It hardly seems possible that we are fast approaching the 3rd anniversary of
the much-heralded non-event, Y2K. As we approached the stroke of midnight,
January 1, 2000, predictions ranged from 'nothing will happen' to
'Armageddon'. And as we all now know, essentially nothing happened.
We are now exactly 3 weeks away from the next impending crisis. My
understanding is that there are dire predictions for what might happen to
computers all over the world at the stroke of midnight on Thursday, January
2, 2003. This is being referred to by computer geeks as the
'Auto-formatting Crisis' or Y2K-03. Think about it for a minute- this will
be the first time in the history of civilization that a computer will be
faced with the dilemma of expressing the date in an auto-formatting sequence
starting with '01'. Simply stated, experts do not know what computers all
over the world will do when they suddenly greet that Thursday morning as
'01-02-03'. Worst case predictions are that vulnerable software programs
will self-destruct as they attempt to continue the 'auto-formatting' that
will be suggested to them by the date change. Sure, the world has had other
January 2, XX03's in the past (obviously one every century), but this is the
first time that this is happened since the world became computer-dependent.
Computers operate on a simple system of "0's" and "1's" ("X's" and "O's",
"On's" and "Off's"). Every thing you input into a compute is a pattern of
these simple codes. But auto-formatting is the process by which your
computer (any computer) senses that you are creating a pattern and then
tries to continue that pattern because it thinks it is being useful. The
theory is that '01-02-03' may trick your computer into thinking that
everything should be '0-1-0-1-0-1-etc' and may lock up permanently. It may
change it's very own "start-up" execution program. My own computer, using
Microsoft Word, will sometimes try and capitalize the first word in every
new line of text if the first word was capitalized in the first 2 lines of
text. Or it may try and continue sequential numbering or bullet-points
until I do something to shut down the auto-formatting. It is written into
the base code of all operating systems including Microsoft and MAC programs.
The unfortunate timing of this is the day following New Year's Day. While
most of the civilized, computerized world is stretched out on a couch
nursing a hangover from the previous night's celebrating, the world of
commerce is shut down. Most people will not be returning to their computers
until probably 8 hours after the crisis starts. By the time many of us get
to work, the permanent destruction has already been done. Entire data bases
wiped out by auto-formatting. Auto-formatting of numbers, letters and
words.
I personally am preparing. On Monday, December 30th, I am withdrawing all
of my life's savings and converting it to cash. I have stocked up on
bottled water, canned food (I made a run on the Spam aisle at the Cub on
60th and Nicollet) and toilet paper. I have ordered a portable, chemical
toilet which will be delivered to my house on New Year's Eve. I have a
month's worth of clean underwear and socks. And I have stocked up on
bottled LP for heating and cooking.
What plans are in the works on the city, state and national level? Will
Jesse or Tim be manning the underground bunker in St. Paul as the state's
first line of defense? Will the airlines be requiring all aircraft to be on
the ground by midnight? What are the back-up plans for the Minneapolis
Police and Fire department? Is anything being done to safeguard our city's
water supply? Who will we call when '911' doesn't work? And with the 3rd
Ward Primary on December 30th, election results might be lost before the
vote totals can be certified. Maybe this primary should be done long-hand,
eliminating the use of voting machines and tabulators. That way we will
still have the paper ballots (with the 20-something candidates) that can be
hand re-counted if necessary.
I hope that the Mayor, members of the City Council and department heads will
report to the Minneapolis Forum what steps are being taken to safeguard our
city's residents and infrastructure. And frankly, I am surprised that the
media hasn't made more of an issue out of this latest impending crisis.
Hopefully this is a worst-case scenario. Maybe this will turn out like the
first Y2K. I sure hope so. But I just thought that I should bring this up
on the list so that others are informed and can become prepared. After all,
this list is recognized world-wide as 'cutting edge technology' in
information dissemination and discussion.
Got to get back to chopping, splitting and stacking firewood- have a few
more cords to finish.
Remember- '01-02-03-OH No!'
Ron Lischeid
Windom
(and this current post is intended as a bit of humor)
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