> Trust me. The year 2000 problem is only a problem in the sense that big companies have to spend
> money to fix it in their software. The actual ramifications of it on the average American
> citizen will be almost nil. I never cease to be amused, though, by the continual panicked reports
> about what will supposedly happen. I'm amazed at how exaggerated some of them are.
> Several made my Computer Stupidities page. There's a really good one under "Paranoia," where
> a television station broadcast a report about cars and alarm clocks ceasing to function....

Don't get me wrong... I'm not paranoid in any way. However, I happen to have seen a small part of the Y2k Problem myself (a medicare mainframe for the State of Kansas), and have seen what it takes to repair the problem line-by-line... until I saw it myself, I was just in complete denial (as any reasonable person would be).

I believe that much of the problem is going to come from embedded chips, which have to be either replaced or repaired in everything affected. Most of these have built-in date functions, regardless of whether or not they actually tell the date.

Such embedded chips are vital to most of our 500 satallites (don't know if I spelled that right), where they convert Siderial (sp?) time into a 2-byte date...

And as for our airlines, wouldn't that affect the daily life of the average American citizen? (see link)

You said "Trust me." Okay, that's a reasonable statement. But why? I'm at college right now, and haven't been keeping up with recent news. Has NASA pulled any satallites out of orbit to repair them yet, or have they done any repairs in-orbit? Have any Fortune 500 companies become 100% compliant yet? None of this had happened by the end of summer, when I entered the ivory tower and lost time for much of the news, but if you know of something that I don't, then please share. Unlike most people who are concerned about Y2k, I am very eager to hear some solid good news (that isn't being spewed by some PR agent denying the existance of the problem).

One of the most unfortunate things about this whole Y2k mess is that everybody "just knows" what's going to happen, when nobody really does. Either they "just know" that it's going to be the end of Western Civilization, or they "just know" that it's not going to even be noticed, or they "just know" that some genius will invent a silver bullet... the list goes on.

I "just know" that I don't know squat about what the world's going to be like several years down the road. Do you? If so, please share... or at least tell me how you arrived to that conclusion.

-John W.