Thursday, June 14, 2007
OMG, 2038's Y2K: Y2K38. WTF POSIX?
One of the mentions in the last post I made had to do with a 30 year cookie that Google was putting out. Turns out that they settled on that timeframe because there's another issue coming up in a few decades that will glitch out the computer world again: the 2038 Problem.
(They've got 30 years to come up with something snappier, like 38Fate or Dirty Hate Thirty-Eight, which will inevitably truncated to DHTE and pronounced "date," conceivably and absurdly reducing it to something appropriate yet meaningless, earning it "high comedy" status in Wired magazine which will posit that you are a loser because you didn't know what it meant six months ago. No, not six months from when it debuts in Wired; six months ago from now, when I just made it up. But I digress.)
Basically, the 32-bit integer storing the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 (in the POSIX time representation) reaches its limit at 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038. Duct tape and water bottles!
Actually, it's just silly. Everyone knows the world's going to end in 2012 anyway. Sheesh.
(They've got 30 years to come up with something snappier, like 38Fate or Dirty Hate Thirty-Eight, which will inevitably truncated to DHTE and pronounced "date," conceivably and absurdly reducing it to something appropriate yet meaningless, earning it "high comedy" status in Wired magazine which will posit that you are a loser because you didn't know what it meant six months ago. No, not six months from when it debuts in Wired; six months ago from now, when I just made it up. But I digress.)
Basically, the 32-bit integer storing the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 (in the POSIX time representation) reaches its limit at 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, January 19, 2038. Duct tape and water bottles!
Actually, it's just silly. Everyone knows the world's going to end in 2012 anyway. Sheesh.
Labels: computer doomsday n, software
posted by Symetri at 6/14/2007 09:27:00 AM 
EU Whines at Google - Day I Got Cookie
The good folks over at search engine land have hit on a recent tale of Google, the EU, and really, really old cookies. 30+ year old cookies, to be exact. Danny Sullivan goes into a great deal of detail about Google's data retention, the EU, and how silly the EU is for making this a spectacle.
That got me started thinking about cookies and all the other crap that gets to collecting like so much lint, blocking up the flow of information and bogging down your system. The message to all of this is simple: Clean your browser. So I wondered how often people are cleaning their browsers. From a study in 2005:
Granted, this is good news for, well, some of the business I do; cookies track analytics, visits, time on site, exit pages, and all those goodies us SEO dorks pore over for hours, comparing the merits of pie charts vs. line graphs. The more cookies and the greater their longevity, the better the tracking and the more solid the data. So I'm sure someone will give me a spanking for this: Clean Your Computer!
Every time you see an image on your screen, that image is stored on your hard drive. Almost every site places a small piece of information to go with it: the cookie. Most cookies identify you or a bit of information, like if you were already at the site before. Some can be malicious and track in much more detail.
I'm not going to delve into the methods of cookie deletion when so many resources already exist on the web.
But don't stop there. I personally use webroot's Window Washer and have for about 5 years. It does cost $30, but it's worth every penny, eliminating unnecessary files at dozens of levels. Looking for free? Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is free for personal use and not only kills tracking cookies, but specifically targets spyware. Good stuff.
So clean your browser. Daily. Brush your teeth. Probably twice daily. Get a haircut. And get a job.
That got me started thinking about cookies and all the other crap that gets to collecting like so much lint, blocking up the flow of information and bogging down your system. The message to all of this is simple: Clean your browser. So I wondered how often people are cleaning their browsers. From a study in 2005:
Nearly 40 percent of Internet users delete cookies from their primary computers on at least a monthly basis, according to a study by JupiterResearch. The finding has big implications for advertising and marketing firms that depend on cookies for tracking and targeting.Ten percent of internet users delete cookies every day? Only 10%? Clearing cookies, clearing your cache is like brushing your teeth.
Based on a survey of 2,337 U.S. respondents, the study finds that 17 percent of Internet users delete cookies on a weekly basis. Approximately 12 percent do so on a monthly basis, and 10 percent make it a daily habit.
Granted, this is good news for, well, some of the business I do; cookies track analytics, visits, time on site, exit pages, and all those goodies us SEO dorks pore over for hours, comparing the merits of pie charts vs. line graphs. The more cookies and the greater their longevity, the better the tracking and the more solid the data. So I'm sure someone will give me a spanking for this: Clean Your Computer!
Every time you see an image on your screen, that image is stored on your hard drive. Almost every site places a small piece of information to go with it: the cookie. Most cookies identify you or a bit of information, like if you were already at the site before. Some can be malicious and track in much more detail.
I'm not going to delve into the methods of cookie deletion when so many resources already exist on the web.
But don't stop there. I personally use webroot's Window Washer and have for about 5 years. It does cost $30, but it's worth every penny, eliminating unnecessary files at dozens of levels. Looking for free? Lavasoft's Ad-Aware is free for personal use and not only kills tracking cookies, but specifically targets spyware. Good stuff.
So clean your browser. Daily. Brush your teeth. Probably twice daily. Get a haircut. And get a job.
posted by Symetri at 6/14/2007 06:50:00 AM
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