It's so boring being a skeptic.
If you had a choice of going
out to dinner with either a flamboyant Y2K spinner-of-wild tales
or a monotone Y2K debunker, I know which one you'd choose. (Me
too.) So don't go out to dinner with any of the following people,
even if they pay:
DEBUGGING
THE Y2k STORY
Local
version
Written by two programmers, I highly recommend reading this clear
and to-the-point expose. At the end of it are their Predictions
and Recommendations. Two good quotes from the article are: "simply
the amount of money being spent seems to be a major component
shaping the belief of many people" and "like many other
celebrities, Y2k is mostly known for being famous."
A
GREAT QUOTE FROM 'REWIRED'
Local
version
Paul Kedrosky: "Y2K advocates were like newly hatched mosquitoes.
They only have a short amount of time to suck blood before they
die."
DOUGLAS
RUSHKOFF'S "NO WHERE TO RUN" ARTICLE
Local
version
"Although fans of apocalypse have always looked for any
excuse to expect the worst, the millennium bug has provoked an
unprecedented amount of doomsday scenario planning from otherwise
sane people."
WHAT
STARTED IT FOR ME
Local
version
The famous article, "The Year 2000 as Racket and Ruse,"
by Nicholas Zvegintzov that was first published in American
Programmer in February 1996. "The Year 2000 problem
has three advantages that help to make it a perfect racket. First,
it has a basis in reality.... Second, it is a software problem
- perhaps the only software problem that lay people can easily
understand.... Third, its association with the turn of the millennium
plays into superstition."
BRIGHT IDEAS
TO EXTERMINATE THE BUG
"... simply call the next century, 'New 1900' ...
Add a letter to the year, like 1999A, 1999B, 1999C, and so on
... name years the way we name Hurricanes and Sporting Arenas
..."
MURPHY'S
LAW DOESN'T APPLY HERE
Local
version
"(An) Apollo mission was so complex, that if every component
was required to work correctly for the mission to succeed, then
only one in five million launches would have succeeded! ... This
logical flaw seems common in the way many commentators on the
Y2K problem have been approaching the problem...."
EXPOSING 'DOOM
AND GLOOMERS'
Local
version
"This page explores and explains some of the background
of those that claim governments will fail and financial and monetary
systems will collapse.Ý I call these people the "Doom
and Gloom" set.... They are a combination of religious radicals,
gun nuts, and book sellers."
THE
YEAR 2000 HOAX
"I asked my local banker for a repayment schedule for a
35-year, $250,000 home loan. It took some computer inputting
on his part (he typed with one finger) and the nearby printer
delivered a schedule into 2032. How did he do it? The banker
laughed when I told him about the gloom and doom forecast for
the year 2000."
YEAR
2000? SHUT UP ALREADY!
"The Year 2000 is a hoax. The compu-world won't crash, the
planet won't be paralyzed, and chaos will not reign... at least
no more than usual."
"MILLENNIUM
BUG, SCHMILLENNIUM BUG!"
"The threat that computers won't be able to handle the year-number
rollover to 2000 is not glowing too hot on my radar screen."