A podcast episode exploring the Unix Year 2038 problem, where 32-bit signed timestamps will overflow on January 19, 2038, breaking time-dependent systems. The hosts draw parallels to Y2K and the DJ10K problem, arguing that historical engineering decisions were reasonable trade-offs given era-specific storage constraints rather than negligence.
Background
The Unix Year 2038 problem is a well-known date-related software bug affecting systems that store time as a 32-bit signed integer counting seconds since January 1, 1970. Linux kernel 5.6+ (2020) has addressed it, but filesystem support varies across platforms.
- Source
- Lobsters
- Published
- Sep 21, 2026 at 01:40 AM
- Score
- 5.0 / 10