Do you have all the canned goods, tools, and currency you need when the worst-case, millennium-bug scenario occurs?
Well, now you can win it all -- enough to survive errant nuclear bombs, power outages, and Armageddon in general -- in a contest on the Net.
Are you laughing yet? EarthWeb hopes you will. The hub site for developers has launched a publicity stunt that's meant to be lighthearted, co-opting Y2K hype for its marketing campaign.
Read ongoing coverage at Y2K: Hype or Time Bomb?- - - - - -
The service, which sells books and tools for information-technology developers, said Monday it will give away a grand prize of US$10,000 in gold coins in its Be Prepared Sweepstakes to celebrate the launch of Y2KInfo. The site offers news, discussions, tools, and other resources on the Year 2000 computer issue to developers.
"We're hopefully doing the whole Ed McMahon deal to deliver the gold," said Riva Syrop, director of marketing at EarthWeb.
Members of the real Y2K community aren't giggling yet. For them, the Year 2000 bug is all too real.
The programming glitch causes computers to read the year abbreviation 00 as the year 1900 instead of 2000. Predictions for the new year range from nothing happening to millennially challenged computers accidentally releasing nuclear bombs or clouds of toxic chemicals.
The mainstream media has widely reported the scariest possibilities and written about the Y2K survivalists -- individuals who are moving to remote areas and stockpiling food, weapons, and any other supplies they foresee needing in the face of Armageddon. EarthWeb's first prize of gold currency could prove a lot more useful in the post-apocalypse than paper dollar bills. Second prize -- in a nod to those Y2K stockpiles of canned and nonperishable food items -- is a six-month supply of Spam, the canned luncheon meat.
"Yuck," said Gordon Davidson, president of the Center for Visionary Leadership, a Washington-based group that organizes communities for Y2K. "I think it's kind of silly in terms of real preparedness."
Third prize is a package of basics -- a trekking pole, a battery-operated radio, and a kerosene lamp.
"I'm concerned," said Ron Kertzner, a board member on the Cassandra Project, a grassroots movement to prepare communities for Y2K, about the contest.
Kertzner said it depends on how people interpret the sweepstakes and similar satirical Y2K references. The massive media coverage causes people to think of Y2K in one of two extremes, he said. "People either trivialize the issue or go to the other extreme -- 'It's the end of the world.'"
Kertzner said the Cassandra Project tries to prepare individuals and communities for any mishaps that might result from Y2K, in the same way one might prepare for a natural disaster. "We take the middle ground, which, unfortunately, isn't as sexy."
It's not that he's humorless. "I have a whole file on Y2K humor. It's all in the tone," Kertzner said.
"Our users are people fixing this problem," said Mark Schlack, vice president of content at EarthWeb. "It's tongue in cheek. Some people who come to our site are in survivalist mode, some are bemused."
"It's a very serious issue that's also spawning a tremendous amount of new businesses," said Davidson, who cited surveys saying up to 50 percent of the US population is thinking about preparing for Y2K, while 10 to 20 percent said they are doing something about it.
