Y2K unease
Worried about what might happen next Jan. 1? We’ve had predictions of everything from a nuclear meltdown to wholesale electrical failure to Armageddon.
I have an engineer friend called Boris Kishchuk who pooh-poohs all this goose bumpery.
As his name suggests he is of Ukrainian lineage. He said Jan. 1 is of no concern to him because he will observe the Julian calendar New Year.
So while the rest of us are sitting in the dark or struggling with recalcitrant computers, Boris will carry on as usual for another two weeks.
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This business of scaring ourselves every time a significant calendar date goes by has a long tradition. There were religious sects who were convinced that 1900 would never happen. I recall preachers who declared the 1930s were the end of it all.
Others said the Second World War would mean world destruction. In the 1950s when nuclear testing was going on in the United States and the Soviet Union we were building fallout shelters to ensure a few key members of the human race, namely we, would survive.
I like Boris’ approach. Calendars are made by humans using human calculations. If they get in the way they can be redrafted. Computers are made by humans using human calculations. If need be they can be reprogrammed.
No one will ever know for sure if all those hundreds of millions of dollars were well spent in fixing IBM compatible computers so they would recognize the year 2000. Two years from now some technician will discover a relatively simple program that keeps our computers humming like the Energizer bunny.
Then with our 20/20 hindsight we will demand to know why this wasn’t discovered back in 1989.
