WEBVTT - Why Y2K Didn't End the World 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:07.040 Still get in touch with technology with text stuff from 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:17.160 com Hey everyone, and welcome to text stuff. I'm I'm sorry, 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.480 there's a little bug in my throat Jonathan Strickland and 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:21.960 I'm Lauren focal Bomb. You know, I've just been having 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.960 trouble all the day, Lauren. It just feels like something 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.639 very basic and the very code of me is just 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.560 not right. And now everything's just diligion all over the blade, 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.240 almost as though there's there's some kind of a programming 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:37.080 error or not error but over sight. Yeah, like like 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.720 someone to cut short and now things aren't working. Also 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.239 building up to something terrifying. Yeah, it's gonna build up 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:50.960 to a NonStop replay of Prince over and over again, 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:53.400 which it starts out awesome, but as it goes on, 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.080 let me tell you that gets old. Okay, we're talking 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:58.720 about a Y two K bug obviously, people, Yes, yes, 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:00.400 that is what our episode is about. To day, all 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:02.920 of our fans who hate it. Whenever I do cheesy humor, 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.000 I apologize, You don't really apologize. It is who I am. 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:09.319 So the reason why we're talking about Y two K 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.399 bug years after the whole issue happened is because you know, 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.200 we ask you guys what you want to hear. And 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.560 in this case, a listener named James sent us a 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.280 message on Twitter and said, hey, guys, you should do 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:26.280 an episode on the Y two K Bug. Heart heart James. Well, James, 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.200 we heart heart you two. Now we're going to do 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.240 our episode on the Y two K Bug. It's a 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.680 pretty interesting story because it's one of those things where, 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.160 you know, it really illustrates a few basic things about 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.360 computing and human nature in general. One of those things 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.240 is that when something new is created, no one who 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.040 is around has any idea of how long it's gonna last, 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:52.600 and they don't have any any appreciation of things that 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.640 they do then lasting into well into the future, right, well, 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:00.040 especially things like computer programming. I mean, no one in 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:03.160 say the nineteen sixties or seventies was expecting any of 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:07.560 the programs that they were writing to last for forty years. Yeah, 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:12.480 computers were developing very quickly, and the general thought was that, 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.440 you know, this is changing so fast that programming is 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.880 going to change in at a crazy speed too. But 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.320 as it turns out, while the hardware changed, the practices 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.440 that were established early on remained pretty much standard, and 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.679 also a lot of this old programming would find its 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.600 way into subsequent generations of software. So even if it 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:37.400 wasn't something that people were continuing to do later on, uh, 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.760 there'd still be these old fragments of code incorporated into 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.080 stuff that did have it. Now we're kind of dancing 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.240 around what that old thing was. Oh, oh, the old thing, 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.959 of course being I just got really excited that I 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:55.840 knew the answer to this um being the digits in 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.160 the year. Yeah, So here was the issue back in 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.720 the fifties and six these when programmers were having to 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.240 put a code in for the year, which is important 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.800 for certain types of calculations, right, anything that's time based, obviously, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:09.680 you need to have a way of recording the time 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.200 so that you can compare times from different points and 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.600 draw your calculations based on that. You know, for for 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.520 for example, when people have been depositing paychecks or right, 0:03:20.600 --> 0:03:23.160 so if you if you have a bank account that 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:26.320 has interest, for example, time is obviously a factor there. 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.320 It's not just the amount of money that you've been 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:31.200 continuously putting into or taking out of that bank account. 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.720 It's also the amount of times since you established that 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.360 bank account. And there's some complicated calculations that are very 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:39.800 time sensitive, so you have to have that kind of 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.560 stuff built into your algorithm, right right, Or in other cases, 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.920 you know, records of dates of birth or dates of 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.920 medical surgery or all kinds of things. Yeah, so many 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.320 different applications, to the point where there were even technologies 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.560 that you wouldn't imagine would ever need to know what 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.240 year it is that had the stuff built into it. 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.040 And here's the problem when you have two digits for 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:06.600 your year. See the computer programming getting started in the 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.720 nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, they figured, hey, we've got 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:12.440 practically half a century before we have to worry about 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:16.400 two digits turning into zero zero. Clearly we're gonna totally 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.440 fix this later. And computer memory right now is incredibly expensive, 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.680 so let's let's let's be really conservative and just use 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.760 two digits for the year, and we'll be fine until 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.640 these other problems work themselves out. Oh and and I 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.040 mean computer memory was so precious and saving especially across 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.080 the course of for example, an entire spreadsheet full of 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:40.080 interest calculations, saving two digits per year was big. So 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.880 so just by doing a month, month, day, day, year, year, 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:45.200 you know, just just the two digits each, you could 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.039 save a huge time and hassle for yourself at the 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:50.720 at that current moment, right right, because I mean, you know, 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:53.960 think about just a few years ago how expensive it 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.800 was to buy say a terrabyte for a hard drive, 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.760 compared to today. Now it's much more affordable. Oh well, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:02.320 you know, as as opposed to when I was a kid, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.320 when a tearabyte was and a completely unimaginable amount of information. Yeah, 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.960 when I was a kid, I couldn't imagine ever filling 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.760 up a megabyte of space. So you know, as time 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.279 has gone on, memory has become less and less of 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.120 a problem in the sense that we were able to 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:20.920 make more of it more affordably. But back then very 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.520 expensive and precious stuff that you only had so much 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.800 to work with, and it was expensive to use. So 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:30.000 cutting it down to two digits made sense of the time. 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.080 But the problem was that when you roll over from 0:05:32.240 --> 0:05:36.280 nineteen nine to two thousand, in the computer terms, it 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.640 goes from n to zero zero, which meant that people 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.520 weren't really sure what was going to happen. Right, Would 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:44.720 the computer think that it was all of a sudden 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.320 would that completely bark all of your calculations for for example, 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.440 interest rates, yeah, or the the age of a person. 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.800 So your example, if it's figuring out the age by 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.240 subtracting the current date from your date of birth, or 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.839 the date of birth from the current data, I should say, so, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.560 let's say it's ninety nine and you were born in ninety. 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.800 Then that's pretty easy. It's years old. Okay, got it. 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.360 But then let's say it goes zero zero and you 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.719 were born in ninety, so it's zero zero minus ninety. Suddenly, 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:16.560 like oh um am, I getting negative numbers because now 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:18.880 a negative age that doesn't make sense. And so you 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:21.719 can have all sorts of computer problems, ranging from the 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.159 financial industry to health to all pretty much everything that 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.560 had any sort of code in it that included the year, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:35.960 which extends to things like like elevators that had microchips. Yes, yeah, elevators. 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.480 I mean that's pretty that that was a real concern. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:39.800 People are like, I do not want to be in 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:44.280 an elevator on New Year's Eve because you don't know 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:45.839 if that thing is going to make it to the floor. 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.919 You want by two, right, And I mean, and of course, 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.800 you know, they weren't afraid that the elevator was going 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.880 to slow down to a rate, to a negative motion 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:56.840 rate or anything like that. But they were afraid that 0:06:56.960 --> 0:07:00.279 the code and the microchip crashing would I don't know, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.400 cause a fire and make the elevator drop or just 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.479 or just stop or just stop entirely, and refused to open. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.240 People had a lot of just uncertainty about exactly what 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:12.280 was going to happen to code and whether or not 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.120 it was going to crash an entire system. When this 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.000 this year changed, over right, and so this this fear 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.160 started to kind of rear its head in the ninety nineties. Uh, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.320 it really reached a fever pitch in nine. That was 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.800 when I think the general public became really aware of it. 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.720 Before that due to media complete over saturation. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.480 I got a little, a little crazy, a lot crazy, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.760 depending upon where you lived in the United States, it 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.920 certainly became crazy. So you had you had the computer 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:47.480 scientists who were and programmers who were saying earlier than this, like, hey, guys, 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.400 maybe we should should fix this. This is you know, 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.640 this is a problem, and instead of perpetuating it across 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.640 multiple industries at infinitum, maybe we should address it. And 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.560 that way just establish a new rule going forward. Now, 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:02.840 computer memory not such a big deal, Now, why don't 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.200 we Why don't we fix it before we get Hello? So, anyway, 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.880 is this thing on? Hello? And the problem was that 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:09.720 a lot of people didn't listen until it started getting 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.760 closer to two thousand, and people began to really worry 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.720 about the possibility that this could bring about, if not 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.280 some sort of technological armageddon, at least a lot of 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:24.160 glitches and problems that could have been avoided. So then 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:25.880 they had to say, well, what are we going to 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.360 do about it? The obvious solution was also the most 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.120 time consuming and expensive one, which was the manually go 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:36.920 through and start updating code and changing it so that 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.360 it's a four digit year instead of a two digit 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.240 year and uh and then thus increasing the usefulness till 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.240 at least nine thou right, Yeah, I mean, I mean, 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.559 you know, the alternate there's to recode just so that 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.679 programs would recognize that zero zero probably meant two thousand 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.000 instead of nineteen hundred. But that's a less effective solution. 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:58.840 And b I mean, you just need to change it 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.160 over at the next and of the century, not that 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:03.320 probably those same programs were going to be in use, 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:05.960 but you never know. The thing is that, you know, 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.960 you have these legacy systems that certain companies rely on 0:09:10.360 --> 0:09:13.560 that were originally programmed, you know, thirty forty years ago, 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.480 and you know they continue to rely on them because 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:18.760 they do exactly what the company needs them to do, 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:21.960 right and Okay, so so either way, these changes might 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.000 have to be entered by hand thousands of times or 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:28.720 hundreds of thousands of times in a single program um, 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.560 and each change then has to be tested against errors. 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.800 Of course, eventually code was developed to help automate the process, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.280 but you know, I mean it was just a big undertaking. Yeah. 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:43.240 You might remember if you watch the documentary Office Space 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:46.679 that the characters at in a tech the company and 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.360 office space where they that was their job. They went 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.960 into other companies and helped update their code to meet 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:57.920 the y two K issue, which kind of raises another question, 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.000 which is what was this company going to do after 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.400 or the year two thousand. But at any rate, that 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.120 was actually a very real concern. I mean, The Spaces 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.280 is a great parody of all of that kind of sure, 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:11.920 but but there was a concern that you know, with 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:14.040 with all of these extra programming jobs that were going 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.760 to be created, that that businesses would crash and burn, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:18.600 and some of them did. I mean, most of them 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:20.719 just moved on to other things and found freedom and 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.680 not having to do this incredibly tedious work anymore. Right, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:25.720 And then there was a lot of other crashing and 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.440 burning in the tech industry for unrelated reasons. Yes, that 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:30.720 was the whole dot com bubble burst, but it didn't 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.280 have anything to do with Y two K directly. So, uh, 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:36.560 here's the other problem is that a lot of these 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:39.800 programs didn't recognize even if even if two thousand was 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:41.640 going to be fine, even if they could recognize the 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:43.319 fact that was two thousand was a four digit year, 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.920 they didn't necessarily recognize that two thousand was going to 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:48.280 be a leap year. Right, And here's the reason why. 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:53.440 So leap years actually follow an algorithm, a set of rules. Obviously, 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.880 so the the basic rule is that for every four years, 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.160 you added an extra day, a leap day, at the 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.960 end of February to balance out the calendar year with 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:04.520 the solar year. Because the solar year is close to 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.480 three hundred sixty five point to five days, not quite 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:11.000 point to five, almost point to five, which is important. Yeah, 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.959 so if you stretch out over an incredibly long time 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.840 for us humans, let's say a few centuries, your calendars 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.480 will start to become misaligned because it's not quite three 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.120 hundred sixty five point to five days in the solar year. 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.800 So that means that occasionally you have to ignore the 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:30.440 leap year. And the way the rule goes is that 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:32.800 if the let's see if I can get this right, 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:38.160 if the century is divisible by one hundred but not 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.520 by four hundred, it would not be a leap year. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.040 So if it's divisible by both one hundred and four hundred, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.800 it's a leap year. So, in other words, sevent hundred, 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:51.240 eighteen hundred, and nineteen hundred were not leap years. Was 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.199 because sixteen hundred is divisible by four hundred. Two thousand 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.599 also divisible by four hundred, so it should be a 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.520 leap here. However, because you gut just have zero zero 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.280 as the digits, if the computer thinks it's nineteen hundred, 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:08.560 the computers also knows the rule that nine is not 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.680 a leap year, so so it says, hey, this, this 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.959 big zero kind of number is totally not a leap year, right, 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.120 So it's only three days not three hundred, you know, 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:20.640 three and we we don't have a fevery twenty nine 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:22.280 this year, is what I would say. But there was 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:25.120 totally a fevery twenty nine here, which meant that other 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.840 calculations would get thrown off because it wouldn't take that 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:31.439 leap day into account. So all these calendar applications weren't 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.400 also had to be corrected. So suddenly people were like, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.160 oh boy, this is a big old mess here. We've 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.000 got to fix this and uh and so, so a 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:43.440 lot of time and effort and attention was directed to this. 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:45.679 And there was a third problem as well. Wasn't there 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.560 having to do with all of the nines? Oh yeah, 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.760 Oh I totally forgot about that. I'm glad you brought 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:53.720 that up. Yes, So, okay, in the old days, children 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.960 gather around this, gather around the digital fireplace, you know, 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.000 if Netflix still has that digital fireplace, ahead and start 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.359 started up back in the old days, children Sometimes programmers, 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.800 in order to designate the end of a program, would 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.440 just type out a string of nines. It was essentially 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.080 just the code to say this is where stuff ends, y'all. 0:13:14.040 --> 0:13:18.839 Uh so had a date in Exeptember nine that if 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.680 you were to write it would be like n a 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.400 lot of nines. And the worry was that certain programs 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.880 which would see that as meaning this is where stuff 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.920 stops and would stop working. So you had a lot 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.080 of digit problems here. So some of this you could 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.320 count on, you know, just a a kind of a 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.920 jerry rigged system of this is how I'm going to 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.400 designate this is the end of a program, and it 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:49.120 was just kind of arbitrarily chosen that would be stuff. 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.520 Some of it was more of a practical consideration, the 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:53.920 idea of we need to save time and money, so 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.680 therefore we're shortening this year to two digits. In either case, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.640 it ended up meaning lots and lots of for people 0:14:00.720 --> 0:14:04.680 in the late nineteen nineties, and um, you got a 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.839 lot of attention. I mean there were there were things 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.360 like uh, industries that were already taking advantage of the 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.880 time in the nineties to address this. The software industry 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:15.720 was way ahead of the game. Oh yeah, yeah, I 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:19.120 mean back by you know, I think six uh, a 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.960 few people were on top of it. Certainly by a 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.080 lot of people had already kind of corrected the problem, right, 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.680 So the software that was being produced from that point 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.720 going forward had already addressed it. Now. Granted there was 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:35.240 still software that was out previously that had this old 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.480 code in it, but the new code coming out of 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.560 the software industry had had adjusted for this kind of problem. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.280 But there were other industries that were lagging behind. And 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:49.640 in fact, according to one study, UH, the cap Jimini 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:53.480 America consulting firm did a study. They found that the 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.760 state and federal government systems were the furthest behind. And 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:00.400 when you think of all the information that state governments 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:03.680 and federal government here in the United States requires to 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:09.960 operate things like taxes that are dependent upon infrastructure. Infrastructure, yeah, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.800 your water systems, all sorts of stuff that rely on 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:17.800 computer systems that are run by satellites, all all of 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:22.000 the stuff, communications, everything. I mean, there's entire industries that 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.360 are dependent either completely or in part on state and 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.480 federal systems. All of those were at risk because they 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.000 were the firths behind. They had the least amount of 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:35.280 progress on addressing the Y two K problem. UH. Such 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.600 a huge deal that the president at the time was 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:43.359 Bill Clinton, assigned the two thousand Information and Readiness Disclosure 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.880 Act into law, and that was designed to create a 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.280 collaborative environment among multiple industries, so that is one industry 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.680 developed the best practices and tools to address the Y 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.760 two K problem. It would be there was an incentive 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.560 to share the information across other industries so that we 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.440 didn't It's not a competition, it's it's hey, let's all 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.880 get this done together, kind of issuing like I would 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.920 like my stuff to continue not being on fire. How 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.600 about I give this information to you guys, and maybe 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.560 that will decrease the chance that my stuff will be 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.160 on fire. In two thousand and that was a that 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.480 was a big motivator. As it turns out, helped a lot. Uh, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:22.960 there were other areas of the world that we're also 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:26.240 being very responsive to this. European Commission issued a report 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:29.280 about Y two K to the European Union member countries 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.200 that all kind of got them on the same page. 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:34.480 The British government announced that the British military would be 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.560 on hand to assist local police forces in the event 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.520 of emergency services breaking down as a result of the 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.400 Y two K problem. And there there was so much hype. 0:16:43.440 --> 0:16:46.480 I mean, I mean, yeah, well, we'll talk more about 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.280 hype in a second. The United Nations held a conference 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:52.760 on it. They were trying to facilitate more sharing of information, 0:16:52.800 --> 0:16:56.800 particularly but you know, that's that's cool, that's that's not hype, 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.720 that's preparedness, right. Well, they were particularly worried about a 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.160 lot of regions in Asia that were there were at 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.160 least thought of to be behind the curve on this 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.359 on addressing the HIT two K problem, So they wanted 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.680 to make sure that everyone in the world had an 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:14.280 equal chance of catching up so that they could minimize 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:16.280 any effects that the Y two K problem would have. 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:18.280 Not keep in mind, this is still at a time 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.480 where no one was really sure what was going to happen, 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.600 at least not on a global scale. There were some 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.960 people were saying like, well, you know, this system over 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.119 here is probably gonna be okay because it's not really critical, 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:30.640 and even even if it were, you know, it would 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:33.080 just be something that we could adjust by writing a 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:35.680 couple of extra lines of code to correct that problem 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.040 other systems. People are like, I don't know if that 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.120 airplane will stay in the air. I mean, that wasn't 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:45.040 legitimate fear some people, I don't know, Okay, maybe fear 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:48.560 that people people absolutely and and you know, on a 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:51.679 on a person to person basis. The amount of panic varied, 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.679 um and problem they were depending on how much media 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.119 they had consumed about it, and excitable they were to 0:17:58.160 --> 0:17:59.919 begin with. I want to say towards the end of night, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.240 a lot of the media coverage lent leaned more towards 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:08.719 the satirical and the the kind of jokey up, world's 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.560 gonna end next month kind of stuff, less less of 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:15.760 the actual fearmongering style, and more of the no one's 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.280 really sure, but you know, the worst case scenario could 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:20.720 be that kind of thing. So it wasn't at least 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:23.879 as as bad as you know, next month, everything you 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:27.000 know will be different because nothing's going to work, and 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.280 you know, start building your bomb shelter now. Um. You know, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:32.440 there weren't a whole lot of serious reports that were 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:34.080 coming out like that, and I'm sure the Onion had 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.719 a lot of fun with it. Um. But anyway, so 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.600 we're leading up to what actually happened from the switch 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.800 over to two thousand and I know you're all dying 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:46.800 to know how it turned out, but you're just gonna 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:48.920 have to wait a second because we need to take 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.520 a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright, So we're 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.920 back now the clock is ticking down. I know you've 0:18:56.920 --> 0:19:00.480 been waiting, waiting all episode to learn what would happen 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.080 about to turn to two thousand? What half? Okay, so 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:05.080 technically we're all still here, so I guess we can 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.320 draw some conclusions right off the bat. And and and 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.680 I mean, this event is in our relatively recent past. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.080 It was really years ago, and most of you guys 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.320 are probably remembering this, some of you and some of 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:16.200 some of you folks who are in maybe middle school 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:18.320 or whatever, maybe this is all new to you, in 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.159 which case, hey, welcome to the ridiculous panics that the 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.040 rest of the world went through before you were born. 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.040 Your parents were silly. Yeah. So, as it turns out, 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.680 a lot of the work that was being done leading 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:35.440 up to two thousand was successful. I mean, and it 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.280 was a lot of work. It was. Uh. One estimate 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:44.560 said that globally the world spent about three hundred billion 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.399 dollars that's billion with a B to address the Y 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.600 two K problem, and about just a little less than 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.000 half of that was spent in the United States alone 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.040 to address this issue. And that ranged from everything from 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.879 wide computer networks to like we were saying, microprocessors that 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.120 control things like microwaves, and you know, really in that case, 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:08.320 it was more of testing it to see, you know, 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.439 if you were to to digitally alter the clock of 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.959 the machine, would it continue to operate properly? That kind 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:16.920 of stuff, right, And and in the most most cases 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:21.080 things things were absolutely fine. And and people people kind 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:22.600 of knew that, I mean know that there was a 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.760 little bit of this media frenzy, but um but a 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:31.400 p Poles indicated that Americans expected minor problems at worst, um, 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:36.080 but that some thirty percent had planned stockpiles just in case. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:38.240 that the food money, that kind of that was. Yeah, 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.399 they weren't necessarily creating an armed militia, although there was 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:43.639 some of that going on too at the time. Um, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:45.440 but you know, it's it's one of those things where 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:48.440 I think a lot of people were jokingly saying, like, yeah, 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.000 I mean, everything's gonna be fine, nothing's gonna be a problem. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.359 But then like, you know, but just in case, I 0:20:53.359 --> 0:20:56.480 think I'm gonna take it easy this year, uh or 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:59.920 just that day specifically that yeah, New Year's Eve to 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.000 two thousand, to make sure that you know, let's let's 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.280 not let's not put ourselves in danger unnecessarily, but nothing's 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.800 going to happen, you know. Cautious optimism is probably how 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.760