Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Closed Thread Start New Thread
 
Old 05-27-2014, 04:06 PM
 
Location: Earth
4,505 posts, read 6,464,094 times
Reputation: 4962

Advertisements

^^^^ Then it might surprise you to know that mass-killings are at an all time low! Reporting and sensationalizing is at an all time high though...if you partake in the Kool-Aide.

 
Old 05-27-2014, 05:11 PM
 
7,492 posts, read 11,793,343 times
Reputation: 7394
I remember all the nonsense about Y2K. That's why I get a kick out of the Family Guy episode where the Griffins get bombed out of their house. I remember exactly what I was doing that night, up at my uncle and aunt's house playing pool.

In the early nineties in elementary school, we would read this science thing every week, Scholastic something...and there was an article about what life would be like in fifty years. We would supposedly have a bed that checked our weight, blood pressure and blood sugar. We would be completely bubbled in from the outdoors, almost like we lived in space, and you could pour cereal on a spot on the counter and a bowl would form around it. Oh I had fun anticipating all of that.
 
Old 05-27-2014, 06:16 PM
 
12,999 posts, read 18,833,680 times
Reputation: 9236
The Y2K issue created lots of jobs for computer professionals, particularly those familiar with dead languages such as COBOL.
But much earlier the predictions were the Moon being a popular vacation spot for the wealthy, 200 channels on TV (at least they got that right) and the ability, through supersonic jet or underground super trains, to get from LA to NY in an hour. Retirement at the age of 40, with another 60 yr of life left. The clothing styles predicted for 2000 were no less ridiculous.

Last edited by pvande55; 05-27-2014 at 06:16 PM.. Reason: Speling
 
Old 05-27-2014, 06:36 PM
 
Location: sumter
12,950 posts, read 9,582,683 times
Reputation: 10422
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cyborgt800 View Post
^^^^ Then it might surprise you to know that mass-killings are at an all time low! Reporting and sensationalizing is at an all time high though...if you partake in the Kool-Aide.
That could be true, but whatever the case may be, I just don't remember hearing about it as much as we do today. Maybe its the frequency of how often it takes place today. But the really sad thing about it is, I don't believe it's going to get any better. We just live in a different world today.
 
Old 05-27-2014, 06:41 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,193,158 times
Reputation: 16937
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d View Post
Y2k was NOT a "bug". It was dopey idea that was popularized by the writer James Kunstler, and proves that having a little knowledge but no understanding is often worse than being ignorant, especially when presented by someone with an agenda.

Kunstler claimed that most major computer systems around the world, including those that ran the power grid, would crash on 01/01/00 because they wouldn't be able to handle the new century. Too bad the fool didn't understand that no computer programmer, especially in the 1980s, would be so stupid as to make a computer system dependent on a specific date as Kunstler claimed. Too bad so many people fell for his BS. Millions upon millions of computer programs were checked and rechecked and except for some reports that might have printed the wrong date, there was no "Y2k bug" anywhere ... even among the millions of computer programs that weren't checked. Not a single light flickered because a power grid computer system depended upon a specific date.

PS - Your claim about 2038 is even dumber than Kunstler's original claim. Understand this: computer programmers do NOT write programs depending upon specific dates or specific years. They might write programs based on the month or the date changing (such as an accounting program that automatically runs "end of the month processing" when the month changes) but year specific dates are NEVER, EVER used. I've been a computer programmer for nearly 30 years and have NEVER, EVER seen or heard of anyone who used your alleged "shortcut of subtracting 38 years from the date". If there was code to be fixed in anticipation of Y2K, it was fixed not band-aided by hard-coding some false past date into a program!
The general idea with y2k was that the field for year in many an old software program was two numbers long and it shoved in a '19'. This was because way back when, and that was pre seventies, most systems had very limited memory. When calculations are done on a date you subract the earlier date from the later date to see how many days its been. So as long as '19' was the same you knew how many days to count for interest or to see if a payment was late, or other more important things. But if the later date is 20, and the early one is 19 you end up with a negative number which many programs of old would just strip off the negative and massive inaccuracies begin.

So it did have the possibility that something might be effected. The bank I worked for did use those dates for figuring interest at month end, which was run at month end. But I worked there in 82 and they were already revising programs to avoid the problems. So any instances of it had long ago been fixed.

There was one insurence company which sent out a letter to every customer to calm their fears. Unfortunately the seperate *print* program created the year in the date by using a 19 then the last two digits of the date, so they reassured their customers that the y2k bug would not harm when when it turned 1900. Then they sent out another letter explaining it was just a print problem....

One of the concerns financial wise was stuff like interest but that was one of the easiest and most obvious fixes.

What made me laugh was people celebrated the last day of the century a year early. Jan one 2000 was the first day of the last year of the century. Jan one 2001 was the first day of the new one. Clarke used that in one of his short stories a long time before.
 
Old 05-27-2014, 07:08 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,193,158 times
Reputation: 16937
Quote:
Originally Posted by armory View Post
I guess we are jaded by wisdom which comes along with age.

Are robots, as portrayed by 20th century sci-fi, truly feasible today? Nope. AI isn't reality yet as the science is far more than sticking a munch of CPUs together and hoping it can be autonomous by nature. That time frame is decades away as the human brain must be replicated - electronically - to achieve a simple desktop which can reason logically on it's own. It will require computing power on a scale the common computer savvy person cannot fathom at this point. Most modern programmers couldn't draw a flowchart to depict such.
I think an android which is sufficently comples to qualify as life will exist sooner over later. The Japanese have some stunning versions of cyber life. No, its not human but it doesn't have to be human. Its just early in its evolution. Fifty years ago computers could add things, and formulas. Today they can apply complex specifics of differeing weight to a problem and come up with nearly the same results as a human. There are programs which can diagnose illness with all the judgement calls which match human doctors and are even used as preliminary runs.

Will they look like Number 7? Will they decide that they have achieved sentience and demand recognition as life? Maybe some day they will. The great leap was in recognizing that a sentient AI does not need to mimmic the human brain, but the functions of it. They gold is at the end of the rainbow, not in how you get there.

Nor does something which is true AI have to be beyond Einstein. A simple creature of the organic variety which barely has a brain at all is still alive. Why would a stripped down, basic ancestor of some future AI not fit the description if its eventual descendent did?
 
Old 05-27-2014, 07:43 PM
 
Location: Anchored in Phoenix
1,942 posts, read 4,557,399 times
Reputation: 1784
Quote:
Originally Posted by ipaper View Post
Back then, I just didn't see things in society being as bad as it is today. Like all the mass killings and a total disregard for human life, the lack of respect people have for themselves and others, the lack of compassion and empathy. People just don't care about much beyond their front yards these days, or it seem that way.
Mass killings?

More than 262 million people were killed by governments between 1900 and 1999 around the world. The 1900s was a terrible century. Most of those killings before the computer age.

And like someone posted, lone wolf killings in the USA have dramatically dropped over the years. What you see instead are sensationalizing.

However I wonder why "we" don't seem to be shocked when 80 women and children are killed by drones in the middle east operated by the USA but are upset over lone wolfs? Nuts like that happen, but less and less.
 
Old 05-27-2014, 09:05 PM
 
Location: sumter
12,950 posts, read 9,582,683 times
Reputation: 10422
Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Roark View Post
Mass killings?

More than 262 million people were killed by governments between 1900 and 1999 around the world. The 1900s was a terrible century. Most of those killings before the computer age.

And like someone posted, lone wolf killings in the USA have dramatically dropped over the years. What you see instead are sensationalizing.

However I wonder why "we" don't seem to be shocked when 80 women and children are killed by drones in the middle east operated by the USA but are upset over lone wolfs? Nuts like that happen, but less and less.
I'm not even thinking about mass killing around the world, I'm only focus on domestic. Can't even do much about it here let alone worrying about around the world. I was only talking about things I see in the world around me everyday or what I get from the news, my thoughts about the world since 2000 never left the usa . If the mass killings have dropped then that's great, I was just speaking what I feel and what that time mean to me, my personal view and not a debate about mass killing.

Last edited by ipaper; 05-27-2014 at 10:16 PM..
 
Old 05-27-2014, 09:14 PM
 
Location: San Diego
50,116 posts, read 46,724,808 times
Reputation: 33954
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linda_d View Post
Y2k was NOT a "bug". It was dopey idea that was popularized by the writer James Kunstler, and proves that having a little knowledge but no understanding is often worse than being ignorant, especially when presented by someone with an agenda.

Kunstler claimed that most major computer systems around the world, including those that ran the power grid, would crash on 01/01/00 because they wouldn't be able to handle the new century. Too bad the fool didn't understand that no computer programmer, especially in the 1980s, would be so stupid as to make a computer system dependent on a specific date as Kunstler claimed. Too bad so many people fell for his BS. Millions upon millions of computer programs were checked and rechecked and except for some reports that might have printed the wrong date, there was no "Y2k bug" anywhere ... even among the millions of computer programs that weren't checked. Not a single light flickered because a power grid computer system depended upon a specific date.

PS - Your claim about 2038 is even dumber than Kunstler's original claim. Understand this: computer programmers do NOT write programs depending upon specific dates or specific years. They might write programs based on the month or the date changing (such as an accounting program that automatically runs "end of the month processing" when the month changes) but year specific dates are NEVER, EVER used. I've been a computer programmer for nearly 30 years and have NEVER, EVER seen or heard of anyone who used your alleged "shortcut of subtracting 38 years from the date". If there was code to be fixed in anticipation of Y2K, it was fixed not band-aided by hard-coding some false past date into a program!
This^^

I haven't seen epoch in quite some time either.
 
Old 05-27-2014, 09:56 PM
 
1,701 posts, read 1,866,175 times
Reputation: 2594
Quote:
Originally Posted by STB93 View Post
"I thought that by the year 2000 we would be having flying cars and jetpacks, and moon vacations by now!!!" What did you guys think about what the future was going to look like by today?
Well I was born in the early 70's and certainly didint think we'd have flying cars. I remember seeing the movies 2000 an 2010 in the 80's and thinking it was a bit far fetched. I didnt expect the PC to make such an impact on our world though. I can play WOW or Halo with, or against someone in India now, pretty amazing if you ask me.

Of course, we must realize that there are people on this planet that are still living by the same means that their ancestors were 10,000 years ago. There are still natives in the Amazon jungle and in rural China that have never used a telephone, much less a PC or gotten an MRI at a hospital.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.



All times are GMT -6. The time now is 04:17 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top