Does Michael Mitchell from the UCLA Office of Academic Computing really think that computer professionals are only just getting to grips with their possible Y2K problems ? Thanks Michelle for your tips on how to spot if we're at risk from Y2K problems - very timely advice.

Regards Neil Simpson (ex Y2K project programmer) UK

-----Original Message----- From: Michael Mitchell [mailto:mnm@UCLA.EDU] Sent: 14 December 1999 20:20 To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.VT.EDU Subject: Y2K and Statistical Computing

Greetings The year 2000 is getting near and we would like to invite you to visit our Statistical Computing and the Year 2000 pages if you would like more information about handling dates in the year 2000 and beyond in packages like Stata, SAS, and SPSS. We have created web pages to help you assess whether you have Y2K problems with your research data and, if you do, how you can solve these problems in SAS, SPSS and Stata. We invite you to visit these pages at http://www.oac.ucla.edu/training/stat/ and then click on "Statistical Computing and the Year 2000". In short, those who are at greatest risk are those who 1) analyze data that contains dates, and 2) the dates are stored using only 2 digits to represent the year (e.g. 12/25/99 instead of 12/25/1999), and 3) you will soon encounter dates for the year 2000 (e.g. 1/1/00). For example, if your data contains "date of birth", and the dates are stored in a format like 12/25/99, and you will soon be analyzing birth records for January 1, 2000 and beyond, then you may soon encounter Y2K problems in analyzing your data where 1/1/00 will be interpreted as January 1, 1900. This could cause results like the age of newborn children being 100 years old. For further examples of such problems, and suggestions of how to solve them, please visit our Y2K pages in the link given above.

Best new year wishes,

Michael Mitchell UCLA Office of Academic Computing

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