From Contest #17
And Now, On To This Contest's Candidates (the official list, in no particular order):
Stupid Y2k Tricks:
"Your midnight power outage may not be what you think it is,
according to Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K
Cooperation Center. McConnell, who spoke last week to the Washington,
D.C., Year 2000 group, said a lot of Jan. 1 incidents we might blame on
Year 2000 might result from other causes. For example, McConnell said, one
potentially popular New Year's Eve party prank might be to stand by a
power switch and snuff out the lights when midnight hits. No computer
programming will be needed to fix that problem. Simply turn the lights
back on and call a cab for the prankster. But don't try this one:
McConnell said he's heard tales of revelers in Texas shooting at electric
transformers to create celebratory sparks for bringing in the new
year."
Boy do those Texans know how to have a good time!
Just for fun, anyone with any other good ideas for Y2k pranks can e-mail
them to us here. We'll
post the best of them (and those least likely to cause widespread public
panic) on a special edition of Duh-2000 in late December. Quoted on
Federal Computer Week Y2K:
No laughing matter October 18, 1999.
At the joint US/Russia Y2k command post in
Colorado: "Two interpreters will be on hand at all times. Three
oversized wall screens can zero in on the area of any alerts. One is to
stay tuned to television news. Another may be used to show videos to break
boredom. The 1983 film "WarGames"
-- in which Matthew Broderick played a computer hacker who finds an
electronic backdoor to NORAD and nearly trips the Third World War -- would
be a "good choice" for entertainment, said Richard Russell, the
center's chief engineer."
How about "The
China Syndrome" or "Colossus:
The Forbin Project" to lighten the mood a little? Or hook it up
to a PC and play a really killer game of Doom! Quoted on Reuters Old
Nuclear Foes Join To Avert Y2K Catastrophe October 18, 1999.
"According to Fleming [John
Fleming, a partner at British law firm Howard Kennedy], where cases
do come to court, one of the main defences for suppliers is likely to be
that they were not aware of the Year 2000 date change problem when the
software was written or supplied. An early test case is likely to set a
date after which general awareness of the problem can be assumed, and this
will have a huge effect on the final volume of litigation. ... This key
date - and the fate of billions of dollars worth of litigation worldwide -
could hinge on the cartoon computer programmer Dilbert. In a 1995 cartoon,
Dilbert referred to the millennium bug, a fact which some US lawyers argue
proves it was common knowledge at that time - the Dilbert Date."
Let's see...attorneys think that "common
knowledge" is imparted to senior executives by the comic strip "Dilbert."
What's wrong with this picture? Quoted on CNNfn Lawyers
get briefed on the bug September 30, 1999. Submitted by Linda
Fitzpatrick.
An unnamed reporter
to Y2k czar John Koskinen: "What if we get to January 2000 and not much
goes wrong? Did we spend billions of dollars that we didn't need to?"
Not at all. It's not at all like paying a reporter who
doesn't know how to ask an intelligent question. Quoted on USA Today Analysts:
Y2K will cause some trouble September 22, 1999. Submitted by Be
Hussander.
Sen. Conrad Burns,
R-Montana, commenting on the fact that (in his opinion) the power company
managers are all football fans, and "they're damn sure not going to
let those football games go off" television on Jan. 1.
Finally, an intelligent comment from a politician.
Not. Quoted on the Kalispell Montana Daily Interlake Burns
says not to worry about Y2K power failures September 17, 1999.
Submitted by Greg Chandler.
Sen. Richard Lugar,
R-Indiana: "Russian early warning operators may not be able to tell the
difference between a peaceful rocket and a military rocket from their
computer screens."
Uh, sir, radar shows we have 1,000 incoming bogies, but we
can't tell if they are good rockets or bad rockets... Quoted on
Computer Currents Lugar:
Fix Russian Y2K September 29, 1999. Submitted by Linda Fitzpatrick.
Karen Waltuck,
co-owner of New York restaurant Chanterelle on their elaborate
plans for a New Year's black-tie dinner at a cost of around $2,500 a head:
"This only happens once in a while, right?"
Funny, we thought there was a New Year's Eve nearly every
year. Quoted on The New York Times (registration required) On New
Year's Eve, Some Restaurants Will Sit It Out September 29, 1999.
Submitted by Michael Tow.
And now the the unofficial list:
all those other entries whose sources couldn't be verified, but we liked anyway
"I am a mechanic at a local service
station and one afternoon just before close a lady whose car I was working
on asked, "Since my car has a computer. Is there anyway to stop it from
quitting working on Jan 1st?" I simply replied, "If I could get
cars to not stop working on a certain date. I could retire." "
I wouldn't think that would be be too
hard to do, considering mine always start having problems about a minute
after the warranty expires! Submitted by John Scott, Mechanic (ASE).
"My friend and I were reading the
newspapers one day when out of nowhere she said to me "Do you know that
there is really something called Y2K." I started laughing, she thought
that one of our friends made up that name. She had no idea what Y2K was and
she asked somebody the next day."
Hey, we get asked about the 2YK and 2KY bug all the time.
Submitted by Jennifer Vorhies.