The 2038 Problem

🔗 The 2038 Problem
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Remember the "Year 2000" problem (or Y2K) in the late 90s? This referred to the fact that many older computer systems represented years using only two digits. This meant that when the year 2000 arrived, many systems would incorrectly display it as "00" instead of "2000", causing errors with dates and calculations.

While I was a teenager at the time, I was already into computers so it fascinated me and I was glued to the screen reading about it. When the New Year eve hit... nothing happened. Life continued as normal, so all the non-technical people around me said this "threat" was blown out of the proportion to make some news headlines. What I didn't know is that behind the scenes there was a massive efforts to remediate systems to avoid major disruptions when the actual date arrived.

This is a great example of "Preparedness paradox". When a potential disaster is properly prepared for, it won't seem like a big deal after the fact. People will think the precautions were unnecessary. But Y2K could have been a major catastrophe if nothing was done. Some estimates suggested failures in key systems could lead to blackouts, air travel shutdowns, supply chain issues and even nuclear missile system failures.

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