I have just come across these two articles: The first offers Peter de Jager's insights:

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/news/business_story.html?in_review_id=123495

And the second is about the recommendation of stockpiling at least 10 weeks worth of food by a self-described millennium "guru", Richard Madeley, on a daytime chat show that has been condemned by Action 2000 as "irresponsible broadcasting":

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1999/5/ns-6887.html

-- Carol (usa-uk@email.msn.com), March 10, 1999

Answers

Note that the "current" UK article is based on Peter's Jan 1999 article in Scientific American. I don't know what the lead time is for this particular journal, but I would guess that the deadline for submission of the article was somewhere around October of last year. That was nearly 6 months ago, and a lot of things -- including, perhaps, Peter's outlook on Y2K -- can change during that period.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), March 10, 1999.

This has been the craziest day ever on this forum. There's no way de Bugger said that recently.

Those numbers sound familiar, and they sound about 3 months old.... If that quote is less than one month old... then he was muzzled into his recent "broken the back" essay.

Time to go home now, enough Y2K for the day. Thanks, Carol..

-- Lisa (lisab@shallc.com), March 10, 1999.

Does anyone know what got to De Jager? I have not followed him recently. Any one debated him or wrote a critique? Please post a link.

-- Ray (kcorner67@hotmail.com), March 11, 1999.