo and food and i am stuck with 20,000 rifle rounds ooh well any one want some rifle rounds?
  • oh yes, i made it!
  • or not... damnit.
  • Had to post, mainly for posterity. Everything works, I think we can all pat ourselves on the back for the hard work, long hours, brain sweat we put into this thing.
    Also, we can now look forward to NOT hearing about the damn Y2K bug every time we turn around.



    Dive Gear [divingdeals.com]
  • The General Public is not going to appreciate the relentless efforts of geeks around the world... everybody expected a major disaster (including myself), but with none forthcoming (at least, not yet), they're gonna say "What was the big fuss about?"
  • Just for fun... (Score:-1, Funny)

    Moderation Totals:Offtopic=1, Total=1.

    Hrm, i suppose we can't blame everything on y2k, but uh, there seems to be a lot of this going on today. (There was a comment moderated up to 6 elsewhere...)
  • Well, the only interesting thing about the rollover on Victoria Peak was wondering how long it would take to get down to town again afterwards. I relived my boredom by borrowing a mobile and calling my ex-employer(an ISP) and relaying a tale of power blackouts and panic...they stopped sounding worried when I started giggling :-)
  • *sighs* Everyones got it all wrong. First.. Pick your prophet. Check out what timezone he was in and which was the calendar type in 'style' at the time. lol year 2000 on some calendar's has come and gone while on one or two types it does not come just yet.. LOL so which celdnar WAS the bible using? hmmn.. p.s. Strong intodicants in effect.. I will NOT spell check this.. even tho I see the error.. :-)
  • http://www.cnn.com/vi deo/lkl/1999/12/31/highlight.vs.rm80.ram [cnn.com]

    Watch the first five seconds of Larry. Listen to Larry's question. See the smirk on Larry's face after he asks it, as if it was the best fucking question ever asked by any human being ever, period.

    Now, here's a little quiz for you kiddies at home:

    The Dalai Llama is the leader of what religion?
    Larry King is how senile?
    CNN is how fucking pathetic for not interrupting the broadcast and destroying the evil that is Larry King right then and there?
  • It's a speck of dust in a very large storm. Our existence is totally miniscule, but still significant. I want to shake the hell out of people that think our tiny existence on this very small rock somehow has the gumption to show arrogance. Our differences are very minor and we should be happy that other humans can be different, yet the same. There is no need to have prejudice based on race, gender, sexual preference, mental capabilities, etc... It is easy to look at our differences but it is hard to see how we are so tiny and fragile. I believe humans will grow and evolve to more compassionate and intelligent beings. I only hope we have the perception to see it and pull it off.





  • Why am I not surprised the "first post" of the year 2000 was done none other by Anonymous Coward? I'm betting the legion of anonymous cowards are having a major celebration that they did the ultimate first post of first posts, the first post of y2k. Print it out on your favorite HP printer and frame it, you've earned it!
  • That's what my computer clock is saying...
  • I stay in Hawaii where we stay the last place to be Y2k. We no care. If we lose electr..., elec..., ah, powa, den, we stay okay. Wot? We no need heat. If stay cold, like 65 degrees, den we put on jacket. If stay warm and the beer stay warm, den we goin to have to drink it warm. Eh, so wot?

    But if we not can get /. den we goin to get really pissed. We goin to Mishigan and goin pound CmdrTaco face. Eh, haole boy, how come I no stay one modarator?

    Joking aside, I wish everyone, even MEEPT!!, a wonderful new year/century/millenium. To all, I hope that we as a global community can put aside our differences to finally achieve some semblance of peace in my/our lifetime.

    To all out there: Haoli Makahiki Hou (Happy New Year) from beautiful Hawaii.

  • I think he meant "the strap-on my girlfriend shows," actually. Or at least that's what I would have meant.



  • I was at a party Friday night with a lot of people. Right at 12:00 someone threw the light switch and the room went instantly silent. Everyone was scared p00pless. He waited a few seconds, turned it on, and those god-awful New Years horn and whistles noises started.

    Sure was funny :)
  • Warning: vaguely on-topic, but only for the "End of the World" part of the topic. Not on-topic at all for the "Geeks in Space" part. Probably nobody's going to read this but I had to write it down anyway just to share the joy.

    So on 1999.12.30, my girlfriend flew down to Atlanta and we "caught up" with each other and on 1999.12.31 we packed up all the champaigne and beer into my brother's Camry because my motorcycle won't hold that much stuff and a girlfriend at one time and we headed on up to Toccoa, Georgia, to get extremely drunk with my cousin Chip and his wife Shannon who is originally from New Jersey.

    When we got up there we started drinking almost immediately and by 2330EST between the four adults we had drunk plenty of beer and five bottles of champaigne ranging from Moët & Chandon White Star down to André Strawberry Sparkling Wine which tastes like somebody made a spritzer out of Boone's Farm and Diet Seven Up and some pee.

    After we watched Satan emerge from Times Square to repossess Dick Clark's soul we stumbled outside and turned on the boombox and soaked the bonfire in about a gallon and a half of gasoline and stood about twenty feet away from it and tried to light it by shooting Roman candles into the pile. Well, gasoline fumes spread along the ground and when the bonfire finally caught the flames shot along the ground almost to our feet and then raced back to the bonfire which subsequently went wham! and lifted about two feet off the ground and when it cambe back down it went from being a five foot high pile of wood about five feet wide to being a one foot high pile of wood about twenty-five feet wide that was on fire and we were standing right in the middle of it kicking like hell to get all the burning bits in the middle of the yard and away from the Camry and the dog pen and the hundred and ten year old heart-of-pine house and most importantly away from our feet.

    Once the fire was more or less centralized we started to dance and jump up and down in a frenetic semicircle at that exact distance from the bonfire where the clothes on one side of your body are starting to smoke while the other half is getting crunchy with frost. We hollered and thrassed while in the dog pen all five beagles and a bloodhound named Elvis started baying at us for almost burning down their yard. We danced and danced and finally Chip and Shannon stumbled inside and my girlfriend fell down on the ground and begged me to bring her a blanket so she could pass out in the yard. I spent the next half hour cajoling her upright so I could get her back to the house but the whole point of this story is that from the time the bonfire exploded to the time I dragged my girlfriend to safety the radio station on the boombox had been playing "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by R.E.M. over and over again in a continuous loop and when I staggered back outside at about three-thirty A.M. to to vomit on the beagles it was still playing and now I know how Alex felt about Beethoven towards the end of A Clockwork Orange and boy did my head hurt the next day.

    P.S. There's nothing better for a hangover than having a three year old and a five year old jumping up and down on your stomach while shrieking at you to turn on the television so they can watch Pokémon.

    --

  • Actually, I rather enjoyed the "background" comment towards the end of this episode - from Neal, wasn't it?

    "I used to fight it but now I've given in to Pop Culture. Woooo! New Millenium! Wooo!"

    Or something like that. I fell off my chair I laughed so much (almost as good as Tripping the Rift [trippingtherift.com] :)

"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_

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