LA deputies dogged by New Year date glitch in patrol car PCs Software on the computers in America's largest sheriff's department's patrol cars broke down on New Year's Eve due to what appears to be a date-related glitch. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department confirmed to The Register in the past few hours the computer technology it uses to send officers to the scene of alleged crimes …
Just guessing here... There will have been a hardcoded db table with a list of dates (holidays etc) that ended at the end of 2024 and when the query returned no results, there was no catch and bang. Then they rebooted the system which started it back when it was installed in July 2003, which returned the first date in the table. (4th July?)
IMHO. Only thing I can think of.
"Just guessing here... There will have been a hardcoded db table with a list of dates (holidays etc) that ended at the end of 2024 "
Why would the system need to know "holidays". The force is working 24/7/365 and while holidays might be a thing for scheduling officers, operations don't need that.
21.5 years is really really close to 256 months;
21.5 years is also really close to 8192 days.
Perhaps the original coder optimised the memory and space usage a bit too tightly and was certain the system would be replaced in 20 years anyway...?
A good thought, but I don't think that's it. 256 months after 2003 July puts you at 2024 November, so this would have already happened. 8192 days after 2003 July 1 puts you at 2025 December 4.
Mid-July of 2003 was 7844 days ago, or 188256 hours, or 11.295 million minutes, or 677.7 million seconds. None of those land close to a power of two.
Unfortunately, the Xeet quoted in the Fine Article doesn't provide a more specific time. But it does say that
The dead guy told the department this 21 years ago. In 2003. That’s why the system thinks it’s 2003, that’s the default drop for the system. It will not reset itself.
«“The system thinks it’s July of 2003, ..."
Ok, we desperately need the bit warriors to figure out - what goes *pop* after 21.5 years?»
There were some horrible coding hacks around 2000 which kept stuff working after 1999-12-31 23:59:59 wihile retaining just two digits for the year but nothing I can think of that would pop its clogs as late as 2025.
The only oddity the stands out is there are roughly 256 months between 2003-07-31 and 2025-01-01 and 2003 is roughly half way between 1980 and 2024. 1980-01-01 was the epoch for PCs and msdos I think. Perhaps 1980 was represented as roughly -22.5 years from 2003-07-01 and 2025 as +22.5 years from the same date.
The minds and methods of programmers are often ineffable.
My theory: 2003 is the default, and they were using a window system where two-digit dates are interpreted based on an arbitrary cutoff. e.g., if it's >24, it's a 19xx date, otherwise it's a 20xx date. So "25" would be interpreted as "1925", which is probably outside the system's date range, and cause a reversion to default.
Cutoff windows like this were a pretty common way to handle Y2K problems in databases, because they didn't require touching all that much code. But everyone involved in implementing them knew they were just kicking the can down the road and the system would need to be fixed "properly" later.
Yeah, I've seen such issues fairly often. For example, I have code that uses the 1960s-vintage TLE (Two-Line Element) format for satellite orbital elements. Spacecraft launch years are stored as two digits. The first launch was Sputnik, in 1957. So if YY < 57, it's a current-century date; if YY >= 57, it's a yestercentury date. So there will be a Y2057 problem... I'll be 92 by then and most likely dead. (Some fixes are in progress on the issue already.)
But the system that broke here was implemented in 2003. Unless you implemented it in 1925, why would the cutoff be after 2024?
So I'm still baffled by this. I'd add the Paris-scratching-her-head-in-confusion icon if we still had that option.
XP had something similar, but I think it was 2024 that was the cut off. It's finally broken a friend's DOS based practice management system, which has pushed him towards retirement as it's simply too expensive to replace (which is why it's never been done before now)
> XP had something similar, but I think it was 2024 that was the cut off. It's finally broken a friend's DOS based practice management system...
I don't doubt his story in the least. But FWIW my virtual XP Pro SP2 runs in a VM today without apparent glitch. At least as far as a Win3.0-era Solitaire game and the Set Time From Network button.
https://i.postimg.cc/MGMZSmXz/XP-Pro-in-2025.gif
2 dead, one drunk.
I suspect that there have been auditors. I mean, this is a government agency right?, and they do get audited, right?. And The Government *pays* for those audits, right?
And in the x years that this platform has been around there are THREE people who support it, and the auditors have *never* raised the But There Are Busses red flag on this?
I forsee LA County suing the crap out of a stack of auditors, ending up with sufficient funds to resolve the issue. Either that or several ex senior staffers need to be pressed back into service as data entry clerks for the officers affected.......
This is quite a stinky stinky situation.
"And in the x years that this platform has been around there are THREE people who support it, and the auditors have *never* raised the But There Are Busses red flag on this?"
From the article, the issues were know, but budgets weren't forthcoming to address it.
When I work on electronics, I'll sometimes start with a flowchart of black boxes to workout an overall system. A big software project such as this should have a very similar "living" document that outlines the software, tracks bugs, lists desired improvements and has a written theory of operation. There has to be an expectation that there will be a need for a big update at some point in the future. If the software is intimately tied to an OS/browser, the future may be sooner than one thinks.
Or nobody insane enough. I'd take one look at the politics and the bullshit and run so fast NORAD would start tracking me.
Speaking of the new year... Eutelsat's OneWeb network couldn't deal with the fact 2024 was a leap year and crapped out for nearly 2 days:
https://spacenews.com/eutelsat-resolves-oneweb-leap-year-software-glitch-after-two-day-outage/
I'd say "can NOBODY write code any more?" but then I have too much sin myself to cast stones.
"can NOBODY write code any more?"
More case of nobody writing correct code (and I wouldn't include "any more" either.)
No shortage of delusional coders that claim their efforts are correct purely because they use Rust etc or the current development methodology de jour.
A coder than cannot understand or correctly implement (or half inch another correct implementation of) Zeller's congruence wouldn't augur well for their future. 2024 is the simplest case y/4 cf y/100 or y/400.
"More case of nobody writing correct code (and I wouldn't include "any more" either.)"
It can also be in a language that hasn't been used/taught in ages. There's no money to rewrite the system to a more modern language or even port it over (if possible). There can be the fun of built in print drivers that require a computer with a parallel port to print out logs. Now, find somebody that's done that rather than just call a driver in the OS and send it data.
"It can also be in a language that hasn't been used/taught in ages."
Unlikely. It was installed in 2003. Back in the years leading up to Y2K, retired COBOL programmers were being enticed out of retirement to help. I'd be surprised if there was no one at all able to program in whatever language was used. And anyway, isn't this what H1B[*] is all about? :-)
* ion reference to the article, "despite a nationwide search, the LASD couldn't find anyone good enough to replace them"
"Or nobody insane enough. I'd take one look at the politics and the bullshit and run so fast NORAD would start tracking me."
The politics are just the frosting. You have to take into account that there's never the funds or time to do it correctly so once a system like this sorta works, that's where it gets left. No docs, no theory of operation, a deprecated SDE and often hardware calls to accomplish certain things that aren't implemented in modern hardware. To take the job, you have to be really desperate or have a savior complex. You'll never get so much as an atta boy or a raise, so don't expect much. "We're sorry, your job title maxes out at pay grade 3, to get a raise, you'll need to switch departments (sacrificing time in grade) and do something else." This is how government can shoot both feet at the same time. The employee winds up moving to another department or to the private sector to be paid the going wage for what they do and the agency loses the one person that knows how to do a thing. A clever person might be able to go to work for themself as a consultant doing the same job at 4x the salary. The added bonus is that you don't have an emergency work requirement in case of a disaster, mandatory overtime, etc.
We must have more front-line Cops (and Nurses, and Teachers). Money spend on administrative support is just waste. Fire all the office staff, they aren't doing anybody any good.
If we fire all the admin, we can hire one more Doctor! And pay all the doctors to spend their time doing admin, instead of seeing patients.
At this point, I must note that I worked for the telephone company for a while. Sometimes the administration and office staff really are just dead weight.
Oh dear, did the USA's stupid "bass-ackward" date order cause a problem with their software? That makes a change from it being a problem for everyone else in the world. Having worked in software support for decades I have had to deal with issues with date order in just about every piece of software I have supported, and every single time it was because a coder wrote the code for US date structure and failed to consider anywhere else in the world where we use LOGICAL date structures.
There is a reason why I execute this on every Windows server I log on (besides a lot other things, like showing "my computer" and name that icon to "computer.domain.local", so every explorer window tells me which machine I am on)... The last line is Germany specific though:
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sShortDate /t REG_SZ /d "yyyy-MM-dd" /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sShortTime /t REG_SZ /d "HH:mm" /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sTimeFormat /t REG_SZ /d "HH:mm:ss" /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v iFirstDayOfWeek /t REG_SZ /d "0" /f
OK, you asked for it, another part of that (long) text file I copy pasto into the CMD. Have to do it that way quite often since file-copy-paste is often denied, but text copy paste works. Enables "my computer" icon, give it the right name, and add two important missing buttons. Especially the latter of the two buttons gets important once you have to use a citrix-or-rdp jump host in between and cannot use CTRL-ALT+END any more since it ends up on the jump-host instead of where you need it.
:: Desktop My Computer
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
reg.exe Add "HKU\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu" /v {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D} /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
:: Desktop My Computer = Hostname
powershell.exe -Command "$C = Get-CimInstance Win32_Computersystem;if ($C.DomainRole -ne 2) {$N = '.'} else {$N = ' '};$N = $C.DNSHostName + $N + $C.Domain;Set-ItemProperty -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}' -Name '(default)' -Value $N"
:: Desktop icons for logoff and RDP CTRL+ALT+DEL dialogue
powershell.exe -Command "$s=(New-Object -COM WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut([Environment]::GetFolderPath([Environment+SpecialFolder]::Desktop)+'\Logoff.lnk');$s.TargetPath='%SystemRoot%\System32\shutdown.exe';$s.Arguments='-l -f';$s.IconLocation='C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,217';$s.Description='Greeting from Joachim Otahal';$s.WindowStyle=7;$s.Save()"
powershell.exe -Command "$s=(New-Object -COM WScript.Shell).CreateShortcut([Environment]::GetFolderPath([Environment+SpecialFolder]::Desktop)+'\RDP CTRL-ALT-DEL.lnk');$s.TargetPath='%SystemRoot%\Explorer.exe';$s.Arguments='shell:::{2559a1f2-21d7-11d4-bdaf-00c04f60b9f0}';$s.IconLocation='C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll,211';$s.Description='Greeting from Joachim Otahal';$s.WindowStyle=7;$s.Save()"
:: only kill MY explorer session. Important on servers where you are not the only one logged in...
taskkill.exe /f /fi "USERNAME eq %USERNAME%" /im explorer.exe
ping 127.0.0.1 -n 2
start explorer.exe
I read somewhere that the peculiar mm/dd/[yy]yy format mirrored the written format July 4, 1776 but conversely the 4th of July, 1776 would be fairly common too.
I think most people in IT or at least sysadmins latch onto ISO 8601 pretty quickly even if they have never heard of the ISO standard.
The handling of time and timezones in software has always been pretty ordinary with msdos and windows bringing up the rear. ;)
Common sense would suggest representing time as a UTC offset from an epoch would leave the presentation of dates and times to the locale handling of the application software and system libraries.
At least the US didn't adopt and retain the French Republican (Revolutionary) Calendar of 1793. Although with miles per decimal hour doing a ton would only be a shade over a leisurely 40 mph (64km/h.)
At least Windows (NT), internally, does UTC, always, including file dates.
Powershell:
(Get-Date).ToUniversalTime()
(Get-Date).ToFileTimeUtc() # Nanoseconds since 1601-01-01
[DateTime]::UtcNow.ToString('u')
Don't use (Get-Date).ToString('u'), that is displaying the local time (no conversion) formatted like UTC. Use (Get-Date).ToUniversalTime().ToString('u')
whoever is responsible for the system should be tied to a PDP11 and dropped in the river.
Tough on the poor PDP11 which probably ran 7th Edition Unix and its dates would have been good for another decade or so.
I can think of hardware more deserving of this boat anchor fate.
"Now where are all those guys who were working on Y2K?"
They made the dirtiest fix that would work long enough for them to retire (or die). Consider, Y2K is now 24 years behind us so somebody that was 30 at the time is highly unlikely to be in the same job at 54-55 where they could be made to explain. If they are in the same job, how will their story that they were not in the group working on that be found to be a lie? I know I don't put my name on things that are just a patch over a gaping wound.
And congrats to British Gas who on 1-1-2025 thought entering 32-12-2024 was invalid (just entering a reading now the prices go up again!)
As for diversity, they still insist on a title, despite the list of options being limited and old fashioned... except for Rev, Dr and Prof as they are gender neutral
So it looks like the replacement system project had been kicking around for at least 5 to 10 years. Or more. And it looks like no viable party is bidding on the most recent Request for Proposals for one very simple reason - the conditions laid down by the County in the most recent Request for Proposals are completely *&%*ing insane.
If you look at the most recent RFP from Alameda County up north, home of Berkeley and Oakland so not exactly well run (mostly deranged actually), for the same system the RFP is all about the technical requirements for the system and lays out the stages of the bidding process. So far so good. The RFP from LA disposes of the technical requirements in a few pages and and then spends most of the the 40 / 50 odd pages laying out all the local ordinances or local / state programmes the contractor must abide by. Not just stuff like "minority partnerships" and having to hire ex-convicts etc etc but requiring that only recycled paper can be used by their copy machines / printers. No. I am not making this up. It is one whole subsection. The recycled paper requirement.
And on and on. Page upon page of this irrelevant garbage.
Anyone who has done business with cities/counties or the state in California knows that unless you are really big / dishonest / crooked dealing with government contracts is just not worth the grief. But the LA county conditions are so totally insane that any company lawyer who agreed to sign off on making a Proposal under the the LA contract conditions should be fired on the spot. Because it would open up the company to no end of potential lawsuits. Not even talking the county/city. There are so many third parties who could bring lawsuits under these contract conditions that its basically business suicide. Unless you are one of the big guys who enters the contract knowing that it will collapse at some stage and they have a big legal dept with underemployed lawyers to fight the inevitable lawsuits.
My guess is the system will be eventually be replaced at huge cost by buying some other cities system that is a bad fit for LA's very unique requirements.
As for why the guy who retired could not be replaced. Very simple. He was a white / asian guy and the job search requirements was the new person had to be a black/Hispanic woman. Its a given that the replacement had to black/Hispanic due to LA county government current totally DEI hiring policy but lots of great black / Hispanic IT guys come out of the military, really good guys, so finding very qualified black / Hispanic men should have been no problem. There again working for the city/ county has such a toxic reputation now and pays so badly for very technical positions that the black / Hispanic vets could get far better paying jobs with far better working conditions in the private sector.
And thats the real reason why LA County Sheriffs are reduced to radios / pen and paper again for dispatch and response. Just like back in the 1960's.
The recycled paper thing is not unique to LA. It's a requirement for all public-sector entities in California. Is it dumb? Kinda, yeah, but LA didn't make it up, it was passed by the state legislature.
Not going to bother talking about your DEI fantasies. I've been involved with public sector hiring in the state and nothing requires hiring candidates of any particular race or gender, only that the process fairly consider them.
First.
The "Recycled photocopy paper etc' requirement in the AB only applies to state / urban local gov not to the service suppliers. Thats purely a local stupidity. The clowns in Sac are stupid but not that stupid. It even says its purely a LA County requirement in the RFP doc. (Appendix C).. "Consistent with the Board of Supervisors’ policy to reduce the amount of solid waste deposited at County landfills, Contractor agrees to use recycled-content paper to the maximum extent possible on this Contract. ". Yada. Yada. No state mandated AB stupidly here. Thats elsewhere.
What moron sticks this (and the other 40 plus pages) of the same kind of political theater BS in a contract for a vital public safety project that is a good decade beyond its best-by data. The same sort of morons who are currently on the LA County (and City..) Board of Supes...
Second.
So which county do you "have direct experience" of. Somewhere like Alpine County or Inyo County perhaps?
It was actually in LA in the 1980's that I first was made aware of the "Quota Person" problem with way too many local government employees. People hired because they tick all the right boxes not because they have any basic competence. So yeah, the "hiring problem" is not so noticeable in counties like Marin, San Mateo, Napa, Medecino, Monterey etc in NorCal or Ventura, Santa Barbara, SLO, O, Riverside etc in the Southlands but in counties / cities like LA, San Francisco, Alameda, and more recently Contra Costa, San Bernardino etc its a whole different story. Taking into account than some smaller cities in these counties are still pretty well run.
What I wrote for the "failed" hiring process in LA county for the retired IT guy is exactly how it works in these counties/cities. And has for several decades now. The main reason why there are far fewer discrimination lawsuits brought in the last decade or so compared with previous decades is that most people who dont tick the right boxes dont even bother applying for local / state jobs any more. They know they wont get the job no matter how good their resume. And thats why pretty much every state and big city local government project of the last few decades have been unmitigated financial disasters. Way too many quota hires. Quite separate from the CalEPA, CEQU/EIR kiss of death.
And yes, I am very familiar with the previous "preferential hiring" practices in SF / LA in previous times. Like not not going to a SF parochial school was a career killer in the SFPD / DPW / Port of SF etc....i.e. not being Irish or Italian. Or how the "Midwest Mafia" from different states pretty much locked down various LA city depts. That was a key part of the backstory of the tax assessment dept scandal in the 1970's that inadvertently gave us Prop 13 for example. "Buddy" hiring..
So yes, the city / county of LA local government hiring practices for most positions that dont demand verifiable professional expertise and credentials based on all reports I've heard are pretty much 100% DEI driven, Same goes for SF,. Other counties and smaller cities far less so. But not for the want of some of the (very bought) pols in Sac trying to ram through AB's that would mandate de-facto race based hiring for almost all positions. But exactly how a blanco, a mestizo, and an indio are all the same "race" is never ever explained.
If you think I am making this up you obviously pay little / no attention to what goes on in the Assembly and Senate. Admittedly its a lot more difficult to follow now since the Sac Bee fired all its (fantastic) political reporters and the great analysis of state politics in magazines like the California Journal are a very distant memory. But its all there if you know where to dig.
So yeah, I do know what I am talking about.
@LBJsPNS
Citations? Really? Are you like fourteen or something? You obviously dont know sh*t about the subject. To use a common expression. Among some folk.
How many decades have you lived in one of the big California cities?
How many people do you know who work/worked for county/city / state government depts or agencies in California?
How many people do you know in private companies who work/worked on projects for county/city / state government depts or agencies in California?
Have you been a daily reader / viewer of local newspapers/media for many decades?
Why do I think the answer to these questions is NONE, NONE, NONE and NO
Let me tell you two MUNI stories.
I knew a guy who often drove the 22 Fillmore. Great guy. Grew up in the local projects. Hung out in local cafes. Used to be USN. As he joked he used to drive something much bigger. One of the CVN's based out of Japan. He was the Master Helmsman. Of one of the nuclear powered aircraft carriers. He needed to be stationed Stateside to be closer to family due to parents illness. Bremerton/Bellingham, or preferably San Diego. He was planning to be career navy. Was already getting close to his twenty years. Loved his job and great at it too by all accounts. Glowing assessments. A Master Helmsman position on one of the San Diego based CVN's opened up but he was told point blank that we would never get the position. It could only be given to a woman because women were "underrepresented". Which it eventually was. To a white woman as it turned out. Did I mention the guy is black and grew up in the projects. The only Stateside positing offered him was a big demotion on a much smaller ship so in the end he had to quit the Navy. And he now drives a bus.
That's how DEI hiring discrimination actually works in the real world. Just one of several stories I have heard first hand over the decades. The best qualified person most certainly does not get the job.
Another MUNI story. When I have to take MUNI around the City when the bus pulls up the first thing I do is look at the driver. Hoping it is going to be one of the by far the best and safest MUNI drivers. A black woman. They are great drivers, they dont take sh*t from other drivers, and are very "creative" when it comes to getting around the inevitable traffic hold ups. And they wont take any crap from disruptive passengers either. So you know the bus journey will be safe and secure and will get you where you are going in the shortest possible time. Plus they are some of the nicest most friendly MUNI drivers you can meet.
So yeah, I must be a racist.
"and then spends most of the the 40 / 50 odd pages laying out all the local ordinances or local / state programmes the contractor must abide by. "
Any question over whether those requirements have been followed will lead to not getting paid and maybe even cited or charges filed. Why would any company that isn't desperate for work take on such risk? At the best of times, getting paid for government contract work can be problematic, but even if you aren't paid, the contract is written in such a way that you can't stop work, missing set-in-granite milestones.
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