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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SilverFox77 who wrote (1713)	5/6/1998 11:39:00 PM
From: jwk	Respond to of 9818

Power Grid Considerations: As I'm sure all of you remember from your geography courses, the new day begins at 12 midnight on the International Dateline which zigs and zags a bit through the western Pacific as it makes it way between the north and south poles. And, since the earth rotates from the west to the east (which makes the sun appear to move from the east to the west) at the rate of 15 degress of longitude every hour, the year 2000 will move inexorably westward towards us for almost 20 hours before it arrives in the USA. This means that we will have the opportunity to watch and see how power grids in Japan, Australia, and the rest of Asia react to 00. A few hours later we will see if India, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa have succeeded in protecting their power grids. Next will be Europe's trial-by-calendar. Will the EU's power be flowing so that EU'ers can gratefully pay their energy bills with their new EU$'s? Then, there will be a couple of hours break as 00 makes its way across the Atlantic. By then we should have a pretty good indication of whether or not it is going to arrive as the iceberg for our Titanic. If all or most of the rest of the world is celebrating the new year with power and utilities intact, then we can hold our breaths and hope that we will be too. If we have watched region after region suffer various degrees of power problems, I think it's a reasonable bet to think that many Americans may be spending New Year's Eve day in a determined attempt to put-up last minute supplies rather than to get ready for the big party. The basic facts of our human created system for marking the arrival and spread of the new day has put us in the position of standing on the stern of the great ship of civilization as it steams headlong into the perils of a 00 filled sea. We will see and know what happens to those in the bow several hours before it happens to us. Weird. Enjoy the Ride.