Millennium Bug
If you haven’t heard of the year 2000 problem (also known as Y2K or
the
millennium bug), you soon will. To save space, many computer programs and
chips
use two digits to designate the year. On 1 January 2000, the year date
will be
"00", causing some computers to set dates back to 1900, and
others to shut
down or enter an emergency state. No one really knows for sure
what impact the
millennium bug will have, but that hasn’t stopped people from
speculating on
the potential for disaster. Scenarios range from the bizarre
(telephone calls
made over New Year’s Eve 1999 being billed as lasting a
hundred years) to the
horrifying (nuclear-power plants exploding and planes
falling out of the sky).
In Christian theology, the millennium is the
1,000-year period in which Christ
will return and set up his kingdom on
earth. Although expectations of the Second
Coming in the year 1000 were
not fulfilled, a number of religious sects have
continued to predict it.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, saw the First World
War as a sign that
Christ would soon be with us, and they stated that"millions now living will
never die". Whether motivated by religious or
secular concerns, many people
believe that the coming of the millennium will
change our world for better or
worse. The rise of the Internet has provided a
new medium for the spread of
such beliefs, especially those of an apocalyptic
nature. The Net is filled
with sites warning that Y2K will mean "the end of
the world as we know it"
(shortened to TEOTWAWKI). Some of the more wild-eyed
radicals believe that
Y2K is a diabolical invention of the American government.
This summer,
anti-government militias held a "Prepardness Expo", where they
sold survival
gear and warned that the millennium bug could be a way for the
government to
reduce personal freedom. That being the case, the safest place to
be, the
survivalists say, is in a cabin in the woods, complete with dehydrated
food,
bottled water, a petrol-powered generator and a wood stove. Others,
perhaps
more plausibly, feel that the year 2000 problem has been greatly
exaggerated
by computer-industry consultants who want to make a lot of money
fixing it.
In Britain, for example, Computing magazine reported that consultants
are
charging widely varying rates for government-sponsored training
programmes
aimed at helping small businesses. Identical courses can cost
anything from
€130 to €500 a day and run from the one to ten days. The cost
of fixing the
problem in the US and Europe alone could be over $850 billion.
Certainly, there
is no shortage of work for computer programmers and other
specialists in
information technology. Because US universities and technical
schools are not
producing enough computer-science graduates to deal with the
problem, the number
of qualified foreign experts who have been given visas
has increased
dramatically. Large companies are bringing in programmers from
countries like
India, China and Russia. Russian programmers, especially,
have an advantage in
the new market, because they are skilled in older
programming languages such as
FORTRAN and COBOL; which are most likely to
cause problems in the new
millennium. COBOL programmers, many of whom retired
years ago rather than learn
new programming languages, could suddenly find
their skills in demand and
companies willing to pay them enormous salaries.
With the dead line now only a
year away, reactions to the Y2K problem vary
from panic to denial. There are
those who, like astronomers Clifford Stoll,
author of the book "Silicon Snake
Oil", believe Y2K can be fixed in a
long weekend. The panic side seems to be
getting more publicity, perhaps
because alarmism is more attractive than reason.
The Global Millennium
Foundation’s Internet site, for example, warns of likely
shortages of food
and water and suggests that concerned parents may want to
avoid conceiving a
child in 1999 for fear of being unable to feed it. Perhaps
the biggest name
in year 2000 awareness is Canadian Peter de Jager, who was one
of the first
to take the problem seriously. In a 1993 article called "Doomsday
2000"
for The Computer World magazine, de Jager warned that "our
information
systems are based on a faulty standard that will cost the
worldwide computer
community billions of dollars in programming effort. We
and our computers were
supposed to make life easier; this was our promise.
What we have delivered is a
catastrophe." In 1996, de Jager, who is a special
adviser on Y2K to several
governments, appeared before the US House of
Representatives to discuss the
problem. In his presentation, de Jager
described computer programmers as "the
most optimistic people in the world".
Despite the fact that the computer
industry in general is known for late
delivery of software, de Jager said, they
are still convinced that they can
fix the bug on time. He warns that companies
that did not make their
businesses Y2K-compliant by 31 December 1998 are already
too late. It could
affect electric power, phone service, air travel and major
governmental
service. In Britain, the government is trying to reassure the
public and
provide information on how hospitals, emergency services, local
authorities,
financial and transport bodies are dealing with the problem. It is
difficult
balancing act between openness and the risk that people will panic.
bug: is
commonly used to mean a small insect. But it can also refer informally
to a
virus or an illness caused by a virus. In the article, "bug" is used
to
described a malfunction or defect. Doomsday: is the last day of the world.
In
Christian belief, it is the day of Last Judgement(Jüngster Tag). In
a
figurative sense, the word has come to mean a time of great crisis or
danger.