The reader is squarely confronted with the scope of the Y2K problem, involveing the collapse of such essential services as telecommunications and banking.

A worldwide computer time bomb is ticking toward a cataclysmic explosion. This detonation could cause total collapse in international business, financial and defense markets unless partially identified hardware and software corrections can be implemented on an unprecedented scale. Without attention, almost all of the world's microprocessor dependent systems progressively will become unreliable between now and the year 2000. The global market for correcting the problem could total $200 billion to $400 billion by the year 2000, according to a widely touted estimate. An independent MITRE Corporation assessment of military vulnerability to the software problem describes it as real and potentially catastrophic. Military logistics systems, in the process of creating five-year stockpiles, already are encountering the problem, as are financial and insurance institutions. Critical systems in the U.S. Defense Department could face substantial failure if the department does not aggressively address what is known as the year 2000 problem. The problem arises from the once-common practice of representing years by only their last two digits, for example, 1996 as 96 and 2000 as 00. While the year 2000 obviously occurs after the year 1996, two-digit representations change this relationship. This is because computers use mathematical comparisons to determine time sequence. A computer employing two-digit year representations would determine incorrectly that the year 00 occurs before the year 99 when a simple greater than comparison is done. In other words, because 99 is greater than 00, the year 99, or 1999, is calculated to have come after the year 00, or 2000. A host of mistakes can result from two-digit year representations.

"Time Bomb 2000" describes how the year 2000 problem can potentially affect all facets of business life if not properly addressed. Chapters are devoted to effects on home PCs, on the job, the news, airplanes, and more. Advice is given on how to deal with the problem if and when they actually occur.

The new millennium. The Year 2000. Beyond Mayan prophecies, a more immediate danger loomed: Two-digit year date fields had been used by software programmers for decades to conserve expensive computer storage space. As a consequence, legacy systems reading “00” on January 1, 2000 would most probably interpret the date as 1900. Infrastructures critical to civilization—including heat, electricity, water and sanitation—were at risk, all complete unknowns. There was fear of an accidental nuclear arms deployment. There was fear of monetary systems being jeopardized, infrastructure collapse, internet security failures, and interruption of government-provided social programs. Banks experienced massive cash withdrawals while law firms worked overtime to develop novel litigation plans. Insurance enterprises worried. Year 2000: The Inside Story of Y2K Panic shares the untold story of the actors operating on the global stage responsible for managing computer hardware and software for Year 2000 compliance, thus keeping national infrastructures, finance, and commerce functioning. It turned out that the world did not end January 1, 2000. In fact, most people rang in the new year with the perception that nothing happened at all. This positive outcome was not a stroke of luck, nor was it because people overestimated or exaggerated Y2K risk. It was only possible because people across industries, from legal clerks to programmers to President Bill Clinton himself, worked tirelessly to offset disaster. But the Millennium did not pass completely harmlessly: it turns out that the United States, for a brief period, lost all satellite reconnaissance at 7:00 PM EST, December 31, 1999 (midnight GMT 01/01/2000). As a leading consultant and speaker on the challenges of Y2K during the lead-up to the new millennium, author Nancy P. James was directly involved in preparation for Y2K on the local and global stage. Using first-person experience, primary source documents outlining Y2K issues, anxieties, and the actions, influences, opinions, and strategies of those involved, James reveals the untold story of the behind-the-scenes scramble that made Y2K – seemingly – come and go, and offers stark lessons on how the global community can unite to face problems that challenge our world at large. James tells the contemporaneous story of those national and international Y2K actors who at the time did not know the outcome of the Year 2000 computer problem.

Religions of Modernity' challenges the social-scientific orthodoxy that, once unleashed, the modern forces of individualism, science and technology inevitably erode the sacred and evoke the profane. The book’s chapters, some by established scholars, others by junior researchers, document instead in rich empirical detail how modernity relocates the sacred to the deeper layers of the self and the domain of digital technology. Rather than destroying the sacred tout court, then, the cultural logic of modernization spawns its own religious meanings, unacknowledged spiritualities and magical enchantments. The classical theoretical accounts of modernity by Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and others, it is argued in the introductory chapter, already hinted that there's a future for such religions of modernity. Contributors: Stef Aupers, Kelly Besecke, Kirsten Marie Bovbjerg, Siobhan Chandler, Olav Hammer, Dick Houtman, Murray Lee, Carly Machado, Karen Pärna, Adam Possamai, Linda Woodhead, and Dorien Zandbergen.

The popular Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins has sold more than 62 million copies since the first volume appeared in 1995. Jerry Falwell pronounced it the most important series of books in the history of modern Christianity. Many readers have assumed it gives the true facts about the way the world will end and what will happen to all the people in it. But according to real biblical scholarship, this series is seriously flawed. Based on a misreading of many scriptures, including Daniel and the Book of Revelation, it has fed a kind of hysteria in the Christian populace that has led many people to reorder their existence in expectation of an impending doom and the sudden, unexpected return of Jesus. In this book, William Powell Tuck carefully and authoritatively refutes the premises and faulty theology of the Left Behind books, critiquing them in the light of genuine biblical scholarship and common sense.

This collection of essays examines responses to the Millennium and whether or not the year 2000 could be claimed as a specifically Christian time. It also considers how other religions reacted to the moment and what millennial celebrations reveal about religion in a secular age.

Financial mathematics and its calculus introduced in an accessible manner for undergraduate students. Topics covered include financial indices as stochastic processes, Ito's stochastic calculus, the Fokker-Planck Equation and extra MATLAB/SCILAB code.