Hover Text:
The universe started in 1970. Anyone claiming to be over 38 is lying about their age.
Transcript
[Cueball sits at a computer, staring at the screen and rubbing his chin in thought. A friend stands behind him.]
Cueball: Weird — My code’s crashing when given pre-1970 dates.
Friend [pointing at Cueball and his computer]: Epoch fail!
People will get it in about 14 years.
Is it just (Canuckian) me, or shouldn’t it be pronounced EpOch (long ‘e’, long ‘o’) to avoid ambiguity? It still breaks my brain when US people say what I hear as ‘epic’.
If it matters, I’m american and I only ever hear it the way you say it. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone pronounce it like “epic” 🤔
Also American and I’ve heard ee-pock and eh-pock but never epic as well.
I searched some more, and I had to stop since it just made me more frustrated :)
Listen to this clip (find the Podcast link halfway down the page with a short audio clip):
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epoch
The narrator even prefaces the discussion by saying “… EEE PEE OOOH CEEE EAYCHH”. Guh!! :P
Yeah, as a Brit I pronounce it
ɪ́j p ɔ k(ee as in fleece, o like in goal), so this joke took me a bit to figure out.I didn’t even realise those US mavericks would say it like epic. Unless I’d heard it and didn’t recognise it - lately I’ve been hearing a few people mention the “Adam” editor and it took me several different people before I realised they were saying “Atom”.
Thank you, sets my mind at ease to know it is not just me :)
“Atom” vs. “Adam” – yes now that you mention it, you’re not hearing things, Americans do say it differently.
This reminds me of something that constantly bothers me about youtube tutorials: I can tell instantly the presenter is American or was raised in America when they say “… now go ahead and …” rather than “now, …” or “next, …” when presenting step-by-step procedures. I don’t know why, but it really bothers me, yet there is nothing ‘wrong’ about it.
Haha, constantly hearing “go ahead” is absolutely my #1 bugbear - I get so irritated and distracted when people keep repeating it that I have to rewind to actually listen to the other words. I’ve noticed some Brits have started using it to, much to my dismay.
I was using gpg earlier and it told me “Go ahead and type your message”.
It’ll be less than that. 2038 is when it will completely hit the fan. However, anything that stores future datetimes could hit it earlier. 10 year product maintenance? You’ll start storing out of range dates in just 4 years time.
I used to work on some insurance software that went haywire in 2018 when a 20 year policy was created. That wasn’t a fun month for us.
Also, wtf, 2018 was 6 years ago!?
Which is why 64 bit time has been widely adopted and even made to work on 32 bit systems. 2038 is already a problem in some areas and nobody wants Y2K issues again, so people are getting it solved much earlier than last time.
I’m more worried about 2038-01-19 than I was about the Y2K bug.
Why are people so worried about this? 32 bit systems aren’t nearly as prevalent as they used to be
General computers, you’re right… however, embedded systems and custom programs are a whole different story.
Can confirm. I can’t give details, but … yeah. Had to file a card just last month about a uint32_t UTC time value being used in a device-to-cloud message where it will definitely need to be upgraded to a uint64_t before good ol’ 2038 comes …
Even in another 14 years?
Here’s an easy example…. Planes average about 30 years. They are usually developed over the span of 5-7 years. 64-bit processors didn’t even hit mainstream till 2003. Like cars, planes are a bit behind because they usually want them as solid as possible. So right then a life span of a plan could have been built with 32-bit systems that will still be in use in 2038. Some B-52s have had 60+ year spans. Also programs that were designed with 32-bit time to save space at a database level for example would need to be rewritten. It’s more things than you think.
Some of these systems have already been in place for over 15 years. Do You really think they will be replaced in that amount of time if they are still working?
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