

Men born between 1893 and 1897 reminded to register for the draft - bjfish
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/07/10/the-selective-service-just-reminded-14000-men-born-between-1893-and-1897-to-register-for-the-draft/

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dylanrw
I registered for the selective service and all of that, and it never really
crossed my mind. 12 years later, the act seems alarmingly misandristic. It
also makes me wonder if any feminists are fighting to have this law updated to
include all citizens and not just males...

~~~
burkaman
Not sure about feminist efforts, but all recent efforts to reinstate some kind
of draft included women:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_National_Service_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_National_Service_Act)

I know the National Organization of Women's position has always been that they
oppose any kind of draft, but if it has to continue they would like women to
be included. I think most feminists would understandably rather work to get
rid of all selective service rather than include women.

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mandalar12
"These letters were sent due to a computer error, the agency said in a message
posted online"

No this is a human error. Are they trying to avoid responsibility when this is
a minor (and a little funny) mistake ?

~~~
eli
This gets sort of philosophical. What would be an example of a computer error?

~~~
ccozan
That would be a pure hardware error. For example a cosmic ray hitting a cell
the DRAM and flipping a bit. Or maybe the Intel FP-Bug, could also be a
computer error.

Anything else in software is a programming error, but not necessarily a
programmer error, since it might start with wrong HW specs, compiler bugs,
etc.

~~~
eli
So "computer error" is when the hardware designer screws up and "human error"
is when the software designer screws up? That seems pretty arbitrary.

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lukecampbell
The article said 14,000 men. Is that possible that there are that many folks
in Pennsylvania that were born between those dates?

~~~
InclinedPlane
The article also said that they sent letters addressed to individuals who were
no longer living.

~~~
Someone1234
That must be distressing for the families.

As an aside: Do the SS send letters to dead people born between 1993-1997?
You'd assume they'd check for death records or have some way of being notified
about that.

For example if a boy is born in 1993 but died at age 5, do the parents get a
letter from the SS in 2011 telling the boy to register for the SS?

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facorreia
> the agency uses a two-digit code for the birth year

I find that surprising, I would expect even newcomer professionals to at least
have heard about the Y2K bug.

~~~
x1798DE
Not sure why anyone is memory conservative these days anyway, but it's
possible they thought about it but figured that there weren't that many people
over the age of 118 floating around, and even if they get a letter reminding
them to register for the draft, they'd just ignore it.

~~~
Igglyboo
Or it's a legacy system they never bothered properly fixing and just used some
quick hack when 2000 rolled around.

~~~
revelation
It is 2014, males born in the 2000s are not yet at an age where they would be
harassed by the selective service.

My estimate is we will see this blow up again in 2018.

~~~
x1798DE
I don't think so. It's always 118-126 years, no matter what year it is right
now, so we'll only see this blow up if there's an explosion in that
population.

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maxerickson
Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8018399](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8018399)

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squozzer
Or maybe it's part of the global project to eliminate the world's installed
base of land mines.

