Author Topic: 2012... Will The World End?  (Read 41700 times)

Offline Hooman

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #25 on: December 11, 2009, 11:03:48 PM »
lol.


This isn't a problem that can be solved automatically for all cases, and probably not even a significant number of cases. It'd be like how we're modifying Outpost 2. It's a slow painful process. Plus, non-trivial changes to data sizes can have rather far reaching effects on a compiled binary. Think of the unit limit increase patch. That was by far the largest patch applied to the exe (that I know of). It was large mainly because we were trying to increase the size of a static buffer, which is the exact same problem with the time stamps.

Unless you have the source code to fix the problem, it's a really brutal problem to try and solve. That assumption about size ends up affecting all kinds of things. Not just memory usage, but also register allocation, and instruction sequences. Once you compile, you lose all sorts of high level information that would tell you where those assumptions have been made.


Also don't forget the cost of hiring a programmer analyse source code to fix date/time width issues. Most companies probably aren't very willing to pay that expense. Particularly not a small one that's concerned about surviving the next few years. They won't care much if there is a flaw that will break a system of theirs in 28 years time. They won't go broke worrying about it. Besides, if a system does break in 28 years time that they've sold to someone else, it's not really their problem. Unless fixing the problem will help them sell more copies, it's not in their financial interest to develop a patch for it. As many programs are past their market lifetime, they will never be fixed.
 

Offline CK9

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #26 on: December 12, 2009, 01:35:38 AM »
Then I don't get why programers, who have to know this, don't make new applictions without this inherent problem and give companies some kind of incentive to update/upgrade.  Something that sounds really big to the average CEO but is really rather small...
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Offline Hooman

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #27 on: December 12, 2009, 06:40:47 PM »
Because not all programmers know this. In an ideal world, yes, they should, but the world is far from ideal. Plus, you may be using a tool that internally uses 32-bit timestamps but doesn't tell you that. It would generally be illegal to reverse engineer it to find out, as well as time comsuming and costly. It's not the kind of thing people stop to think about when they're busy trying to meet deadlines. Plus, sometimes they need to be backwards compatible with an older system that uses 32-bit timestamps.
 

Offline CK9

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« Reply #28 on: December 12, 2009, 07:13:48 PM »
Can't newer systems that don't use 32-bit be backwards compatable in that way?

I just think that, if someone who can code really wanted to make money, they would make the small item that make a big difference to the CEO's.
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Offline Hooman

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« Reply #29 on: December 12, 2009, 07:33:26 PM »
People that know how to code would just write it better in the first place. The problem is, there are lots of people out there that don't really know how to code.

For instance, I work at a small company with 6 people in it, including the owner/boss/"CEO". There isn't exactly a huge budget for a company that small so you can't waste too much time doing certain things. Now, at this company, I am the only computer scientist. The rest are all enginers. They have all taken a programming course or two, but they are, in their own minds, not programmers. They don't know much about issues like this, and generally can't be bothered to learn everything under the sun about programming, just because they occasionally have to write computer code. It is not the main focus of their job. When they have to write something, they take a look at my code, maybe some sample code on the web, read some docs if they really need to, and write something, maybe copied and pasted for the most part. If it works, they move on.

That's how a lot of code out there is written.

Btw, we don't sell code. It's all for internal use. So, if it breaks in 2038, it will only be our own problem. :P
 

Offline CK9

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« Reply #30 on: December 12, 2009, 09:54:02 PM »
lol, no engineer would say they are a programmer, even if it was their minor.  Seeing as you know about it, and it has a direct impact on you, I'm surprised you don't do something to fix it on your own time.  Plus, if your contract with the company doesn't include anything about programs you create, you could sell it independantly for a little extra income.
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Offline Hooman

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #31 on: December 13, 2009, 05:54:30 AM »
I'm not exatly sure what you're trying to say. I'm not saying there are problems with the code at the company I work for. I'm saying some of their code is developed in such a way that these sorts of problems could easily creep in. I'm also suggesting that many other companies will be developing code in a similar manner.


If you're talking about solving the 32 bit timestamp thing in general, then I consider it to be an impossible problem. There is no general way to patch up all existing code to suddenly start using 64 bit timestamps.

Offline CK9

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« Reply #32 on: December 13, 2009, 02:43:17 PM »
aye, but there is a way to replace the programs/encoders and provide comapnies with incentives to
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Offline Wooman

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #33 on: December 18, 2009, 11:08:22 PM »

To give a better understanding of the Mayan culture as it only seems fit after the discussion of race, allow me to elaborate on the misrepresentation of the "end of the world"

to begin in the understanding one must realize the reason behind the collapse or decline of Mayan culture.

The method by which a Mayan lord of king would be placed in power is the backing of the temple and the faith of the people. Maya legend explains a debt to be paid back to the gods. The Mayan world was created by blood of the gods, after year one the debt was to be repaid by Maya royalty by an offer of blood, either by piercing a hole in the tongue or genitals by which a rope with thorns was drawn through in order to draw the blood. The blood was than placed on leaves and 'parchment' and burned, so the blood may be offered up to the gods. (If this method was employed today we might see a more honest politicians) The blood offering was given so the sun would rise, the rain to fall and maize to grow... as explained in one of the few remaining Mayan books copied by Bishop de Landa (who later was responsible for burning the originals in a massive converting effort)
One of the jobs of the Mayan King was to make predictions of the future, one king name pronounced 18rabbit, seemed to be very adamant about being the best of all the lords, and made many adamant predictions one, that used the Maya calendar to predict the end of the world.

As we know the soils of Mesoamerica are anything but prime for farming, which would be required to feed the growing population of the Maya. Prior to over population the method for farming involved slash and burn, where by an area is stripped of the natural foliage than burned to replenish carbon into the soil, crops grown, than the land if left fallow and a new area is used in the meantime. This cycle usually replanted an area every 10-20 years, with over population however land was being used more frequently and with increased salt content from irrigation and natural depletion of nutrients from the soil, the cycle only becomes more frequent and less effective.  Years of over population lead to famine in the area when natural drought set in, the source of the kings power is only upheld by the faith of the people, when those people see that the kings blood is not enough to allow for the necessities of life, the Maya culture began a natural decline and further abandonment of the small villages. (Note that large temples or monumental architecture such as the "pyramids" in castillo chichen Itza are religious and elite centers, plebe or common folks are not permitted unless to offer labor during a festival or to play the sacred ball game for sacrifice for the gods.)

The Maya State was run as a territorial state, no large walls of defense systems implemented, only forts in the country side that reached out along the valley, during the time of the Maya decline, the Spanish conquistadors, were moving in towards their location. Increased warfare, and famine saw the gradual end of the Maya.

I am sure we are all familiar with the Maya for their remarkable mathematics and astronomy. In fact they were so precise that their calculations today of the solar calendar is only off by .3% from the classic Maya period 900AD. Their solar calendar used 365 days with the equivalents of our leap year. With that said, the Maya calendar consisted of not 1 but 3 calendars, the solar or "Haab", the "Tzolkin" or Sacred calendar, and a third inside of the sacred calendar that listed significant events. Picture it as a Gear or Cog in a circle that listed the 365 days of a year, upon the outside of the circular gear is another circular gear that rotates along the outside rim of the solar calendar this is the sacred, and within the sacred is a small gear that rotates along with all three to give a specific date.  The Maya calendar is unlike ours as it is cyclical, not linear, meaning for example, there can be many December 18, 2009, where as in our own calendar there can only be one Dec. 18, 2009. The cyclical nature of the Maya calendar repeats itself every 52 years.

The Maya, began what is called "the long count" which began August 13th 3114BC approximately 5000years ago. The date in Maya culture tells of  "three stones planted" (referring to a harth, three stones to encircle a fire) this day the maize (corn) God resurrected and the sky rose, spinning to create "time".

It is only recently that with the help of linguist and archaeologist that the Maya Glyphs were fully deciphered. All this hocus-pocus about the world ending came from one date that was 8 glyphs long and only appeared once, on the side of a monolith at the bottom on the side. These monoliths often have the carving of a leader upon the front and the most pertinent information surrounds them, the less important information is etched into the thin sides of the monoliths. It is destroyed, but what is legible explains the date December 23 2012 and the translated meaning "Black will occur/descend". These words were among other outrageous predictions made by the King of the time, 18rabbit, as part of his job title.

Since the hype about the end of the world in 2012, many books have been published each with there own fix on the maya from aliens, to devil worshipers. A lot of the books talk about harmonic solar convergence or rare alignments such as the sun and earth being in the center of the galaxy, which has happened many times before. Others talk about solar storms, that will rip the planet apart, these solar storms happen every 11 years according to NASA, and so far, we are still here. Other say the magnetic poles will reverse, well… they do, the north pole 1.67 million years ago was really the south and this can be seen in paleomagnetic studies. Paleomagnetics, looks at the Iron in rocks of harth stones. The iron heats up and aligns to face magnetic north; the clock so to speak is set at the last time of extreme heating. (Paloemagnetics also helps in the understanding of the first controlled use of fire)

So while the Maya were excellent timekeepers, and astronomers, their culture has much to do with the influence of this so called end of the world. And for that matter their world consisted of Mesoamerica, they were not sea faring folks, their world was much smaller than how we often view our world today. As a part of the Kings obligations and faith within him certain predictions were made using the sacred calendar in conjunction with events of the past. The Kings line of Blood failed, why not their predictions? We must not forget that we often choose to see what does not exist in patterns, as through the power of wild imagination can make our own predictions that seem to be correct. The prediction was so vague and far away that who could doubt it? the locaion of this evanescent black was placed in neglected location, if it were to be the end of the world would thier be so little emphasis? rahter if it were true, perhapse we might learn from the maya in not worrying about our demise but rather living now, while we are free to do so. Now as it is only two years from now, one supposes that only time will tell, but more likely than not, it will be just another happy holiday.

Merry Christmas Everyone!
 

Offline Sirbomber

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #34 on: December 18, 2009, 11:26:49 PM »
Quote
Long post
Uhh, thanks I guess, but...  You shouldn't devote that much effort to this kind of discussion (especially if we've already arrived at your conclusion and then moved on to discussing CK9's computer ineptitude :P )...

Edit: Used the word "already" way too much.  Got rid of it a few times.
« Last Edit: December 18, 2009, 11:27:35 PM by Sirbomber »
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Offline Simpsonboy77

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« Reply #35 on: December 18, 2009, 11:27:33 PM »
The main problem is every time you access the data you need to tell the computer to read in more data. Lets assume this can be changed, and out of all the problems I will list it is arguable the easiest to patch. So now the program is reading in a number that is 64 bits, excellent. When we write the date we just tell the computer to write more, which is the same patch as the first effectively.

Now we have a major problem. Since we wrote 32 bits past what we were supposed to, some other value has been over written. Now if that value is changed, we also changed the date. To make room we have to move EVERYTHING in the program after the date. Now EVERYTHING that accesses the moved data must be changed. And if the programmer spent a lot of time making the code efficient, maybe intelligent use of memory pages or cache, that could be screwed up by the shifts. So after a ton of work, you actually made the program slower by breaking this optimizations.

Quote
well, then why hasn't someone developed software that doesn't require source code to function?

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23821/

That may be the closest thing. It is software that will run some other program, and monitor it for vulnerabilities. When it finds one, it attempts to patch it. Its quite brilliant how it works, you gotta read the article.
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Offline CK9

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« Reply #36 on: December 19, 2009, 12:19:46 AM »
HEY!  I'm decent with a computer...most of the time...until a peice of hardware fries...but that's only happened to me twice!  Neither time was really my fault!  (first time: VERY old processor, it was bound to die anyway.  Second time: my dad bought the wrong mobo for the processor)
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Offline Hidiot

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« Reply #37 on: December 19, 2009, 02:01:53 AM »
Even if nothing significant can be changed in today's applications which use time in the 32-bit system, can't work start on the 64-bit time system and then incorporating it in any future application?

Wooman, it's been a nice read, but, as Sirbomber said, we're already over it. Anyone risks death on a day-to-day basis, albeit on a small chance. We're still moving on, regardless.

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Offline Freeza-CII

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« Reply #38 on: December 21, 2009, 01:05:49 AM »
2012 seems like as good as time as any.

Offline Hooman

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« Reply #39 on: December 21, 2009, 02:15:36 AM »
Morbid. I think I'd like to live past the next two years.
 

Offline Sirbomber

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« Reply #40 on: December 21, 2009, 07:36:46 AM »
Get a DeLorean then.  ;)  
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Offline Spikerocks101

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« Reply #41 on: December 21, 2009, 12:27:45 PM »
I like the DaLorean mod in Crysis, very cool. If see your friend get killed, jump in the Dalorean and travel back in time to kill the killer. Any ways, I think the Mayan were like "in 1000 years, people are going to be pranked so bad". A motto can be, "Mayans, the first pranksters"
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Offline CK9

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« Reply #42 on: December 21, 2009, 01:07:56 PM »
but if you do that, you never would have had a reason to go back in time and kill that guy in the first place, therefore he'd die anyway
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Offline Hooman

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2012... Will The World End?
« Reply #43 on: December 21, 2009, 08:38:41 PM »
Ahh yes, time travel paradoxes. Always fun.

So what if the end of the world is more of a Mayan cultural thing? After we're all still alive after 2012, what reason do we have left to remember anything about Mayan culture? ;) Or is that too insensitive. (Mostly, *I* don't know anything about Mayan culture).
 

Offline Sirbomber

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« Reply #44 on: December 21, 2009, 08:58:41 PM »
Quote
Ahh yes, time travel paradoxes. Always fun.
You'd be surprised.  The first and second paradoxes I caused were fun.  I guess the third one was okay but after that it got old.

By the way, in the original timeline, Sierra actually got bought by EA, not VU, and EA shut us down almost immediately afterwards.
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Offline CK9

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« Reply #45 on: December 21, 2009, 11:33:23 PM »
ACTUALLY, bomber, in the first timeline, I came into a large inheritence, bought the rights to the full Outpost serries, and had the original OP3 developed.  Unfortunatly, you tried to steal the rights from me and I had to change things.
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Offline Sirbomber

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« Reply #46 on: December 22, 2009, 12:19:53 AM »
Liar.  I know you can't travel through time.  But to prove I can, I'm going to push the release date of OP1 up from '95 to '94.

Edit: Done.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2009, 12:20:30 AM by Sirbomber »
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Offline CK9

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« Reply #47 on: December 22, 2009, 01:16:30 AM »
pffft!  You only *THINK* I can't, but there are many things you don't truely know!
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Offline Spikerocks101

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« Reply #48 on: December 22, 2009, 07:54:12 AM »
Yeah, like how CK9 blew up the Deathstar.... TWICE!
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Offline CK9

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« Reply #49 on: December 22, 2009, 01:47:57 PM »
anyway, back to topic...
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