Millennium Magic 2000 (Y2K)

Ah, the day we have all been waiting for…Yes, the dawn of the new millenium has arrived and the world hasn’t still fallen apart. Everyone is cheerful and the world is a better place today without the dreaded ‘Y2K’ bug.

The millenium bug certainly deserves its share of glory for all the doomsday predictions it stirred up. In the process, the bug also contributed in it’s own might to embellish the phenomenon of the new millenium. The ‘bug’ dates back to the early nineties when people began to realize the impending effects of a notorious data storage oversight, at the turn of the century. The concern exploded and very soon acquired global dimensions, which was to later cost the entire world several billions of dollars. By the early nineties, Information Technology had left an indelible footprint in society. This only served to increasingly justify the astronomical expenditure to fix the problem. That sowed the seed for the famous ‘Countdown to Y2K’, as the clock started ticking away.

But this necessary evil also had its merits. As organizations hurried to ensure the safety of their businesses before Y2K, it prompted an exodus of software engineers from various parts of the world to developed countries, notably the USA. Many software professionals in the USA would now be thanking their good fortune, as the seemingly innocent ‘negligence’ became a powerhouse of employment.

In the USA, organizations and businesses set strict schedules and protocols in place, to ensure Y2K compliance well before the event. In retrospect, it is perhaps because of this earnest effort, that we survived the ‘bite’ that never happened. The government agencies spared no effort to reassure the citizens that they would never be inconvenienced. Notwithstanding all these precautions, I still noticed apprehensive people hoarding food and supplies to survive the millenium. Several others began numbering the days for the world to end. I couldn’t help but smile at this absurdity.

The year 1999 was an appropriate denouement to a great century…a century dominated by science and technology, despite two shattering World Wars and a third one almost (The infamous Gulf War!). The overbearing influence of innovation and imagination blended with the endeavor to succeed, marking the best period in human history. We should all feel proud to be part of this glorious era.

The year that was…

As the New Year 1999 dawned, the countdown began…Y2K was looming large and people had mixed feelings. For some, it was a sense of hopelessness and abject surrender to fate, while others looked forward to the new millenium with renewed hope and energy.

The acute marketing minds around the world did not miss the opportunity to harp on the new buzzword. Most products carried the name of the millenium, thus immediately attracting attention. Several places around the world vied for honors on the D-Day. The ‘idiot box’ contributed by screening various interesting shows throughout the year. Scams and scandals ran aplenty, as swindlers made a fast buck, all in the name of Y2K. Time Square in New York started preparing for Millenium’s eve, even as the year started. There were several websites dedicated to hotel reservations at New York, for the big day.

Theme parks around the country made hay, as they each claimed to be the best place on Earth to greet the new millenium. Walt Disney World in Florida started preparations with great pomp and splendor, making big plans for the eve. Epcot Center, one of the four parks in Disney World, was to be the centerpiece of attraction, sporting a huge 2000 sign over the famous globe landmark.

Meanwhile, Time magazine ran a yearlong poll for nominating the person of the century. The Internet played a significant role in this nomination, as people all around the world filled in their choices. At the end of the year, Albert Einstein, probably the best thinker ever in mankind, was crowned the person of the century. Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi were not far behind. On a personal note, I was immensely satisfied that the world appreciated the role of the ‘Mahatma’ in ending colonization.

It was a great year for cricket, as the World Cup was hosted in England. Australia emerged the deserving champions, in the face of stiff competition from South Africa and Pakistan. Arguably, lady luck also smiled on the land ‘down under’.

It was a year riddled with freak air disasters, following an incident-free year in 1998. Each accident was shrouded in mystery as they took a deadly toll. The drama of the Indian Airlines hijacking (un)fortunately ended with just one life lost. But this was enough for the threat of global terrorism to leave an ugly scar on the face of mother Earth at the turn of a new millenium.

Space technology suffered setbacks this year, as NASA repeatedly lost contact with space probes sent to the red planet. However, taking precedent from the lunar exploration this century, we can safely assume that we will explore the ‘friendly’ Mars before too long. NASA more than made up for the Mars disasters, by successfully firing the safest Space Shuttle Discovery in late December, to service the ailing Hubble Space Telescope. For the first time in the brief space age, astronauts were hovering above planet Earth on Christmas day. China also heralded their arrival in space exploration by launching their first unmanned space vehicle. ‘The Learning Channel’ (TLC) on TV had a two-hour show depicting the 100 greatest achievements of the 20 th century. Fittingly, the exploration of space occupied the top slot.

It was also a year of massive natural destruction. Monster earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan leaving a trail of devastation in it’s wake…followed by giant hurricanes battering the Caribbean and the US East Coast…then, the ‘Super Cyclone’ in Orissa (India), taking a deadly toll of lives and property…As if this was not enough, floods and mudslides of enormous proportions burying Venezuela…Let’s hope the forces of Nature look kindly upon us in the new millenium…

On the financial front, most people around the world laughed all the way to the bank. The world economy swelled without bounds. Technology fuelled the unprecedented growth. Internet and the now famous ‘dot com’ companies unfailingly made people rich with stunning performances on the US stock market. The commercial hub of the world, Wall Street, reaffirmed the year’s success story when the three major indices NASDAQ, Dow Jones and S&P 500 all reached record levels on December 29 th . NASDAQ crossed the 4000 mark soon after, prompting people to chant ‘Nasdaq 4K’ much ahead of ‘Y2K’!

As an aside, Miss India Yukta Mookhey was crowned the last Miss World of the century. Another feather in India’s cap!

As the year drew to a close, Orange County (Florida) prepared rigorous schedules for the New Year’s eve. The county had been preparing for Y2K for several years and exuded confidence that the New Year would cause no harm. Nevertheless, they wanted to take no chances. Many employees grudgingly acceded to work on the 1 st day of the New Year…all their party plans dissolving into oblivion.

The celebration…

I was one of the privileged few who could enjoy the New Year with scant consideration for the bug. Along with a few friends, I planned to make merry at Disney World’s Epcot Center. The theme parks had a history of attracting huge crowds very early on New Year’s eve and this year would only hasten the closing of the parks.

Early morning on 31st December, several TV channels telecast the midnight celebrations across the world, starting from the far-east island of Kiribati. Then, followed Newzealand and Australia. The celebration in Sydney was awesome with dazzling fireworks from the top of the Sydney Opera House. Not wanting to miss out on the celebrations around the globe, I programmed my video recorder to record the events at important locations across the world.

As I prepared to leave for Disney World with some friends at 8.30am, Epcot Center was declared closed…ironically, even before it opened at 9am. We were perturbed but decided to try anyway, in the vain hope that the news was only a rumor. As we neared the theme parks, our worst fears were confirmed. All roads seemed to lead to Disney World, as people poured in from different directions. Our consolation was that we could at least go to Magic Kingdom…or so we imagined. Little did we realize that most of the disappointed crowd thought on similar lines. Reaching the other Disney parks would take an eternity as well. Suddenly, we took a detour to reach the MGM Studios parking lot, which was, to our surprise, sparsely populated. Then, it was easy to hop on to the bus that would take us to Magic Kingdom circumventing the regular congested route. The bus driver’s reassuring words that Magic Kingdom was still open comforted us. As we entered the park at 10am, we wondered when this park would be declared closed. We were to learn later that both MGM Studios and Magic Kingdom were closed to the public soon after. Were we lucky? The park was already bustling with zealous people looking forward to the stroke of midnight. There were long snaky lines for most of the attractions and we resolved to avoid the rides. We became a constant target of disdain and envy, as we indulged in the game of cards, while most others sweltered in the long queues. The afternoon Christmas parade, accompanied by sweet Christmas songs, was a delight. As dusk descended for the last time in the millenium, a sea of humanity congregated around Cinderella’s castle, the place where all the action would happen. Tempers flared all around as the exuberant people greedily grabbed every inch of space around the castle, with the organizer’s pleas falling on deaf ears. We were anxious that the unruly crowds would lead to a stampede. Of course, that never occurred…

As the clock ticked towards the dead of night, all eyes focussed on the castle. At 11.50pm, the sky was lit with colorful fireworks. The ‘fantasy in the sky’ continued for nine minutes and then there was sudden darkness and silence…Nostalgia hung in the air as people tearfully bade goodbye to a great millenium…10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…

And then, there was a brilliance all over the night sky as never before. Bright, dazzling patterns illuminated the heavens and filled people’s minds with joy. We wished each other and welcomed the arrival of another era. The celebrations over, it was time to face the grim reality of navigating through the chaotic road traffic before we could reach home.

We appreciated the efforts of the park volunteers in restoring order. It took us a little over two hours to leave the parking lot of MGM Studios. Once out of Disney World, the freeway traffic was understandably smooth because we were already into the wee hours of the morning. I stopped at my friend’s house for a quick meal. Reports about the behavior of the Y2K bug were already pouring in. At first glance, the exorbitant investment to fix the bug appeared to have paid off. No serious glitches were reported but people still had apprehensions about the performance of the computer systems on Monday, the first working day for the financial world. The revelry around the world was by and large incident-free…and the doomsday pundits were proved wrong.

As we stand on the threshold of a new millennium, the guilt of spending billions of dollars on an ostensible faux pas has been exonerated. Mankind will hopefully learn from the mistakes of the past and strive to endow the future generations with a wonderful, peaceful, happy tomorrow.

This, I firmly believe, is a gift that will be treasured for a long time to come.

Ever wondered how the name Y2K came about ? Read the following article published recently in a computer magazine…

The Etymology of “Y2K”

By: Ted Rose

Posted Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999, at 3:20 p.m

Y2K was born on Monday, June 12, 1995, at 11:31 p.m. It was delivered in the middle of an otherwise unintelligible e-mail, a contribution to an Internet discussion group of computer geeks exploring the millennium bug long before most people were surfing the World Wide Web. The efficiency of the term is undeniable – “Y” for “year,” the number “2,” and “K” for “thousand” (from the Greek “kilo”)–and it eventually caught on. But its creator remained unidentified until just over a year ago, when someone performed the equivalent of a computer paternity test by searching the discussion group’s archives for the term’s first use. The father of the phrase is a 52-year-old Massachusetts programmer named David Eddy, who’s now the president of a Y2K consulting business. “People were calling it Year 2000, CDC [Century Date Change], Faddle [Faulty Date Logic],” Eddy says. “There were other contenders. [Y2K] just came off my fingertips.”

But what made Y2K flourish while its siblings withered? Chatterbox put in a call to S.B. Master, who runs a naming company, called Master-McNeil (great name!). Master, who has helped name products for clients including Sun Microsystems and 3Com, performed her own a “linguistic analysis” of Y2K and promptly listed six reasons why the term holds such appeal. For starters, she said, Y2K is efficient, since it uses just three characters; similarly structured acronyms such as IBM, NBC, and GTE are a staple these days. Second, it’s gratifyingly symmetrical, with the two consonants hugging that number in the middle. Third, the whole tradition of combining letters and numbers is a venerated techie convention (think R2D2 and C3P0). The date-glitch issue has obvious technical associations; thus there is a strong connection between the term’s appearance and its meaning. But none of that explains why we’re not using, say, Y2M—which simply replaces the consonant representing the Greek term for thousand with the one for “mille,” its Latin counterpart. Y2K, Masters pointed out, is rhythmically superior. When Y2K is analyzed as poetry, one sees a satisfying alternation of long and short syllables: a diphthong (Y), followed by a monothong (2), and a final, concluding diphthong (K). By contrast, Y2M ends with a redundant monothong. Masters praised Y2K for its superior sound production, noting that the term features an elegant plosive progression, moving from soft (Y) to hard (2) to hardest (K). Y2M retreats lamely with a soft “M.”

Finally, Masters lauded the term for the way its articulation produces a satisfying movement to the inside of the mouth. The term begins with a labial sound: the “Y” being formed with the lips. The “2” is uvular; it is produced at the middle of the mouth when the tongue touches the roof. Finally, the “K” is velar, forming in the back of the mouth. That progression sets Y2K far apart from its competition. In fact, Masters said, she could think of only one other word that featured such an exquisitely pleasing articulatory progression in the mouth: “Monica.