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| Y2K |
Welcome to my Y2K page of my site. This page offers up to date links, facts, helpful information and more on the upcoming millennium. If you are at all concearned or rely on computers for any reason and would like to know more about the Y2K computer bug I would advise you to read on.
Helpful Y2K Links
| Helpful Y2K Links |
Too Little Too Late
The arising complications of the Year 2000 Computer Bug - a.k.a. Y2K - are about to reach their climax. As the millennium draws closer; businesses, governments, corporations, etc. scramble to make adjustments to their networks and computers that they should have taken care of long before. The Y2K bug has been known for years now, giving everyone more than enough time evaluate their situations and make needed changes. Although for some reason, our local and national governments, businesses and schools did not take full advantage of this obvious gift of time from the computers.
Y2K is: a computer bug that will "crash" - violently shut down - all computers that are not compatible with the changing from the date of 19-99 to 20-00. This is even a problem because way back when these computers were made, the programers thought of the millennium as too far into the future to have to worry about. They therefor programed the computers in a code reading the century - 19 - separately from the year - 99 - in order to save time. When the millennium arrives the year will read - 00 - yet the century will stay at - 19 -. This will then generate the computers think it is back to 1900. The simple act of reading the date false can be catastrophic. Whole computer networks, mainframe computers, all the computers we survive by have a chance of going haywire. Items such as bank receipts and the stock market rely on the date. It would not be possible to just turn back the date or get rid of the dates on computers just to fix this problem. You may not know it, but everything from our grocery stores to the local busses run off of computer networks. Our banks, stores, stock market, hospitals and more are all facing the thought of losing everything.
Many people ask what are these businesses doing about these problems they are facing. Well, to be truthful, not even half of the nation's local governments have not even started on their Y2K preparation repairs, and a worse percentage for the small businesses in our country. What they should have done is taken the problem seriously from the beginning, and from there they would have had the time to save their systems. Yet, as of right now, there are not enough programmers in the entire world, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to remedy all the computers. Time is very scarce now as we turn the last corner towards the millennium. Before, was the time when our governments should have stepped up and told the public what needed to have been done then. It is too late now, and we don't have a chance.
One reason the government didn't "step up" is because they were afraid of people going hysterical, creating mass riots and looting. They therefor have been trying - and doing very well - to "downplay" the millennium and not taking the needed precautions. They have not fully addressed the facts about Y2K rather kept it almost secret. An example of this is the Federal Reserve who printed out $50 billion in extra currency just to assure the people that there will be enough money in the banks for those who want to have extra cash on hand. This is not taking a direct action toward fixing the problem, rather an attempt to avoid them from looking bad if people wish to have large amount of money on New Years 2000.
Groups of large networks in trouble along with governments and banks are the schools. For example our school my running off a program almost identical to those the faulty banks are running off of. They tell us the networks are compatible, yet because not enough time has been invested looking into this they are not. There isn't enough effort going into testing and programming to assure that data will not be lost. We are living in a day of age that everything from our attendance, to grades, to our college information is keep on computers. If information like that was lost it would be disastrous to everyone.
Through this whole mess of possible disasters, there are a couple pros, or rather lessons people will learn from this. The millennium had made people stop and open their eyes to realize the technological world that we live in. It is hard to comprehend how almost everything on this world is ran off of computers, but people are finally starting to realize that. Many people, no matter of job or life style, will be affected by the millennium either directly or indirectly and that is a lesson to be taught. Maybe since people are realizing the world is constantly changing and growing through science and technology, it will change the way they think about the issues surrounding those subjects.
The millennium is obviously going to be a force to be reckoned with. A long strenuous road is ahead, but that is due to the actions people chose, or did not choose, to take. Through the difficult times lets hope people learn a lesson through this and make better decisions in the future. Good luck on the upcoming New Year!!!
Although this is a brief editorial on the Y2K bug, there is very much more to it than this. If you have any questions, comments or advice for me please e-mail me at Gjh202@aol.com
Copyright © 1999 - 2000 Gabe Hoggarth