2

This is a bit of a whimsical question inspired in part by the publicity for the movie 2012 but it is one that could have real implications for software systems. (If not in 2012, then definitely in 2038.)

There are all sorts of doomsday predictions for the year 2012 and i was wondering if there's a date time/timestamp system out there that is due to expire in 2012? (i thought i ran across one years ago but i don't recall the specifics. i could also be remembering 2038.)

For example, a commonly-used date time system starts at 1970/1/1 and counts by seconds from that time. If you add the max value of unsigned int as seconds to that value, you get a date that falls in 2038. 1/19/2038 3:14:07 AM to be exact.

So, is there a date time system where:

epoch start + max of common int type = date in 2012 ?

btw, i am not trying to fan any flames of paranoia. This is whimsy aligned with real systems design considerations.

UPDATE Donut found this page which contains the following reference but no further info: 2012-07-13 Fri - UNIX time_t $50000000 at 11:01:20 UTC

Any ideas?

Paul Sasik
  • 79,492
  • 20
  • 149
  • 189
  • Not that I've ever heard of, but I love how you created a y2k12 and y2k38 tags. I see those becoming the most used tags on SO ;) – LoveMeSomeCode Oct 15 '09 at 15:05
  • 2
    i've been calling it "y2.038k" – Kip Oct 15 '09 at 15:08
  • 3
    Y2K38 is the more common nomenclature. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem – jason Oct 15 '09 at 15:14
  • @Ben: i've heard of Usenet. Is that similar? – Paul Sasik Oct 15 '09 at 15:24
  • 3
    damn why should you call it y2k38 instead of y2038... it's exactly the same length?! only because of the analogy to y2k? there it made sense though... – Atmocreations Oct 15 '09 at 15:36
  • 2
    @Atmo - Yes, just for the analogy to y2k. i was thinking that any programmer who was working in the late 90s would see "y2k38" and know exactly what's up. – Paul Sasik Oct 15 '09 at 15:43
  • @psasik: Regarding UNIX `time_t 0x50000000`, it's just a silly round-number milestone. You know, the tendency to like nice round numbers and what not? Note that there are others (like 1978-07-04, 1987-01-05, etc.) – jason Oct 15 '09 at 16:04
  • @atmo: reminds me of the fact that "www" has three times as many syllables as "world wide web". (or twice as many if you pronounce it more like "dubya".) – Kip Aug 13 '10 at 03:43

5 Answers5

9

No.

Raymond Chen gives a pretty good list of special dates in different date systems, none of them involve 2012. (See also his explanation of those date systems.) The only special date I know of that he leaves out is 9999-12-31, the largest datetime in many database systems (at least in MySQL and I think SQL Server).

While I'm sure someone somewhere at some point has decided to write some computer system based on Mayan calendars, there is no widely used system that works that way.

Kip
  • 107,154
  • 87
  • 232
  • 265
  • 1
    That 'special dates' link is a very handy find actually. And especially a link from that page: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2003/09/05/54806.aspx – Paul Sasik Oct 15 '09 at 15:28
5

Well, if you take 12/23/2012, which is when some people think the Mayan doomsday thing will happen, and subtract the max value of a 4 byte integer, you get December 4th, 1944. And according to wikipedia, nothing whatsoever happened on that day.

BUT, that is the date that Led Zeppelin officially broke up in 1980, so I'd say that's a bad omen and we're in for some serious s*%#!

LoveMeSomeCode
  • 3,888
  • 8
  • 34
  • 48
2

Wikipedia has a section in article on the Year 2000 Problem on date bugs similar to Y2K. Also, there is an article on problems that arise from using epochs to measure time in computing systems. Neither of these refer to a Y2K12 problem.

jason
  • 236,483
  • 35
  • 423
  • 525
2

The List of Critical and Significant Dates looks pretty clear for 2012, at least in regards to computer-related issues (but is still worth taking a look at).

Donut
  • 110,061
  • 20
  • 134
  • 146
  • Interesting section in that page: 2012-07-13 Fri - UNIX time_t $50000000 at 11:01:20 UTC ANy idea what that means exactly? – Paul Sasik Oct 15 '09 at 15:35
  • It's just a round-number milestone. There are others on that page. – jason Oct 15 '09 at 15:40
  • Yep, it's just 0x50000000 (1,342,177,280 seconds since the Epoch), not anything inherently special. – Donut Oct 15 '09 at 15:43
0

No.

unless you are planning for doomsday power outages or EMP fields.

SketchBookGames
  • 464
  • 8
  • 14