Year 2000 ("Y2k") date rollover @ bradmcc.dialup.cloud9.net While millions watched the Time Ball drop in Times Square (New York City), I was watching my computer screen, to witness the millennium date rollover. Above: Screen shots of my home computer, just before and after the millennium year rollover from 1999 to 2000. At top in each photo is application which accesses a time signal from the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO); at bottom in each photo is the Windows NT 4.0 time setting dialog for my computer. In each case, (1) I clicked Set Time in the USNO time signal access program, and then (2) I captured the screen image. The delay between #1 and #2 is why the time in the Date/Time Properties dialog is a few seconds ahead of the time shown in the WinSNTP dialog. (Click each image to see original full size screen capture file.) Notes: (1) Almost immediately after the second screen capture, I checked one of my website Perl CGI applications, and discovered a cosmetic "Y2k" bug which caused the new year to be formatted as: "100", instead of: "2000". (2) It appeared to me that the U.S. Naval Observatory shut down their website for the millennium rollover; however, USNO Internet time signals remained accessible via their IP addresses. [Word from 'the trenches' at USNO, is: "Time Service USNO did not shut down its web site nor Domain Name Service, as far as I know we all just carried on..."[fn.18] ++Maybe I had an idiosyncratic problem?] (3) The way I observed the 1999 to 2000 rollover, via numerical instrument readings, rather than by watching the Time Ball fall, is a good example of technological mediation of experience (and, of course, both these activities contrast with persons' "natural diurnal rhythm of waking and sleep").

Return to Brad McCormick's Millennial Year greeting page. Go to U.S. Naval Observatory Millennial Year page. What time does your computer think it is?

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http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/Y2k_rollover.html Copyright © 2000-2006 Brad McCormick, Ed.D. bradmcc@cloud9.net 11 May 2006CE (2006-05-11 ISO 8601) / Y2K+6 v03.02