tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-143925273655347334.post3717792802322411886..comments2024-03-27T07:30:02.390+00:00Comments on drsolly: rdatedrsollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15954188290191548178noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-143925273655347334.post-90989028082354945812015-02-15T22:11:55.773+00:002015-02-15T22:11:55.773+00:00I remember the "millenium bug" thing. Th...I remember the "millenium bug" thing. There was a big pre-millelial panic, lots of people checked their systems, and then, according to the folk wisdom, nothing happened.<br /><br />Except it did.<br /><br />My systems for billing credit cards stored the card expiry date as mm/dd/yy, only two years for the date. And before I billed a card, I'd check that it was still within the expiry deate, by doing a simple subtraction. If I hadn't done anything about it, then when the year became 00 instead of 99, my systems would have refused to bill any cards. Of course, I knew that would happen, so I changed my software to deal with it.<br /><br />But I also know that the banks had a problem, because between January and March of 2000, no cards were being issued, and that cuold only mean that they were having a problem, I don't know what.<br /><br />The leap second isn't going to bother me. I don't have anything that's synchronised to the second, if a clock is a few minutes out, that won't cause me a problem. It's only when the drift goes over an hour that I'd get a problem.<br /><br />Oh, and you're probably wondering why I used mm/dd/yy instead of the more normal dd/mm/yy. It's because I wasn't thinking clearly enough when I designed the system, and I decided to use US-style dates. For no good reason. And I haven't changed it since then, because it's not worth the effort (and possible introduction of a bug) to change to the UK style of dd/mm/yy, although for everything *except* billing, that's what I use.<br />drsollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15954188290191548178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-143925273655347334.post-81855599972329514512015-02-15T20:38:26.787+00:002015-02-15T20:38:26.787+00:00How about on 30 June 2015 when a “leap second” wil...How about on 30 June 2015 when a “leap second” will be added to the day? There is a risk that a small number of systems may fail when this extra second occurs. Charles Dythamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16545006539220844521noreply@blogger.com