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   syncros (syncros@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 12:57:36 JST syncros

   Who else worked #y2k?

   I was at UUNET Canada, an ISP and had to work from 9-3am testing scripts after midnight. Spoiler: they all worked fine.

   No pics of the night but found this one from my first day in 1997. I had to label each end of these ethernet cables between two banks of switches. #networking

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Siebenmann (cks@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 12:57:34 JST Chris Siebenmann

     in reply to

     • Ben Zanin

     @gnomon It's less good planning and more that working for the university my entire career has some benefits (literally, although I have to cross my fingers about the university pension plan not imploding). Also, while the university no longer shoves you out the door, they do start giving you the side eye after a certain point.

     (And after that point, well, I'm not optimistic about the tech industry changing its views about old(er) people. Maybe Y2038 will change that, like Y2K for mainframers.)

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Chris Siebenmann (cks@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 12:57:35 JST Chris Siebenmann

     in reply to

     • Ben Zanin

     @syncros @gnomon I think my section of the university was all quiet for Y2K but we were running straightforward Unix stuff at the time. I'm sure the big central systems had a lot of work.

     I hope to be retired by 2038 but I'll probably still be using Unix systems (eg, a desktop), so I'll get to have fun times anyway. Plus all the online stuff falling over. At least TLS certificates don't have Y2038 issues (... they have other ones, timestamps in them are fun times).

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Zanin (gnomon@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 12:57:35 JST Ben Zanin

     in reply to

     • Chris Siebenmann

     @cks @syncros it's going to be hilarious when GPS implementations begin intermittently failing in 2036 and nobody believes it because 2038 is supposed to be the big problem year.

     (Aw man, "retired"... _wistful sigh_ I don't think that's a thing anyone else I know will be about to think about as a realistic possibility. Good planning, man.)

   • Embed this notice
     Ben Zanin (gnomon@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 12:57:36 JST Ben Zanin

     in reply to

     @syncros I was working at Statistics Canada at the time. The #Y2K preparation was significant & the work was very much not imaginary: critical internal systems were failing validation tests up until a couple of weeks before the actual change. Person-years of work, possibly person-decades, were what kept the institution running.

     And the stakes weren't just functional systems, but the integrity of statistical data. If that was messed up it would have been an existential issue for the agency.

   • Embed this notice
     syncros (syncros@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 01-Jan-2025 12:57:36 JST syncros

     in reply to

     • Ben Zanin

     @gnomon so many years of prep to make sure there weren't bugs. Hope the kids today know about Unix time and prep for 2038