THE YEAR TWO-THOUSAND BUG
Is the world going to end at the year, two-thousand because of the Y2K computer virus? Absolutely not. The Y2K bug might cause a little bit of disorder with our digital-life when the clock strikes twelve because we might not have any stock market, electricity, or savings in the bank.
In every mainframe and super-computer, that most every large business owns, there is a little glitch when it tries to compute the year two-thousand. It simply is unable to do so because it has a two digit year entry. The computer is unable to set the first two numbers in the date because in computer does not need to because the computer code in the software says it is always the twentieth century or 19--. If it is not corrected by the time the year two-thousand rolls around, the computer will read: 01/01/1900.
So, what does all this mean to me? Well, when the monthly heating bill comes, the computer will think the heat was on for ninety-nine years because it cycles back to 1900. Let me put this way, if the normal bill is $75 for December, then it will be $89,175! The same goes for the electric bill and telephone but only if the phone is being used between 1999 and 2000. In my personal opinion, the Y2K bug will not have any effect because everything will be fixed up and ready to run properly by the deadline. Maybe I’m just a little to dependent and taking these enterprises for granted.
On the other hand, there are numerous companies making a huge profit on this potential crisis. Software tycoons are making fortunes for selling software that makes people’s personal computers Y2K equipped. The thing is, that PC’s do not use dates as often and are not nearly as important to them as large to corporations because I have already stated in paragraph two and three. An even worse fact, is that most PC’s are already Y2K compliant so the software is totally non-essential for it to adjust! PC’s just need a few “tweaks” in the settings to make them ready.
Many works of literature describe the end of the world as the end to humanity from a natural disaster such as an earthquake, tsunami, or volcanic eruption. Some go as far as deadly viruses eliminating the human race. In the short stories, There Will Come Soft Rains, by Ray Bradbury, and Chippoke Na Gomi, by Misha Nogha, both authors predict the end of the world due to human conflicts and destruction. Bradbury and Nogha both focused on the aftermath of a nuclear bomb. In both stories, There Will Come Soft Rains and Chippoke Na Gomi, human-developed technology intending to make life better can have the opposite effect thereby creating the destruction of humanity.
According to the website to to2012.com some believe that the end of the world as we know it will occur on the 21st December 2012. This date coincides with the end of the Mayan Long count calendar and will supposedly mark a 'new beginning of joy and enlightenment for all of humanity. A new humanity 100 times more harmonious than we are currently. An instantaneous launch, if you will, to a higher vibratory state on 21st December 2012'. 3
The Y2K problem...the Y2K glitch...the millennium bug. Whatever you call it, it is the inability of some computers and computerized systems to correctly recognize dates after December 31, 1999. Many products have microchips that have been programmed to process only the last two digits of a year on the assumption that the first two would be one and nine. As a result, 98 is read as 1998, and 00 could be read as 1900 instead of 2000.
Meaning corporations purposely make products that won’t last or will be otherwise social unacceptable to own in the near future. This is all a trick to cause the consumer to buy more of a product and spend more money. According to Annie Leonard, author of The Story of Stuff, “[designers] discussed how fast they can make stuff break and still leave the consumer with enough faith in the product to go buy another one” (11). This fuels consumption further than necessary and most importantly at an alarmingly wasteful way. Nothing shows more obsolescence than the technology market with computers and phones. Giles Salde wrote an award winning book about technology obsolescence and explains “a century of advertising has conditioned us to want more, better, and faster from any consumer good we purchase, in 2004 about 315 million working PCs were retired in North America” (Planned Obsolescence viewpoint). This shows the affect caused by corporations to increase profits at the cost of resources. They use new software and products being incompatible with previous versions of electronics to force consumers to buy more. You see this commonly with televisions, gaming systems, computers, and many other electronic
The Earth should last for millions of years and gradually get colder until all life forms die, unless God steps in and brings the world, as the world knows it and passes out the last judgment. The population does not know when the Second Coming will transpire but they must be perpetually on the watch because it will come like a thief in the night.
“One hundred and thirty-thousand computers are thrown out every day in the U.S., and over one hundred million cell phones every year” (CBS News). We live in a materialistic society where more is good and the newer the better. In our fast paced lives companies used this to their advantage to continual bring out newer upd...
Working as an IT analyst at Maritz at the time, Melisa and her team were the first to know about the upcoming disaster. “At work we started talking about it well ahead of time” (Allen). The talk was about the Y2K bug which was a problem in the coding of computerized systems that was projected to create havoc in computers and computer networks around the world at the beginning of the year 2000. This was because until the 1990s, many computer programs were designed to abbreviate four-digit years as two digits in order to save memory space. These computers could recognize “98” as “1998” but would be unable to recognize “00” as “2000,” perhaps interpreting it to mean 1900. Many feared that when the clocks struck midnight on January 1,
PC industry is affected by two opposite forces: technological advance that pushes the industry forward and the industry sensitivity to economical stagnation (if the economical situation is bad customers won't upgrade their computers).
It is the time of progress. The time of supercomputers, space shuttles, and many other wonders of technology. We have walked on the moon. We do our shopping at home via Internet navigation.
Microsoft was able in the OS segment to double their revenue per PC when Windows 3.x emerged which still needed MS-DOS to run. Most of the sales Microsoft made were to OEMs who would take the additional step of installing Windows on a computer’s hard drive. This strategy was effective in that the cost of production was relatively low, as an OEM may only need a single master copy to do the installation. The costs to Microsoft would largely be bore in R&D expense rather than production. As part of the Microsoft business model for this segment, Microsoft designed their OS to need periodic upgrades. The upgrades did come at a cost, and in essence, Microsoft was able to create an “annuity” stream for the Microsoft OS segment. In this segment, Microsoft had a monopolistic structure that allowed them to realize huge returns, especially during such a period of technological growth and rapid obsol...
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Smith, PHD (an associate professor of economics at the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University), 6% of data losses is the result of software corruption and 40% is due to hardware failure. So what does this have to do with using up-to-date technology? Choosing to save money today by using unsupported software and outdated hardware are primary reasons for software corruption and hardware failure. Even more, there’s nothing more frustrating than losing data or having a hardware failure that brings employees to a grinding halt and negatively impacts
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