Apocalypse Machine
Once a bunch of computer programmers sat together and made a machine that would tell them the fate of the human race. They set it to work and left it alone for a 250 years. The machine was virtually forgotten during that long duration. There remained only one programmer who took care of the archaic machine. One day, he heard a whirring sound and the machine produced a printout. He went ahead and looked at the printout and was surprised. The machine predicted that the human race had only 290 years to live out of which 250 years had already finished.
He called up the press and he called up other computer programmers and told them the result that he had obtained. They were all surprised at the result and they all unanimously agreed that it was a bug rather than a prophetic apocalypse. But the initial programmer was not willing to believe that it was a bug. So the programmers came and checked through the entire code and hardware of the machine. They sat and studied the problem, line by line. Science had progressed much since the programmers of the past had made that machine. And they looked for errors in the thinking of the programmers. Finally after 3 solid years of hard work, they found an error in the code. It was a very unnoticeable error but one with profound implications. They corrected it and ran the machine. The machine would continue to run for another 250 years.
After 250 years, the machine whirred and produced a printout which read that the human race had 292 years to live out of which 250 years had already finished. Unfortunately, there was no one else to read that prophetic apocalyse because the whole human race had been wiped out 200 years ago.
- by Joe Antarrior
Once a bunch of computer programmers sat together and made a machine that would tell them the fate of the human race. They set it to work and left it alone for a 250 years. The machine was virtually forgotten during that long duration. There remained only one programmer who took care of the archaic machine. One day, he heard a whirring sound and the machine produced a printout. He went ahead and looked at the printout and was surprised. The machine predicted that the human race had only 290 years to live out of which 250 years had already finished.
He called up the press and he called up other computer programmers and told them the result that he had obtained. They were all surprised at the result and they all unanimously agreed that it was a bug rather than a prophetic apocalypse. But the initial programmer was not willing to believe that it was a bug. So the programmers came and checked through the entire code and hardware of the machine. They sat and studied the problem, line by line. Science had progressed much since the programmers of the past had made that machine. And they looked for errors in the thinking of the programmers. Finally after 3 solid years of hard work, they found an error in the code. It was a very unnoticeable error but one with profound implications. They corrected it and ran the machine. The machine would continue to run for another 250 years.
After 250 years, the machine whirred and produced a printout which read that the human race had 292 years to live out of which 250 years had already finished. Unfortunately, there was no one else to read that prophetic apocalyse because the whole human race had been wiped out 200 years ago.
- by Joe Antarrior
posted by Rivas at 11:16 PM
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