The Daily Show Takes On The Daylight Savings Bug: Aclockalypse Now!
from the who-knows-if-we'll-be-back! dept
As regular readers know, we've had some fun suggesting that there's been a bit too much fear mongering over the potential for a "Daylight Savings Bug," for computers that don't know that Congress moved up Daylight Savings by a few weeks this year. The fear was that somehow, having all these clocks off for an hour would cause havoc with... well... that's not clear exactly. Maybe mistimed coffee brewing. Anyway, as we head out for the weekend in which the big switch is supposed to take place, we'll leave you with the Daily Show's excellent take on the matter. Just as in their earlier clips on net neutrality and online gambling, they seem to have a firm grasp on the topic... and, if we're all wrong and everything goes haywire, guess which blog post we'll have to live down next week?
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Re:
How is it a shame? If people call it Daylight Savings Time, do the terrorists win?
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Just think...
Whoo-hoo!
Now, if they can keep from suing innocent people for one hour, why not 168 hours? (A week)
How about 8,760 hours?(A year)
How about... forever???!
We can call it, "Lawsuit Saving Time."
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Re: Just think...
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Sun(sm) Alert Notification
Sun Alert ID: 102836
Synopsis: Olson TZ Data (tzdata2005r or greater) Incompatibility Issues
BugIDs: 6466476, 6530336
The introduction of Olson Timezone (TZ) data, version 2005r or greater,
may break backward compatibility for the Eastern, Hawaiian, and Mountain
time zones, under certain circumstances.
This issue can occur in the following releases for all platforms:
JDK and JRE v1.4.2_12 and above
JDK and JRE 5.0u8 and above
JDK and JRE 6 and above
3. Symptoms The symptoms/result of this condition will be that Daylight
Saving Time (DST) will be calculated incorrectly.
5. Resolution To resolve this issue (ie. to enable support for the
backward compatible DST timezones), run the "Time Zone Updater Tool" for
v1.4.x+ with the command line options: -f -bc
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Uh
Well since by embedding the clip not only are you:
a) using their bandwidth
but also
b) they're not getting any ad revenue
so no shit
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Great post!
I think I will click on a techdirt adlink now for spite.
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Re: Great post!
For comedy central - I've had the same problem! Only after 2 tries I quit. Besides - you can't count on cc to sort the jon stewart clips in order of entertainment value, or to edit them accordingly.
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Re: Great post!
For comedy central - I've had the same problem! Only after 2 tries I quit. Besides - you can't count on cc to sort the jon stewart clips in order of entertainment value, or to edit them accordingly.
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Ads, what ads
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getting any ad revenue
but they don't understand that and neither do many other people.
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Re: getting any ad revenue
OR...
Perhaps techDirt commenters are a little naive and can't see the other side. Perhaps Comedy Central sees what Mike did as a form of brand dilution. There are many marketing packages that are designed on closely controlling how and when the particular product is used. Everyone I have read on techDirt takes this "any advertising is good advertising" stance but there is also a question of the product/brand owner being able to dictate what their product is associated with.
What if Comedy Central doesn't want search results for this clip resulting in hits against a technology blog? Now that I think of it, isn't this also publicity for techDirt by exploiting someone elses product? I'm not a lawyer or anything, but this isn't really covered under fair use because the criticism was about fear of DST change errors, not explicitly the clip in question (and I don't see one of those used with permission disclaimer). In fact, Comedy Centrals site says (under terms and conditions, section 3):
We criticize people like Comedy Central for not making their resources more easily available, but does that then give us the right to just take their stuff and use it how we want without their permission. That doesn't seem appropriate to me either.
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Re: Re: getting any ad revenue
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Re: Re: Re: getting any ad revenue
I should have looked at the actual instance on the site (and I still haven't due to laziness), but if it is the case that they gave permission to use this video, I apologize and stand corrected on that point. However, I still believe my larger point that content creators shouldn't be criticized just because they manage their content in a way that seems counterintuitve to an outsider. Sometimes there are intangible elements at work such as better brand identification control. Heck, the other motivation may simply be that by hosting the content themselves they can collect statistical data on what pople like and dont like about their content, which is invaluable data (sort of, when both collected and interpreted properly).
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Re: Re: Re: Re: getting any ad revenue
I've forwarded his Utube clips to other people that didn't know he existed.
I suspect pulling Jon Stewart videos off of Utube means his clips just won't get looked at and he'll miss gaining viewer ship utube previously provided.
Compared to Utube CC's website sucks. Clips aren't sorted in a handy manner, and are hard or slow to play. I'm not forwarding links to Jon's clips on CC. So the people I'd have forwarded the Utube clips to now simply won't get to know who he is.
If CC wanted to track clip popularity, that information is available at utube, albeit in a less controllable form. I think the loss is greater than the gain.
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Dumb comments, what dumb comments?
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oh yeah
Notice that Mike didn't hide where he got the clip from - he advertised their site for them.
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Back on topic
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1597043,00.html
And you're freaked out because your computer might hiccup this weekend as it copes with the premature arrival of Daylight Saving Time? Be thankful you weren't screaming across the Pacific Ocean in the U.S. Air Force's newest jet, the $330-million F-22 Raptor. Six of the jets — that's $2 billion worth of air power — had taken off from Hawaii en route to Japan when several of their computer systems went haywire and literally could not tell what day it was.
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Re: Back on topic
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Re: Back on topic
I seriously doubt any F-22 pilot gives a crap what day it is when he's up in the air.
Weapons.... Check
Radar... Check
Guidance... Check
Countermeasures... Check
Parachute... Check
Clock & Calendar... aw crap, we gotta scrub the mission.
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Re: Back on topic
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Ben Franklin is rolling over in his grave
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Connecting to Comedy Central
I'm always astonished at the websites that load slowly, have critical broken links, or video features that don't work. And it's incredibly easy to do a website right!
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Re: Connecting to Comedy Central
I was working in the computer/software industry even back then, and the engineers laughed at all the hysteria. Once the Y2k "crisis" passed, they delighted in saying "I told you so."
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Re: Re: Connecting to Comedy Central
NOTE TO CONGRESS: No, It's not okay to go messing about with the time!
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Re: Re: Connecting to Comedy Central
The daylight saving time issue was a complete over blown. There was absolutely nothing to fear from it. So, your PCs might be an hour behind. Big deal. It would be no different than setting your time. Hell, most PCs auto-set themselves these days against a central time db.
DST was over blown. Y2K was made more of a deal than it was; however, there was a concern with that.
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Bogus
At the very late hour of Friday, March 09, 2007 6:45 PM, another contractor sent this loaded missive to an undisclosed list of recipients:
"[We] will be declaring a longer change control window this weekend to perform some patching for a critical security bug in the Sun DST patches that was identified and released today."
Looks suspicious to me. I think it's either CYA for their not having already applied the patches, or simple FUD to justify billing even more hours. I'm very sure that if there was, indeed, "a critical security bug in the Sun DST patches" that we'd have heard about it weeks ago, from those who applied the patches well in advance.
That is, it's been my experience that proactive folks tend to find problems earlier, as opposed to procrastinators.
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Re: Bogus
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I think I will click on a techdirt adlink now for spite.
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Billing systems...
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It's actually pretty big for transaction processin
*just got done with a 6 hour maintenance window to make sure everything switched over fine after spending 60 some odd hours last week pushing out patches and shoring up some 1500 machines... not bitter at all about this useless bullshit, of course not*
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The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
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Re: Dumb comments, what dumb comments?
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oh...
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Myopism
The poster above who was talking about transaction processing has a real point.
Try manually updating 1500 clocks!
Also, what happens when time critical systems like the nuclear reactor down the road freak out because some critical process was scheduled, and the clock was off?
I'm not saying this wasn't made a joke of by the press, but I am saying that it's not only about the clock in the corner of YOUR screen.
And as far as scripting a solution, why don't you programmers finally figure a way to stop tying all the date and time variables in a program to time zones? What are you getting paid for anyway?
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Whats the fucking problem?
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Re: Whats the fucking problem?
Yes your computer/device did get patched or was written with the new DST information for your time zone.
The "world atomic clock" doesn't just magically work on your time zone only. It works on UTC and your computer/device uses its time zone information/settings to apply a mask to the UTC time for your viewing pleasure.
Ignorance it bliss, I know. But some of us are working hard so you people can go on thinking that this isn't a big deal.
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Re: Myopism
again, so what exactly is it system admins and IT people get paid for?
"Also, what happens when time critical systems like the nuclear reactor down the road freak out because some critical process was scheduled, and the clock was off?"
if a nuclear reactor doesn't have a fail safe for a clock being off by an hour, then all hope for mankind is lost. It took the minds of some of the most brilliant physicists to conceive and produce, and it all goes to shit because the auto-daylight savings adjustment feature was off by a week. riiiiiiight.
seriously, y2k had potential to be a problem, dst being off by a week? you're out of your mind.
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Sysadmins who run their servers in local time need to consider a career change.
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Re: Myopism... 2 words: Legacy Systems
In the real world, they're every where. Telephone switching systems, factories, etc.. Anyplace the computers have done the same thing for not just years, but decades. The old cliche is "the don't make 'em like they used to" is damm right.
Some old DEC boxes are still out there running RSX-11M in factories that run 24/7. Do you thing HP's going to issue patches for them? What about the AT&T 3B2s in old telephone switches? The things that have worked forever, outlive their original programmers, so guys like me have to get up in the middle of the night to manually change all those clocks.
Trust me, I've got a few words for congress too.
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The Clock Switcher
It's called job security. Corporate America can't outsource your hands-on skill to some guy sitting in a cubicle in India. You should be happy there is no time-zone update patch for telephone switches and DEC equipment. Some of us, not yet 40 years old, have been locked out of as many as three different career paths because of outsourcing.
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Technobabble.
Its UNIX. Run zic with the files from the NIST.
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Embedded systems that are not accessable?
GE decided that Y2K could be solved by changing UTC to 1/Jan/1987 (from 1/Jan/1970), thus delaying Y2k for another 17 years. Graet forward thinking....
The train protection system (ATP) and engine monitor (PULSE) can't remember what year it is, they also 'forget' to record data.
Time is not controlled from a central unit (as fas as any engineer I have spoken to knows) so each loco has to be updated manually (by the diver randomly entering the time). Pity they are so busy and can't be recalled for the update.
This is not to mention the Track Side Monitoring equipment used to locate hot/cold wheels and bearings (thus preventing derailments). Last time I was there the sites were registering ambient temperatures of >46 to 52 C! These devices are located in the middle of nowhere, 100's Km from the nearest person (here is FOUR times larger than Texas).
If one of the systems falls over, and there is a derailment, then the corporation will lose aprox Au$100mill a DAY!
It is a big deal to us.
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Daylight Savings Time
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There are numerous other computer systems where if server time and workstation time don't sync, it causes tons of problems, errors, etc. Please don't brush this off as stupidity when you don't know all the facts. For the average consumer, it probably isn't that big of a deal. But believe me, this is worse than you might imagine for many corporations. I think the earlier comment on train locomotives and whatnot is a pretty fair example of that.
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Dell tech support?
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Not an issue...
There are plenty of concerns and significant impact due to this (pointless?) DST change. To say their are not is ignorant and dismisses all of the headaches many of us IT people endured as a result.
As for the comment about what we "IT people get paid for".. It is a rare IT organization that has plenty of staff sitting around just looking for something to do. In exchange for preparing and patching for DST, your tickets, requests, projects, and support in general was delayed. I would guess you probably had to call your helpdesk today and got pissed cause you had to wait in queue too long.
Has anyone actually benefited from this yet? Does anyone even know WHY this change was made? I would also like to know who's idea it was so I can introduce them to my foot.
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Re: Re: Whats the fucking problem?
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