Thread by @murphyslawyer

Okay, it's thread time. Back in 1999, I was part of a very large team who were tasked with auditing all the software our company used to see whether or not it could handle moving from 31 December 1999 to 1 January 2000 without messing up. Brace yourselves, this is (1/18)

This wasn't just running it and resetting the clock on the PC. Most of our software ran on mainframes: we had some Microsoft stuff, but most of it was on VAX and Alpha servers, running multiple programs at once. (2/18)

So for me it was "welcome to the world of hunting down the master tapes, see if they can still be read, and checking that the final development version has proper annotation in its REM comments". (3/18)

Reader, you will not be surprised to know that most of the development software didn't have any comments at all. (4/18)

Once we'd checked that which did, I was packed off to a cram course with the aim of learning how date functions worked and could fail in programming (other than databases, which were my field back then). (5/18)

End result: by the end of December 1999, we'd signed off everything our company used, pledging our lives, our non-existent bonuses [1] and our sacred honour that they'd roll-over to 2000.
[1] We had to push for time-and-a half off in lieu for working weekends. (6/18)

We also managed to stop new software - not just written in-house but bought off-the-shelf - from being deployed unless the writer/seller could demonstrate it was Y2K compliant. Our company's culture at the time just didn't allow stopping of software deployment. Ever. (7/18)

One major software maker (no longer with us) threatened to sue for breach of contract when we told them we weren't deploying until they'd made their programs Y2K compliant. Our Board, to their credit, told them to go away or they'd go very public. (8/18)

To sum up Part 1: the Millenium Bug was real. We contained it. (It's still contained - see? (^_^)).

Now for Part 2: the Irish Border (9/18)

I grew up in the Irish Republic in the 60s and the 70s. My parents emigrated there from England, then did the usual loving thing Brit ex-pats did with their kids and packed me off to boarding school. In Dublin. (10/18)

Now, the stick I got there for being a Brit when the Troubles started wasn't the worst thing by far about the place. (CS Lewis called his boarding school Belsen; I think of mine as Auschwitz). But it was stick nonetheless. (11/18)

What was far worse was when I was sent to an English Public School to be"finished". Terms like "bomber" and "bog-wog" were common, and beatings happened at least once a term... (12/18)

... until I put three of them in the school sanitarium along with me. In my defence, they told me I wasn't going to be walking away from what they were going to do, so I saw no reason why they should either. (13/18)

Okay, enough nostalgia. Where were we? Oh yes: Boris "Bloody Stupid" Johnson.

The Irish Border problems are very real, just as the Millenium Bug was. I know this to be true, from personal experience.

Boris "Bloody Stupid" Johnson proves here he is ignorant about both. (14/18)

Whether this ignorance is deliberately cultured, or because he is incapable of understanding, is irrelevant. Boris Johnson does not care what happens to the Irish Border. He does not care what happens to the UK. He simply cares about himself and his chums. (15/18)

The UK may - possibly - survive as a political organisation if this goes on. Its society will not; what can be reasonably called civilisation here is disappearing daily. As someone once said, "What is to be done?" (16/18)

I still have hope for the democratic process, eventually, throwing Boris and others of his ilk out of power. We might even be lucky and replace them with people slightly less greedy and sociopathic. It is a faint hope; it may only be a fool's hope. (17/18)

But I would still rather be a fool than one who hoists the black flag and starts slitting throats. As far as violent and bloody revolution goes:

"Fuck every cause that ends in murder and children crying" — Iain Banks, 1954-2013 (18/ENDS)