If what we read about the millennium is correct, humanity is about to be subjected to a technological humiliation more embarrassing than the sinking of a dozen Titanics.
Fortunately, America's very best nerds are beavering away on a mission to save us from the kind of Armageddon only Hollywood would normally be able to dream up. The millennium bug, we are told, is only 19 months away from opening up a cavernous crater right in the middle of the information superhighway. It is the Unabomber's dream - and even his neighbours in the wilds of Montana must know by now that seconds after the champagne corks pop on midnight, December 31, 1999, the lights could literally go out on parties all over the world. Virtually every facet of modern life is threatened by the potential collapse of any machine and any service that requires a computer to run it.
Because computers were never programmed to recognise '00' as the correct follow-on date from the year '99', it is already looking wiser to stay safely at home rather than venture out on what should by rights be the biggest party night of the century. We are being warned air traffic controls may go haywire, lifts could suddenly stop between floors, phone networks crash, bank machines fail to work, credit cards become unusable, stock markets freeze, and power stations grind to a halt; and although there will be nothing worth driving to, do not even try, since your common-or-garden car also contains a few dozen microchips that could render it immobile.
In a worst case scenario, no one will be able to work, travel, go to school, shop, or enter hospital. If we are lucky, the electricity supply might remain, so we can watch TV - assuming there are any programmes being broadcast. All in all, that other Armageddon scenario - the upcoming movie about a comet smashing into the Earth - almost seems preferable.
Even though warnings have been gathering pace for around two years now, there are few signs that the public is paying much attention. And although the canniest corporations have been trying to solve their internal computer problems for some time, the warnings are becoming more dire.
America will probably be the best place to live in the first few weeks of 2000, since its officials and experts have taken the problem more seriously than most; the White House, Congress and other important centres of government have set up task forces to co-ordinate a national response, while there are few big companies which have not thrown millions of dollars of manpower at round-the-clock programming efforts to immunise themselves against the bug before it strikes.
Even so, a Federal Reserve official warned last week that the cost to the American economy could be US$50 billion (HK$387 billion) - with the knock-on effects sending it into a recession.