David Soubly

Maybe I should just die in my sleep and not worry about things. That would be simpler.

I have sleep apnea, which means that I, like many other people, are skilled at two things:

1. Snoring so loudly that I register on the Richter scale, the next state over
2. Trying hundreds of times each night to reach the next life by depriving myself of oxygen in this one

I’ve had this condition for too many years. Actually, if you have a partner in your life, a few days or a week, tops, is too many...

There comes a time, late in winter, that many people anticipate. It’s when the long, dark, snowy months give way at last to the warm promise of spring. That’s when we hear the birds, busy declaring territories, see the animals that had disappeared during the dark months, smell that warm brown promising odor of thawing earth coming to life. Spring.

It’s still winter, and for some, that means STILL winter. STILL a time of snow, snow shovels, road salt, slush, cold, and all the rest. Driving...

In two previous entries here, I explored the Y2K computer bug and business continuity concepts.

As part of the Y2K team for a major company, I learned that while you may see an impending crisis, others may see nothing at all — or at least, nothing nearly as consequential. As a result, when it comes to what to do about it, people take sides. Often these sides are related to how much risk each side is willing to tolerate. Even afterward, neither side can convince the other that its approach...

This could have happened to anyone, in any company, anywhere. These events  describe technology from many years ago – but the fact is, they could just as easily happen today.

Two in the morning. The telephone rings in a programmer’s home. Groggy, he answers, listens to the terse message from the system operator. A critical overnight program has failed, one of the programs for which the programmer is responsible.

This program must run properly, each and every night.

The programmer will need to...

Interesting tidbit broke in the news to start 2022. It appears that (due to technical reasons I won’t go into here), an oddball date-related bug scattered some minor havoc throughout the Microsoft world. Happy New Year, 2022!

Technical folks immediately compared this to Y2K, even going so far as to name the bug “Y2K22,” after what is arguably the most famous computer bug of all time.

Some may be unfamiliar with Y2K. (I’m not - I worked on one of the Y2K teams.) To remind us all, here I...