Y2K, DST, and the IDL

Remember the Y2K (Year 2000) issue? Has it been so long that we forgot about all the hype and hysteria, or have we just been distracted by more recent events? Y2K was that doom and gloom event when the entire developed world as we knew it was supposed to end. The idea was that when December 31, 1999 became January 1, 2000, all the computers in the world may crash, and since most everything was controlled by computers, all sorts of horrible things were going to occur. At least that's the way the over reactive media described it. Electricity was supposed to go out, water wouldn't flow, airplanes would collide in mid air, the banking system would fail, and the stock market would crash. Sounds like a corny movie script, huh?

Well, after that turned out to be a non-event, then this DST (Daylight Savings Time) thing happened last week. You know, Congress moved the date at which you change the time on your clock up three weeks from April to March. There were some dire predictions about that event too. Well, it also turned out to be nothing but hype. The worst part about it was the fact that we all temporarily lost an hour of sleep. Others said the thing that really sucked was that the clocks in Tijuana didn't change, so you would leave there at 2 in the morning, thinking that you could get at least some sleep before work, only to find out it was 3 o'clock as soon as you crossed the border into the US!

So know we come to the International Date Line, or IDL. Who would of ever thought that an imaginary line on the globe could spell the end of the world? Well, it almost did for 6 USAF pilots flying brand new $125 million F-22 fighters from Hawaii to Okinawa. You see, there were those few lines of computer code that somebody left out, and ... If you don't believe me, check out this link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1791574/posts

KC-10 refueling F-22














F-22