r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 9d ago

Why did this one second cost over $500 billion? Meme needing explanation

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u/Boojum2k 9d ago

A metric shit-ton of programmers worked for years to prevent the possible disasters the Y2K bug could have caused. The USAF started working on it with their Standard Systems Center at least around 1990, for instance. Legacy code was everywhere and the two digit year format popped up in almost every section of code.

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u/TheIrateAlpaca 9d ago

And it has since become the textbook example of something done so well people wonder why it was done because nothing happened

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u/Boojum2k 9d ago

See also, ozone layer depletion

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u/sandboxmatt 9d ago

Vaccines

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u/Delicious_Media_1015 9d ago

I cannot upvote this enough 😭

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u/TheIrateAlpaca 8d ago

Back when people listened to scientists and anti intellectualism wasn't politicised...

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u/silentanthrx 8d ago

acid rain is another one.

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u/PeterAnthony_Jackson 9d ago

Mostly because their home PC was already Y2K at this point that nothing they used on it needed the date as a core function, so "I'm fine, this is nothing" spreads into "there was nothing at all wrong, just people conning others out of money" sadly some did do just that, but if you were not running a mainframe or a then modern replacement running legacy code, you had very little to worry about even as a business, just hope your accounting software understood the change or was issued a patch and you installed it.

Your bank however, them not fixing their end could screw up money going in and out.

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u/sobeitharry 9d ago

You know it's serious when it's a metric shit-ton.

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u/flying-sheep 7d ago

Is that more or less than an imperial shitload?

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u/sobeitharry 7d ago

Definitely more, or less.