At 03:52 22/12/99 -0800, Sean Donelan wrote: In regards to self fulfilling prophecies: The phone companies won't admit it but they are scared that at 1 second past midnight, everyone will say to themselves, "Hmmm, lights are still on, I wonder if the phones have stopped working?" and then within 1 minute, millions of people will be lifting their phones off the hooks to check dial-tone. You know what happens when that happens. :-) -Hank

As Alan points out, it looks like silly season will be in full swing. Here is a site claiming it will check the top web sites in the world, and if 5% aren't responding at 1 minute before midnight (pick your time zone) a major disaster has happened.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/991222/inferno200_1.html

As has been pointed out before, many sites plan to shutdown their web

sites or

disconnect from the Internet over the New Year's weekend. Which I guess is a self-fulling prediction. The Internet is still considered an "extra" and not a necessary connection like the telephone or ATM. I haven't heard anyone suggesting they would turn off their ATMs, even though they are Y2K ready, just to be safe.

You can read ATM as representing either acronym.