> 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...

I "just know" that it'll be somewhere in the middle. I didn't know about the satellite thing, though -- that's interesting to hear. I'll have to check it out. At any rate, they need not send up new chips to replace. That's what software is for -- to work around the kinks in the hardware. It's not hard to fudge some hack in software to work around hardware deficiencies until the hardware can be fixed. So I'm not real worried about the satellites. And I while I don't know what NASA's plans are, I find it hard to believe they'd let the problem slide, especially with all the paranoia about it.

In reality, there WILL be problems, but not end-of-the-world type problems. Suddenly someone's date-sorted database will show new entries at the top instead of the bottom. Big deal. People will cope, and as these types of problems are noticed, they'll be fixed. Don't get me wrong -- it'll be noticed. But it won't be anything to worry about.

To be honest, though, I'm more worried about what the paranoia is going to do rather than the actual y2k problem itself. If enough people get paranoid about it, and we get people yanking money out of the stock market 4th quarter 1999, we'll have an economic recession for sure.