Composition: History & Theory: 1990 - 1999
The Technological Explosion
Description
Since other reporters have mentioned that 1999 heralded the 50th anniversary of 4Cs, the Lewinsky incident, and the tragedy of Columbine, here’s something different: Although physicists at Harvard were able to slow the speed of light, “which normally travels the 240,000 miles from the Moon to Earth in less than two seconds” to 38 mph (February), people were terrified of their computers. On April 9, the 99th day of 1999, FEMA reported that, to their knowledge, no computers had crashed and burned upon reading the number 9999 as a “default code,” which was good news for Steve Jobs, who had been marketing newly released iMacs as Y2K-proof. Despite the stress of an impending apocalypse, the Federal Trade Commission reported that cigarette sales fell by 10.3% from 1998-1999, even while marketing expenses increased 22.3% (to 8.24 billion dollars). While movie-goers were whoa-ing out to The Matrix to escape the real world, NATO was preparing to release its “Statement on Kosovo,” which outlined military actions against the “oppression, ethnic cleansing and violence pursued by the Belgrade regime” under Slobodan Milosevic (April 23-24). In the meantime, President Clinton thought about housing Kosovo refugees in Guantanamo Bay, but he reconsidered.
Author
rebecca butorac
Date of Upload
11/3/2009