[2956] in Humor
HUMOR: The way all Y2K statements should be...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik Nygren)
Tue Sep 28 12:15:06 1999
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 12:13:56 EDT
From: Erik Nygren <nygren@MIT.EDU>
------- Forwarded Message
From: terry@cs.cmu.edu
From: http://www.hartscientific.com/y2k.htm
This is our Y2K absolutely unofficial page. It's not a
statement. It's not a disclosure. However, it is about Y2K.
If you want our official Y2K statement and disclosure,
you'll have to call us (or click here) to get your copy.
Welcome to our unofficial Y2K page. It's filled with totally
unofficial stuff which can't be relied upon by anyone for
any reason, but it's okay to enjoy it. In fact, we hope you
like it so much you'll stop sending us those twenty page
long, complex questionnaires, which of course we never send
back.
The first thing you need to do to prepare for the Y2K crisis
is to finish reading this web page before January 1, 2000.
After Jan 1, this page will still be posted in cyberspace,
but because the world will be coming to an end as a result
of power grid failures and inadvertent launching of nuclear
weapons, you probably won't be able to hook up to the web,
even if you stop foraging for food and your portable power
generator has enough spare amps for surfing.
However, we do have some good news for you! If the world
does come to a halt on January 1, 2000, or within a few days
thereafter, it won't be because of Hart Scientific
instruments. Nope, if you're having a bad Y2K day, it won't
be because of us.
None of our instruments use dates--well, almost none. Only
the 1560 Black Stack, 1575 Super Thermometer and 1590 Super
Thermometer II use dates, but the dates are input by the
user. Therefore, if you're the user and you're Y2K
compliant, your Hart thermometer will be too. So, whenever
the power grid is up and running again, all you'll have to
do is input the correct date and time and you're good for
another millennium. For the other 100 or so Hart
instruments, you don't have to do anything except turn them
on.
In addition to our instruments, we've tested all of the
software we sell. Because we wrote all of the packages, we
know how they work. We can't find any problems with any of
them. We're not saying we're Y2K experts because we're not.
We've tried every test we can think of and so far there are
no problems. However, if for some unfortunate reason your
computer fails to turn on, or if it melts down right after
it boots up, there's a significant chance our software won't
work either. Oh, if your computer feeds our software the
wrong date and time from your computer's internal clock, our
software is going to put the wrong date on your data. You
better check your computer clock for its Y2K compliance.
Let's summarize all of this. WE CAN'T FIND ANY Y2K PROBLEMS
WITH ANY OF OUR INSTRUMENTS OR OUR SOFTWARE---PRIMARILY
BECAUSE 98% OF OUR STUFF DOESN'T USE DATES, AND THE STUFF
THAT DOES HAS PASSED EVERY TEST WE CAN THINK OF!!
Okay, anybody got any questions?
Need more? We've got it for you.
What about our own internal software programs and computer
systems-things like our accounting packages? Of course, we
tested our own systems in every way we could think of also,
and everything passed.
Even if our accounting software stops working on January 3,
2000, you can count on us finding a way to bill you for
whatever you bought from us prior to Armageddon. Even if we
have to write your invoice on the back of bubble gum
wrappers, we're going to bill you. This is the promise our
lawyers made to us and it's the same promise we're going to
make to you. It's the only thing we're going to guarantee
you-but at least we're guaranteeing something.
We've checked our 401K and payroll programs too. They work!
Imagine how glad our employees are. You can stop asking us
if we're going to continue to check these programs, because
the answer is simple. We all want our payroll program to cut
those checks on time. If any banks are still operating after
January 3, 2000, we want to be able to deposit our checks in
them. Of course, once world peace is restored, and we're all
living under one world wide government and monetary system,
our dollars won't be worth much anymore. However, we will
still need toilet paper so everybody will probably be asking
to be paid in ones.
Unfortunately, we can't answer many questions about our
external suppliers. We aren't expecting many problems, but
who knows! We're contacting 20 of our largest suppliers and
maybe they'll tell us something and maybe they won't. We've
got a lot of suppliers. We already know some of them are
pretty good and some of them are idiots. We don't expect the
Y2K problem to change this.
Well, that's pretty much all we've got to say-almost. Our
lawyers tell us we can't promise you anything regarding Y2K
(except maybe the part about collecting our money). If
you're using our equipment with someone else's gear, who the
hell knows what's going to happen. We sure don't, so how can
we promise you something specific, or even vague for that
matter? We can't, so we won't. However, we love our
customers and like always we'll do whatever is reasonable to
solve whatever problems come up, if there are any.
If life as we know it comes to an end when everyone wakes up
to flashing lights on their alarm clocks the morning of
January 1st, please remember to keep all of the memories of
the good times you had with your Hart temperature
calibration equipment. Don't ever let the memories die!
Right after Armageddon, using your temperature calibration
instruments may come in a little low on Maslow's hierarchy
of needs. Food, shelter and ISO 9000 compliance may come
first, but don't worry, as soon as there is a millikelvin to
be measured, we'll be there helping you get your job done
faster and better than ever before.
Nothing on this web page supercedes our official policy, and
it is very official, so get your copy today if you feel you
need to read it. You can get a copy of it by writing on a
plain 3 X 5 card 'SEND ME A COPY OF YOUR OFFICIAL Y2K POLICY
EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT ORDERING AT THIS TIME.' Put your
complete name and address on the card and send it to us.
We'll send you an official copy of our official policy, or
you could just call us and we'll mail it to you, or just
click here to get to our official Y2K page. There are so
many ways to get it, how much easier can we make it?
Now what happens if YOUR accounting software doesn't work
next January? Don't bother calling us with that feeble
excuse. Just pick up a pen, open the old checkbook, and HAND
WRITE US A CHECK! If you have any employees old enough to
remember life before computers, have them help you with
this. The world actually existed before spreadsheets. It was
a narrow, somewhat boring existence, but in a pinch it will
still do.
So what scares us about Y2K? The only thing we really worry
about is the over reaction of some obsessive people, and
we're not talking about the nut cases burying Y2K compliant
ammo in mountain caves, we're talking about what people say
to us when we tell them we're not sending their
questionnaire back. Wow! Mass panic could cause a mess. We
recommend you keep your cool, buy some Dinty Moore's beef
stew in cans, and lay in a good supply of toilet paper.
Before you start thinking that we just don't get it, yes we
do. Many of our employees were actually there the day COBOL
was invented. Some of them started their computing careers
on an IBM 1620 mainframe that was slower than a Casio
calculator. The nights were long back then.
We do have one suggestion. Turn off all the equipment in
your lab before you go home for New Year's eve. If
Armageddon does happen, you won't care about the lab, and if
everything continues along as usual, you'll have fun turning
everything back on January 3rd to see if it all works.
Yes, we know it's also a leap year. Since the beginning of
time we've had about five of them. There has never been a
Hart product fail because of a leap year, at least not
during a leap year when we were keeping records. Don't call,
and don't ask. Of course our instruments are all going to
work just fine on February 31st just like every other day of
the year.
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Last Modified: 09/17/99
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