I sometimes wonder if Unix clock running out in 2038 is going to be our only hope to solve the Great IoT DDOS war of 2030s? :)
We'll all be reliving the 70's.
'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
31–40 of 99 posts
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I have been doing software development in Japan for the past decade. Of course you are right that no sane person would contemplate this calendar for any purpose other than user-facing display, and even then only where it is absolutely required. But the insane WTF thing is that it does still seem to be widely required on any kind of financial document. Expense reports, salary statements, that kind of thing. All m…
Canada isn't much better re: feet, miles. Things are officially metric, but because of proximity to the US and inertia, half of everything is still standard. Buying construction supplies and consumables? All in US units. People talk about square footage of condos, buy carpet in square feet, all fasteners are in US units. But gasoline is sold by the liter. People know how tall they are in feet and inches, not cm. Ever…
Interesting. UK is also weird: food is weighed in metric units, people in imperial; Drinks bought in supermarkets are measured in metric, pubs use imperial (by law in both cases, IIRC); Distances on signs can be meters or miles, both initialised as “m” (context being the only clue); fuel is sold by the litre, fuel efficiency is miles per gallon.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Japanese emperor picks a regnal name when he takes the throne, just like the Pope. The name is actually the name of the emperor, not the name of the era. In Japan, nobody uses the emperor's birth name; they just use the regnal name. For example, nobody in Japan says "Hirohito"; they refer to him as "Emperor Showa" instead (though nobody calls Akihito "Emperor Heisei" now, because it's considered rude to refer to…
Thanks! I knew I'd get a good explanation here. And you piqued my interest in the Meiji period - any good Japanese histories to recommend?
Donald Keene's Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World is probably the most complete work on that period of time. It's an enjoyable but very dense read.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I have been doing software development in Japan for the past decade. Of course you are right that no sane person would contemplate this calendar for any purpose other than user-facing display, and even then only where it is absolutely required. But the insane WTF thing is that it does still seem to be widely required on any kind of financial document. Expense reports, salary statements, that kind of thing. All m…
Interestingly, sometimes the system is used for future dates. For instance, my drivers license expires in September of H.31, which I guess will never happen now.
Does this imply that the driver's license becomes invalid and must be replaced with one in the new date system?
Real question
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#35> For one, Akihito has been on the throne for almost the entirety of the information age, meaning that many systems have never had to deal with a switchover in era. The writer must be 12. The last transition, in 1989, is squarely in the middle of the information age.
> The writer must be 12.
Not a useful insight. Compare to me starting a comment with something like "The parent commenter must be an octogenarian." It doesn't actually add anything to your thesis.
> The last transition, in 1989, is squarely in the middle of the information age.
I, and others I'm sure, would argue that 80s were in the earlier half of the information age, especially if we mark it not by time but by number of systems built.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#36> For one, Akihito has been on the throne for almost the entirety of the information age, meaning that many systems have never had to deal with a switchover in era. The writer must be 12. The last transition, in 1989, is squarely in the middle of the information age.
The ageist comment seems unnecessary. I've been on the 'internet' since the 80s as well, but I don't think of the internet really taking off until the 90s, so I understand what the author's comment was conveying.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#37? " Source: Ken Whistler Date: July 16, 2018 Background The UTC is now working on the Unicode 12.0 release cycle. The tentative release date that I and the Editorial Committee are working towards for that release is March 5, 2018. "
I believe it's a typo, and he means 2019.
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#38> For one, Akihito has been on the throne for almost the entirety of the information age, meaning that many systems have never had to deal with a switchover in era. The writer must be 12. The last transition, in 1989, is squarely in the middle of the information age.
Dunno -- I'm still emotionally scarred from dealing with JIS, S-JIS, EUC, etc. in the early 90s. Anyone else remember Ken Lunde's fugu book....?
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've just been on a 3 week trip to Japan and didn't see traditional Japanese dates used anywhere except on museum exhibits. Train tickets, bus tickets, hotel check-in / out dates, credit card receipts, tickets for various attractions etc. all displayed the date in ISO-8601 format. It's interesting to ponder, but the traditional date format seems to have fallen out of use (probably with the advent of the computer era)…
Probably not with the tourist , though all my JR ticket I have are listed with traditional date though -- maybe they issued it with A.D because of you are tourist. Other tickets seems to be mixed though. For example, of documents I have laying around my desk right now: Alien card: A.D / Student card: A.D. / My number card (like US SSN): Traditional / Insurance card: Traditional / Water bill: Traditional / Electricity…
JR definitely produces different tickets depending on whether you used the machine in English or Japanese. (Or depending on what the station attendant thought would be most convenient for you; they can pick the output format and I've gotten both.)
Re: 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Japanese emperor picks a regnal name when he takes the throne, just like the Pope. The name is actually the name of the emperor, not the name of the era. In Japan, nobody uses the emperor's birth name; they just use the regnal name. For example, nobody in Japan says "Hirohito"; they refer to him as "Emperor Showa" instead (though nobody calls Akihito "Emperor Heisei" now, because it's considered rude to refer to…
Is it generally true that, if the Emperor has to refer to himself by name, he'll use his birth name? The one case I've seen that seems this way is that the first author of this paper on fish genetics [1] is listed as "Akihito". [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26475939
Oh wow, it must be insane to be co-author to the emperor!
From the outside it's a weird juxtaposion of a traditional, old (from a European point of view) system of state and an everyday modern way of conducting scientific research. You'd just not expect this kind of contact, somehow.