A US video shop customer who gave back a rental cassette a day late was billed for more than $US90,000 ($174,114) – after a Y2K-bugged computer calculated it was 100 years overdue. Terry Field, the owner of Super Video in New York, said: “Everything was fine until the first customer returned a tape that was due back on December 31. We were shocked to find out that the computer was charging him for a 100 year-late charge, which was $91,250.” The cashier at Super Video was forced to manually recalculate the overdue charge at today’s prices: $US2.50.
Dennis Olson, a 41-year-old Wisconsin electrical engineer and computer consultant, spent $US20,000 ($NZ38,692) buying food, drinking water, a generator and medical supplies preparing for Year 2000 computer problems. Olson, who has a wife and two teenage sons, may donate some of the provisions to charity, including 400 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 80kg of pasta, 50 bars of soap and nine tubes of toothpaste. “It’s a little bittersweet to see it end this way,” Olson said.
Millennium bug computer glitches added a century to some Italian jail sentences and knocked 100 years off others. Officials in a court in Naples found that prisoners looking forward to release next Monday (Jan 10) had, according to their computer records, been detained 100 years too long and should have been released on January 10, 1900. Others whose sentences were due to have ended in December 1999 could look forward to another century behind bars, while thouse awaiting hearings also had an extra 100 years to wait.
The United States yesterday recovered full use of a critical spy satellite system, its most significant known casualty of the Year 2000 computer glitch. The ground link that processes the satellites’ feed “returned to full operational status this morning” after repairs were wrapped up overnight, Defence Department spokeswoman Susan Hansen said. The incident marked a rare disclosure of a failure in the constellation of spy satellites that is at the heart of the $US29 billion-a-year ($NZ56.1 billion-a-year) US intelligence establishment.
A prison inmate in Concord, New Hampshire, sewed his eyes and lips shut with dental floss because he feared the new year. New Hampshire State Prison guards said they found the prisoner, who was serving time on a drug charge, in his cell, covered in baby powder and clutching a bible. He was afraid of the oncoming year, a prison spokesman said.
Two people died and about three dozen others were rescued as they attempted to climb Mount Kilimanjaro to celebrate the new millennium. American Janepher Stephen, 51, collapsed at 19,445 feet and a post mortem would be performed to determine the cause of death. German Werner Hoain, 55, died at 15,510 feet, and an unidentified guide said he was having breathing problems before he collapsed.
A customer of a Cologne savings bank found $NZ3.89 billion in his account when checking his balance online, possibly as a result of a Y2K error in the bank’s online banking software.
An Indianapolis woman gave birth to twins born just two minutes apart – one at 11:59 on December 31, 1999, and one on 12:01 on January 1, 2000, placing their births in different years, centuries and millennia. The birth of Jacob Wallman and sister Jordan was no accident; mother Julie Wallman, realising she needed a caesarean, asked doctors to wait until close to midnight to perform the surgery.
Monty Python rocketed into the skies on Millennium Night in characteristically bizarre style. The ashes of Graham Chapman, one of the iconoclastic founders of the zany television comedy team, were fired from a rocket over a Welsh mountain on the stroke of midnight. Chapman died of cancer 10 years ago. His final wish came true at last when his partner, David Sherlock, arranged the memorable send-off.
Church bells in Bonate Sotto, Italy have sounded a discordant note due to Y2K. The computer-regulated clock on a church campanile in the small town was sent out of sync in the rollover to 2000 when the bells chimed at 6.15am on New Year’s Day intead of later in the day. When the system was checked, the computer had recorded the date of 1980 instead of 2000.
I think the Y2K bug is when people lose their minds. Retards.
Source: Hawkes Bay Today, January 4, 2000
