Sometimes things work out (Mostly they don't)

Tony Stark is categorically not ready for this.

Here are the highlights:

The National Institute of Health (NIH) has had its spending increase by $2 billion to a total of $34 billion. Trump requested this to be cut.

NASA has been granted $19.7 billion in funding, an increase even on what Obama requested. Of this, $5.8 billion is set aside for science research, including $1.9 billion for the Earth Sciences – something Trump officials said they wanted completely defunded.

$37 million has been given to NASA’s STEM programs and outreach, with $100 million total going towards educational programs, something Trump also wished, and still wishes, to cut by 2018.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), the largest federal fund for science and academia, has been given $7.5 billion, a slight increase from 2016’s budget.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been given $1.09 billion, a slight increase from 2016. Trump wanted to cut this by 10 percent.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which faced a 31 percent cut by this year or the next, has only had its funding cut by 1 percent.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been given $3.5 billion

It wasn’t a virus, it was an issue with how some old computers at the time were programmed to deal with dates. Basically some computers with older operating systems didn’t have anything in place to deal with the year reaching 99 and looping around to 00. It was believed that this inability to sync with the correct date would cause issues, and even crash entire systems the moment the date changed.

People flipped out about it, convinced that the date discrepancy between netwoked systems would bring down computers everywhere and shut down the internet and so all systems relying on computers, including plane navigation etc. would go down causing worldwide chaos. It was genuinely believed that people should all switch off computers to avoid this. One or two smart people spoke up and said “um hey, this actually will only effect a few very outdated computers and they’ll just display the wrong date, so it probably won’t be harmful” but were largely ignored because people selling books about the end of the world were talking louder.

I’ve been a programmer working for various government agencies since the early 1990s and I can say with some confidence:

NOTHING HAPPENED BECAUSE WE WORKED VERY HARD FIXING SHIT THAT MOST DEFINITELY WOULD HAVE BROKEN ON 1-JAN-2000.

One example I personally worked on: vaccination databases.

My contract was with the CDC to coordinate immunization registries — you know, kids’ vaccine histories. What they got, when they got it, and (most importantly) which vaccines they were due to get next and when. These were state-wide registries, containing millions of records each.

Most of these systems were designed in the 1970s and 1980s, and stored the child’s DOB year as only two digits. This means that — had we not fixed it — just about every child in all the databases I worked on would have SUDDENLY AGED OUT OF THE PROGRAM 1-JAN-2000.

In other words: these kids would suddenly be “too old” to receive critical vaccines.

Okay, so that’s not a nuke plant exploding or airplanes dropping from the sky. In fact, nothing obvious would have occurred come Jan 1st.

BUT

Without the software advising doctors when to give vaccinations, an entire generation’s immunity to things like measles, mumps, smallpox (etc) would have been compromised. And nobody would even know there was a problem for months — possibly years — after.

You think the fun & games caused by a few anti-vaxers is bad?

Imagine whole populations going unvaccinated by accident… one case of measles and the death toll might be measured in millions.

This is one example I KNOW to be true, because I was there.

I also know that in the years leading up to 2000 there were ad-hoc discussion groups (particularly alt.risk) of amazed programmers and project managers that uncovered year-2000 traps… and fixed them.

Quietly, without fanfare. 

In many cases because admitting there was a problem would have resulted in a lawsuit by angry customers. But mostly because it was our job to fix those design flaws before anyone was inconvenienced or hurt.

When the FATEFUL HOUR came along, it wasn’t just one hour.  For a global company with offices in dozens of countries, it was 24 hours of being alert and on-call.  I imagine that other large organizations had similar setups with entire IT departments working in shifts to monitor everything.  Everyone was on a hair trigger, too, so the slightest problem caused ALL HANDS ON DECK pages to go out.

Yes, we had pagers.

For hard numbers IDC’s 2006 calculation put the total US cost of remediation, before and after, at $147 billion - that’s in 1999 dollars.  That paid for an army of programmers, including calling up retired grandparents from the senior center because COBOL and FORTRAN apps from the ‘60s needed fixing.

Also note that there were some problems, including $13 billion in remediation included in the figure above.  Some of these involved nuclear power plants, medical equipment, and “a customer at a New York State video rental store had a bill for $91,250, the cost of renting the movie ‘The General’s Daughter’ for 100 years.”

My Dragon Age Dreamcast [3/?]

for fucking *SERIOUS*

Straight up, Tony is an engineer. He fixes problems. It gets him hot. He can spend DAYS crawling around inside a problem. It’s his jam. He loves it. So making a building or technology work for a person? Yeah, he’s going to do that. It’s a problem to be solved. Ignoring the human factor; he abhors unsolved problems. Just can’t leave them alone.

Bringing in the human part of it, though, makes it even more interesting. Tony does not fix *people*. People are not broken. He says it to General Ross when he gives him shit over the whole Hulk thing “I’m hardware, not software”. Tony innately seems to believe people aren’t problems. People have disabilities/illnesses but they’re not broken. They shouldn’t have to fit the world. The world should fit them.

(His ‘sounds exhausting’ crack re: Fury turning to see all the screens is a prime example. That shit would get old fast in the middle of a battle. Nick would practically have to spin like a top to keep up with the reports coming in from all sides and it seriously would be exhausting).

Like the idea of turning somebody’s skills away because they have mobility issues? The fuck you say? He’d be like “OKAY on it. Mind if I take some scans? Because this would be easier with scans. Hey, is that chair manual? Does that not fuck your fingers up? Like how, where, okay JARVIS you’re taking notes right buddy? Because this is a thing too. Sorry, we were talking about your office, but really we should work on the chair and then build around that, you mind if we do that? Be easier anyway.”

And kids? Kids are fucking AWESOME beta testers. They can break ANYTHING. (Okay they can’t go near the weapons division because the lawyers start crying) So an entire room full of them? Ah yeahhhhhhh. Bust shit up you tiny tiny Godzillas you.

But seriously, Pepper is the one who points out the turnover of parents and such, knowing full well he’ll be like “We need a whole daycare? Cool, buy one. They can’t buy houses? Eh, we can build a credit union, I’ve got fucktons of cash, so we can totally do that…what else? Great, let’s do that.”

Like even on the sexual stuff. Yeah, he likes sex, and strippers and the whole shebang, but it’s *consensual* and people getting harassed? Totally not consensual and totally not awesome. He wants to keep his staff. Especially the awesome women. Pepper is an awesome woman and he totally could not function without Pepper so a thousand more Peppers? NOT GIVING THAT UP.

This is the guy who shut down the weapons division when it was the primary part of his company. He did it without even blinking. Tony has absolutely no fucking problems with risking his business to fix something that’s wrong. Because he knows he can. He fixes stuff. And when something isn’t working for people? He changes it until he does.

Hell yeah SI’s turnover rate is so fucking low as to be ridiculous and all the other companies *HATE HIM*, but fuck it. They can’t keep up anyway so why is he going to worry?

Tony both has physical disabilities/chronic illness he’s adapted for (the shrapnel that constantly endangers him) and gaps in his ability to communicate and relate easily that he’s trying to bridge, with varying degrees of success. And he does what he does best- slaps some science on the hull and jury-rigs the comms so that something can get through, even if it’s too coded for immediate translation.

for Ladies into Ladies into Sci-fi/Fantasy

[You like Buffy, contemporary urban fantasy, witches, sisterhood, Young Adult]

You’ll love; The Engelsfors Trilogy by Mats Strandberg & Sara Elfgren Bergmark

[You like classic fantasy, epic fantasy, quests, magic, sole survivors]

You’ll love; Fire Logic by Laurie Marks

[You like military fantasy, matriarchal societies, female warriors, slow-burn bow chicka-wow-wow]

You’ll love; The Warrior’s Path by Catherine M Wilson

[You like shapeshifters, secret societies, romance, star crossed lovers]

You’ll love; Second Nature by Jae

[You like super powered mutants, near future dystopias, underdogs, and orphans who like to box]

You’ll love; Santa Olivia by Jaqueline Carey

[You like Zombies, pop culture references, innuendos and sass]

You’ll love; Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram

[You like Norse mythology, urban fantasy, blacksmiths, dragons and Portland]

You’ll love; Black Blade Blues by J.A. Pitts

[You like classic Science Fiction, parallel universes, poetry and philosphy]

You’ll love; The Female Man by Joanna Russ

[You like gothic ghost stories, mind-fucks, atmospheric autumn novels in a New England setting]

You’ll love; The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan

[You like robots, space, science fiction, wit, scathing satire]

You’ll love; The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson

So, let me guess— you just started a new book, right? And you’re stumped. You have no idea how much an AK47 goes for nowadays. I get ya, cousin. Tough world we live in. A writer’s gotta know, but them NSA hounds are after ya 24/7. I know, cousin, I know. If there was only a way to find out all of this rather edgy information without getting yourself in trouble…

You’re in luck, cousin. I have just the thing for ya.

It’s called Havocscope. It’s got information and prices for all sorts of edgy information. Ever wondered how much cocaine costs by the gram, or how much a kidney sells for, or (worst of all) how much it costs to hire an assassin?

I got your back, cousin. Just head over to Havocscope.

((PS: In case you’re wondering, Havocscope is a database full of information regarding the criminal underworld. The information you will find there has been taken from newspapers and police reports. It’s perfectly legal, no need to worry about the NSA hounds, cousin ;p))