On This Day Pre-Y2K

Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!

May 24, 1999 Permalink

About power, well I donno, but here’s the problem. Nobody knows.

When you get past a certain level of complexity, you cannot predict the future. This is an old philosophical question and I certainly don’t have the answer.

If you take a magnifying glass and examine one teeny-tiny issue, such as embeddeds, it doesn’t look like a civilization killer. Again, for embeddeds, I’d defer to people like Flint.

Embeddeds are the bug-a-boo, the rustling at midnight of Y2K. Maybe a problem but very likely not as big as some fear. Here’s a touchstone. The more knowledge and expertise a person has on the embedded front, the less fearful they are.

Contrary-wise, the more knowledge and expertise that a person has in the large systems/complex systems area, the more fearful they are.

This doesn’t guarentee that the power will stay on and that water will pump. In fact, the Y2K management interviewed on 60M stated “stock 4 weeks of water.” and they said it matter of factly. Implying to me, well, doesn’t everyone have a 500 gallon bag of water in their living room?

But we shall see. Good luck to you all. No matter how this plays out, I’m looking forward to lots of tuna dishes next year, especially tuna w/mayo on white bread. I love it.

—Cory Hamasaki, Time Bomb 2000 Forums (LUSENET), 05/24/99

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