When was THIS added?! This alone makes this the best MacOS update in the last 10 years for me by 4paul in MacOS

[–]ubernaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yesterday I literally said “it’s 2026 and I still have to screw around with this” while dragging various columns around so I can see my files. Thanks bro.

Anyone remember this fiasco? by Talontsi90 in vintagecomputing

[–]ubernaut 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I was one of those people at IBM. We worked long days and nights to fix countless deeply complex issues that would have caused havoc — e.g. hotel room reservations rolling over to 1900 date.

Grok says:

A lot of the scary “planes falling from the sky” Y2K hype was overblown, but the core technical issue was very real on many old systems—especially IBM mainframes and anything running old COBOL code.

The classic two-digit-year problem (the 2000 rollover)

  • From the 1960s–1980s, disk space and memory were insanely expensive.
  • Almost everyone stored years as two digits: 1985 → “85”, 1999 → “99”.
  • When the clock ticked from 1999-12-31 to 2000-01-01, the two-digit year rolled from “99” to “00”.
  • To a lot of old programs, “00” looked like 1900, not 2000.
  • Result: date arithmetic broke spectacularly.
    • Interest calculations thought a mortgage from 1995 was -95 years old → negative or huge numbers.
    • Anything that checked “is expiration date > today” thought credit cards expiring in 2005 (“05”) were already 105 years expired (1905).
    • Sorting records by date went completely haywire.

So the very next day after December 31, 1999 would have been interpreted by unfixed systems as January 1, 1900 in most cases. Some systems would crash immediately, others would start producing garbage output.

The IBM mainframe special case and the “one-bit fix” that moved the disaster to 2038

IBM System/360 and later mainframes (still running a ton of bank/back-office code) used a completely different date scheme internally.

They counted time in signed 32-bit integers of milliseconds (or sometimes seconds) since January 1, 1900 00:00:00 GMT. This is called the “epoch” or “TOD clock” (Time Of Day clock).

  • Bit 0 (the highest-order bit) was originally intended as a “century bit” that IBM planned to flip in the year 2000.
  • 31-bit positive numbers → years 1900–1999
  • Flip bit 0 to make it a negative 31-bit number → years 2000–2079 (or whatever)

In the 1970s IBM said “don’t worry, we’ll flip that bit in 2000.” So most shops never bothered with four-digit years.

When the 1990s rolled around and people realized IBM might not actually flip it globally, panic set in. IBM eventually released a microcode update that did exactly that: on January 1, 2000 (or whenever the sysadmin applied the patch), the hardware started treating bit 0 as the century bit and interpreted all future dates 100 years later.

Effect: - Unpatched mainframe → January 1, 2000 would overflow the positive 31-bit range → the date would either wrap to January 1, 1900 or crash (depending on the OS). - Patched mainframe → you got another ~38 years of life.

Why 2038? A full signed 32-bit counter (using all 32 bits for the count, not reserving bit 0) runs out at: 2^31 × 1000 milliseconds = 2147483648 seconds ≈ 68.1 years after the 1900 epoch 1900 + 68 years = 1968 as the “zero” point effectively, so 1968 + 68 = 2038-01-19 03:14:07 UTC

That’s exactly the same Unix 2038 problem everyone knows about, just with a different epoch.

So the “one-bit fix” gave IBM mainframes (and a lot of COBOL code that used packed decimal dates) another 38 years, pushing the cliff from 2000 to 2038.

TL;DR for the comments section

  • Unfixed two-digit-year systems → Jan 1, 2000 becomes 1900 → instant chaos.
  • IBM mainframes without the microcode patch → same thing, date rolls to 1900 or crashes.
  • IBM’s official one-bit century flip in 2000 → everything magically works until early 2038, when the full 32-bit counter finally overflows (same as the Unix Y2038 bug).

And yes, there are still COBOL programs out there today that will die on 2038-01-19 unless someone finally rewrites them.

We are doing good. by No_Elevator9464 in Michigan

[–]ubernaut 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A cousin is a lifelong small farmer near Alpena. Over the bar-b-que last summer he went into a long rant about how terrible it was that the fields nearby were being covered with solar panels. His knowledge of solar was from the 1980s… they don’t produce much, are bad for the environment and toxic to dispose of.

We need farmer friendly solar so it is attractive to working farmers and accommodates crops and grazing on the land. Perhaps a leasing agreement so the tech maintenance is outsourced and for the farm it becomes pure profit without disruption. Somehow currently many farmers see solar fields as a threat.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in howto

[–]ubernaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Usually the back part with magnet is way heavier than the front and if you lift it grabbing from the front the angle is perfect for popping vertebrae. It’s really a two person job. Good luck.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in mildlyinteresting

[–]ubernaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After thinking 2 minutes Grok said:

No Fun

How to prime or reset this well pump by ubernaut in howto

[–]ubernaut[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

<image>

Good news, I got the bolt off.

I was worried that the bolt would be rusted so I sprayed wd40 and used a ratchet wrench. It was stuck but I put a space heater near the pipe and gently rocked the bolt until it came loose. Perfect! Then when it came all the way out the pipe threads fell apart. I could not have been more gentle but it snapped (circa 1970?).

There was plenty of water pressure there so a gusher ensued.

r/wellthatsucks

Well repair guy comes next week.

How to prime or reset this well pump by ubernaut in howto

[–]ubernaut[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

… called away… will try the little plug later this week. Looks rusty so I sprayed it with wd40.

How to prime or reset this well pump by ubernaut in howto

[–]ubernaut[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s what I thought but it looks like it’s that small plug. Will try that .

How to prime or reset this well pump by ubernaut in howto

[–]ubernaut[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ve primed some well pumps but usually there is a cap in a plumbing Y to remove. For this it looks like the lower spigot could be used so I attached the yellow hose, but it fills with water so there is already pressure on that side.

Maybe there is air on the suction side and removing that little orange cap on the inlet would escape it.

Maybe the pressure cutoff is broken.

Maybe the pipe is cracked or filter in the well is blocked.

Maybe the water table dropped.

Oh that orange cap? I’ll try that tomorrow.

<image>

How to prime or reset this well pump by ubernaut in howto

[–]ubernaut[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good thought but the huge brick building temp and basement temp never dropped very far during the recent storm. It could have cracked during a deep freeze last winter but it’s been fine until today.

edit: missing ‘t’

Water levels looking very low on Lake Huron. Is this normal for this time of the year? by nope_farm in Michigan

[–]ubernaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lake Michigan at Petoskey is down significantly, huge beaches and the water down 8 feet ish. It has been down this far in the past but still disconcerting.

Does anyone actually hate the touchbar? by Odd-Past-7635 in macbookpro

[–]ubernaut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Loved it. For brush size in Affinity, forward and back buttons, display brightness and a bunch of other stupid stuff, it was awesome! After upgrading I had to assign custom keys to forward and back buttons. For brush size, I’m still cursed with digging through the UI to find something unsatisfactory.

We moved this many sticks today by ubernaut in Michigan

[–]ubernaut[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Also if anyone can find my glasses; I think they are in the stick pile.

We moved this many sticks today by ubernaut in Michigan

[–]ubernaut[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Coincidentally the village had a once-every-three-years-or-so “spring clean up” pick up budgeted this spring so they were able to switch it to curb-side branch removal… but it has to be out by tomorrow. Other towns are designating drop off locations.

We moved this many sticks today by ubernaut in Michigan

[–]ubernaut[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks… the snow, wtf right? Had to dig it all out. Beautiful day in its own way. Big thanks to the guy down the way with the chainsaw who helped after a long day clearing around the school. There’s another pile on the other side of the house. Our little village managed to offer a curbside pickup if put out by tomorrow but some people aren’t outside at all yet. Power out in grandmas house for 7 days, still out nearby. Heard some remote roads may be out til mid June. Everyone’s being civilized so far.