Q&A Archive: Nothing Y2K Compliant?

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Don wrote:

Hi. I was impressed with nothing at your site. You have, by far, exceeded my expectations with respect to nothing and I felt compelled to comment on nothing at all.

I have been using nothing for years, and until recently, nothing was acceptable. But, I have a question; Is nothing Y2K compliant? Can I get a certified letter stating that nothing is Y2K? On Jan 1, 2000, will nothing function? I depend on nothing for almost everything. My wife thinks about nothing all day. My kids play with nothing, and I make my living getting better and better at nothing each day. (No I don't work for the government - I'm not that good at doing nothing).
I need more. Where can I get next to nothing?

To which I replied:

Don,

I'm glad you were impressed by nothing. Some may say that one who is impressed by nothing is easily impressed. If you know nothing like I do, you understand how difficult it can be to get all worked up over "it".

So, someone who is impressed by nothing is hardly impressed. (That is as opposed to easily (however not opposed as in opposite, just different.)

I'm glad to hear you and your family have been enjoying our products. (I use the term products in the sense far beyond the loosest possible sense, and by such statement mean lack thereof.) Nonetheless I enjoy hearing positive feedback about nothing (it's really difficult to come by these days).

Now on to your Y2K problem.

If you mean nothing at all...

I can not guarantee that nothing will work on (or after) January 1, 2000. In fact, it is my painful obligation to inform you that some things will be working that day. I could go into exhaustive detail... but... actually I don't have the time (so I can't).

If you mean nothing in general...

Yes, you have my guarantee that nothing will function on into eternity. Nothing lasts forever. Nothing will function perfectly, forever. Nothing will have nothing to do with the Y2K problems that will pop up shortly. In fact, on effected systems mission critical data may be lost, systems may fail, programs may halt or have fatal errors.

What does this mean? Nothing. No more errors, blue screens, lockups, shutdowns, disconnects, routeflaps, collisions, fragments, truncations... I could go on and on... but... actually...

Yes, January 1, 2000 is install nothing day! It's not a Y2K problem it's NO/OS extravaganza! A black hole blowout! I could go on and on...

If I only had the time.

Anyway, no, you can't get a certified letter nothing will work because it could be taken to mean that everything will stop.

All I'm saying is something will go wrong ... but never nothing.

Xymyl (KON)

P.S. I take exception to your statement about government workers being good at doing nothing. Yes, there are some government workers who seem to be doing nothing, but how did they get there? That's right, they had to walk to the bus.