Was Y2K a great blow for skepticism? [Archive]

arthwollipot

16th August 2007, 09:51 PM

I don't see anything skeptical about it. One of the reasons "nothing happened" is that people had spent time, effort and yes money to make sure nothing happened.

That said, I was working on a help desk over that period, and yes, things happened. Mostly, dates were changed. In each case it was obvious what had happened - when a report said that something happened in 1901, you can be pretty sure that it was a Y2K problem. No aircraft fell out of the sky as far as I was aware. That was pure hype.

Amapola

16th August 2007, 09:57 PM

My great skeptical moment before Y2K was when I was talking to a casual acquaintance and she asked me whether I thought she had enough water stocked up, and what I was stocking up on. I told her I was stocking up on bullets, and that if I got thirsty, I was coming over to her house. :D

But seriously, no, I don't think it changed anyone's thinking in a significant way. Why would it? All the time things don't turn out the way people think they will - prayers don't get answered (again!), Sylvia Browne is wrong (again!) and ghosts or UFOs fail to appear (again!). This has no impact on people's thinking. Why would Y2K be special in this regard?

rjh01

17th August 2007, 12:41 AM

I was a programmer involved in a big way for Y2K. If I (and others like me in my organisation) had not made those changes Australia would be in chaos.

Now what has this got to do with sceptical thinking?

richardm

17th August 2007, 02:16 AM

I don't see anything skeptical about it. One of the reasons "nothing happened" is that people had spent time, effort and yes money to make sure nothing happened ... No aircraft fell out of the sky as far as I was aware. That was pure hype.

I was a programmer involved in a big way for Y2K. If I (and others like me in my organisation) had not made those changes Australia would be in chaos.

Just chiming in along these lines as well. Nothing happened because the industry realised that the problem was looming and worked to make sure that everything was fixed before it had a chance to fail. I find it quite annoying when people make snide remarks about nothing happening when I well remember the effort that my department made on our software and the sheer number of patches we had to apply on other people's software, without which yes, the systems would have failed. If we had done nothing then literally millions of pounds worth of damage would have been done as enterprises ground to a halt. Multiply that across the planet and at the very least you've got a pretty serious economic problem. And that's just one sector.

On the specific question of aircraft falling out of the sky, one would hope that aircraft systems would be robustly coded but mistakes do happen nevertheless (http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-by-the-international-date-line-03087/), and the idea that coding oversights could down an aircraft is perhaps not as farfetched as it's sometimes made out to be.

RSLancastr

17th August 2007, 02:26 AM

I was a programmer involved in a big way for Y2K. If I (and others like me in my organisation) had not made those changes Australia would be in chaos.

I spent a fair piece of 1999 making code Y2K-compliant for a client who had old code written by programmers from Australia, France, Italy, Germany, England and the Netherlands. I personally modified hundreds of such programs, and was part of a team of twenty contractors which had been working on nothing but this project all year.

Nothing so dramatic as airplane guidance software. Just accounting and distribution systems. But if you ordered office supplies in 2000 and they got to you on time, you might have me to thank!

You're welcome. :)

Miss Anthrope

17th August 2007, 02:28 AM

Thanks, RSL! :D

a_unique_person

17th August 2007, 02:34 AM

I worked on Y2K stuff as well. If nothing had been done, then there would have been serious problems for many companies. As it was, the scare stories got the accountants motivated enough to do something about it.

There were stupid things done in the name of Y2K compliance, such as buying $1,000 (128MB, IIRC) worth of ram for many old Pentium 1 computers that did nothing to make them Y2K compliant, perform better or last any longer. There was a lot of money went down the drain on so called Y2K work that was actually a complete waste of time. I blame the accountants.

nails3jesus0

17th August 2007, 02:49 AM

On Y2K, when absolutely nothing happened, do you think it was a great moment for skepticism? Were a significant amount of new skeptics won over?

im betting there were some... I remember seeing news stories about people who had spent thier rent money and such on y2k supplies and couldnt do a whole lot with the supplies afterwards :eye-poppi i certainly hope those folks learned something...

malbui

17th August 2007, 03:02 AM

I'm someone else who spent a lot of 98 and 99 working on the compliance of systems. In a lot of ways it was a useful exercise for us: it forced us to take proper inventories of systems and applications (and not just the ones running on big metal, but also the little desktop apps that had ballooned and almost invisibly become part of the decision-taking process) and take serious decisions on maintaining v replacing.

And, of course, as someone who likes poking around in dusty corners of systems, I was as happy as I could be to be getting paid for having a good time. Not to mention that the overtime comfortably paid for my wedding and honeymoon.

Big Les

17th August 2007, 03:04 AM

As usual, I blame the media. There were genuine issues to be addressed, and Y2K was a potential problem, but the "End of teh World is Nigh" media coverage whipped the public into a frenzied panic. I remember one report suggesting that traffic lights would cease to work, causing terrible road accidents.

So not a hoax or a scam, a real thing, blown out of all proportion by the media and attracting seismic levels of uncritical thought and outright woo. Which is why I suspect EGarrett came away thinking it was all made up. I know I did, in the process falling for cynicism and suspicion of authority. Damn, I could have been a truther!

gambling_cruiser

17th August 2007, 03:36 AM

IIRC there was not only computer - bug - fear, but also new age millemium change crap up to second coming of Jebuz and Apocalypse mongering.

Cuddles

17th August 2007, 04:02 AM

This seems to be a common problem at the moment. If something bad happens, it's all those nasty scientists' fault for not stopping it. If something bad doesn't happen, it's all those nasty scientist's fault for scaring everybody. Y2K, SARS, bird flu, there are lots of things that didn't happen because the problems seen in advance and appropriate measures put in place. For some reason all this seems to achieve is to make people trust authority even less rather than trusting them more because they've done the right thing. People are weird.

brodski

17th August 2007, 04:23 AM

Big Les

17th August 2007, 04:43 AM

Bloody hell, now that I reread it, I think you're right. He meant millenarian nonsense, not technological catastrophy (though there's overlap there of course).

In which case yes, you could see it as a great blow on the part of scepticism and go "yay us!", but I don't think the woos have noticed, or care.

rjh01

17th August 2007, 05:42 AM

Only hope the Egarrett comes back and makes another contribution to this thread.

DangerousBeliefs

17th August 2007, 06:04 AM

One quirk I have is preparedness.... I like to be prepared.

Do I have an emergency "grab and go" kit in the house? Yes.

Do I think I'll ever use it? Hopefully never.

But it's thinking along those lines which helps prevent problems. And it's not always big things like Y2K or hurricanes.

It's little things... like having water in your car in the summer time or blankets and sterno during the winter (and a full tank of gas).

Being prepared means NOT BEING SURPRISED when the crap hits the fan.

Do I think Y2K was overhyped? Yes

Am I glad it was (overhyped) and nothing serious happened? Yes again.

Thanks to myself and countless thousands of other IT personnel who audited their companies and upgraded hardware and software...

Now if only stupid congress would quit monkeying with daylight savings time.

a_unique_person

17th August 2007, 06:06 AM

I think "Y2K" is about computers.

Geckko

17th August 2007, 06:21 AM

I know some people think problem were averted by the rash of reprogramming etc. as some people here indicate.

But I also was up to my neck in this in a different way and in January 2000 the thing that was most evident was that there was no difference in experience across countries, where some went overboard on Y2K compliance and some effectively did nothing.

My skeptic radar suggests that had we done nothing there really would have been some minor isolate hiccups here and there - completely lost in the regular see of Microsoft crashes and so on.

Big Les

17th August 2007, 06:29 AM

I think "Y2K" is about computers.

The Y2K "bug" or "Millennium bug" is, but Y2K just means "year 2000" and had a wider meaning in terms of all sorts of supposed stuff that was going to happen (eg end o' da world). I suspect EGarrett meant it in that context, but I could be wrong.

Wowbagger

17th August 2007, 07:17 AM

As far as I recall, the skeptics were mostly the ones that claimed nothing much would happen. It was only the woos who overhyped the problem beyond reason.

Personal Anecdote:
I remember watching a Y2K drama on TV, and saying "yeah, right!" all the time. For example, They depicted that heart monitoring equipment would fail in California, when it struck midnight on the East Coast, simply because the equipment was manfactured in NY. I'm sure any skeptic would see the how ridiculous that is.

alfaniner

17th August 2007, 07:46 AM

I recall a report wondering about whether or not your microwave would work.

That said, I believe it was mostly we programmers who had the best idea of what could go wrong, and how.

Lanzy

17th August 2007, 07:51 AM

Nothing happened?

I can come out of the basement now?

50 50 50 50 50 Yay 50!

arthwollipot

17th August 2007, 07:56 AM

Dude - have you been in the basement for seven years!??

Jimbo07

17th August 2007, 08:48 AM

A friend's dad was into both Y2K and the panetary conjunction of 5-5-2000. Apparently he got better...

tsg

17th August 2007, 08:50 AM

The most glaring of doomsayers who didn't know what the hell they were talking about were the nitwits saying it wasn't going to happen until Jan 1, 2001 because that's when the millennium really started.:rolleyes:

For cars, microwaves, "everything with a chip in it", etc., my stock answer was, "what makes you think any of those things cares what year it is?"

What irked me most about the media was their habit of saying "some are saying the problems are far worse than projected" without mentioning that "some" had no idea what the hell they were talking about.

Preparedness is a good thing. Panic is not.

I think skepticism faired pretty well through Y2K.

Jimbo07

17th August 2007, 09:40 AM

tsg

17th August 2007, 09:52 AM

I thought it was just unimaginative curmudgeons whining about the timing of the turnover...

Not the people I had to correct. I actually had to explain that it was the two zeros on the end that were the problem.

I didn't even get into the bloody pedantry of insisting when the millennium "properly" began.

EGarrett

17th August 2007, 02:47 PM

are we sure that the op is talking about the Y2K bug and not just about the general fear that people had that the world would end in the year 2000?

because I'm pretty sure that the lack of the world ending in the year 2000 was a much bigger boon for scepticism than the fact that computers continued to work pretty much as they had been doing.

Bloody hell, now that I reread it, I think you're right. He meant millenarian nonsense, not technological catastrophy (though there's overlap there of course).

In which case yes, you could see it as a great blow on the part of scepticism and go "yay us!", but I don't think the woos have noticed, or care.

Only hope the Egarrett comes back and makes another contribution to this thread.I forgot I had started this thread. But, looking back, I can see the confusion.

I meant all types. The religious and doomsday-cultists, and the technological alarmists. It was a sort-of "line in the sand," on which a whole lot of ignorant paranoia ended up looking stupid or quietly fading. And the question was if people thought a lot of those people were shoved towards skepticism on that day.

Blue Mountain

17th August 2007, 03:05 PM

I'm a programmer, and we had to do a Y2K project on a major system in only seven months because the system we had earmarked to replace it got delayed to 2001.

My favourite story from that period:

"We have completed the Y2K project. For the last three years we've reviewed nearly seven thousand programs containing approximately 3,000,000 lines of code. I am happy to report that all systems have been upgraded.

"For the names of the months we are now displaying Januark, Februark, Mak, and Julk (the eight other months are not affected) and for the days of the week we are now displaying Mondak, Tuesdak, Wednesdak, Thursdak, Fridak, Saturdak, and Sundak.

"The team has expressed some puzzlement over the term of the project. We're not sure why you wanted to change all the Ys to Ks in the dates, but we have done the work and are quite happy with the effort.

"By the way, during our review of the programs, one of our team members mentioned there may be a problem with years being stored in a two digit format once we're through 1999. We await your direction on this."

Q-Source

17th August 2007, 03:35 PM

Something did happen in my case. For some reason, the bank computers transfered money to my account. :D Unfortunately, days later they realised there was a mistake and took the money back :(

RSLancastr

17th August 2007, 04:10 PM

My skeptic radar suggests that had we done nothing there really would have been some minor isolate hiccups here and there - completely lost in the regular see of Microsoft crashes and so on.Sorry Geckko, but no (unless by "we" you mean your company, in which case I have no idea).

All over the planet, date-sensitive programs running on midrange and mainframe computers would have had serious data problems.

baron

17th August 2007, 05:16 PM

On Y2K, when absolutely nothing happened, do you think it was a great moment for skepticism? Were a significant amount of new skeptics won over?

I led the Y2K team working on converting all databases and applications at a well-known UK nuclear reprocessing installation. We worked for almost three years solid. If we hadn't, nuclear reprocessing would have ceased within 24hrs of midnight 31st December 1999. Absolutely nothing would have functioned.

What actually happened is that on and after 1st January 2000, after three years of work, we had not one single Y2K-related error...

...and the predictable oh-so-informed public response of, "Y2K? Nothing happened! What was all the fuss about?"

rjh01

17th August 2007, 05:43 PM

I did my first Y2K fix in about 1987. They were doing projections beyond year 2000 and the wrong answer was coming out of the computer.

RSLancastr

17th August 2007, 06:27 PM

tsg

17th August 2007, 07:59 PM

And the question was if people thought a lot of those people were shoved towards skepticism on that day.

I don't think so. I remember not being able to find a single doomsayer in any of the newsgroups I was in on January 1, 2000 or after, let alone anyone saying "I guess I was wrong. Maybe I should check my facts before getting all alarmy."

If anything, the media frenzyists were taking credit for nothing happening. "See? We warned everybody and they fixed it!" No, you caused a panic and it got fixed anyway. What you did was make my life harder having to write endless Y2K compliance statements that all said the same thing: "Your thermostat does not use the year value of the date in any way." And for some, that wasn't good enough. They wanted a firmware upgrade that corrected the Y2K problem. There was no upgrade. Because there was no problem. The firmware didn't store the year anywhere. Shall I get you new firmware that uses a four digit year value instead of none? But the part that really kills me about it, the very worst thing that could have happened if there was a Y2K problem in their HVAC systems, was their thermostat may have thought it was the wrong day of the week. And they all had occupancy overrides that let them turn it on after hours. So, on Thursday, January 6, 2000, your heat may still be in unoccupied (heating to 60F instead of 70F) because it thought it was Saturday. Somebody walks in and says, "it's a little cool in here. Turn up the thermostat, will you?" End of story.

But they did make it possible to sell a lot of generators and bottled water for no reason, though. Too bad I'm not in that business.

No, more people weren't turned to skepticism because of Y2K. Like any other doomsday preachers, every time the end of world fails to happen, they move the date.

Alareth

17th August 2007, 08:05 PM

On the plus side of Y2K, I had a 30 day trial copy of some html coding software with 4 days remaining sudden go to over 120,000 days remaining ...

:D

alfaniner

17th August 2007, 09:07 PM

I actually did a Y1.9K fix during the 80s.

It involved a patient database which had a patient date of birth, and it was the first time they had admitted a patient born in the 1800s since the database had been installed!

As a side benefit, it also made the database Y2K compliant. :)

Well, I never thought I'd encounter a Y2K anecdote I hadn't heard before... and very funny to boot.

One of our fellow contractors (from a different company than mine, but working on the same project) was featured in a newspaper article. He had stocked up his basement with all kinds of "fallout" preparedness items (including about 20 boxes of Cheez-its -- gotta have your junk food at the end of the world as we know it). He got fired before the event hit (due to being obnoxious to everyone, not for his skills).

A couple weeks after the turn of the millennium, he was featured in a TV spot -- the subtitle line "EATING CROW". I was a little put out that the station did the same old "nothing happened" slant -- but this did not have anything to do with his programming or lack thereof. I was just glad they made him out to be an idiot.