Y2k silly season

Fri Dec 24 05:13:49 UTC 1999

At 03:52 22/12/99 -0800, Sean Donelan wrote:

In regards to self fulfilling prophecies:

The phone companies won't admit it but they are scared that at 1 second
past midnight, everyone will say to themselves, "Hmmm, lights are still on,
I wonder if the phones have stopped working?" and then within 1 minute,
millions of people will be lifting their phones off the hooks to check
dial-tone.  You know what happens when that happens. :-)

-Hank

>
>As Alan points out, it looks like silly season will be in full swing.  Here
>is a site claiming it will check the top web sites in the world, and if 5%
>aren't responding at 1 minute before midnight (pick your time zone) a major
>disaster has happened.
>
>http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/991222/inferno200_1.html
>
>As has been pointed out before, many sites plan to shutdown their web
sites or
>disconnect from the Internet over the New Year's weekend.  Which I guess is
>a self-fulling prediction.  The Internet is still considered an "extra" and
>not a necessary connection like the telephone or ATM.  I haven't heard anyone
>suggesting they would turn off their ATMs, even though they are Y2K ready,
just
>to be safe.
>
>You can read ATM as representing either acronym.
>
>
>
>