From Contest #5
This Contest's Candidates (the official list, in no particular order):
Technical columnist Alan Abrams:
"Personally, I'm worried about peanut butter. What if those peanut-harvesting
machines go out of whack on Y2K Day and ruin our best peanut fields? What if the machines
at the factory that makes that great stuff with the peanut butter and jelly in the same
jar start putting in only jelly? What will I do then? What will I put on my crackers?
So I'm going out and buying enough peanut butter to last me at least five years
because it will probably take that long for the peanut butter market to recover. But will
that be enough?
We think Alan has his toungue stuck firmly in his cheek in this article (or perhaps
stuck to the roof of his mouth). Quoted on The Journal of Commerce Millennia madness October 15,
1998. Submitted by Sara Marshall.
Rev. Richard Mooney, pastor of
Church of the Holy Family in Virginia Beach, apparently commenting on Pat Robertson's
advice to stock up on supplies for Y2k: "Americans are nuts about religion, and we
tend to go particularly nuts about religion in any year that ends in a double zero, and
this year has three zeros, so it's even worse. ... I find this Year 2000 nonsense
perfectly predictable and utterly non-interesting. ... My advice to those who are worried
about the Year 2000 problem is to buy new computers."
We're sure his heart's in the right place, but his technical advice leaves
something to be desired. Quoted on PilotOnline News Robertson says stock up to prepare
for Year 2000 October 16, 1998. Submitted by Heather Westerfield.
A unnamed House Judiciary Committee attorney who couldn't
disclose the status of the House's year 2000 disclosure bill: "We're in the midst of
an impeachment proceeding."
Ah. Important work. And certainly one whose deadline is also fixed.
Quoted on Computerworld Inside Lines -
Overheard October 5, 1998. Submitted by Bob DeLong.
Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), in
the weekly GOP radio address given Saturday, October 3, 1998, criticizing the Clinton
administration for asking for $3.25 billion in emergency funding for federal government
Y2k repairs. Noting that the current calendar was adopted in 525 A.D., he said:
"The world has known that the year 2000 was coming for some 1,473 years. It is only a
surprise to your administration.''
Perhaps Sen. Gramm would be similarly surprised to learn that the Gregorian
calendar was actually put into effect almost 416 years ago to the day on October 4, 1582,
but wasn't adopted in colonial America until September 2, 1752. We wonder if it will
be a surprise to anyone if the Federal government doesn't get all it's systems
fixed in time... Quoted on WashingtonPost.com Gramm
Attacks Clinton Over Spending October 3, 1998. Submitted by Steve Casburn.
Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah),
on his plan to set up an "early warning" system for Y2k problems by monitoring
Pacific and Asian infrastructures as they roll over to 1/1/2000: "It is absolutely
foolish not to use this advance notice for the good of the nation."
Now, Senator Bennett is one of the very few politicians that understand what the
Y2k problem entails, and we generally applaud his efforts to deal with it. But isn't
it going to be a teensy bit late by then to do anything about it other than just watch?
Quoted on Reuters US
Senator Looks To Pacific For Early Y2K Warning October 5, 1998. Submitted by
John Davies and David Page. By the way in case you are interested, as of this
writing the rollover to 1/1/2000 will begin in the Pacific island nation of Kiribati (GMT
+14) at 5am EST on December 31, 1999. New Zealand (GMT+12) will roll over at 7am
EST. Zero hour for systems using GMT (UCT, Zulu...whatever) is 7pm EST, and the last
few islands in the Pacific (GMT-12) roll over at 7am EST January 1, 2000. Oh, and
2000 is a leap year!
Nicholas Zvegintzov, author and
industry pundit: "The Year 2000 problem (years stored by their last two digits will
overflow from "99" to "00" when the year passes from 1999 to 2000,
causing miscalculations and misunderstandings) is not a huge problem of computer software,
nor a unique problem, nor a difficult problem to solve, but it is the focus of a huge and
unique racket."
Yet another entry in the "it's all a consultant conspiracy" theory.
Quoted on Software Management Network THE YEAR 2000 AS RACKET
AND RUSE (Originally published in "American Programmer", February 1996).
Submitted by Shane Taylor.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio:
"People who know little about what the government is doing are making wild
speculations.''
It isn't the "wild speculations" that bother us. It's the informed
speculations of Rep. Horn and Sen. Bennett that should concern people. Quoted on
Associated Press FAA
Flying Through Y2K Renovations September 29, 1998. Submitted by John Cox.
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan
Greenspan, testifying before the Senate in July: "I'm one of the culprits who
created this problem...I used to write those programs back in the '60s and '70s and was so
proud of the fact that I was able to squeeze a few elements of space out of my program by
not having to put 19 before the year."
-AND-
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testifying before
congress in September: "I have no question that we're going to have very unusual
things occurring."
Well, I guess he would know... The first quote is from the Kansas City Star Chances to fix
problem squandered for decades September 26, 1998, and the second is
from USA Today Survey: Y2K
woes won't sink economy September 30, 1998. Submitted by Jon Wiley.
Stupid Journalism Section
Rob Morse (again), technology columnist: "Y2K is
practically a cult already. "Repent, the end is near" has been replaced by
"Reboot, 2000 is near." .. Why is it I'm not scared? Is it because I have an
iMac that's Y2K compliant? Yes, downloading dominatrixes, an obedient little computer is
called "compliant." "
An interesting attitude given that the only two things that an iMac can plug into
are the two biggest things that may fail. Quoted on the San Francisco Examiner Gonna
party like it's 1899 October 22, 1998.
Technical advice columnist and self-described Microsoft
Defector Alex St. John: "Can you think of any other
situations where a computer would have to deal correctly with a date that is sometime in
the year 2000? Driver's license expiration, passports, canned goods expiration, etc.. Are
you aware of any of the services that depend on this breaking down catastrophically? No.
That's because it's no big deal. Any given piece of complex software is guaranteed to
contain dozens if not hundreds or even thousands of bugs. Y2K is probably almost always
the least of them. Systems that had the date limitations are very old, most of societies
electronic infrastructure is built on modern systems. Even if they weren't, the problems
associated would be cropping under every circumstance that a date exceeding the year 2000
needs to be stored, which is very often even today. If a breakdown is in the works, it
started years ago. Y2K is just a great way to sell newspapers to the technologically
illiterate. The only problem will be hysteria, don't loose any sleep over it."
We're sure no programmer on the planet will be losing any sleep anytime in the next
14 months. Or working any overtime, either. Quoted on Boot Magazine Y2K Apocalypse July 17, 1998.
Submitted by Alex Robinson.
And now the the unofficial list:
all those other entries who's sources couldn't be verified, but we liked anyway
My wife was recently trying to convince her sister that
there was something to be concerned about regarding Y2K. The sister's response?
"Well, it may be a problem for you in Texas, but we're so close to Silicon Valley (as
in Santa Cruz area) that it will be fixed and won't bother us."
We're particularly worried about all those embedded cow-chips in the Lone Star
state. Submitted by Wes Stalcup.
Response letter received upon request for Y2k compliance
from an unnamed vendor:
"RE: YEAR 2000 COMPLIANCE
I refer to your recent questionnaire in relation to Year 2000 Compliance and wish to advise that these issues do not affect our Company. We currently operate a manual procedure for all systems and processes. All customers and their associated products are manually recorded.
Our Company uses PC's which are of course, not affected by the millennium bug.
It is our intention however, to move to a computer based system at some stage after the Year 2000 in order to avoid this compliance issue.
Best of luck with your Year 2000 Compliance issues."
You'll probably need it if you have a lot of vendors like this one. Submitted
by Jennifer Plant.
After spending several days preparing for a Y2K presentation
that my boss had asked me to prepare as a community service, An employee asked me what I
was working on. When I told him he responded "Oh Y2K, I know all about that. A friend
of mine's father solved that problem."
Whew! That's certainly a relief. Submitted by Loren Cassell.
Overheard during a Texas Highway Department planning
meeting, "Why can't we just do the same thing they did last time?"
Sometimes no comment is necessary. Submitted by Robert A. Cook.
I was sitting in a theatre before the show began and
overheard two middle-aged women talking behind me. One said to the other: "If the
government doesn't fix this Y2K problem-- when the year 2000 comes all of the U.S. nuclear
warheads are going to explode!" The other woman replied: "I hope they fix the
problem fast!"
Not to worry. We have a whole 14+ months or so left. Submitted by Matt
Robb.