StoryCast '21: 'Planes falling out of the sky and nuclear reactors shutting down' - how the Y2K bug spread fear across the world
In the months leading up to the year 2000, excitement about the new millennium was mixed with fears about the impact of the dreaded "Y2K bug".
People were anxious the world was on the brink of catastrophe - with it feared planes might fall out of the sky, cardiac pacemakers would stop, and nuclear reactors could shut down.
Nothing to do with the media of course - it was that Y2K bug spreading fear across the world. Planes falling out of the sky? The Y2K bug came up with that one too.
Reminds me of another bug spreading fear across the world. Nothing to do with the media and their useful scaremongers. Oh no.
8 comments:
Seen elsewhere: "I am disappointed that Biden did not drop dead, but that gives us something to look forward to in 2022."
The canny farmer uses a sheep's fear of the dog to drive them in the direction he wants.
Come-bye.
If only they had been smart enough to claim that the Y2K bug caused global warming, which then meant that our nasal passages were hot enough for Covid...
Y2K: I knew a computer security chap who took at all terribly seriously. I wasn't persuaded but I did try to tease my colleagues by pretending to believe in it. It didn't work: to a man they dismissed it.
Dearieme, it is, thus, fortunate that none of your colleagues worked in financial institutions
I worked in the printing trade at that time, our computers were all Apple Mac. We were assured that our Macs were quite safe, although they couldn't be sure about Microsoft OS. Some of our customers were quite worried and asked if we could help. You could say that we helped ourselves if you saw the invoices we sent out. I know of techy guys who could have retired on that scam.
dearieme - I'd prefer him to hang on, I don't like the alternative at all.
DJ - from a hillside vantage point we once watched a farmer apparently using an older dog to train a young dog by moving sheep from one field to another then back again. Impressive to watch.
Sam - I suppose it would have been a step to far to claim that you can catch Y2K.
Graeme - that's not encouraging somehow.
Andy - our consultants made pots of money too.
" I know of techy guys who could have retired on that scam."
Indeed.
At my firm, we'd told them for years that nothing would happen, but they insisted on giving us enormous "retention bonuses" because they thought - poor dears - that network and server engineers would be in high demand as the "deadline" approached.
Across the company - a large multi-national - it must have cost them an absolute fortune. They even had a "war room" set up somewhere, with dozens of people sitting there at midnight waiting for the sky to fall.
A few months later, the corporate IT director quietly disappeared.
But we kept the money, of course.
Heh.
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