Letter From Norm
April 1999
Dear Casual Cartographers:
I don't know the author of the following letter, but it might shed some
light on the Year 2000 issue. By the way, we now have an official Year 2000 Statement posted on our Web site. If you
haven't had your fill of Year 2K humor, read on:
Translated from Latin scroll dated 2BC:
"Dear Cassius:"
"Are you still working on the Y-Zero-K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving
us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope
with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we
have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it
earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last minute."
"I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done something
about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could see why Brutus turned
nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC
won't work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful."
"Surely we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard
will make yet another fortune out of this I suppose."
"The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that
all usury rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to takeout loans. Its
an ill wind ......"
"As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. We have
heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been working on the problem, but
unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all over."
"I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight
at the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run backwards,
causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life. Some say the world will
cease to exist at the moment of transition."
"Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K
problem. I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops."
"If you have any ideas please let me know,"
signed "Plutonius"
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