Everybody's saying it, but what does it mean? Oh sure I was as confused as anyone when the whole thing first started. Did somebody spell something with too many K's? For instance if someone were to write, "What blockkhead designed a computer that only workks until the end of 1999?" In that sentence one might look at the word "blockkhead" or "workks" and say, "Why are there two K's in that word?" or perhaps merely, "Why two K?" However the "Why two K?" sentence was never used in a context where this made sense, so I had to form a new theory. When I was in school, inexpert Spanish students used to combine English and Spanish when they couldn't express themselves using only Spanish. This new "language" was named Spanglish. In Spanglish you might find the sentence, "Why to ¿Que?" Roughly translated this might mean, "Huh?" or maybe, "I am fluent in neither English nor Spanish." But this theory, too, failed the test of time as the phrase was most frequently used by newscasters and politicians. Granted, both groups have a tendency to say things which are empty, meaningless, and/or just plain wrong, but they usually do it with near perfect English, so "Why to ¿Que?" was determined to be another mistranslation. So after several misunderstandings, the phrase was finally identified as "Y2K," an abbreviation for the "Year Two Thousand." Of course the average person will look at this and say, "But there's no K in 'Year Two Thousand.'" This is true, but understanding is achieved when you realize that the people who coined the phrase "Y2K" may very well be the same blockkheads responsible for the "Y2K Bug" which will soon be plaguing us.
Way back before the dawn of time, maybe twenty or thirty years ago, the computer was becoming more useful and was being integrated into society. The pioneers of the computer revolution were certain that the Cold War would soon result in the total annihilation of every person on the planet. For this reason they didn't bother to equip computers with the ability to differentiate between centuries. People just wrote "79" on their checks, and everyone knew it was really, "1979," so why should the computers be different, right? Sure this would create all kinds of problems if we were ever going to see the year 2000, but once the big one dropped, there wouldn't even be a calendar until the cockroaches evolved enough to count. That's my theory anyway. There's other theories too. When computers were in their infancy, data storage space was precious, and "79" only used half as much space as "1979." That almost sounds plausible, but then you have to think; These were pretty smart people. These were those introspective brains from high school who ruined the test curves. How could they be surprised as obvious and inevitable as a simple calendar change? Two hundred years ago a band of rebels drafted a set of laws we are still using today. Surely, if they wanted to, those computer geeks could have come up with a system that wouldn't self destruct in less than fifty years, right? That's why I prefer the theory of fatalistic, "We'll never survive long enough enough to worry about it." attitude to the alternative: that the "architects of the modern world" just didn't stop to think that come midnight, December 31, 1999, all the computers would be throwing up their virtual hands and saying, "Huh?" or maybe even, "Why to ¿Que?"
Right on both counts, but it laid the groundworkk. Did you ever drive a car so long that the odometer flipped and all of the sudden you couldn't tell if the car had been driven 100,010 miles or just 10 miles. Well, neither have I, actually. I mean I've flipped the odometer, but by that time the car is far too rusty to pass for only having 10 miles on it. Well it's the same for the computer except that computers can't see rust! Okay, maybe it's not like that either. The point is that when it comes to counting the years, some computers, computer components, computer users, etc. can only count up to 99, so when the calender changes from 1999 to 2000, the computers may just freak. They might keep going, but they may shrug their shoulders and say, "This is as far as I go." then shut down, which could wreck havoc in any number of ways.
Some computers might even assume that they've been transported through time back to 1900, and they'll try to adjust to living just after the turn of the century. Why should that matter? Well, for one thing, computers weren't even invented yet in 1900, so some computers may just kick back and take it easy for a few decades until they get around to being invented. And the odds are that even if your house was around in 1900, it didn't have electricity until the 20's or 30's. That's a long time to wait before you can turn on the TV and find out what happened on "Friends." Of course if the computers down at the TV station have done the time warp as well, you may be finding out if Ricky is ever going to let Lucy in the band, rather than finding out if Ross and Rachel ever get back together. There is an up side, though, if television programing does get set back a few decades, it'll be 90 years before we ever have to hear the words "Monica Lewinsky" again. But think of those computers down at the bank that compound the interest on your savings account every year. How much money will you have if they "uncompound" it back 100 years? Yeah, me too. My other fear is that next January I'm going to walk into the department of motor vehicles to renew my license only to be told, "I'm sorry, sir, but system says you won't be old enough to drive for another 88 years." I may not be able to vote again for another 90 years. And retirement may suddenly be a hundred and forty years away. And I'm ready to retire now.
It's simple: Be prepared. Be prepared to put off retirement for another hundred years. Be prepared to lose all your money. That's why I'm spending all mine now. Actually, what you do is this: read my web site, every word of it. Read it two or three times. Follow the instructions. Then tell your friends. Make them read it. The information contained in this web site will help you not one bit. No, really, not at all. Take, for example, the pages you just read. Helpful? Didn't think so. But cruise the site anyway. I didn't make it for nothing. I don't want my life up till now to have been a waste. When the year flips over and my life goes all to hell, I just want to know that I took a few people down with me, okay? Thanks.