Rome, January 18, 1 B.C.
Dear Cassius:
Are you still working on the Y1C problem? This 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 downwards forever, now we have to start
thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of
it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this 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 turned nasty. We called in Consultus,
but he simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't
work and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful.
Surely, we will not have to throw out all our hardware and start
again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out of this I
suppose. The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been
told that all usury rates will invert and they will have to pay
their clients to take out loans. Its an ill wind!
As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing
upwards. 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. I have heard that there are plans to
stable all horses at midnight at the turn of the year as there are
fears that they will stop and try to run backwards, causing immense
damage to chariots and possible loss of life. Some say the world
will cease to exist at the moment of transition.
Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y1C problem.
I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops. If you
have any ideas please let me know.
Yours,
Plutoneous.
................................................
Thanks for this to Valerie Stephenson (Sales Configuration
Management, Quicksilver Modeling Team, Dell Computer Corporation).
