Y Zero K Problem

Translated from latin scroll dated 2BC
Dear Cassius:

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.

The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all usery rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out loans. Its an ill wind ......

As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all over.

I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life.

Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition. Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem. I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops.

If you have any ideas please let me know,

Plutonius

Young Executive

A young executive was leaving the office late one evening when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Listen," said the CEO, "this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work for me?"

"Certainly," said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button.

"Excellent, excellent!" said the CEO, as his paper disappeared inside the machine. "I just need one copy..."

Y2K Celebration (2)

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember how
Computers used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance,
That I could make electrons dance,
And maybe I'd be happy for a while.

But January made me shiver, it chilled me deep down in my liver,
Bad news I'd collected...
I couldn't get connected.

I can't remember back that day
When I first knew the Y2K
But something touched me anyway,
The day computers died.

So, ...Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
this will be the day I retire

Can you write in C plus plus?
And do you have faith in your local bus
If the driver tells you so ?

Do you believe in Compaq's goals
Can software save your mortal soul
And can you teach me how to type real slow?

Well I thought that you were prepared
'Cause your memo said you weren't impaired
Your stationery's swell
But you can go to hell

I was a lonely teenage Unix hack
With an incantation and a modem jack but I knew the cat had left the sack
The day computers died I started singin'...

Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
this will be the day I retire

Now for 10 years we've ignored the threat
And we haven't solved the problem yet
But that's not how it used to be

When the luddites read for the king and queen with a light they filled with kerosene
And some manuals they stole from you and me

And while Bill Gates was looking pleased
Time stole his monopolies
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned

While Apple tried a color scheme
The engineers returned to steam
And we had purges of their dreams
The day computers died
We were singin'

Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
this will be the day I retire

Intel inside in an iron smelter
The food leftover from my fallout shelter
Twinkies old and aging fast

I'd rather eat the grass
Q and A tried for a system crash
With the tester on the sidelines in a cast

Now the timeshare net was running Doom
While mainframes played a marching tune
We all tried to log in Oh, but we never could begin

'Cause Cobol tried to take the field,
And Holerith refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed,
The day computers died? We started singing

Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
this will be the day I retire

There we were all in a state
A generation- really late
With no time left to start again

So come on mouse be nimble, mouse be quick
Don't let my spreadsheet data stick
'Cause data is the devil's only friend.

As I watched him on my screen
My hands and face were drenched in steam
No angel born in hell
Could run that stupid shell

And as the ball climbed high into the night
To call the sacrificial night
I saw Dick Clark laughing with delight the day computers died.

I met a girl with a cell phone
And I asked her for a dial tone
But she just smiled and turned away

I went down to the software store
Where I'd seen computers years before
But the man there said the games there wouldn't play

And in the streets the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed their interface was spoken
The Internet was broken

And the three things I connect to most
The Website, Lan and the Network host
Every single one was toast
The day computers died
They were singin'

Bye, bye to the next digit of Pi
Ran my PC on some DC but the voltage was dry
And good ol' boys were sending e-mail replies
Saying this will be the day I retire
this will be the day I retire

Two Digits for a Date
Author Unknown
(sung to the tune of "Gilligans Island, more or less)

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
Of the doom that is our fate,
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date.
Two digits for a date.

Main memory was smaller then;
Hard disks were smaller, too.
"Four digits are extravagant,
So let's get by with two.
So let's get by with two."

"This works through nineteen-ninety-nine,
"The programmers did say,
"Unless we rewrite before that,
It all will go away.
It all will go away.

"But Management had not a clue:
"It works fine now, you bet!
A rewrite is a great expense;
We won't do it just yet.
We won't do it just yet.

"Now, when two thousand rolls around,
It all goes straight to hell,
For zeros less than ninety-nine,
As anyone can tell.
As anyone can tell.

The mail won't bring your pension check,
It won't be sent to you
When you're no longer sixty-eight,
But minus thirty-two.
But minus thirty-two.

The problems we're about to face
Are frightening, for sure.
And reading every line of codes
The only certain cure.
The only certain cure.

There's not much time,
There's too much code.
(And COBOL-coders, few.)
When the century is finished with,
We may be finished, too.
We may be finished, too.

Eight thousand years from now I hope
That things weren't left too late,
And people aren't then lamenting
Four digits for a date.
Four digits for a date.