Ontario 2000 explains fairly clearly that the year 2001 is the beginning of the next millennium. One wonders that if that's so, why not get it right, but then the tide is getting so strong that I'm beginning to worry about my own curmudgeonly tendencies. The government of Canada is on the bandwagon with all kinds of boosterism, and no mention that I could find to justify the choice of 2000 over 2001 as the time to celebrate. I guess this is why we get a government that can't count. Deciding which minute the millennium starts is a bit boggling when you consider that it will have started already in another time zone.
Time does seem to be kind of an arbitrary concept anyway, sort of relative.
This struck me recently when I had a phone call late at night telling me that a favourite aunt had died. Our time-zones are just another one of those odd constructs, like millenniums. Obviously the solution is to party twice. The Mind is Immortal Business Week magazine in a recent issue discusses 21 ideas that may be key to understanding the next century. One idea is the simulation of an individual's brain activity, making it possible for future generations to converse with a virtual equivalent of the person years after his or her death.