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You are on your computer on June 23rd, 2021 at 10:24:58 am, when it suddenly becomes bricked. Your electronic devices all fail, except for your newest technology. Why?

Hint 1:

Look at the year and the time passed since it began.

Hint 2:

T1J11 >ks

This didn't happen to me, this is just a scenario I made up myself. It could've possibly happened in real life.

misc544
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  • Does it have something to do with a Y2K/year 2038-esque problem? – new Q Open Wid Jul 20 '23 at 16:44
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    Most computers use Unix time, which is a 32 bit integer that keeps track of the seconds since Jan 1, 1970. This could potentially have to do with using less than 32 bits. – Blue Herring Jul 20 '23 at 17:01
  • @TylerSelden "most computers" Don't 64 bit computers use 64 bit integers to keep track of time? – new Q Open Wid Jul 20 '23 at 17:11
  • @newQOpenWid Yes. – misc544 Jul 20 '23 at 17:16
  • @TylerSelden rot13(Lbh’er pybfr.) – misc544 Jul 20 '23 at 17:17
  • in Unix time, this is (1624443898) in base 10 = (01100000110100110000101111111010) in base 2. – new Q Open Wid Jul 20 '23 at 17:20
  • @newQOpenWid It is instead 1624458298. (You used 6am instead of 10am.) – RobPratt Jul 20 '23 at 17:23
  • I suspect the fails may have been caused by bit flips from rogue electrons from outer space. Bit flips happened to occur in all devices with static RAM, while newest devices with dynamic RAM carried on. However, I cannot find a way to connect the specified date and time and my hypothesis. – web adventurer Jul 20 '23 at 18:44
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    @webadventurer It is likely nothing related with the outside world and is probably a complete result of the way the computer measures time or some other thing. – new Q Open Wid Jul 20 '23 at 19:38
  • @newQOpenWid yes – misc544 Jul 20 '23 at 19:58
  • Mcaffe antivirus' crash routine triggered by it's creator's suicide? – Iuri Guilherme Jul 21 '23 at 02:19
  • @IuriGuilherme No. – misc544 Jul 21 '23 at 05:09
  • @RobPratt I think newQOpenWid's calculation is correct (for GMT/UTC). Are you applying a timezone offset? – fljx Jul 21 '23 at 09:48
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    @fljx Yes, it seems so. I guess there is some ambiguity about where "your computer" is. – RobPratt Jul 21 '23 at 13:41
  • Any more hints? Is it related to the binary representation of the time or some other base, is the computer using Unix time, and so on. And most importantly, How can an overflow of time crash a computer? Most of us are just left randomly guessing as to the properties of the specific date and time you put right now. – new Q Open Wid Jul 24 '23 at 15:10
  • C float32 imprecision starts to show at unix timestamp 16777219 which is as soon as July 14th, 1970 04:20:19 am. Nearest precise float32 values to the given date can be found at 1624443968 (June 23th, 2021 10:26:08) and 1624443839 (June 23th, 2021 10:23:59) tested with CPython sys.float_info(max=1.7976931348623157e+308, max_exp=1024, max_10_exp=308, min=2.2250738585072014e-308, min_exp=-1021, min_10_exp=-307, dig=15, mant_dig=53, epsilon=2.220446049250313e-16, radix=2, rounds=1). Current implementation only gets weird at January 1st, 3000. – Iuri Guilherme Jul 24 '23 at 17:22
  • Hmm? Well, the distance in time is 111001001010010111111010 (base 2) == 14984698 (base 10). Should we look in binary or decimal? – new Q Open Wid Jul 25 '23 at 00:12
  • rot13(Ybbx va qrpvzny) @newQOpenWid – misc544 Jul 25 '23 at 01:58
  • I think I have an idea where this is going, but according to my calculations the tipping point would be 23.06.2021 07:34:03 UTC. Is there some weird timezone stuff going on? – Lukas Rotter Jul 27 '23 at 09:13

2 Answers2

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Consider that the integer used for storing the date time value

may be a 32-bit signed integer, i.e has a max value of 2147483647

Notice that

The max value 1) starts with 21 and 2) if the rest is to be regarded as a percentage (47.483647%), it looks as if it could match with how much of the year 2021 has passed on June 23rd.

Let the imaginary date time format be an integer which is constructed like

(last 2 digits of year) +concat+ (how much of the year has passed as a percentage, 8 digits + remove decimal point)
i.e.
((Year - 2000) * 10^8) + floor(SecondsPassed / AverageSecondsInAYear * 10^8)

Let's try to calculate that max value as an actual date

Calculate (0.47483647 * 365.25 * 24 * 60 * 60) (note the average 365.25 is taken thanks to @fljx in the comments), add that to 2021.01.01 00:00:00 and it yields: 2021.06.23 10:24:59 UTC

OP here. The newest technology is

64-bit.

misc544
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Lukas Rotter
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    If you use the actual length of a year (just under 365.25 days) I think this gets much closer. – fljx Jul 27 '23 at 10:42
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My wild guess:

A solar flare or another cataclysm that would be able to disable electronics worldwide for a certain amount of time could have possibly happened. Your "newest technology" is a tool you made recently that doesn't use electricity (for example a hammer or axe).

web adventurer
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