Ready to party like it's 1234567890? Computer lovers certainly are.
That’s because at precisely 23:31:30 GMT tonight (Friday), the ten-digit clock used by Unix computers - which includes the servers that run everything from the internet to air traffic control - will display all ten decimal digits in sequence.
For computer geeks everywhere, this seemingly dubious milestone deserve celebrations just like those that greeted the end of the millennium. Parties are planned around the world from London to New York, to Yerevan in Armenia and Asunción in Paraguay.
But after the brief flash of joy, comes the dread. Computer scientists fear the worst for the next major moment in Unix time - some time in the year 2038, when the Unix clock will run out of seconds it can count. On that January day, computers will fail to compute time, and crash. Your computer could shut down. Vehicles may pile up as traffic lights fail. Planes could fall out of the sky. The advice is to party now, because the digital apocalypse may soon be upon us.
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We here at T.A.S. thought this was an interesting story, so we thought we'd throw it up here. Please go to the website above for the entire story. So many computers are based on UNIX, this story could be more than another 2000 conspiracy theory! So much for 2012 ;-)
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