Y2K: Fuel the Panic, the NBC Movie

JediLuke writes "Ok, I think that us geeks are somewhat sure that Y2k is going to go off without a hitch ... but NBC thinks otherwise. Sunday [tonight] at 9:00pm ET." Nothing like a nice TV "disaster" movie to stir up a little panic -- and to remind us that nothing, not even technology at its most nefarious, can lick a Handsome Hero(tm). From NBC's blurb: "Nick must use old-fashioned ingenuity if he is to save the day in this race-against-time action adventure."

Comments

US/N.America centric as usual. Look at the big pic

[Anonymous Coward]

"As the millenium dawns in North America, most of the Eastern Seaboard suffers a major power outage. "

It's not the US east coast which will get hit by Y2K first. There's NZ, Asia, Europe and a few hours then only US east.

If the North Americans keep an eye on the rest of the world they'll have hours of advance warning of things to come.

Of course people like me who are in 3rd world countries won't have much problem with Y2K, despite what those _anal_ysts say. Why? Coz we're used to things failing in the first place. Power outages, water outages, traffic light failures, bank computers going down- we encounter these often enough to know how to cope and how not to expect too much from technology. We're not like that US Judge who couldn't believe a defendant's claim that the traffic lights were all green. Our judges would go "Yeah, those set of lights are terrible".

When things fail, it's people you have to rely on to get things moving. If people in general don't panic or freeze up, then I don't think it'll be catastrophic.

I'm sure some things will go down. So pray for those poor people behind the power plants, water plants, working their fingers to the bone to get things back up.

I sometimes worry that if say powerplant engineers /oil rig people suddenly get wiped out who would replace them in time. A technological civilisation as ours is rather reliant on a relatively few people with specialised skills.

If you think about it, it's a miracle how a million things actually work and I can read slashdot 8000 miles away ;).

How I see it...

[Issue9mm]

Of all the things to be worried about on Y2K, the power isn't one of them. I've watched the Trigger Effect, and I know how things CAN go. What worries me the most, is not the lack of power, heat, air, or anything else. It's the fear of Y2K that movies like this are propagating.

Every natural disaster, there's a select few who plan to take advantage of it. Rodney King verdict, looters/riots, every earthquake/evacuation leaves some whacko behind with the intention to take all of his neighbors' belongings and make them his.

To sum up, what I fear about Y2k are the idiots that are PLANNING on it. Maybe some things will go down, maybe not. But the people who've been planning to riot root and rob for the past six months, well, who's to say that the power staying on is gonna stop them?

Maybe there ought to have been more forethought in the making of this movie. I don't condone censorship, but its creators maybe ought to have thought better than to overdramatize a moment that's already going to have at least a few people in a far overdramatic state as it is.

Furthermore, why do they feel the need to make a movie/show on something that MIGHT happen? It's only speculation. Yes, I know that's what most movies are made of, but I can't see this having a good effect on the generally uneducated populace.

I'm done.

It's not the technology, it's *people*

[RelliK]

I do not believe the Y2K will go withot a hitch. Here is why:

While we may be ok on the technology side, you just never know what people are gonna do. For example, if people think banks will collapse, they'll take all their money from the banks -- causing them to collapse. If they think phone is not gonna work -- everyone will pick up the phone to make sure it works, etc. etc. So in this way, the disaster becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here is an interesting historical fact:
Some time in 1500's it was predicted that the end of the world was coming that year. Thinking that the end is near, the peasants stopped planting crops. As a result, many people died of starvation. Does anybody else see the parallel with Y2K?

MSY2K

[Money__]

"MSY2K," a two-hour suspense thriller starring Bill Gates ("MS-Bob," "640K is enough") as a Y2K trouble-shooter trying to save the world from catastrophic disaster on the eve of the antitrust decision.

Joe Morton ("The Astronaut's Wife" with Charlize Theron and Johnny Depp), Kate Vernon ("John Woo's 'Blackjack'"), Lauren Tom ("Friends") and Ronny Cox ("Deep Blue Sea," "Forces of Nature") also star.

Dick Lowry ("Mr. Murder;" NBC's "In the Line of Duty" movie franchise) directs from a screenplay by Thomas Hines and Jonathan Fernandez ("Crisis in the Kremlin"). David Israel, executive producer of last season's critically acclaimed NBC movie, "Mutiny," and the four-hour NBC thriller, "Pandora's Clock," the third highest-rated miniseries (behind "Asteroid" and "The Odyssey") of the 1997-98 season, is executive producer of the presentation from NBC Studios.

Steve Balmer (Olin) is a complex systems failure expert, an independent consultant working on the government's "Z2" (think zero, zero) project to insure that the new OS (W2K) is DOJ compliant.

As the minutes tick down to the new anti-trust decision, a concerned Balmer counsels caution, persuading his boss, the evil Mr. Gates , who heads up the program, to ground all planes before midnight because they are not compatible with the comapnies new operation system.

As Mr. Balmer watches and waits, clocks around the world begin to strike 12 a.m., bringing the United States closer to learning what the Micros~1 evil empire is all about.

As the millenium dawns in North America, most of the Eastern Seaboard enjoys major relief from the formely opressive molopolist. But the worst is yet to come.

Mr. Balmer must stay ahead of the unpredictable MS2K bug as it spreads across the United States threatening everyone, including his own family on the West Coast. While simple computer error is at the heart of the potentially catastrophic problems, Mr Balmer must use old-fashioned monopoly tactics if he is to save the day in this race-against-time action adventure.

Not surprising

[mouseman]

One thing that the networks have learned is that people love a disaster movie (or, better still, a disaster -- note obsessive nature of the news coverage whenever wind, rain or shaky ground cause sufficient mayhem). The fact that y2k is so topical makes it just too easy to pass up.

That said, I don't entirely share the view that y2k will pass without a hitch. The interesting thing to me about y2k is that no one really knows what's going to happen. Those predicting widespread disaster and the collapse of civilization are bound to find the rollover anti-climactic, but the simple truth is no one knows what to expect.

I do think problems directly due to technology are likely to be the least of our worries. The biggest problems will be second-order effects. Some people worried about failure of banks or the stock market will take their money out, which is actually a pretty good way to stimulate the collapse of banks and markets. Even people who don't fear the y2k bug will have enough fear of the herd mentality that they join the stampede.

Since governments are increasing the money supply to deal with increased withdrawls, and presumably would close banks if things got out of hand, outright failure of banks is unlikely. Similarly, for every person frantic to dump his or her stocks there will be someone else grateful for the bargain (I will be one of them :-). So worldwide economic collapse seems unlikely, but there will probably be some effect. No one really knows how much.

Also a concern are all the nuts out there who expect the end of the world or the collapse of civilization, and opportunists just waiting for a good occasion to loot. Again, no one really knows what to expect, since most of the kooks are keeping their plans to themselves.

As for me, I won't be stocking up on ammo, but just to be on the safe side, my y2k celebration will be strictly limited to technology available in 1900. Anyone have an old Victrola I could borrow?

The REAL Y2K problem

[B.D.Mills]

We've all heard about the Y2K bug in computers that is supposed to mean The End Of The World As We Know It. However, there's another more insidious Y2K bug that is widespread in the community. It affects the meatware in a large number of people and is responsible for the widespread misconception that 1999 is the last year of the 20th century.

This meatware bug will cause widespread problems in the community. During 2000, there will be a lot of arguments between people about which century that 2000 is in. It will cause riots in Los Angeles, shootings in the American Midwest, arguments on Oprah, a lot of bar fights everywhere, and general violence in many places throughout the world.

Sure, there will be a few computer problems during 2000 as a result of software not being fixed, but society will not come to a screeching halt. But the year 2000 will be a frustrating time for those right-thinking people who know that 2000 is in the 20th century and not the 21st, and who have to explain to the witless again and again. It promises to be about as much fun as banging one's head against a brick wall.

Meanwhile, I release under the GPL my patch for the Y2K meatware problem, thus:

Y2K Meatware Patch V.1.02

1. Grab a small number of objects - a few coins, buttons, matches or other small objects. Ask your subject to count them out loud one at a time. Note the first number they use; it should be "one" (1) and not "zero" (0).
2. Repeat once or twice for a set of different objects. They should use "one" as the first label for each.
3. Ask why they always start at "one" and not "zero" when counting.
4. Explain that years are counted the same way, and that if the first year of the first century was 1 AD, then the first year of the 21st century must be 20 centuries or 2000 years later, making the first year of the 21st century 2001 AD.

If that doesn't work, then here's another method to try:
Explain that years were (and in some cases still are) labelled using Roman numerals because Arabic numerals weren't introduced into Europe until about the 12th century. Ask them what the Roman numeral for "zero" is.

--

25 interesting things that you learn...

[orcrist]

...about computers in the movies:

1. Word processors never display a cursor.
2. You never have to use the spacebar when typing long sentences. Just keep hitting the keys without stopping
3. All monitors display 2 inch high letters.
4. High-tech computers, such as those used by NASA, the CIA, or some such governmental institution, have easy-to-understand graphical interfaces.
5. Those that don't will have incredibly powerful text-based command shells that can correctly understand and execute commands typed in plain English.
6. Corollary: You can gain access to any information you want by simply typing "ACCESS ALL OF THE SECRET FILES" on any keyboard.
7. Likewise, you can infect a computer with a destructive virus by simply typing "UPLOAD VIRUS." Viruses cause temperatures in computers, just like they do in humans. After a while, smoke billows out of disk drives and monitors.
8. All computers are connected. You can access the information on the villain's desktop computer, even if it's turned off.
9. Powerful computers beep whenever you press a key or whenever the screen changes. Some computers also slow down the output on the screen so that it doesn't go faster than you can read. The *really* advanced ones also emulate the sound of a dot-matrix printer as the characters come across the screen.
10. All computer panels have thousands of volts and flash pots just underneath the surface. Malfunctions are indicated by a bright flash, a puff of smoke, a shower of sparks, and an explosion that forces you backward. (See #7, above)
11. People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data.
12. A hacker can get into the most sensitive computer in the world before intermission and guess the secret password in two tries.
13. Any PERMISSION DENIED has an OVERRIDE function.
14. Complex calculations and loading of huge amounts of data will be accomplished in under three seconds. In the movies, modems transmit data at two gigabytes per second.
15. When the power plant/missile site/whatever overheats, all the control panels will explode, as will the entire building.
16. If you display a file on the screen and someone deletes the file, it also disappears from the screen. There are no ways to copy a backup file -- and there are no undelete utilities.
17. If a disk has encrypted files, you are automatically asked for a password when you try to access it.
18. No matter what kind of computer disk it is, it'll be readable by any system you put it into. All application software is usable by all computer platforms.
19. The more high-tech the equipment, the more buttons it has. However, everyone must have been highly trained, because the buttons aren't labelled.
20. Most computers, no matter how small, have reality-defying three-dimensional, real-time, photo-realistic animated graphics capability.
21. Laptops, for some strange reason, always seem to have amazing real-time video phone capabilities and the performance of a CRAY-MP.
22. Whenever a character looks at a VDU, the image is so bright that it projects itself onto his/her face.
23. Computers never crash during key, high-intensity activities. Humans operating computers never make mistakes under stress.
24. Programs are fiendishly perfect and never have bugs that slow down users.
25. Any photograph can have minute details pulled out of it. You can zoom into any picture as far as you want to.

Be sure to keep an eye peeled for these and other interesting things which NBC is sure to teach the public.

(I'm afraid I don't know the source of this list, so I can't give credit, but if anyone knows, then please speak up!)

Chris

0F things I learned from Y2K: The Movie

[Mister Attack]

1: It doesn't help at all to shut down a nuclear power plant in there's a known problem on the way, because "the fuel will still be warm."

2: The control rods in nuclear power plants care what year it is. The SCRAM button doesn't work anymore in 2000.

3: Ditto for the cooling pumps.

pi: All the gauges in the control room might think everything's okay, but that doesn't matter because "the computer might also think it's 1900." What, nuclear reactors were built stronger back then?

4: When in doubt, tap the gauges: that will make everything ok.

5: 31337 hAxORz use AOL Instant Messenger.

6: 31337 hAxORz like to listen to music that says "I hate my life" over and over.

7: They fixed Apollo 13 using nothing but a hammer.

8: Acetylene and oxygen burn in a 1:1 ratio.

9: It's perfectly alright to walk around inside the containment building of a hot nuclear reactor.

A: Water can cool a nuclear reactor from 4500 degrees without boiling or even getting warm. A corollary to this is that no matter what the core temperature is, the rest of the containment building stays at a nice, cool 72 degrees.

B: Altitude gauges on aircraft care what date it is.

C: Trig calculations can be performed simply by drawing circles on a sheet of notebook paper.

D: If one power plant goes down, the entire eastern seaboard goes with it. Note that the power grid is neatly divided into time zones: We can't get help from the Central time zone, because that would be cheating.

E: All soldiers are too stupid to tell whether a shotgun was fired into the air or directly at them.

F: When in doubt, blow something up to save the day. You get extra credit if there are a lot of big sparks.

Well, that movie was fun _and_ educational! We should make it part of the science curriculum!