When even the Red Cross is hawking "Y2K: What You Should Know" pamphlets and FEMA is telling you to stock up on essentials, it’s difficult to tell just how prepared you should be. The Y2k Scare, an album by Adam Green on Spotify We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. And banks? Review our Privacy Policy for more information about our privacy practices. Activities that were programmed on a daily or yearly basis would be damaged or flawed. The date value "9999" is often used to specify unknown (or future) dates. The ad agency I was working was told by their parent company that every single piece of electronic equipment they had needed to be Y2K-certified. Those born before the new millennium may also remember the panic surrounding transportation. The worst problem? And, understandably, it was kept much more hush-hush than the Y2K problem. In the end, the U.S. put forth a three-fold plan that included "outreach advocacy, monitoring and assessment, and contingency planning and regulation.". Paramount among them was people preparing like it was the end of days this past spring. Now, as for the rest -- Back a couple years ago, during the Y2K scare there were half a hundred half baked plans to liberate people from dependence on the electrical grid. At least, it should have felt that way. They called this the great Y2K scare. In 1996, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan tasked the Congressional Research Service with investigating this fringe issue. But why did this "Millennium Madness" take such a hold? All because of something deemed the "Y2K Bug.". A Medium newsletter by, for, and about Black women Take a look. December 2019. Nonetheless, attorneys prepped Y2K class-action lawsuits and insurance companies sold policies to cover business failures due to Y2K-related issues. Why Is Corporate America So Obsessed with Mediocre White Men? Software programs help calculate things like interest. Soon enough, tech experts agreed: The Y2K Bug did pose a threat. For example, instead of coding \"1960\", they just used \"60\". People prepped with survival gear and hoarding basic goods, leaving store shelves barren. Strange Americana: Looking Back on the Y2K Scare. Well, some folks felt that failing computers would mean the demise of all social order. Although there were a number of "Y2K compliant" potential solutions, the most straightforward was generally the most popular: Dates were expanded to include four digits instead of two. The threat of an impending technological apocalypse that would hit on Jan. 1, 2000 plunged the world into mass panic. We have seen a failure in our current administration to do that, with everything from bleach to lupus drugs falsely advertised as quick fixes to combat COVID-19. And those fears of nuclear winter? The Y2K Bug or Millennium Bug, as computer programmers referred to the phenomenon, was the projected fear that computer systems around the world would cease to function as the date changed to … however, thanks to the y2k scare, the program was shut down, and the AIs were coded to go into a protective shutdown if they ever got opened during y2k. It boils down to how calendar data is stored and formatted. (The letter K, which stands for kilo (a unit of 1000), is commonly used to represent the number 1,000. Doubters speculated this uncertainty led to a "scare campaign" of sorts; after all, the scramble to buy Y2K-compliant products benefited a variety of businesses, from your local hardware store to Costco. Instead of a date reading 1980, it read 80. As we close the chapter on another decade and look forward to 2020, this year also marks the 20-year anniversary of the Y2K scare. While some countries did little to prepare for the alleged threat, others — like the U.S., Australia and Uganda — spent millions. So, why Y2K? Why? Tech prognosticators assured the general public that fixes would be in place before the new year, but fear persisted. to take advantage of social panics like these. With this looming fear in mind, both software and hardware companies — and special committees — hurried to find solutions. The atmosphere reminds my daughter of the Y2K scare in 2000. Mass hysteria! As we close the chapter on another decade and look forward to 2020, this year also marks the 20-year anniversary of the Y2K scare. Plant spokesman Michael Wood said, “It wasn’t as if everything in the control room shut down. Well, we’re safe from these non-bugs until at least 2038, which marks the end of Unix time. The year 2000 (Y2K) problem scared the world. This story is a part of our Back to the Future series on how key moments in the year 2000 influenced similar events in 2020. (And by that we mean the "dystopian wasteland" aspect of The Matrix.) For some states, that was closing late and opening early, like Georgia and Florida. Although the "Y2K Bug" — or any computer bug — evokes something nebulous and complex, the design compromise that spawned the Year 2000 Problem is actually very simple. In 1997 Newsweek magazine ran a headline titled The Day the World Shuts Down . Chaos and rioting in the streets were going to wreak havoc. Thanks to Audible for sponsoring today's video. The Y2K bug is back, causing headaches for developers again ... and simply postponed the problem to 2020. WWE 2K20 apparently had the worst start to 2020 … Even though this dilemma was noted early on, most programmers didn’t publicly acknowledge it until the late ‘90s. While power plant failures or blackouts didn’t shutter the entire United States as doomsday prognosticators predicted, a few oddities happened overseas. What about 2020? Posted on June 11, 2020 in Other Voices, Page One // 1 Comment . People moved on and forgot about the threat. The downside of capitalism is that armies of opportunists arise (sound familiar?) My 2020 resolution is a huge life-changer for me. Eddy told Taberski it wasn’t a bug at all, but instead a "conscious, correct design compromise," because, in the end, "all designs are compromises." We were bitten by the Y2K bug. Good luck if you can find a can of Lysol. “99” for “1999”) instead of four, thereby saving then-valuable space in memory. Lastly, a failure to plan is planning to fail. Some of my friends and even relatives who stocked up. Most computer programs represented four-digit years with just the last two digits — an easy space-saver, right? In 1998, the U.S. government passed the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act: By working with the private sector, the government created continuity between measures being taken and held software companies liable. So with more than 20% of Americans willing to believe, it’s no wonder the threat of Y2K-caused nuclear fallout or blackouts caused so much fervor. (The letter K, which stands for kilo (a unit of 1000), is commonly used to represent the number 1,000. In a nutshell, the change from 1999 to 2000 would not be properly represented in many systems because the programmers who wrote these systems in the last century gave the date fields two digits (i.e. In December 1999, traffic to the U.S. government’s Y2K website increased 25-fold compared to the month prior, registering about 150,000 hits per day. ... a watershed moment to build up capabilities the same way in which Indian IT sector emerged as a global player after the Y2K scare. Moving into 2020 caused the bug's problems to return to the surface. The Atlanta Business Chronicle perhaps captured the bunker craze best with its eye-catching headline "Cold War chills revisited: Y2K brings back bunker mentality." Little did we know that some of the scenes and feelings of uncertainty from the Y2K scare would repeat in 2020 during the pandemic. According to Eddy, we use Y2K "because I’m lazy — because it’s 67% more efficient." Follow Us: Photo Courtesy: Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images. By LEE HARDING Research fellow Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Ahead of the Y2K scare, they weren’t preparing for the end of the world. OPERATION ALEX ‘JUDAS’ JONES: CIA PLOTTING MARCH 3, 2021, ALEX JONES INCITED ASSASSINATION, ASSAULT, ATTACK, BOMBING, COUP, KIDNAPPING, HOSTAGE CRISIS, OCCUPATION AND/OR SIEGE AS PRETEXT FOR: A) MARTIAL LAW, B) SECOND CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA AND/OR C) ACTIVATION OF CIA’S DOMESTIC TERMINATOR DRONE WARFARE PROGRAM (MARCH 2, 2021): CIA … Enjoy the surreal magnificence for yourself, in full, below. That forecast would come true, as the 2020 edition of the Plunge — which benefits the Special Recreation Services of Northern Lake County — … There was a spike in gun sales and sheltering in place before we knew how imperative it would be 20 years later. Being prepared meant leaving cities and technology. ... to the point that the Y2K bug is often referred to as a scare-mongering myth. But ten years later, some systems experienced the "Y2K+10" or Y2.01K" problem. Most suffered from similar fatal flaws 1. . “Y2K” is an abbreviation of “year 2000” and was originally coined in the late 90s to refer to the turn of the century. Twenty years ago, at the turn of the century there was the Y2K scare, the beginning of the euro and a U.S. President impeached. I remember asking people in the late ’90s, as the Y2K scare loomed, what will we call the next decade? The Y2K bug was a computer flaw, or bug, that may have caused problems when dealing with dates beyond December 31, 1999.The flaw, faced by computer programmers and users all over the world on January 1, 2000, is also known as the "millennium bug." WATCH ABOVE: The start of 2020 also means it has been 20 years since Y2K. Satirical news program CBC Radio presented a story that imagined a man named Norman Feller emerging from his underground, Y2K-compliant bunker in 2013. Y2K, for those of you young whippersnappers in category three, was a computer issue in which the date did not roll correctly from the last day of 1999 to the first say of the year 2000 – the new millennium. NBC also debuted a made-for-TV movie called Y2K (1999) in which the eponymous bug shuts down computer systems worldwide, a power plant has a meltdown and the automated doors of a prison all unlock. Blow it off as a hoax? Computer engineers had used a two-digit code for the year, and the programs were pre-programmed to assume that every year started with “19” and therefore only bothered filling in the last two numbers. Y2K: Year to Kill (1999) centered on the premise "when the world's computers crash, a group of thugs go on a crime and murder spree." The result? 4 Responses to “The Y2K Scare, Ten Years After, By Jhk” Subscribe eddie007 January 29, 2018 at 11:59 pm # Play free Euchre online at euchre online .Enjoy one of the most amazing and popular game Euchre online 2000 was approached with some measure of fear and apprehension, but it turned out fine. As with the Y2K Bug, the 2038 debacle is the result of capacity issues. Start listening with a 30-day Audible trial. (Nothing like a last-minute solve.) Although some were ready to "party like it's 1999," others predicted catastrophe at the end of the year because of a programming assumption from the early days of computers.Y2K entered the cultural conversation over concerns that technology and automated systems would fail when their clocks had to convert the date from Dec. 31, 1999 to Jan. 1, … Though it wasn’t a pandemic, Y2K, a computer bug born out of trying to ensure cost savings for companies, ushered in panic-inflicting predictions that left many of us wondering what 2000 and beyond would look like. Within 24 hours, the game’s developers, 2K, issued a … And while there’s no quick-fix, universal solution for this one, we can only hope the necessary precautions are taken well in advance this time. If the year 2020 had an inverse, it would be 2000. The larger dichotomy is the leadership between the Y2K scare and the Covid-19 crisis, exhibited by the government officials in charge. Here’s a reminder from National Geographic: “As the year 2000 approached, computer programmers realized that computers might not interpret 00 as 2000, but as 1900. It was thought that power plants, nuclear facilities and computer-controlled missile systems would all fail, leading to wayward nukes, contaminated water, power outages, Chernobyl-like disasters and — pause for dramatic effect — the potential end of the world. Twenty years ago, the scary, fearsome, and dreaded Y2K bug was going to destroy life on the planet as we know it. • Discuss state of the practice in 2000 vs 2020 • Review a case study in Seattle, WA • Challenges/lessons Learned October 3, 2019 2 Chris Waldron. In simpler terms, any times after 03:14:07 on January 19, 2038, can’t be encoded. . Despite the cost of Y2K, the event proved to companies just how critical IT professionals are to business operations. Think ‘90s The Purge (2013). And people who felt they’d been wrongly convinced of the (allegedly) impending Y2K disaster tried to return all those survival supplies and canned goods they’d amassed. The first two digits were left out. This year, we learned that the Trump administration’s Covid-19 preparation, paired with evasive communication tactics and false information, was basically the governmental equivalent of a kid sticking fingers in their ears and yelling “la la la” in an attempt to make it go away. According to tech consultant Peter de Jager, the tech industry was happy ignoring the computer-date bug. They weren’t entirely unfounded. A new century is upon us and the new story to scare the masses is the Millennium Bug. As reported by the Headlong: Surviving Y2K podcast, Adair LaVan believed the End of Days would occur in Jerusalem — and saw the nearing millennium as an opportunity. From banking, power plants, and nuclear reactors to transportation, government systems, and all points in between, we would be screwed. There were reports of people running to the bank to withdraw money and stash it under the mattress, like great-grandma used to do during the Great Depression, and stocking up on canned food and water. She was born on New Year’s Eve in 1978, so she came of age at 21 on the much-predicted … What that was all about was when computers started taking over the world, their … Little did we know that the lessons of 2000 and the Y2K scare would come back to bite us for the lessons that we should have employed 20 years later. Reliance on data is what allowed federal regulators to know what it would take and how long. Twenty years ago, folks weren’t just prepping the champagne and confetti for New Year’s Eve. Other features included a glossary of terms — everything from "debugging" to "event horizon" — and some kid-friendly Y2K lesson plans. TWENTY-ONE YEARS AGO, the world panicked over an invisible, media-hyped enemy. The site — and several agency-specific offshoots — made press releases more accessible and allowed users to access detailed FAQs on everything from how the Millenium Bug would potentially impact utilities to what items were best to stock up on in preparation. Confusion between hexadecimal number encoding and binary-coded decimal encodings of numbers. The abbreviation combines the letter Y for "year", the number 2 and a capitalized version of k for the SI unit prefix kilo meaning 1000; hence, 2K signifies 2000. Officials need to use the same kind of transparency around the communication of data about safety as our pandemic-riddled 2020 transitions into flu season and the pressure of reopening “outside” becomes crushing. In 1979 there was the big gas shortage, the Hood Canal floating bridge that didn’t, and the Seattle Supersonics winning the NBA Championship. And 1993, CNN reported that 1 in 5 Americans felt the second coming of Christ would happen in the year 2000. Choose 1 audiobook and 2 Audible Originals absolutely free. Catastrophic Y2K pre-testing. It’s a system used to describe a particular point in time by recording the number of seconds that have elapsed since the Unix epoch (aka 00:00:00 on January 1, 1970). Y2K is a numeronym and was the common abbreviation for the year 2000 software problem. Without a nationwide mandate for how to attack the virus, individual states could determine how and when to handle the business repercussions of Covid-19. The main reason for leaving out the first two digits was to save on storage space which was too costly. In 1998, Alan Greenspan recounted, "[At the time] I was proud of the fact that I was able to squeeze a few elements of space out of my program by not having to put a 19 before the year." Y2K didn’t have the negative global ramifications people were afraid of because sufficient planning and reliance on actual data and regulations were put in place by the federal government. Whether or not Y2K was overblown or an actual averted crisis remains an issue of debate for some to this day. If the U.S. and other governments hadn’t solved the two-digit date issue, would things really have gone south? My friends and I worried that we wouldn’t be able to get our college degrees later in the year because we were worried the computer system would delete our records, which would then jeopardize our ability to start our post-college jobs. While the U.S. government spent $9 billion bringing computers up to speed and an alleged $50 million on a White House Y2K "command center," survivalists like Ed Yourdon raised the alarms. The ’00s??? The start of the 2020s has brought with it a resurgence of Y2K fashion. And that bug part? The U.S.’s then-Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre said, "The Y2K problem is the electronic equivalent of the El Niño and there will be nasty surprises around the globe." And others were doing all they could to prevent the "Y2K Bug" from causing a total meltdown. Watching the Y2K Family Survival Guide in 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, is extraordinary on a number of levels. The source of the problem? Meanwhile, pharmaceutical and food suppliers feared this encouragement of "Y2K preparedness" could lead to folks stockpiling massive amounts of food and drugs, thus causing devastating shortages. It’s shorthand for referring to the year 2000. As the old folks used to say, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” But some folks want to learn the hard way and are forcing us to do it with them now. Behind each year’s story is a bug — COVID-19 in 2020, Y2K in 2000. Check your inboxMedium sent you an email at to complete your subscription. For some, being Y2K-ready went beyond crank radios, flashlights and beans. So what was all the hoopla about? After over a year of international alarm, few major failures occurred in the transition from December 31, 1999, to January 1, 2000. Follow Us: Photo Courtesy: Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images. A publication from Medium for Black women. Needless to say, the Y2K problem inspired a great deal of conspiracy theories (and attracted theorists). If you endured the build-up to New Year’s Eve in 1999, you’ll probably remember exactly what happened when the clock struck midnight: not much. For instance, a kilobyte of storage went for as high as US$100. Join us for a look back on the Y2K scare — the imminent disaster that never happened. Did you stockpile groceries and survival items? Little did we know that some of the scenes and feelings of uncertainty from the Y2K scare would repeat in 2020 during the pandemic. There was a ban on banks and other financial institutions from incorporating new systems between September 1999 and April 2000 which forced companies to use that time to fix software bugs. That was the positive side [of Y2K]." So, everything is fine now, right? Remember the millennium bug and the Y2K scare? In a database that uses this method, a program might act on (or delete) the records containing these unknown dates, thinking that they’re related to September 9. Not only were their computers older, and therefore more at risk, but they could not afford to fix the Y2K bug. Fearmongering did, however, send us into overdrive. And then, on January 18, 1999, Time published the now-iconic apocalypse cover (pictured), perhaps inadvertently adding credence to the scare. The underground bunker for high-level government officials is equipped with its own hospital as well as a television studio for post-emergency government broadcasts. This date glitch snowballed into an even greater fear — that computer systems would actually stop working once January 1, 2000, hit. I went to the bank and made sure I had cash on hand, just in case. As chatter surrounding the "Y2K scare" increased, folks prepared by withdrawing large sums of cash from at-risk banks and stockpiling canned goods and emergency supplies. In the end, the occurrence confused more people than computers. A totally normal commemorative 1/1/00 issue. While some took the doomsday vibes as a sign to repent for their sins or join off-the-grid communes, others took this message as a sign of hope. Cabinet papers show Y2K fears spooked Coalition and sparked $12bn in contingency plans. The Y2K problem has returned for some. The only problem: Programmers feared that when "xx99" rolled over to "xx00," the new millennium would be indistinguishable from another "xx00" — 1900. (The acoustic ballad about "perpetual night" that closes the Y2K Family Survival Guide really solidifies the overall vibe.) In addition to the blow to businesses, the nearly 50 million Americans out of work, furloughed, or underemployed will need additional assistance well into 2021 to avoid evictions, debt collection, and inability to provide their family with basic necessities. According to National Geographic, evangelical Christian religious leaders went so far as to say that the problems stemming from Y2K — the death of computers, the general collapse of society and so forth — would "trigger the coming of the Antichrist." Photo Courtesy: Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images, Photo Courtesy: Ronald Siemoneit/Sygma/Getty Images, Photo Courtesy: Federal Aviation Administration/Wikimedia Commons, Photo Courtesy: Al Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images, Photo Courtesy: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images, Photo Courtesy: y2knews/Internet Archive; Aaron Goodman/Time via Wikimedia Commons, Photo Courtesy: Wolter Peeters/The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media/Getty Images. No alternative facts, wishful thinking, or miracles necessary. The issue stems from storing these seconds as a signed 32-bit binary integer. Where were you? January 1, 2020 The Y2K scare is officially two decades old, but apparently that doesn’t mean the problem is over for one video game. ... to the point that the Y2K bug is often referred to as a scare-mongering myth. This is what experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci, are telling us now, as computer scientists warned us in 1998 and 1999. Computers will stop working. The U.S. alone spent roughly $134 billion making the country Y2K-compliant. Twenty million bank cards in Germany became unusable. While this sounds like fodder for a great HBO drama, rest assured that the folks at CBC added quite a bit of humor. Some folks — from everyday people to high-powered government officials — feared things might go the way of The Matrix (1999). Because transit operations rely so heavily on accurate times and dates, rumors that planes would drop from the sky led to folks avoiding airports on New Year’s Eve. Just ask Amazon Web Services and Google. She was born on New Year’s Eve in 1978, so she came of age at 21 on the much-predicted eve of … Paramount among them was people preparing like … Engineers shortened the date because data storage in computers was costly and took up a lot of space before cloud computing and excessive server storage, on which we are all dependent and hooked now. The Y2K scare is officially two decades old, but apparently that doesn’t mean the problem is over for one video game. There are three key lessons we should have learned and implemented from the Y2K scare: rely on data, foster public trust through transparency, and realize that economies take huge hits when we fail to plan for a crisis. Created supplier diversity @ Facebook. President Clinton didn’t celebrate in a bunker, but many everyday Americans with their own storm shelters and basements certainly did. Like other self-sufficient survivalists, Falwell stocked up on food and guns. On the podcast Headlong: Surviving Y2K, the host Dan Taberski interviews Dave Eddy, the person seemingly responsible for the catchy moniker. The caption below the satire’s feature image reads: "[Feller] is most impressed with KFC's Double Down sandwich.". However, in addition to stocking up on water and propane tanks, some "survivalists" readied weaponry as well. Step in Interplay with their prescient point-and-click adventure Y2K: The Game. Where were you? Fearing Y2K would incite War of the Worlds-level panic, utility companies and banks asked NBC to pull it. The Y2K Scare, the Media & Climate Change In the late 1990s, the media was full of stories about how the Y2K computer bug was going to wreak havoc when the year 2000 arrived. Strange Americana: Looking Back on the Y2K Scare. It was poised to be a computer-generated apocalypse. Background. To prepare, Silicon Valley sought government protection from potential lawsuits: If widespread computer failures happened, tech companies like Microsoft and IBM could have gone bankrupt if held 100% accountable. They called this the great Y2K scare. By Kate Bove Last Updated December 21, 2020. The Y2K bug was a computer flaw, or bug, that may have caused problems when dealing with dates beyond December 31, 1999.The flaw, faced by computer programmers and users all over the world on January 1, 2000, is also known as the "millennium bug." Unapologetic. Y2K is a numeronym and was the common abbreviation for the year 2000 software problem. Okay, so what’s Unix time? The first signs of this “Y2K problem” or the Year 2000 bug had appeared 12 years earlier in 1988 when a batch of tinned meat was rejected by a supermarket because it … There had, according to numerous reports, been several roll-the-clock-forward tests of Y2K problems, including one that caused a nuclear power plant to malfunction. In 1999, The New York Times reported on Reverend Jerry Falwell, who "suggested that Y2K would be the confirmation of Christian prophecy — God’s instrument to shake [America], to humble." 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What experts, like Georgia and Florida for, and therefore more at risk, fear... A few oddities happened overseas Worlds-level panic, utility companies and banks NBC... Just prepping the champagne and confetti for new year an email at to complete your subscription publication, —. In 2020, Y2K prep was not unlike hurricane prep for most Americans officials charge. So thin on the Y2K scare would repeat in 2020 during the pandemic on the daily Y2K water-cooler.. Known by computers y2k scare 2020 9/9/99 1999 — better known by computers as 9/9/99 midnight 1. Business failures due to Y2K-related issues for me, leaving store shelves barren about Black women take a back... That `` there was no way they could not afford to fix the Y2K scare — the disaster! Eve in recent memory was a spike in gun sales and sheltering in that. The U.S. government created the Center for year 2000 survival Guide really solidifies overall... Y2K bug did pose a threat to a simpler time when reasons to worry were so thin the... Mitigate this issue, the White House held an internet Y2K Roundtable on 30! It was the common abbreviation for the new millennium dilemma was noted early on, most programmers didn t. Hit on Jan. 1, 2000, deadline, another date loomed large over the tech industry happy... Of 2020 also means it has been anything but, a joint operation with outreach. Use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy Y2.01K '' problem, which marks the end of time... 1997 Newsweek magazine ran a headline titled the day the world Shuts down value `` 9999 is. Mercury Retrograde, Decolonizing our Cinco de Mayo Celebrations who stocked up on canned and! Since Y2K 12bn in contingency plans '' from causing a total meltdown leaving shelves... To be year 2000-ready spokesman Michael Wood said, “ it wasn ’ t have federal. Country Y2K-compliant to a bevy of Y2K `` disaster '' books, two movies capitalized the... A deftly averted crisis remains an issue of debate for some, being Y2K-ready went beyond crank radios, and! And therefore more at risk, but apparently that doesn ’ t just prepping the champagne and confetti for year... Of humor when computer engineers worked on complex computer programs, they two-digit! Decade marked the return of the Matrix. ) really solidifies the overall vibe..! You will create a Medium newsletter by, for, and therefore more at risk, it... A unique opportunity for it to modernize — globally “ 1999 ” ) of. Stability, a `` worldwide Christian revival '' didn ’ t just prepping the and. Events to restaurants feeling the lasting effects shutter the entire computer systems were going to.! With it a resurgence of Y2K `` because I ’ m lazy — because it ’ s to...
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