#millennium bugs

[atdoop]

some wigglypaint fanart of something i found while looking through old geocities gifs recently. it's called a millennium bug, created by someone who went by "oges". a little bit about where i found it and a link to the original below.

i've been looking through a ton of old internet stuff recently, trying to track down the origin of this silly little gif:

(still no luck there, earliest instance of it i can find is a deactivated tumblr blog)

while looking i was linked to gifcities, an internet archive project trying to preserve pretty much every gif on geocities. i don't remember what i searched, but when i saw the bug i was instantly enamored. it's such a cute little design, and i thought what the creator wrote about them was really heartwarming and sweet.

so of course i had to adopt my own and take care of it!! here's the original, they came in a bunch of colors but only the pink one was archived. i cleaned it up a bit and got rid of a bunch of extra white pixels, so if you want your own feel free to save it ^_^. i think it'd be nice to carry on their legacy a little bit...

and of course, here's the link to the original page if you're curious (warning for flashing lights if you go to their home page)

[littlefleamart]

(source)

[thisisrealy2kok]

Y2k-ready Duct Tape Outfit

[cipheramnesia]

The Millennium Bug (2013) is, for me, a brand new entry on my short list of "please stop telling people to watch Cabin In The Woods" movies. I have a long standing grudge over the degree to which CITW is lionized as a great tribute to horror, despite largely showing little to no understanding of the genre in general, nor much in the way of respect to its audience.

So you can imagine how amused I was when Millennium Bug kicked off by immediately front-loading multiple unique horror subgenres into the opening act. While CITW attempts to throw every single subgenre into the blender of the slasher/cabin tropes, giving itself the usual Whedon smug pat on its own back, Millenium Bug wears its clear subgenre stereotypes on its sleeves. Which is both for better and for worse.

As a gruesome slasher / monster mash-up flick, it suffers from many of the major flaws you might expect - particularly because it draws on the redneck murder clan for one of its subgenre story elements. It is a movie where the subtext goes unexamined, and you'll know immediately whether or not you need to tap out within the first ten to twenty minutes. But if you're willing to leave the social elements less examined, what remains is a movie that's having an absolutely incredible and delightfully practical effect fueled time playing around in all the silliness to be mined from its three core concepts.

To return to the comparison, CITW relies heavily on metatextual genre awareness of the audience and the characters. However, in attempting to be ironically detached from the genre cliches, it betrays its own lack of understanding of the material. It's a movie that's 80% less clever than it constantly tries to remind the audience that it thinks it is. In contrast, Millenium Bug has what feels like virtually zero metatextual genre awareness to the characters, and no ironic detachment whatsoever. It does expect an audience to know what's up with the redneck murder clan, monster movie, slasher, and holiday themed subgenres - not to mention doing a nice job at hearkening back to older models of horror as you might get pre-millenial. You will find lots of gore, giant rubber and latex monsters, people acting in the most absurd ways and all of it delightfully cradling you in the comfort of a film that doesn't talk down to you, or expect you, as the audience, to be above it all.

It's hard to call it great or even good, I can't do any of that in good conscience. This is not one of those movies where I want everyone to see it, which I think will be fun and exciting for the casual horror movie viewer, or anyone who is looking to get into horror but doesn't want to get hit with a bunch of triggers and the like. I love recommending all those types of films, but this ain't it. The Millennium Bug is for the deep in the much horror movie fan, it's The Ritual by way of Frank Henenlotter - and if you got that reference you probably wanna see it regardless. It's garbage, but it's our garbage.

[keo-k]

I THOUGHT IT WAS A JOKE BUT MARIK REALLY DOES HAVE THE TIGHTEST LEATHER PANTS ON AND HIS WHOLE ASS MIDRIFF ON DISPLAY HUH

also the way thief king bakura opened his jacket to show marik his millennium ring? im sat here like "am i watching yugioh or am i watching a porn parody"

[princessnijireiki]

like the fact that people are saying, "we/our forebears were killed, trafficked, raped, genocided, muilated, brutalized, and are still facing echoes of the same and the aftermath of those blows to this day, all while the memories of those before us are erased when they are not denigrated and desecrated," and some of y'all think the only reason they have to be upset is MONEY?

y'all think this is about MONEY. okay.

meanwhile,

so you agree? to those who stand to benefit from all the above actions and reduplications of the histories and narratives that led to them, the genocided and enslaved represent an investment of capital and a means to acquire it, either through bodies living or dead, labor, trafficking, the act of dehumanization itself, or land, so the colonial agenda has always been one of a reduction to some humans' value to property, and to a dollar price?

you agree with the slavers and slaughterers that what's important is who the blood money goes TO and not that the blood was for sale to begin with?

[byruit]

In the late 1990s, IBM established Year 2000 Conversion Centers to tackle the Y2K problem, where many computer systems could fail due to date misinterpretation.

These centers helped organizations identify and fix Y2K issues, offering services like code conversion, testing, project management, and training.

With a global reach, IBM collaborated with tech companies, industry groups, and governments to ensure systems were updated and ready for the new millennium.

Their efforts successfully mitigated potential disruptions and set a precedent for managing large-scale IT challenges.

[arconinternet]

Is Your Computer Ready For The Year 2000? (Video, 1999)

In a Microsoft-funded video, Bill Nye takes on the millennium bug. You can watch it here.

You can download multiple versions of the mentioned CD-ROM here.

You can see my Tumblr post about, and link to, THE article about the Y2K problem here.

[krjpalmer]

PC Magazine October 6, 1998

This issue’s editorial take on “the millennium bug” warned there were “unknown unknowns” out there, but insisted that “everything electronic will stop working forever” amounted to a myth.

[ananke-xiii]

You will always find me here, at the end of all things, still complaining about Supernatural S13.

At the end of the day I think the reason why I hate Apocalypse World is that a world without Sam and Dean is doomed to be a failed experiment from the start.

Loosely speaking, Supernatural has always been a sort of cosmogony, at first it’s very metaphorically so in that it’s a story that originates with its two protagonists and every other relevant character/event is created for them, because of them or thanks to them.  Later on it gets a little bit more literal in that God/Chuck’s obsession over Sam and Dean both makes them the stars of the show of the creation of his World(s) AND involves them with the events that led to the creation of the Universe (Amara, MoC) and its (possible) Apocalypse(s).

This means that, with the exception of Castiel (Castiel is always the exception in Supernatural), every character/event is necessarily weaved into Sam and Dean’s story. It’s not that I don’t care, for instance, about AW!Bobby. It’s that previously on Supernatural Bobby himself served as a function for Sam and Dean’s story. Everything about Bobby’s story (like his past and his friendships) serves either as a mirror or a parallel to the brothers’ story or to advance/hinder its progress. Same goes for Charlie. Therefore, when I find them in the Apocalypse World these characters are empty to me. Without their relation to Sam and Dean we don’t know who these people are. It goes without saying that, in a world that fundamentally exists because Sam and Dean were never born, these characters are totally uninteresting since we were not given the tools to care about them without the brothers in the first place.

Now, I think it’s cool that Mary goes into this post-apocalyptic world with Lucifer because the imagery reminds me both of “Swan Song” and it overturns the premises of the series as a whole. In s12 Mary is back in a world where she feels guilty and responsible for the atrocities happened to her own children. She also kinda feels like she doesn’t belong, plus she’s forced to accept to exist in a world she had doubly refused (a world without John and the hunting world) with her grown-ass children who, understandably, have their own expectations of who she should be. So I like the irony when Mary is tossed yet into another world, definitely a worse world than the one she was in before and yet, she feels freer here than there. Why? Because of course this is the both the world where she didn’t make the deal with Azazel (conscience: kinda clear) and the world where her own literal grown-ass children do not even exist. It’s grim to say, I know, but this doesn’t make it less cool.

The thing is that… as much as I personally would like to, Mary is not the protagonist of Supernatural. This is why spin-off exist you know, so interesting non-protagonist characters can become such and build their own narrative world. So a story where she wants to save the world she herself had doomed, while potentially interesting as I said, still leaves me a little meh. If you add what I said about other characters AND the fact that Apocalypse World is objectively just plain lame you can see why it was never going to be a successful experiment.

Now, let’s talk about Michael and Lucifer. These characters suffer from opposite diseases: while Lucifer is, by now, impossibly uninteresting without Sam (I understand why Lucifer cannot die until the very end of the show, but the how always matters, you know), Michael is potentially super interesting because of his failed relationship with Dean. As I’ve already said, such a thing cannot happen on Supernatural, a show where every character is Winchesters-oriented (partial exception: Castiel). So, of course, the whole plot eventually veers towards Michael’s possession of Dean.

Now I know this is all part of Dabb’s spiral narrative technique or whatever it’s called. Fine. My question is still why this way? The idea is cool but the how matters too. Part of the reason why S5 is cool is because of his many portrayals of the Apocalypse. It used a lot. A lot. Of Apocalyptic and Post-apocalyptic imagery (the zombies, the viruses, the Horsemen, the storm on Detroit, the War against each other and I might be missing some of them) and it eventually ended like all apocalyptic narratives end: with the disconfirmation of the apocalyptic prediction. It’s interesting because we see Sam and Dean actively work to prevent it. In the Apocalypse World we’re faced with the aftermath, which okay still quite cool but! There are no characters to make it interesting and Mary (and Jack) alone are unfortunately not enough to make it so. Conversely, Sam and Dean’s main goal in the season is not saving Apocalypse World but getting their mother and Jack back.

I don’t really vibe with this dissonance. The way I see it, the imbalance between substance and form is too strong, with the former being sacrificed at the altar of the latter.

I think Dabb’s, and to a letter extent, Carver’s retelling of s4-5 would’ve worked way better on paper, in a book or something (but actually thank you because you’ve provided infinite fodder for fanfic writers). With screenwriting we’re bound to the rules of the screen and there’s just so much that can be done when you want to retell 2-seasons worthy of apocalyptic material with a season where the Apocalypse is just an afterthought and the two protagonists don’t even actually care about it that much.

I’m curious as to what my thoughts will be after I re-watch s13. I plan to re-watch it in order to pay closer attention to Jack so I might change my mind. Or I might not. We’ll seeee!

[sohnric]

I just finished reading Millennium bug and I HAVE to let you know that this made me so GIDDY. like I was so in my feels that I was genuinely upset when it ended. Genuinely needed like 10 minutes to compose myself. I LOVED IT. makes my hopeless romantic heart beat faster and my wish for a boyfriend (like Eric) just 100000000x stronger 😩 I’m miserable and will never recover. thanks for listening to my rant. I love you for this!

OMGG THANK U!!!! writing this fic felt so therapeutic i literally enjoyed it so much its in my top 3 fics ive ever written ((and ive written a LOT of them lol). my pisces venus really enjoys everything sweet and romantic and eric is such a gf stan enabler it just made me twice as delusional abt him and led me to writing this :,) thank u sm for reading and sending this in hhh it made me feel all giddy that u enjoyed !!

[valtharr]

So, I had a really fun worldbuilding idea, but my knowledge of certain things is limited, so:

Are there any IT people, computer specialists, or even sociologists (professional or hobbyist) who want to talk to me about the Y2K bug?

[littlefleamart]

(source)

[thisisrealy2kok]

"The Miseducation Of Y2K" by honest

[isaacsapphire]

I wanted to sleep through New Years 2000, but my family had a dog and I ended up on "make the dog not awoo when the neighbors inevitably set off fireworks at midnight" duty. This happens to me every single New Years if there's a dog in the house.

no fucking awoo. no awoo right now. its late. its not awoo time. its sleeping time. go the fuck to bed.

[capt-sievert]

Why the fuck must I write about something that happened during a regime known for sweeping everything under the rug and letting little to no information out bruh