Letter: Millennium bomb
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Nicholas Lumsden (Letters, 23 September) is suffering from a common reaction to the year 2000 problem: denial. His suggestion that users should simply wind forward their computer clocks to 2001 is impractical, misses the scale of the problem but, most important, simply will not work. The difficulty is not in recognising the year 2000 per se but with computers understanding that the years "00", "01", etc, come after "99".
Even if his idea were feasible, it makes the basic assumption that this is a problem which affects only personal computers, and has a single solution. Unfortunately, as IT directors across the world are discovering, this is not the case.
Helena Sturridge
Editor, Computer Weekly
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments