y2k problem *serious*

[Alan]

On Tue, 29 Jul 1997, Matthew Ghio wrote:

> Which will give you a year 2106 problem instead. :)
> 
> That'll at least fix most email systems.  InterNetNews will need a bit
> more work to prevent it from trashing its history file come 3:14am
> on January 19, 2038.
> 
> "Death of usenet predicted; film at 11..."

It just means that some of us will still be around when it all comes
crashing down around us.

Short sightedness will be a problem long into the future and beyond.  With
current management trends, it should actually escalate.  Soon the networks
of the world will resemble "Information Rope Bridges" like in some jungle
adventure movie.  You fear to use them because they might snap and send
your data hurling to its death at the bottom of /dev/null.  And to shore
up the problem, we will get more "quality initiatives", quick fixes
filtered through "media awareness", and more useless gunge.  And it will
all be held together by a couple of engineers who will get fired because
they did not have the right attitude or refused to wear a neck-tie.

The death of the net will not be caused by hidden date problems or
anything publicised.  The last words for the net will be someone from
marketing saying "what does this red button do?.

But remember:

"Future events like these will happen to you in the future."

(Sorry for the rambling...  Going insane installing Oracle on a Sparc...)

alan at ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply
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