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>Subject: Y zero K problem
>
>While browsing through material in the recesses of the Roman Section of
>the British Museum, a researcher recently came across a tattered bit of
>parchment. After some effort he translated it and found it was a letter
>from a man called Plutonius with the title of "magister factorium," or
>keeper of the calendar, to one Cassius. It was dated, strangely enough,
>2 BC, December 3 -- about 2,000 years ago. The text of the message
>follows:
>
>Dear Cassius: Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? The change
>from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time
>left. I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way
>around. Having been working happily downward forever, now we have to
>start thinking upward. You would think that someone would have thought
>of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at the last minute.
>
>I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done
>something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could
>see why Brutus had turned nasty. We called in the consulting astrologers,
>but they simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work.
>As usual, the consultants charged a fortune for doing nothing useful.
>
>As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upward.
>We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been
>working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's
>all over. Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of
>transition.
>
>We're continuing to work on the Y zero K problem and I'll send you a
>parchment if anything develops.
>
>Best regards, Plutonius
>
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