I Was A Victim...... Of The Millenium Bug!

Having moved home I've been sorting through boxes of old junk working out what I could throw away or at least what I could store in the loft. One of the boxes contained a whole bunch of old University paperwork.

One of the pieces of paper concerned my account on the department of computer science's teaching network. I never noticed before but I'm guessing that the expiry date of 23.09.101 was caused by the millennium bug. For those of you who can't remember what all the fuss was about computers had been using just two digits to store the year which had worked well for most things but suddenly they would need to use four digits or the world would end! See Wikipedia if you really want all the gory details.

I'm guessing the department's system got fixed as my account continued to work correctly all the way to 23.09.2001.

University Departments

Another Year of Education

Well another year has passed, the students look even younger and the chance of buying a sandwich in less than 15 minutes at lunch time is now quickly approaching zero! At least it has now stopped raining.

Thinking of education though it reminds me, when does scoring 3/10 on a test give you a mark of 50%?

Q: When Does A University Not Feel Like A University?

A: When it has no students.

I spent the second half of last week in Milton Keynes at a meeting hosted by the Open University. I work for a University so I know what the atmosphere is like, especially over the last week or so with students returning for the new academic year.

The Open University isn't like that though because they don't have any students. OK that is not entirely true -- they don't have students at the University, all their students study via distance learning courses. Now this might be great for academics who don't actually like meeting students (I've known a few of those) but it leaves you wondering exactly where you are when you walk around the campus. It is quiet and empty in stark contrast to any other University I have ever visited.

While I may often be heard moaning about there being two many students around I've now decided that too many students is immeasurably preferable to there being no students at all.