Hello everyone,

I just got an e-mail from a friend asking the following:

"Now I have read about all the problems that are about to happen and that they to a large extent already have happened... But the thing is, there has been almost no report about any major accident or malfunction anywhere. Why should I then believe that most computers or microchips will malfunction or crash next year? I do understand that the entire world will be hit at the same time, but since that has not meant anything spectacular so far, why should I worry about next year?"

Can you help me formulate a few sharp arguments in a reply to him?

Thanks,

y2kmayhem

-- y2kmayhem (y2kmayhem@hotmail.com), October 01, 1999

Answers

"We haven't hit the iceberg yet, so why should I worry when we hit the iceberg?"

Captain Smith, HMS TITANIC

-- owl (b@a.com), October 01, 1999.

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Send him a copy of Michael Hyatt's latest essay:

"What If I Am Wrong About Y2K?"

It was posted by Uncle Bob below (BTW- thanks Uncle Bob).

Here is the message address:

http://greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001V8O

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-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 01, 1999.

Simply tell him the truth:

1. It doesn't matter what he believes, Y2K will happen the way it will happen

2. Besides, it's too late to do much about it anyway, so why even bother?

-- tell (the@truth.yes), October 01, 1999.

Refer hiim to THIS LINK

It's NOT the one referenced above, but a GREAT essay, perhaps THE best essay ever written on Y2K.

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), October 01, 1999.

A rational explanation for making Y2K preparations http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001R UO

Sincerely,
Stan Faryna

Got 14 days of preps? If not, get started now. Click here.

Click here and check out the TB2000 preparation forum.

-- Stan Faryna (faryna@groupmail.com), October 01, 1999.

Have your friend list some of the recorded disasters he is familiar with. Then ask he identify the warning signals that preceeded them, if any, and public reaction to them. "comparitive history".

-- A. Hambley (a.hambley@usa.net), October 01, 1999.

"Y2K Test Causes Huge Sewage Spill - 4 Million Gallons Seeped Into A Van Nuys Park"

http://www.channel2000.com/news/stories/news-990617-081237.html

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), October 01, 1999.

did you all notice this y2k power plant example in that chicago trib story?

**As part of an experiment last year, technicians at the huge Xingo hydroelectric dam on Brazil's Sao Francisco River set the dates on the plant's main computer forward to Jan. 1, 2000.

**What happened next is still sending chills through Latin America.

**"When they put the date forward, the whole control board went haywire," remembers Marcos Ozorio, one of the members of Brazil's presidential Year 2000 commission. "Twelve thousand warning lights flashed all across the board, with all kinds of alarm information."

**Technicians quickly switched back the date, and are now ferreting out the plant's Y2K bugs. But "if you had been surprised by a situation like this, what you'd have had to do is shut down the plant until you found where the failures were," Ozorio said. "Automatically you'd be taking off the energy board 30 percent of northeast Brazil."

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.