AbnormallyHonest Posted May 8, 2017 Posted May 8, 2017 September 11th, 2001 was a Tuesday morning. I remember it well because I had no scheduled classes that day so when I woke up, with no understanding of what was going on, I only remember that classes were canceled and it meant nothing to me. It wasn’t until someone urged me to turn on the television to, “any channel” that I realized how much our world was about to change. Little did I know how perceptive I really was of that without really knowing until 15 years later.The calendar year has approximately 365.2424 days in it, which means, about every four years we fall one day behind, but once every 400 years, we need to skip a leap year in order for the days to remain synced to the actual position of the Earth around the Sun. Why is this important? Well, because the year 2000 was one of those years that the leap year should have been skipped. According to our calendars though, it existed just as it does now.So imagine that you are a wealthy world leader whom has many investments in the world stock market. Also imagine that all of computer data, including the dates, are stored electronically. Now if you wanted to be able to predict how the stock market would behave tomorrow, wouldn’t it be nice to have a simulation of how it actually would rise and fall today? See where I’m going with this?Tuesday, 9/11 happens, and during all the confusion, no one noticed that, on the computers, the day was marked as 9/11, but only, on their calendars, there was no leap year. So while the system was down for that brief period of time, it was caught back up to the right time, but no one noticed that inset program had just shifted everything prior to 2/29/2000 one day, because the program recognized that there should not have been a leap year there. Which is fine, what difference does it make if my birthday fell on a Monday or Tuesday last year or whatever. Well, once you add the day back in to correct the “error” now you stock market servers are actually reporting the stock market as one day, but if you kept the previous programming, you would have the same market reporting with one day difference. Now if you were a wealthy and influential person, which program would you keep private and which would you reinstall into the new servers after the commotion was done? What kind of advantage do you think you would have over trade and wealth worldwide?I would say, to be aware of this, or even actually plan for this, would not be something of weak minded. If you google 2/29/2000, on the first page of google you will see a lot of programming jargon about why that day was so difficult to reconcile, or why it shouldn’t have existed to begin with. At the time, I think everyone took for granted that it was supposed to be a leap year but for some reason, the computers couldn’t figure it out… a Y2K bug. Seems like it was a manipulation that had been planned with every detail to defraud the world economy, and I would say since my realization of this is the first time I’ve ever even heard of such a scandal… it was executed perfectly. Will we ever be able to reconcile the day… in dollars or lives? -3
Strange Posted May 8, 2017 Posted May 8, 2017 What? This sounds more like some incoherent conspiracy theory than computer science. Of course 2000 was a leap year. Everyone has always known that it would be. No one magically retrofitted the extra day. It was always there. And it has nothing to do with the Y2K problems (which were all fixed on time, apart from a few tiny hiccups). Sheesh.
AbnormallyHonest Posted May 8, 2017 Author Posted May 8, 2017 (edited) What? This sounds more like some incoherent conspiracy theory than computer science. Of course 2000 was a leap year. Everyone has always known that it would be. No one magically retrofitted the extra day. It was always there. And it has nothing to do with the Y2K problems (which were all fixed on time, apart from a few tiny hiccups). Sheesh. Actually, 2000 was not a leap year. Nor will be 2400. The precession of the orbital period requires that skipping a leap year every 400 years. 2000 should not have had a February 29th. The information in Wikipedia is inaccurate, yet the chart seems fine. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gregoriancalendarleap_solstice.svg#/media/File:Gregoriancalendarleap_solstice.svg Edited May 8, 2017 by AbnormallyHonest
Strange Posted May 8, 2017 Posted May 8, 2017 Actually, 2000 was not a leap year. Nor will be 2400. Of course it was. http://www.npl.co.uk/science-technology/time-frequency/time/faqs/was-2000-a-leap-year-why-who-decided-this-(faq-time) The information in Wikipedia is inaccurate As you don't say which information, I can't check this. However, as you clearly don't have a clue, I will assume it is correct.
NimrodTheGoat Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 Still confused as to what 9/11 had to do with the leap year of 2000. I was a tiny child when both happened.
Raider5678 Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 Still confused as to what 9/11 had to do with the leap year of 2000. I was a tiny child when both happened. Basically saying, that they have a device that can predict the future. So yeah. Insanity.
Strange Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 Basically saying, that they have a device that can predict the future. So yeah. Insanity. Or that they could go back in time and insert a leap day that wasn't there before. Even greater insanity!
Raider5678 Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 Or that they could go back in time and insert a leap day that wasn't there before. Even greater insanity! Wait. It's a time traveling conspiracy. The wealthy have the ability to manipulate time. And they use it to make billions of dollars. Forget one day. They're rigging everything! We know how Trump won now.
AbnormallyHonest Posted May 9, 2017 Author Posted May 9, 2017 Btw, skipping a leap year every 100 years puts the calendar 3 days ahead every 400 years, convenient that our digital calendars only go back to 1901? Not a bad way to set the record straight... I mean if you're wealthy and influential. -2
John Cuthber Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 Btw, skipping a leap year every 100 years puts the calendar 3 days ahead every 400 years, convenient that our digital calendars only go back to 1901? Not a bad way to set the record straight... I mean if you're wealthy and influential. Do you realise that many people still don't have a digital calendar, and rely on a paper one?
Strange Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 Btw, skipping a leap year every 100 years puts the calendar 3 days ahead every 400 years, convenient that our digital calendars only go back to 1901? Neither of those are true. You are awesomely lacking in clue. (I just typed "cal 1900" at my computer and it came up with a "digital calendar" for that year.)
swansont Posted May 9, 2017 Posted May 9, 2017 We don't skip every 400 years, we skip every 100, except for the ones divisible by 400 "Leap Years are any year that can be evenly divided by 4 (such as 2012, 2016, etc) except if it can be evenly divided by 100, then it isn't (such as 2100, 2200, etc) except if it can be evenly divided by 400, then it is (such as 2000, 2400)" https://www.mathsisfun.com/leap-years.html So the combination of conspiracy and invalid premise = closed
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