Confessional of a Professional 4-01-2008

Permit me to be the first to predict that if a big asteroid doesn’t hit in 2027, then humanity’s goose will certainly be cooked by the Y2038 computer time bomb. But you ask, wasn’t that the Y2K bug? Ah, surely if you work with these pesky machines, know there’s never just one. Why else would Microsoft Windows need updates so often?

Yet, at exactly 3:14:07 AM GMT on January 19, 2038, computers will flashback to some prehistoric time, i.e. January 1970, the disco age. The era of leisure suits and bell-bottom pants, styles so goofy even a caveman would make fun of them.

Y2038 arises from the fact that computers are finite state machines. Describing the real world in zeroes and ones, there are limits to that representation. For example, America could be considered a finite state nation (and it is!), and each state in the Electoral College could be either red or blue depending on whether the Democrat or the Republican won.

Even though it would take over 1000 trillion possible values to accurately portray the results of a general election, it’s still a finite number. Likewise time, counting over 2 billion seconds from 1970, will eventually end. And most modern technology will malfunction leaving the world in the proverbial dark, unless computers programmers like me are paid copious amounts of cash.

As with Y2K, retiring software specialists could get outrageous rates like what trial lawyers can routinely charge. Was this accidental or coincidental? Or do programmers know how to plan future catastrophe for not only profiteering purposes but also to make a mundane profession into potential rescuers of the planet!

Other professions could have had this distinction, but apparently they’re not forward enough thinkers. For instance, the sun consumes 400000 tons of hydrogen each second! At this rate, it’s bound to run out. Solar scientists could have foretold that its time was incredibly short unless an extraordinary, global-wide effort was expended.

Instead, they let the cat of the bag telling everyone that the sun has billions of years remaining. And though the sun will expand to a red giant engulfing the entire inner solar system including Earth, no one is afraid because this pending doom isn’t so impending.

Another example would be geomagnetists (those who study global magnetism). Earth’s magnetic field is getting weaker. In a few years it could be gone. But it’ll be more than compasses that’ll stop functioning. Without its magnetic field, Earth’s atmosphere will be ripped off into space by the solar wind. Hey, look on the bright side, at least there’ll be no more global warming!

But seriously, geomagnetists have again revealed too much too soon. They theorize that this phenomenon occurs every few hundred thousand years when the magnetic poles reverse polarity. Still, during a brief period, the normally protective field will simply have no yield.

Yet, they could have claimed that power lines and other electronic devices, all planetary scourges for sure, were creating such a disturbance that Mother Earth was in pain, and a cap on magnetism was required starting with a huge cell phone tax. Because if these tiny devices can cause brain tumors, then why can’t they cause problems of global significance?

Actually, one profession has achieved doom extraordinaire: climatology. Yeah, CO2 is rising and ruining the planet. The Sun, on the other hand, is just a minor player at best. Well, if solar experts worst fears are realized, then humanity is about to discover just how much ole Sol plays a role in our little world.

Bluntly speaking, the next solar cycle is late. It should have begun last March (2007), and it appeared to start this January with one sunspot. It was sort of cute until it died. Sunspots indicate magnetic activity and may be related to solar irradiance. No sunspots may be the prelude to a prolonged quiet solar cycle.

But unlike a missed period for earthlings, a late cycle could signal the onset of another Dalton Minimum. Lasting from 1790 to 1830, low sunspot activity was associated with below normal temperatures. It all started with a skipped solar cycle. So, the longer this one lasts, the greater the next will be below normal. And the sun could also be entering another Maunder Minimum, an even colder climatic period (1645-1715).

Four climate organizations including NOAA have already measured a one-degree drop in global temperatures erasing practically a century of warming, and 3000 probes have measured slight oceanic cooling instead of the expected warming. Alarmists guess that it’s probably just a pause in their climatic disaster predictions.

Yet, this “pause” could become a hiatus so cold that people will reminisce the recent above average warmth. But worst of all, the alarmists will clamor another ice age cometh, caused, of course, by man.