Re: millenial madness

Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Thu, 9 Dec 1999 20:04:10 -0800 (PST)

On Thu, 9 Dec 1999, Zeb Haradon wrote:

> I've read about this too.. but everyone is not in the same time zone.. it
> won't be 12:01 everywhere at the same time, everyone won't pick up their
> phone at the same time.
> But I guess even 1 out of 24 of 6 billion is still a lot of phones.
>
>

Ok, the point is raised, you don't want to call your "local" computer/operator just after midnight. However that says nothing about initiating a call 10 minutes before "local" midnight and hanging onto it for 20 minutes. What is needed is a hub to manage the traffic.

Dial-tone is your local carrier problem. It says nothing about the world-net capacity. I have seen nothing that makes me believe that at midnight or shortly thereafter, calls will be terminated. Phone companies don't terminate calls -- they are making money off of them.

Natasha is right, we need a schedule -- who will call whom who is willing to talk to the collective "whoms" at specific timepoints (if you don't have a cell-phone, get one, I can't think of anything other than a life threatening emergency that would justify it more). You want to be in it for the whole cycle. I'll admit 24 calls in 24 hours might get tedious, but every four hours or so and it could be a blast. That being the case, I think we have to lean on Damien (or another gregarious Aussie [do they even come in non gregarious forms?] to start it off...

(Of course we also want a failsafe or two to deal with the problem that people get lost due to circmstances beyond their control and we start clammoring that the world is ending....)

Damien.... Damien, can you hear me?... DAMIEN ARE YOU THERE?...

Oh, Eb tvoyu mat', hello, can anyone hear me...

Robert, this is John, we still hear you fine here, but we seem to have lost LA.

Anders here, *REALLY*, you mean to say that we might have really *lost* LA!?! ... "ODIN", oh god of gods, let me never doubt you again for granting my wishes that that Luddite Creation Zone be sucked up into the tar pits. Natasha and Max, if you can still hear me..., Bygones. It may be cloudy and dreary here, but I *did* send you an invitation to the party.

A rhowdy chorus in the background (with strange kind of Texan accents breaks into song):

Ding dong, LA is dead
LA, *fahnallllly* is dead

A small voice in the background pipes up -- "If LA took Arizona and New Mexico with it, does this mean we now have more waterfront property?

R.