I had a nice little column planned for this week, but then my Y2K show aired, and the response was so completely negative it just can't be ignored. Of course, this is what happens when people go on TV and express clear predictions about something as emotionally packed as Y2K. It comes with the territory. What you will find below are the first six e-mail messages I received about the show, reproduced in their entirety. I decided to take six off the top because it seemed to me to be a methodology that I could defend against further criticism.

The general theme of these messages, of course, is that I am an idiot,and an irresponsible idiot at that. Well, my Mom continues to like me, or she did until this week, and I continue to stand behind the material presented in my Y2K show.

Yes, it is a complex topic that probably had to be over-simplified for TV. Yes, my statements are more sanguine than those of many "experts" in the Y2K community. No, I haven't devoted my professional life to this problem. And yes, I might be wrong. Nobody can say for sure what will happen in January until we are actually in January. That's why we plan a follow-up to air on PBS January 20, 2000. If I really blew it with my predictions and if there is electrical power to run televisions and if people aren't too busy rioting in the streets to watch, you might get to see me fall on my sword then.

(Editor's note: None of the following e-mails have been corrected for grammar, etc.)

From: "Larry Schaeffer"
To: bob@cringely.com
Subject: You are truly a fool and may possibly harm many people if you're wrong.
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 14:33:52 -0700
X-Priority: 3

Do you have a brain or are you just a lackey to the banks and the political order. 40 percent of small businesses will not make it. 44 percent of large businesses also will not make it. Do you mean to tell me that embedded chip are nothing to worry about?!!! I could go on and on citing industries that are going to have problems. There are 48 work days to left to complete and test the work. What independent verification do you have that foreign financial institutions are compliant. The Banking system is global, tied together in a huge system. Do you understand what cascading cross defaults mean to the banking system. Show me independent verification that the telecommunication industry is compliant. If telecommunications go down so does banking and the power grid.

I have no interest in seeing the system go down. I like what technology has done for my life. I also have a brain that I use, and let me tell you if I could see data that confirms your position I would be a most happy man.

Unfortunately people like you paint a don't worry be happy scenario without real independently verified facts to back up your position. You should be ashamed. if Y2K hits hard, it will be people like you who will be responsible for many people not preparing and suffering hardship that could be avoided. Why is it so bad for people to make some preparation for there families. What it really comes down to is that Fractional Reserve Banking and protecting it are more important than fellow human beings. I truly feel sorry for you.

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 19:34:06 -0400
From: Lisa Perry
Subject: Y2K/Disconnect show: SHAME on PBS and on R. Cringley !! :(
To: cringely@PBS.ORG

Dear PBS:

For many years I have been one of your biggest fans. My husband, sons (ages 9 and 4) and myself watch hundreds of hours of PBS programming every year and appreciate every minute of programming. However...We will not be watching the PBS show, cleverly titled, "Y2K: The Winter of our Disconnect." My husband and I were pleased that PBS would be doing such a show, UNTIL we read the "preview" and review by Robert X. Cringley. Now we are disappointed, frustrated, and hopping mad! Promoting this show was at best, ill informed and misleading, at at worst, negligent. This show is not in line with your usual high standards for investigative reporting and educational value.

Mr. Cringley has done the American people and PBS a HUGE disservice. His preview reveals that, instead of doing a fact-finding research piece to search for the truth of which probably 99 percent of the American people are not yet aware, he is further perpetuating the idea that those who are preparing for disruptions are "nuts" and that everything is "okay." All he would have had to focus on was two industries: water treatment plants and oil. Neither industry is yet to be compliant with only several weeks to go before 01/01/00. Do you drink water? Does it come from a treatment plant that is not yet compliant?? Most of the small to medium-sized plants are not compliant. If you're 100 percent certain that your water will be clean and safe to drink, how about the source of water for your closest relatives? Do you drive a car to and from work and to run errands? Does our country still import approximately 50 percent of our oil which we consume at a far greater quantity than we did during the oil crisis of 1973-74??

No, I don't think Y2K is going to be the end of the world or a complete breakdown in society however, I am expecting severe disruptions and many people becoming ill or dying from drinking unsafe and unclean water. I am expecting oil shortages, sky-high prices and perhaps rationing of oil at some point next year, not on January 1. Instead of *educating* people, which PBS *usually* does an exceptional job, you will be further dumbing us down as the government has succeeded at doing with the media spin control campaign.

What I really would like to know, is WHY is viewed as irrational to PRUDENTLY prepare? Haven't we learned anything from the Great Depression? What the heck is wrong with stocking up on water, food and supplies that I can use anyway? Do you have car, health and life insurance? Do you hope to have a reason to use your insurance, or do you purchase the insurance regardless as a precaution "just in case?"

Stocking up and preparing is my family's y2k insurance. We hope to God that we won't have a need to use it, but if we do, we will be prepared. Preparing for y2k does not mean that we are "religious fundamentalists or survivalists" as Mr. Cringley has wrongly labelled us. Thankfully, if y2k turns out to be not as rosy as the picture being painted, we will not have to rely on the National Guard or on FEMA for our food, water or supplies.

It's time that preparing was viewed as the right thing to do. PBS could have helped to promote that view point. Shame on PBS and endless quantities of shame on Robert X. Cringley. I believe that X marks the spot for "didn't do his homework."

Sincerely,

Lisa Perry

From: "Gary Marzec"
To: bob@cringely.com
Subject: y2k as a hardware problem
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 21:54:55 -0400
X-Priority: 3

Bob,

Come on now. do you really think all the CTO's are now calling their managers and asking them why they don't just bolt some pc's onto the mainframes to roll back the dates in every corporate database in america? like all they have to do is make the cables fit? no software required!! yeah, right. it's a hardware problem.

If you think the "software gods" in IT need this to hang onto their empires, you're even more insane, they've done a really good job of that without y2k.

I would like to thank you for the opportunity i will now have to convince my technology illiterate friends that programmers of the 70's (were you born then?) would have been fired if they suggested spending another $10K (in "1979 dollars") on a $40K system with 32K of memory and a 1/4 MB floppy drive so that they could carry around a bunch of identical 19's on a system that had a projected life span of 5 years.

The problem here is plain and simple short sightedness and, as usual, false economy. to claim that the IT boys are sandbagging on purpose is ... (well, now I'm back to that thing about bolting PC's to mainframes to filter data which is too absurd to discuss and I promise I won't ridicule that idea in this paragraph again). anyway, yes, you're right in your conclusions regarding the overblown nature of the y2k mania, but i don't buy the rest of your theories on this anymore than i'd buy your used airplanes. in fact, i sense a bit of that same "why won't they believe me? this is a great idea!!" attitude you expressed in that program when you tried to convince real engineers that you could design a mid engined airplane from scratch and build it in a month. what an ego!!!! when i was 10 i had a propeller that i thought i could build a gyrocopter from. at least you had a subaru engine. sorry, those must be painful memories. but it's hard to listen to this from a person who thinks he can design and build airplanes from scratch when he hasn't quite mastered laying up fiberglass. are you as experienced in computer engineering? i was looking for your credentials on the pbs web site and didn't see them.

So, on behalf of software ENGINEERS everywhere, thanks for putting down some of the irrational fears surrounding this y2k mania, but (comment removed by editor).

Thanks, I feel better now, and i did like your thing on jobs and gates. but i don't like the trend since then.

gary marzec

From: "Frank McHarg">
To: bob@cringely.com
Subject: Winter of our Disconnect
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 22:36:35 -0400
X-Priority: 3

I just watched your program, "Y2K:The Winter of our Disconnect", and I was dismayed by one particular piece of information that you provided, the inaccuracy of which caused me to question everything else you said. To be fair, the misapprehension under which you are apparently labouring is a common one shared by millions of misinformed individuals, none of whom have the faintest idea why they believe it in the first place. Do you? You stated that the Y2K problem coincides with the new millenium. This is so obviously untrue, that I have to wonder why you would allow such a public display of your chronological ignorance to air. On the off chance that no-one has bothered to explain it to you, let me give you a few simple facts with which you should be able to work out for yourself, why the 3rd millennium does not begin until the end of the year 2000. First of all, there was no year zero. The calendar we use is of Roman origin and the Romans did not use zero as a number. Eg.the year 2000 is MM in Roman numerals. Why would they designate a year with a number that, to them, didn't exist? And if they had, then all leap years would be on odd numbered years. Since this is obviously not the case (2000 is a leap year.), I think we can safely assume that they began with year one (albeit, retroactively). Secondly, ask yourself this: "What year did we celebrate the beginning of last New Years eve?". The answer is 1999, of course, meaning that, when this year ends at midnight on Dec.31st, we will have said goodbye to one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Therefore, unless one millenium equals nine hundred and ninety-nine and a half years, there will still be one year left to go in this century/millennium. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why so many people, yourself included, are unable to grasp this simple concept.

If I am wrong about any of this, please feel free to set me straight. In fact, I would be intensely interested in any reason whatsoever you or anyone else might have for believing that this is the last year of this millennium.

Sincerely,

Frank McHarg

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1999 22:59:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Badura
Subject: I liked your Y2K special
To: bob@cringely.com

Hi Bob, Thanks for plugging your special in your last column. It was a reminder to me to watch it tonight. Over here on the east coast it already finished running on PBS, and I liked it. After the PBS special, I switched to NBC to watch the rest of the world series, and I saw an NBC promo about their November movies and specials. One movie that airs next month is called "Y2K: The Movie" ... later in the broadcast, NBC had a special promo of this particular movie. It looked like one of the Irwin Allen disaster films from the '70s (remember "The Towering Inferno?). What a riot. I laughed so hard at that TV movie trailer.I think PBS should rerun your Y2k-winter special this New Years Eve.
-Tom Badura