January 1, 2000.
It’s a great day to be alive. All things can be new today.
Y2K Workers with Nothing to Do?
A correspondent writes this morning:
To the AP wire story saying that Microsoft had 300 technicians standing by with nothing to do, I observe “Well, they could have been fixing their existing non Y2K bugs”.
Y2K: What Didn’t Happen
The public was smarter than the doomsayers, which isn’t a surprise. So far, pretty much all is well with the world’s computer systems — at least as well as can be expected for machines that are prone to misbehavior in the best of circumstances.
I do expect some glitches to appear when financial markets and businesses move back to full-strength operation on Monday. I also expect some problems to show up in the next few weeks in other parts of the world — nothing major, but not trivial, either. That’s a far cry from the we-are-doomed warnings.
About the only good thing I can say about the panic-mongers is that they may have persuaded folks to be a bit more prepared for something that’s genuinely probable: a natural disaster. If people in California, where I live, got ready for Y2K by stocking up a few days’ worth of food and water and medical supplies, they got ready for the earthquake we know is coming. That may save lives some day.