Word: shortcut
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...center of the Year 2000 mess is fairly simple. In what's proving to be a ludicrously shortsighted shortcut, many system programmers set aside only two digits to denote the year in dates, as in 06/15/98 rather than 06/15/1998. Trouble is, when the computer's clock strikes 2000, the math can get screwy. Date-based equations like 98 - 97 = 1 become 00 - 97 = -97. That can prompt some computers to do the wrong thing and stop others from doing anything...
...message taken home by millions of E.R. viewers is that ultra-rapid detox is a shortcut to drug withdrawal. And that's a problem, say many doctors. They fear it will result in a stampede of new patients to the controversial and still experimental procedure. Ultrarapid detox, they charge, has not been adequately studied and is often promoted by medical entrepreneurs who make exaggerated claims and operate out of hotel rooms and storefronts...
...that, I told the patient secretary at the Public Works Department, was why I had called. I wanted them to build a stairway into the hillside that would turn a questionable shortcut into a user-friendly thoroughfare, and I was wondering who had control over that sort of decision. She told me that all the bridges in the state were owned by the Massachusetts Highway Department, especially one on the Alewife Brook Parkway, which moonlights as State Route...
...When the IMF was in Latin America, they faced the typical hyperinflation problem and they knew what they were doing," notes Harvard economics professor Gregory Mankiw. "But in Asia the prescription is far less clear." Kevin Watkins of Oxfam--an Oxford-based, nongovernment development agency--says the IMF may shortcut Asia's recent progress. "What differentiates East Asia has been its ability to create growth with equity," he says. "Now the IMF programs threaten to break that link. You may have growth, but with continued poverty...
Indeed, in a business brimming with bad management--for example, the handling of Jackson's popular yet troubled 1984 Victory Tour--Alwaleed's sharp-penciled philosophy may be just the ticket. And for Alwaleed, already a record producer in the Middle East, the partnership could be an inexpensive shortcut to big-time entertainment deals. "With Michael's negative image in America, people concluded 'He's through,'" says an Alwaleed adviser. "The prince likes an underdog. He moves in when it appears a business has no chance. It was easier to get involved with Michael Jackson because he was down...