Summation: Auren Hoffman: Problems at the Millennium?

with Auren Hoffman
July 20, 1997

Problems at the Millennium?
The real problem is not with the year 2000, it's with year 10,000
by Auren Hoffman
So you afraid of year 2000? Are you worried that when the date hits the double-zeros all the computers will crash, the banks will fall, the world will stop, your computer will freeze, the database tuples will converge, the electric car doors will lock, the mail still won't be delivered on time, and the elevators will fall?
Don't worry, be happy. Problem solved. Luckily, most worldly corporations have already thought of this problem and fixed it.
Consulting and software firms have made billions of dollars scaring corporations and governments into changing the date structure of their old mainframes to incorporate a four-digit date rather than a two digit date. So now the year is 1997 (not to be confused with the year 97, 1900 years ago).
As usual, corporations and governments have a lack of foresight. A four digit date is great for now, but what happens when we hit the year 10,000? You might think that 8000 years is a long time -- that's just what Noah said about being cramped in that Arc for 40 days. 40 days seems like yesterday to me so 8000 years probably will only seem like high school (which I still have some faded memories of). My point is, with technology ever increasing and speeding up time, year 10000 will get here before you know it.
So a real smart corporation will demand that their systems are safe for the occurrence of year 10,000 -- they should demand a five digit year. So this year would be 01997, which could be pronounced "zero nineteen ninety-seven," or if your cool you might say "oh-1997."
Now some might argue that while were at it, we might as well add a six-digit date. Though that might seem logical for many of you, 100000 years is a really really long time for now. By contrast, year 10,000 is only a few generations away (given that the average life span has been dramatically increasing).
And remember, lack of foresight causes problems. So do lack of digits...

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