The grave Y2K problem.

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Fri, 5 Jun 1998 04:21:22 -0700


Not sure if this has been forked before. -A.

> From owner-tftd-l@tamu.edu Fri Jun 5 02:18:40 1998
> Approved-By: Dan Galvin <galvin@UNIX.TAMU.EDU>
> Subject: Thought for Friday, Jun 5, 1998
> To: TFTD-L@tamu.edu
>
> >From the Patterns-Discussion LISTSERV:
>
>
> To disinterr an old subject in a lighthearted but somewhat morbid light:
>
>
> This is probably a pretty young crowd that hangs out here, but if you
> yourselves haven't purchased cemetery plots, maybe some of your parents
> have. Take a walk around a cemetery sometime and look at how many
> gravestones are there, pre-purchased by future tenants who are still
> living, already inscribed with their birth year, with a placeholder for
> their year of demise. To save the stone carver a few strokes, most
> of these stones have the year partly inscribed in the shop:
>
>
> 1935 - 19__
>
>
> with the blanks to be filled in later.
>
>
> Like I said, take a look of how many of those are out there standing
> in your local cemetery _today_. Not all those blanks will be filled
> in during the next 19 or 20 months...
>
>
> I've yet to see a single one of the form:
>
>
> 1935 - 20__
>
>
> Just to show that it's not only software folks who will have trouble
> with the turn of the calendar... And this one is particularly
> interesting,
> because most people don't anticipate an early death: the slightest
> consideration would have prompted folks to turn the page into the next
> century.
>
>
> And I know how a pointy-haired software manager might solve this (hey,
> software is easier than hardware, right?) :-)
>
> *****************************
> -Submitted by Ian Chai
>

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu

Been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding.
-- Harvey Danger, "Flagpole Sitta"