************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** New Y2K Angst Every time I write a column about Y2K I feel a need to run it past my lawyers, the good people at Skinner, Park, and Orwell. They advised me to warn you this article is not an incitement to riot. So don't. Okay? I live in the zone Toronto Hydro tested for Y2K readiness a few months back. I didn't experience so much as a flicker. A couple years ago the average citizen was in a state approaching mild hysteria regarding Y2K - the kind of hysteria only the misinformed can really work up. Studies show Y2K anxiety has markedly decreased, much to the chagrin of makers of dried foods and Teflon-coated bullets. Well-publicized trial runs by utility companies have done a lot to instill confidence. The big stuff like electricity, phones, and CITY TV will be available the moment the clock strikes 12:00.00000001 that fateful Saturday morning. Could things have been better planned that this New Years Eve falls on a Friday? Three days of mental and physical recovery time! If you're in search of evidence for the existence of a merciful god, look no further. Utilities, unfortunately, have a new worry: Y2K rubber neckers. Basically it works like this. After shouts of "happy New Year", year early salutations to the new millenium, and a drunken kiss or five, everyone in North America is going to pick up the phone to see if there's a dial tone and flush the toilet to see if there's water. Two hundred million receivers are going to be uncradled simultaneously. Eighty million toilets are all going to be requesting a couple litres of water. The systems will crash. People, with their limbic systems given a longer leash due to alcohol, will conclude the crash is because Y2K errors have brought the world to an end. People will start looting Wal-Mart or getting their brother the 24 hour day trader to sell everything. Fortunately, Y2K is hitting some pretty technically savvy countries like Japan and Australia a half day early. So that should provide some advanced warning of things to come. Here's a tip, get on IRC and find yourself a friend on the other side of the world. I got one in Malaysia. She's mine so don't take her. If there's going to be some looting, I'll want to head out early for Rosedale or the Bridal Path. Net Angst Back in 1995 I turned down a couple jobs working for Internet ventures. I thought the net was pretty cool, I loved writing about it (I've been doing this column since 1994), but I didn't want to solely rely on a potential fad for income. These days I find myself working for an e-commerce company (I've only ever bought one thing over the web... a CD from Amazon.com for my Y2K canary in Malaysia). I'm looking at accepting a job with a net portal in Seattle, the land of three thousand dot.coms. I didn't even blink when the Seattle offer came up. All I could think about was heading for a refuge from extreme winters and summers. So much of my working life is now tied up in the net, I feel ill when I see people trying to plaster the net all over my forms of relaxation. When I see a web address in a movie trailer at SilverCity, it makes me want to scream louder than the scream I want to scream after enduring the five commercials they now run before the commercials for up coming films. Movies are my escape. Please stop it with the web addresses in the previews! I'm not alone in my dualism. There's a strange anti- technology posturing among the very people that have created this high tech world of hardware and software. Engineers who are designing the latest image recognition software for smart bombs whack at each other with primitive swords at medieval- themed tournaments sponsored by the Society for Creative Anachronism (www.sca.org). The Unabomber manifesto was probably the most downloaded document before the Starr report. While not quite an anti-technology screed, the NetSlaves ezine (www.disobey.com/netslaves) is a fascinating and humorous look at the lives of those bound to net start ups by what's become known as "gold handcuffs". Many start ups are eschewing decent salaries for the lure of stock options. In exchange for inhuman hours, low pay, and letting very rich stupid people manage you, you get a chance at sharing in a company's meteoric fortunes after an IPO.