Re: remind you of y2k bug lol
The problem with the hype about the y2k bug is evidenced in your post:
planes did not fall from the sky, boats did not crash into harbours, the nuclear arsenal didn't launch itself, reactors didn't go into meltdown
Exactly zero of those was a likely consequence of the y2k bug. The most likely consequences were services (such as electricity, gas, etc.) being shut off due to date-related billing errors -- and there were a few of those.
The bug was serious, and a lot of people worked hard to fix it, including myself. But it was overhyped, and it existed solely because our industry failed to plan properly to begin with. We made big mistakes in the decades leading up to the nineties and then scrambled to fix them, and for the most part we did.
Would you give a surgeon an award for removing a scalpel he left in the patient earlier? Would you award a General who came up with a masterstroke in a war, which was only still happening because he screwed up strategically earlier on? How about a football player who wins the game in the last minute with a goal that offsets an own-goal he made in the first minute?
If we didn't fix the problem, we'd have been rightly hated as the incompetents we would have been, When we did fix the problem, we got a sigh of relief, and some of us got bonuses we didn't deserve. What we deserved was a "Now, don't do it again!"