What were you doing 10 yrs ago, Y2K Doomsday cometh....

[ryoder 1,397]

I was sitting in the Network Ops Center at TCI in Denver
We were all required to be there even though we knew damned well nothing was going to happen.

Midnight rolled around for the Eastern, Central, and Mountain zones w/o anything happening.

Just a few minutes before midnight Pacific time, we suddenly started getting failure alarms for Unix servers in the SF Bay area.
The local person in charge of them got on the phone to the Bay area people to see what the hell was happening;
The answer:

A Moron Manager in the Bay area had freaked and given orders that all the running Unix machines were to be abruptly unplugged, and since they did not having logging filesystems, this effectively crashed them.
This was his "solution" to be sure Y2K did not crash them.
Once powered back on, they all required filesystem checks to be manually run to restore filesystem integrity
before they could finish booting.

I don't know if anything was done to the Moron, but he certainly needed to be fired.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[kallend 1,646]

Quote

Sitting in the middle of a military camp in the Balkans, watching the locals set off fireworks.

Fast-forward 10 years...and I'm sitting in the middle of a military camp in the Balkans, watching the locals set off fireworks.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Living proof that Plus ca change, plus c'est que la meme chose

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[mnealtx 0]

Quote

Quote

Sitting in the middle of a military camp in the Balkans, watching the locals set off fireworks.

Fast-forward 10 years...and I'm sitting in the middle of a military camp in the Balkans, watching the locals set off fireworks.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Living proof that Plus ca change, plus c'est que la meme chose

Certainement.

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[bullin82 0]

that was a crazy night, we blew up a rooster that was killing the hens. just remember young rednecks + booze + explosives + to much time = disaster.

[skycop 0]

Did you guys at least say:

"hey watch this!!!"

"Just 'cause I'm simple, don't mean I'm stewpid!"

[mardigrasbob 0]

In Freefall!! 12:00AM--12:01AM 01/01/2000
Gold Coast Skydivers Moss Point Mississippi
Thanks Mike Igo, Travis, Miami Mike, David Lane, Ron Walker, Kim, Kreg, and the rest.
Beautiful evening, second night jump, pretty wild looking down on fireworks and gunfire.

[usedtajump 1]

In Times Square watching the ball drop. When we got back to our room the hotel staff had left two glow sticks and a large bottle of water on the nightstand. Still haven't figured out if they were joking or not.

The older I get the less I care who I piss off.

[bullin82 0]

Quote

Did you guys at least say:

"hey watch this!!!"

no we know better than to say that again

[lurch 0]

I was sitting on the hood of my wrecked 4x4 with my brother watching fireworks on a hill with a distant view of Sacramento, drinking Baileys and listening to the radio.
Took me 9 hours to rebuild the frontend afterward right there on the hillside...I'd wrecked it trying to get to the top of the hill before midnight, hit a pile of rocks hidden in the long grass with the right front tire. Broke a coil spring, a strut rod, one shock, a ball joint and twisted a control arm. I'd known that spring was gonna go soon and had picked up a spare already, the rest of it was customary offroad spare parts stock so I actually had all the parts I needed in the car with me at the time. Boy Scouts are freakin' amateurs. I was -really- prepared.
When my brother got out and looked at the chunks of broken metal sticking out alongside the wheel he patted me on the shoulder and said "Your ride's totalled bro, I'm sorry."
9 hours later I dropped it off the jack onto all 4 wheels again, woke up my bro from where he'd been sleeping off the Baileys in the grass and told him "cars fixed, time to go". He looked at the big pile of broken suspension parts on the ground next to the car, then at the car, then at me. The look on his face was priceless. He never gave me any shit about the amount of junk I carried around in the back of the car ever again.
-B

Live and learn... or die, and teach by example.

[rushmc 18]

Quote

I was sitting in the Network Ops Center at TCI in Denver
We were all required to be there even though we knew damned well nothing was going to happen.

Midnight rolled around for the Eastern, Central, and Mountain zones w/o anything happening.

Just a few minutes before midnight Pacific time, we suddenly started getting failure alarms for Unix servers in the SF Bay area.
The local person in charge of them got on the phone to the Bay area people to see what the hell was happening;
The answer:

A Moron Manager in the Bay area had freaked and given orders that all the running Unix machines were to be abruptly unplugged, and since they did not having logging filesystems, this effectively crashed them.
This was his "solution" to be sure Y2K did not crash them.
Once powered back on, they all required filesystem checks to be manually run to restore filesystem integrity
before they could finish booting.

I don't know if anything was done to the Moron, but he certainly needed to be fired.

I was at work
Making sure the computers did not crash

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 18]

Quote

that was a crazy night, we blew up a rooster that was killing the hens. just remember young rednecks + booze + explosives + to much time = disaster.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[riddler 0]

I don't think the fear was totally unjustified. It got people to make the changes necessary to ensure that the small percentage of computers that would have had issues did not. Had nothing been done, we would have had problems. Not insurmountable problems, but they would have been inconveniences, for sure.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[happythoughts 0]

Quote

I don't think the fear was totally unjustified. It got people to make the changes necessary to ensure that the small percentage of computers that would have had issues did not. Had nothing been done, we would have had problems. Not insurmountable problems, but they would have been inconveniences, for sure.

I worked on a credit card system that does processing
for 26,000 card vendors and electronically approves 1.5 billion transactions a year.

We evaluated 900 programs and changed 175 (most of them, in multiple places). The project cost was over $50m.

Some companies dealt with the problem years ago.
(Banks giving 30 year loans in 1970.)

Most managers did want the cost to come out of their budget, so they put it off. Most made changes in small segments.

The two types of companies that I found were utilities
and credit card companies. (Businesses that deal with
a 30-day business cycle.)

So, when evaluating the affected customer base, it is only
people who use credit cards or electricity.