I'm feeling pretty indestructible right now. After all, I've survived yet another apocalyptic event. The Mayan calendar thing was just the latest in a dozen or so since I've been born. That makes me a pro at them or, perhaps, it just makes me old.
Thinking back to some of the apocalyptic predictions I've witnessed, the Mayan one has been one of the coolest. I loved all the silly memes and funny comic takes.
The apocalypse. Such good times.
Not all of the predictions have been fun. Like in 1997 when the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, Marshall Applewhite convinced his 38 followers to commit suicide with him so their souls could evacuate earth on a spacecraft trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet. That was so sad. Other predictions have just been wacky, like the Nibiru cataclysm in 2003, when a nutty Nancy Lieder claimed aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system had passed messages to her through a brain implant, telling her that another planet would enter our solar system, causing a polar shift on the earth that would end in humanity's destruction.
The one I remember the most has to be the Y2K scare that took place in 1999. Why? Becuase, for once, there was an element of truth to all the madness. More than a few people were really freaked out. This was the deal: During the 1960s through to the late 1980s, software companies used two digits to represent a year (1984 was just "84"). As the 1990s drew near, they realized there might be a problem when the year 2000 came around. Would computers think the "00" meant 2000 or would they interpret it as 1900? If the answer was 1900, it would throw off many major industries, including utilities, airlines, manufacturing, and banking. The threat was real and everybody in the industry raced to fix the time bomb as it ticked away. Come 12:01 a.m., January 1, 2000, all the computers we depended on would fail us.
NOOOOOOOO!
Of course, that didn't happen. Computer programmers around the world made sure of it. But that didn't mean there weren't folks who cashed in on the crisis, selling supplies in case the end of the world was near. Journalists may have also exploited the hype, filling newspapers and magazines with tales of apocalyptic woe. There may even have been a bad action movie called Y2K where Lou Gossett, Jr. spares the world from eminent destruction set in motion by the millennium bug.
Below is something my son found at a library sale a few months ago. It's computer software designed to help your computer "survive the millennium bug!" You could "protect your PC while there's still time!"
Thinking back to some of the apocalyptic predictions I've witnessed, the Mayan one has been one of the coolest. I loved all the silly memes and funny comic takes.
The apocalypse. Such good times.
Not all of the predictions have been fun. Like in 1997 when the leader of the Heaven's Gate cult, Marshall Applewhite convinced his 38 followers to commit suicide with him so their souls could evacuate earth on a spacecraft trailing the Hale-Bopp Comet. That was so sad. Other predictions have just been wacky, like the Nibiru cataclysm in 2003, when a nutty Nancy Lieder claimed aliens from the Zeta Reticuli star system had passed messages to her through a brain implant, telling her that another planet would enter our solar system, causing a polar shift on the earth that would end in humanity's destruction.
The one I remember the most has to be the Y2K scare that took place in 1999. Why? Becuase, for once, there was an element of truth to all the madness. More than a few people were really freaked out. This was the deal: During the 1960s through to the late 1980s, software companies used two digits to represent a year (1984 was just "84"). As the 1990s drew near, they realized there might be a problem when the year 2000 came around. Would computers think the "00" meant 2000 or would they interpret it as 1900? If the answer was 1900, it would throw off many major industries, including utilities, airlines, manufacturing, and banking. The threat was real and everybody in the industry raced to fix the time bomb as it ticked away. Come 12:01 a.m., January 1, 2000, all the computers we depended on would fail us.
NOOOOOOOO!
Of course, that didn't happen. Computer programmers around the world made sure of it. But that didn't mean there weren't folks who cashed in on the crisis, selling supplies in case the end of the world was near. Journalists may have also exploited the hype, filling newspapers and magazines with tales of apocalyptic woe. There may even have been a bad action movie called Y2K where Lou Gossett, Jr. spares the world from eminent destruction set in motion by the millennium bug.
Below is something my son found at a library sale a few months ago. It's computer software designed to help your computer "survive the millennium bug!" You could "protect your PC while there's still time!"
If you ever wondered what the millennium bug actually looked like, you can spot it in the upper right-hand corner.
A hand is holding a stopwatch? Holy computer failure, Batman! That means time is running out!
Anyway, somehow we managed to survive the ordeal. I put another notch in my belt. If I live through a few more incidents like this, I just might try to become an action movie hero. Think Lou Gossett, Jr. would be willing to share the spotlight with me?
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