Re:Ask HN: Was the Y2K crisis real?
by umanwizard on Thursday March 12, 2020 @05:47PM
(#22562151)
Mark my words, if the containment measures work and Covid-19 goes away, this is exactly what people will be saying. Drives me crazy.
Yeah, I'm not sure if the original question was asked because of this, but I've had a couple conversations where we've compared the COVID-19 situation to Y2K.
Even in this case, we have evidence of what happens from delaying response (eg: China, Italy) yet if proactive steps like shutting down schools, events and gatherings are effective you'll get people complaining it was all an overreaction.
Re:Ask HN: Was the Y2K crisis real?
by joshstrange on Thursday March 12, 2020 @05:50PM
(#22562176)
To be honest I'd choose that timeline in a heartbeat over what I think we are barrelling to... But yes, it will drive me crazy if that happens.
I have a vivid recollection of reading a Scientific American article in late '98 or early '99 that claimed that no matter how much time and $ was put into fixing Y2K before 1 Jan 2000, there was going to be a disaster; it was just a question of having a bigger or smaller disaster, but even with best effort months. I have recently looked for that article, without success. Does anyone recall it/ have a PDF (image) of it?
1. Shine light on problem and make sure people hear about it
2. People respond and fix it
3. Outcome not as bad as you said it could be /because it was fixed/
4. Some time later "That wasn't a big deal"
No, it wasn't that big of a deal because we worked hard to fix it!