Y2K scare over, Blue Moon to come

The dawn of the millennium has come and gone, revealing the much-anticipated Y2K bug as just a nettlesome flea and hardly the hulking monstrosity many feared beforehand.

But The Eye is not quite ready to bat its lashes at the optimists, or roll for the forecasters of catastrophe: Computer systems worldwide have one more opportunity for global miscalculation.

“We want to take a close look at the leap year,” AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson stated on a business wire prepared by The Associated Press and Reuters.

A close look indeed. Is 2000 a leap year or not?

The Eye is well aware of the Leap Year’s blue moon, but many may not be. Feb. 29 comes once every four years, but to more accurately make up the difference in length between an actual year and 365 days, an exception is made on years ending in 00; in 1900, for example, there was no leap year.

But here’s a poke in the eye: even with the exception, the 365-day calendar does not quite match the length of an actual year, so there’s an exception to the exception. On years ending in 00 that are divisible by 400, there is still a leap year.

There will be a Feb. 29, 2000, but whether computers will remember that or roll right on into March from the 28th remains to be seen.

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