The 400 PPM FUD Factory: T-shirts now available

The Pompous Git : I’ve explained above that the Y2K problem was essentially about software problems buried within “legacy” systems originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike developed Western economies, developing economies such as Indonesia introduced digital computing towards the end of the century, hadn’t inherited the problem and therefore didn’t need to implement major Y2K remediation programmes. That’s why Indonesia unsurprisingly had no disasters despite taking only limited action (reported BTW to have cost “at least” $200 million). Simple really.
Nonetheless, Indonesia experienced a few relatively minor problems. See Annex III of this report: http://www.unescap.org/56/e1183e.htm

“180 Years accurate CO2 – Gasanalysis of Air by Chemical Methods (Short version)”
http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/180_years_accurate_Co2_Chemical_Methods.pdf
There’s so much here, but
“There is no constant exponential rising CO2-concentration since preindustrial times but a variing CO2-content of air following the climate. E.G. around 1940 there was a maximum of CO2 of at least 420 ppm, before 1875 there was also a maximum.”
Who knows it may start to fall despites mans efforts?

dbstealey: those of us involved in Y2K remediation (unlike the media) didn’t predict disaster. We warned, however, of serious problems if nothing was done. Fortunately, a great deal was done and, as you quite correctly say, “there was no Y2K disaster. Any problems were minor, and quickly resolved.” And that, of course, was the whole point of the exercise. Far from believing that Y2K was a disaster, I’m proud of the small part I contributed towards ensuring it wasn’t.
Nonetheless you think the problem was “mostly imaginary”. OK – here’s a challenge for you: read my paper carefully and tell me precisely where you think I’ve got it wrong. No waffle please – a precise, properly referenced answer. Thanks.
BTW – the media tried hard to find all those people who’d made a lot of money out of Y2K. They failed and gave up. The real work – checking countless millions of lines of code, fixing and testing fixes etc. was mind numbingly boring, unglamorous, thankless and poorly rewarded. The real money in IT at the time (late 1990s) was made blowing up the dotcom bubble. If you’re looking for a scandal, you’ll find it there.

guenier said @ur momisugly May 13, 2013 at 12:45 pm

BTW – the media tried hard to find all those people who’d made a lot of money out of Y2K. They failed and gave up. The real work – checking countless millions of lines of code, fixing and testing fixes etc. was mind numbingly boring, unglamorous, thankless and poorly rewarded.

Now you’re just blowing smoke. Relative to programmers, as a trainer of end users I was “poorly paid” in them days. It took me twelve months to accumulate enough cash to build a luxury home, albeit a smallish one (1500 ft^2). Java and C++ programmers told me they earned twice as much as me and worked nowhere near as hard. Cobol programmers were earning much more than ordinary programmers since they were in very short supply. Poorly rewarded? Why would anyone come out of retirement to be “poorly rewarded”?

dbstealey: as I said to TPG, the Y2K issue was essentially about software problems buried within “legacy” systems originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike developed Western economies, developing economies such as Indonesia introduced digital computing towards the end of the century, so hadn’t inherited that basic problem and therefore didn’t need to implement major Y2K remediation programmes. Which part of that are you struggling to understand?
So you think Y2K no different from CAGW?
Let’s start at the most basic level. First Y2K: it was easy to show that using two digits, not four, to designate the year (e.g. “70” instead of “1970”) was a standard practice in much early computer programming. And equally simple to demonstrate that, if it were not rectified, a usage that worked well when only twentieth century dates were being processed would cause serious problems when twenty-first century dates were involved. Now CAGW: where’s the equivalent real-world evidence that (a) mankind’s GHG emissions are the main cause of recent temperature increases and (b) that further such emissions will cause dangerous, probably catastrophic, environmental damage? Answer: none has been demonstrated yet.
Y2K was almost wholly fixed within about 4 years at a cost that was a small proportion of organisations’ IT budgets. Fixing it did not impact the public. It had no political implications. In utter contrast, CAGW has been going for over 25 years and is set to continue for many years to come. It’s costing many trillions of dollars. It’s hugely damaging to people throughout the world: in the developed West where, for example, fuel costs are rocketing, jobs are being lost and the environment trashed by “renewable” energy projects and in the undeveloped world where, for example, people are being denied the basic benefits of cheap, reliable power and famine is exacerbated by biofuel cultivation. It’s a hugely political issue – with unelected activist groups at the heart of government and increasingly costly, damaging and intrusive national and international legislation affecting the lives of many millions of people.
Y2K no different from CAGW? Er … no, I don’t think so.