On This Day Pre-Y2K
Confused by any of the jargon you see below? Check the Y2K Glossary!
January 23, 1999 Permalink
All those little 1’s and 0’s. Back in the mid-1970’s, Adam Osborn wrote Running Wild, a book on the computer industry. He warned against the computerization of three institutions: banking, voting, and the stock market.
Now we have to get all of the code rewritten. We call in the programmers. Here they come! “Here is our code. Here is our business, Here is the key to everything we own. We trust you.”
There are digital fire walls. There are also very clever programmers. Put a few million in front of programmers, and watch what happens to firewalls.
Of course, this pessimism assumes that the banking system will survive. It’s pretty optimistic.
—Gary North, garynorth.com, 01/23/99
I’ve had my serious two-cents in this thread and others about being in cities: GET OUT! GET OUT! I don’t apologize for it .... b .. u .. t the original question did ask how folks were actually preparing IN the cities. This is a vital question since, um, fact is 170 million Americans will be in them 1/1/2000.
If I were fool enough to stay in a city, I’d be thinking:
1. Water, water, water, water, water (well, you get the idea). 2. Security (but how on earth ... ?) 3. Water. 4. Security 5. Did I say water and security?
I would also try to store long-term food, if there were room. Hard to grow things for most urbanites. But that brings us back to 2. and 4., no?
—BigDog, Time Bomb 2000 Forum (LUSENET), 01/23/99
