The times they are a-changing, and our lives might hang in the balance.
That might be a little dramatic, but don’t bet on it. This year, daylight-saving time is starting three weeks earlier than normal, on March 11, and will end a week later than normal, after Halloween.
I never really did understand the concept of daylight-saving time, but I hear the change is a good thing: We’ll use less light in the evening, it’ll be brighter when kids are trick-or-treating, people will have something to complain about.
But there is one possible downer: The timing glitch may interfere with the world’s computer calendars, possibly making people late for appointments, and--worst-case--allowing machines to become self-aware, rise up and wage thermonuclear war on mankind.
Sound familiar? It’s the same thing everyone thought would happen on Dec. 31, 1999, when the clock ticked over to midnight. Because computers read the date as “’99” instead of “1999,” people were afraid when it ticked over to “’00” the machines would think it was 1900, and all mankind’s impressive advancements would instantly regress into butter churns.
The sky was gonna fall, and everyone took the precautionary measures the experts were advising: They loaded up their pantries with baked beans, bottled water and Spam.
Which makes you wonder, with the distance of time: Why was Y2K the one alarm everybody listened to?
I mean, noboby listens to anything else anybody warns about.
Too much pollution going to bake the world? Liberal hoax. Smoking going to wreck your lungs? We all gotta die somehow. Weak levees won’t be able to protect our coolest Gulf Coast city from even a minimal hurricane? Hurricane—that’s my favorite drink!
I’m sure there’s a good psychological reason for that—there’s some things we think we understand, like tobacco and the weather, and other things we don’t understand, like computers, and the Gremlins inside them.
But I don’t really care about all that psychobabble. What I propose is, somebody build a time machine so we can send Arnold Schwarzenegger back to 1998 to warn us that we’re about to look ridiculous. And to tell me to cut that mullet.
The only good think that came out of Y2K was Chris Jericho getting to call himself Y2J. That was awesome. The jury’s still out on this new daylight savings time, although one strike against it is that it’s going to be bright out when you’re trick-or-treating. Which means if you’re dressed if as a vampire, that’s one less hour you’re allowed to come out.
And who knows what it will do to our computers? The experts say it won’t be too bad, except maybe your TiVo forgets to tape “House.”
Let’s hope the computer guys are right, and this glitch is just a wrinkle in time.
At the very least, keep Arnold Schwarzenegger on standby.
Dear columnist Jacob Bennett, at 8 a.m. today someone poisons the coffee. Do not drink the coffee. More instructions to follow. Cordially, Future jacobmbennett@hotmail.com.
That might be a little dramatic, but don’t bet on it. This year, daylight-saving time is starting three weeks earlier than normal, on March 11, and will end a week later than normal, after Halloween.
I never really did understand the concept of daylight-saving time, but I hear the change is a good thing: We’ll use less light in the evening, it’ll be brighter when kids are trick-or-treating, people will have something to complain about.
But there is one possible downer: The timing glitch may interfere with the world’s computer calendars, possibly making people late for appointments, and--worst-case--allowing machines to become self-aware, rise up and wage thermonuclear war on mankind.
Sound familiar? It’s the same thing everyone thought would happen on Dec. 31, 1999, when the clock ticked over to midnight. Because computers read the date as “’99” instead of “1999,” people were afraid when it ticked over to “’00” the machines would think it was 1900, and all mankind’s impressive advancements would instantly regress into butter churns.
The sky was gonna fall, and everyone took the precautionary measures the experts were advising: They loaded up their pantries with baked beans, bottled water and Spam.
Which makes you wonder, with the distance of time: Why was Y2K the one alarm everybody listened to?
I mean, noboby listens to anything else anybody warns about.
Too much pollution going to bake the world? Liberal hoax. Smoking going to wreck your lungs? We all gotta die somehow. Weak levees won’t be able to protect our coolest Gulf Coast city from even a minimal hurricane? Hurricane—that’s my favorite drink!
I’m sure there’s a good psychological reason for that—there’s some things we think we understand, like tobacco and the weather, and other things we don’t understand, like computers, and the Gremlins inside them.
But I don’t really care about all that psychobabble. What I propose is, somebody build a time machine so we can send Arnold Schwarzenegger back to 1998 to warn us that we’re about to look ridiculous. And to tell me to cut that mullet.
The only good think that came out of Y2K was Chris Jericho getting to call himself Y2J. That was awesome. The jury’s still out on this new daylight savings time, although one strike against it is that it’s going to be bright out when you’re trick-or-treating. Which means if you’re dressed if as a vampire, that’s one less hour you’re allowed to come out.
And who knows what it will do to our computers? The experts say it won’t be too bad, except maybe your TiVo forgets to tape “House.”
Let’s hope the computer guys are right, and this glitch is just a wrinkle in time.
At the very least, keep Arnold Schwarzenegger on standby.
Dear columnist Jacob Bennett, at 8 a.m. today someone poisons the coffee. Do not drink the coffee. More instructions to follow. Cordially, Future jacobmbennett@hotmail.com.
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