Terrible framing from NPR. The Y2K bug "didn't live up to hype" because the "hype" helped motivate and fund an effort to fix it, which succeeded. Sometimes it *is* possible to fix things. - ThreadSky

humantransit.bsky.social • 62 days ago

Terrible framing from NPR. The Y2K bug "didn't live up to hype" because the "hype" helped motivate and fund an effort to fix it, which succeeded.

Sometimes it *is* possible to fix things.

Reposted from NPR

People feared the computer glitch would mean "the end of the world as we know it." Thankfully, Y2K didn't live up to the hype after years and billions of dollars were spent on painstaking preparation.

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westalliscycleguy.bsky.social•61 days ago

As someone who was on the front lines of the Y2K fight I can whole heartedly agree. It was because we expressed the concerns and got people to listen

bluejo.bsky.social•62 days ago

My husband fixed the software that ran the elevators in a major hospital in Dublin four hours before midnight on NYE 1999. Without him they would have just stopped working. People might have died and would have suffered.

This is tiny, but also huge. Lots of people worked hard to keep things working

humantransit.bsky.social•62 days ago

It is sad to think that by 1999 elevators were already overcomplicated to the point that they needed to keep track of the date. Soon they will be managed by AI, so that they can fail in even more nuanced and inscrutable ways. We must always be innovating new ways to trap people in broken elevators.

eerieredlight.bsky.social•62 days ago

How else are mysterious strangers going to meet and eventually fall in love?

humantransit.bsky.social•62 days ago

You’re right. If the elevator companies merged with the dating app companies, making elevators reliable would become more urgent, since real life encounters would be bad for
business.

mmullany.bsky.social•62 days ago

“Millions were spent inventing and distributing a polio vaccine, but now no one gets polio. Was that money well spent?”

humantransit.bsky.social•62 days ago

We may find out soon!

ultimategotea.bsky.social•62 days ago

It's like joking about acid rain or the ozone hole being fake when (in bad faith) arguing about climate change. Those were very, very real and we actually had the cajones to fix them.

alvarado.social•61 days ago

You didn’t even read the whole headline, did you?

bjornradstrom.bsky.social•62 days ago

See also: the ozone layer

defilerwyrm.art•62 days ago

I was in the high school class of '01 & recall having to do an essay on what I thought would happen with Y2K. I was dismissive then—but that just goes to show how crap the reporting has been even since 1999 about how hard so many people worked to avert disaster!

laurinanewmie.bsky.social•62 days ago

My dad wasn’t allowed any sort of traveling PTO the year prior and following Y2K as he prepped his company’s systems. He worked his butt off. Rang in the New Year in front of the company’s server.

pedestrianman.bsky.social•62 days ago

To be fair, the story's author may have been in kindergarten in 2000.

corleonelennon.bsky.social•62 days ago

I will add my mother was shocked when I said I was going to Hanoi as a tourist. She only knew the name as a place that was the capital of the place our side was fighting and was being bombed. But I know and understand why she thought that way. Generations need to be curious about what came before

corleonelennon.bsky.social•62 days ago

Not it isnt being fair. I know the history of things that happened before I was born and if this history is in credible sources, I trust its truth and significance. It seems to be a deficiency of the younger generation

bikefit.bsky.social•62 days ago

From the Guardian:

Internationally, 15 nuclear reactors shut down; the oil pumping station in Yumurtalik failed, cutting off supplies to Istanbul; there were power cuts in Hawaii and government computers failed in China and Hong Kong

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/31/millennium-bug-face-fears-y2k-it-systems

wudang96.bsky.social•62 days ago

Hello. Anybody over at NPR old enough to understand what 1900 and 2000 have in common inside massive databases? transaction systems? => where the year was stored as two digits? No? Meh? Why a transaction dated 00 (interpreted as 1900) might be just a little teeny problematic in the year 2000?

henrikbechmann.bsky.social•62 days ago

Yup! I fixed a bunch of problems myself. It was totally real.

andykeatts.bsky.social•62 days ago

that’s what the 11 words after “hype” express.

unchi.org•62 days ago

That's why it's terrible framing (as OP said), not a terrible article.

andykeatts.bsky.social•61 days ago

Yea if you ignore half of the words in the tweet, the framing of the tweet is bad. Granted, that’s a big part of how press criticism on social media.

unchi.org•61 days ago

Framing is about choosing words that communicate what you want to express.

“Didn’t live up to the hype” are words that are used to minimize issues.

“Seems like a joke now” are words used to minimize issues.

NPR chose poor words to express this.

andykeatts.bsky.social•61 days ago

NPR’s words are perfectly fine. We all know how to read and shouldn’t pretend otherwise (or, as is more common, we shouldn’t acknowledge that we know how to read, but condescendingly pretend that other people can’t.)

unchi.org•61 days ago

I don’t know who you’re accusing of condescension here, but I’m speaking for myself. I reacted with indignation when I saw the NPR headline. After I read the article I found it reasonable, but still found the headline and lede to be a misleading way to frame the story.

humantransit.bsky.social•61 days ago

NPR’s headline (not the article) is what I’m referring to. Read the replies and you’ll see lots of people who remember Y2K agreeing with me.

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