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Why Can’t Android Remember December?
Google’s most modern mobile operating system has officially cancelled Christmas. Those of you who own an Android 4.2 might have already noticed a bug or glitch that makes the Android 4.2 skip over the month of December in its calendar.
The bug was first reported on November 14th by a user who complained:
“Today I was inserting birthday of a friend in my contact list so that I can sync the birthdays in my calendar. I noticed that the December month is missing. When I pressed new event the calendar came but it was not having the option for the month December.”
Google is aware of the problem and will have to update a fix and get it distributed via carriers to the majority of Android devices running 4.2 and to owners of Nexus devices as well.
In the world of programming, the bug is a very small but a common mistake. Literally an ‘off-by-one’ mistake: the array that’s used for the month references is zero-indexed; basically it goes {0, 2, 3…11}. But, the month numbers go {1, 2, 3,..12}. By shifting the index by 1 and forgetting to allow the highest value of the array to be 12 instead of 11, you ultimately kill December, therefore cancelling Christmas.
And the Geek Christmas tales are starting to roll out…
‘Twas a month before Christmas and Old Dr. Goog
Sat in the Goog cave playing his Moog
Belting out White Christmas in a Waikiki Style
When in rushed an Android, face bereft of a smile.
December! December! It squawked with great fear.
We’ve left out December on our Calendar Year!
With a flick of his wrist, Dr. Goog slapped the ‘droid.
“Are you telling me Christmas is now null and void?
A vacuum? Zilch? Nada? What will traders say?
What about Ad Words? They’ll be wasting away!
“Get me,” he boomed “Android’s Chief Engineer
“Or I’ll make you forget the meaning of good cheer.”
A cringe and a fawn and the ‘Bot bowed away,
Knowing he’d be toast by the end of the day.
(With apologies to Dr. Seuss, Clement Clarke Moore, and all of humanity.)
Sonia Ingriselli
Sonia is the Executive Editor here at Geek Insider. Sonia has a passion for gadgets, technology and game consoles; she is proud to call herself a Zombie loving Tech-monster and spends most of her day's just writing. Follow me on Twitter @SoniaIngriselli
