Tracking possible Y2K problems as the year 2000 arrives

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Make sure that any bread, milk or eggs you need for the beginning of January are bought before December 31st. The 31st could be a busy day for supermarkets and convenience stores...

http://www.kcstar.com/item/pages/business.pat,business/3773fbfb.b05,.html

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), November 06, 1999

Answers

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FINN BULLERS and DAVID HAYES: Y2K WATCH

Tracking possible Y2K problems as the year 2000 arrives

By DAVID HAYES and FINN BULLERS - Columnist

Date: 11/05/99 22:15

Jan. 1, 2000, will dawn first in the independent republic of Kiribati, a group of 30 low-lying coral islands in the Pacific Ocean straddling the equator and the International Date Line.

Chances are the Y2K bug won't do much damage there. After all, the 81,000 inhabitants of Kiribati, in the Christmas Islands halfway between Hawaii and Australia, only got television in 1989.

But for those of us in Missouri and Kansas, it will be the first look at whether the change in dates brings the Y2K bug with it.

Jan. 1 in Kiribati will occur at 6 a.m. Dec. 31 in Kansas City, and for the next 18 hours we can track the Y2K bug as it marches across the globe on its way toward the United States.

It won't be hard to monitor.

"This is a very, very big story and we are making big plans to cover it," a CNN spokeswoman said. From its Atlanta headquarters, CNN plans to devote programming from its 34 bureaus to both potential Y2K disruptions and general millennium happenings.

Several Web sites also will track Y2K's progress.

The first potential headlines could come from New Zealand, which was the first industrialized nation to suffer a major bug bite when a $1 million smelting plant went dead in 1996.

From there, we'll be able to watch Y2K reach the South Pole, eastern Russia, Japan and Korea, China, India, London, Canada, United States, Mexico and Latin America.

Along with the public, several large Y2K watchdogs will be watching, too.

The United Nations-backed International Y2K Cooperation Center, a global clearinghouse for computer bug data in Washington, D.C., will collect information from 195 coordinators across the globe.

Reports there will be updated in real time on the center's Web site -- www.iy2kcc.org.

Just blocks away, the U.S. government's $49 million Y2K Information Coordinating Center is designed to give federal agencies a round-the- clock view of potential problems.

John Koskinen, head of the president's Y2K council, says the center will feed information to the president and two working groups, one for domestic crises and one for international problems.

Staffing the center, equipped with its own electric generator, will be up to 30 crisis management specialists led by retired Lt. Gen. Peter Kind, former director of the Army's information systems.

The center is up and running now, and will stay open until after Feb. 29, the leap year date that also could create computer problems.

Major television networks in the United States have told government planners they will staff the center beginning Dec. 1 to stake a claim to precious coverage space.

Elsewhere, the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center and the federally sponsored Computer Emergency Response Team at Carnegie- Mellon University in Pittsburgh will file reports of computer acts of terrorism from across the globe.

The State Department will collect reports from U.S. embassies and issue ongoing travel advisories at http://travel.state.gov. The Defense Department will gather news from military posts.

And in the Big Apple, the 22nd floor of the World Trade Center is home to that city's Y2K command center. The $15 million facility features hurricane-proof walls, its own heating and air-conditioning system, electronic maps, a call center and press briefing room.

"This will be the largest event-monitoring effort in the history of the federal government," Koskinen said.

Want to track the bug from home? Here are five ways to do it:

TV's Cable News Network.

Year 2000 Info will show when and where the bug first emerges. Click on www.timeanddate.com.

The International Y2K Cooperation Center will file real-time reports from 195 countries at www.iy2kcc.org.

Global e-mail updates from computer guru Peter de Jager will be sent to your home computer by sending a request to amy@year2000.com.

Christian Computing magazine editor Steve Hewitt of Raytown plans to hold a real-time Internet party at www.ccmag.com, with updates from readers across the globe.

Y2K Forecast

The federal government is offering "Y2K and You," a 31-page booklet covering a variety of Y2K-related issues. You can get a copy at www.y2k.gov or by calling the government's toll-free Y2K hotline at (888)-872-4925. Beginning Nov. 27, the Y2K hotline will expand its hours to include Saturdays.

And on Sunday, The Kansas City Star will publish "Y2K Forecast," a 12- page special section assessing global and national readiness, how to fix your home computer and what simple preparations you should take.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), November 06, 1999.


Today I went to one of the hundreds of supermarkets here on Long Island and I saw what I was waiting for: Entenmann's Fruit Cakes with an expiration date of 8/15/2000.

You can practicaly live off this stuff. I am stocking up before the Holidays. Anyone who thinks they will be shopping like regular during the last week of this year is nuts.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), November 06, 1999.


Thanks Linkmeister.

Going shopping today.

We'll track the roll here too (with) a back-up hierarchy of alternate locations.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 06, 1999.


Here is a site that wants to enlist reporters from around the world to report what is happening in their localities. Of course if power is out, that may be difficult.

http://www.jrwhipple.com/z2k/

Gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), November 06, 1999.


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hamster,

Those cakes were leftover from last year. The "fresh" one won't be release until December.

-- gary (thehargis@earthlink.com), November 06, 1999.



Aren't Christmas fruit cakes on the EPA's short list of toxic materials being dumped by the millions of tons into leaky landfills everywhere?

It's a FAR greater and widespread problem than nuclear waste. The EPA'S vaunted "Superfund" would go bust just paying to clean up all that buried goop.

Wonder if they should just let it petrify and see what it turns into in 10,000,000 years?

-- profit of doom (doom@helltopay.ca), November 06, 1999.


No, these are the fresh cakes, they always expire in August or around then. The old ones ran out months ago and they had 1999 expire dates.

Last fall I bought a dozen and they expired this past summer (in my stomach of course).

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), November 07, 1999.


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