Moose O'Malley's Software Valley Established : July 1996 Please bookmark this location only : http://move.to/moose

Moose's Valley : Previous Page Changes :

Re: My "Y2K Bug" Predictions

Below is an excerpt from the Previous Changes section of my WEB page.

1-Feb-2000 :: 100% Correct !!! What I predicted below with my Millenium Bug Predictions has indeed come to pass. We are now over 1 month past the millenium, and it was all an extreme mountain out of a mole-hill, and all of the 1,000's of self-proclaimed experts have indeed crawled back under their rocks, changed their stories, or claimed that they were misquoted or misunderstood (yet again !!). But, we all know better, don't we !!! Oh, yes, and I have taken my Christmas Decorations down as well. Hope everyone had a great Christmas / New Year. 28-Dec-1999 :: Moose's Y2K and Millenium Bug Predictions :: 28-Dec-1999 @ 2:00 PM I have made no secret about my feelings about the so-called Y2K / Millenium Bug. To put it simply, I believe that those with axes to grind and $$$ to make out of gullible people are whiping up hysteria that is well over the top. In newsgroups and email lists, my feelings of the millenium bug have been made known from time to time. I have refused to put any "Y2K Certified" or similar logos on my shareware or freeware. Any software written by a competent programmer will be Y2K OK, and Y3K OK, and Y10K OK, and I refuse to provide any support or add any credence to the hysteria surrounding the 1999-2000 year rollover. In July 1999, I made formal written public statements about the millenium bug on my Staff WEB page at work. Recently, however, the hysteria has got far worse, with 2 families of people that live nearby me selling up, moving out to mountain retreats, massively stocking up with food and water, buying their own generator, and stocking up with guns and amunition to fight off the hungry hoards that will no doubt rise up as a result of the so-called Y2K / Millenium Bug. On TV there have been reports of many dozens of people behaving similarly - mainly in America. What makes my experience so amazing - with the 2 families I know selling up, moving into the mountains, battening down hatches, and preparing for war - is that I live in a very sleepy seaside town on the Barrier Reef in Australia !!! (Watch the movie Flipper to see almost how sleepy my town is !!) In addition, airlines are so worried about the millenium bug that they are not flying for an hour or so each side of the 1999 - 2000 rollover. Hospitals all over the world are shutting down all of their computer equipment during the 1999 - 2000 rollover - even people on life support are going to have to do their best and survive during the few seconds before and after the change over. Perfectly good VCRs, washing machines, TVs, computers, etc are being scrapped in their thousands and new models purchased because of fears of the millenium bug. Many thousands of self-proclaimed experts in computer magazines, newspapers, web pages, on the TV, etc have peddled their increasingly dire predictions about the millenium rollover - which state that electricity, gas, bank accounts, phones, etc, etc and nearly all computer systems around the world will no longer work, and the resulting millions of starving people will riot and rape and pillage. BULLSHIT !!!! BULLSHIT !!!! BULLSHIT !!!! Yes, there will be some millenium bug problems, but to suggest that complete failure of electricity or banking or nearly every computer system on the planet will occur or that a large chunk of the population will riot or that the world will end is simply rediculous. Still, I appear to be a lone voice crying in the wilderness trying to calm people down about the Y2K. Either I am right or the thousands of self proclaimed experts in the computer magaines, newspapers, on TV, etc are right. We shall see. In just less than 4 short days, we shall see. Right or wrong - I stand by my predictions. If the thousands of self proclaimed experts are wrong, I bet they will crawl back under their rocks, change their stories, or claim that they were misquoted or misunderstood. These sort of people always do ! Remember all the virus hysteria that is generated every couple of months with the next killer computer virus ? Out of my 20+ years eating, sleeping, and breathing computers and downloading or trying out and running many Gigabytes of software - I have only encountered 2 viruses in my life. Many people who use Macs love to gloat about the thousands of viruses on the PC - but where are they ? Anti-virus developers and virus writers seem to have a wierd relationship where many viruses are sent directly to the Anti-virus developers but are never released to the public. Why ? A new version of the anti-virus software and which will generate more sales means that the Anti-virus developers aren't complaining. But the public should ! Many people also believe that the first virus was written on a PC, but there were a few viruses "out there" on the Apple ][ way back in 1981-82 ! Also, remember the 9-Sep-1999 ? This was supposed to be a miny "Millenium Bug" type event, where software all around the world would crash which was written to set a maximum date of all 9's - 99/99/99 - if you are using COBOL or similar languages that cater for 2 digit centuries by default or 99/99/9999 otherwise. Clearly 99/99/99 and 99/99/9999 aren't the same as 9/9/99, so the people who predicted severe computer problems here were so wrong it was tragic ! But where are they ? They have gone back under their rocks or changed their stories with the benifit of 20/20 hindsight. As I said earlier, these sort of people always do !! Hopefully, people will long remember who the scaremongers and profiteers are this time !! The many thousands of people who have done their best to whip up hysteria and make a profit from this hysteria over the millenium changeover - the same people who I say are wrong - should long be remembered for their "advice". In short, my advice is don't panic about the millenium changeover. And, most importantly, don't buy any crappy Y2K software to test your computer - you will only be supporting the scaremongers and profiteers. Test the computer yourself - it is fairly easy ! Simply change the date to 31-12-1999 and the time to 11:55 PM and load all of your favourite sotware and use / test it for 10 minutes. You will soon see what works and what hasn't and what is realy a problem and what isn't, and can take appropriate action (upgrade, delete, fix, etc) to fix the problem.

From Here you can :

Email moose@move.to with comments etc...

---

This page is part of Moose's Software Valley

Please bookmark this location only : http://move.to/moose

---

You are Visitor since December 11, 2002.