From IRC at work:

[jm]  interesting.
[mkf] wazzup?
[jm]  On Sat Sep  8 21:46:40 2001 , it will be 
      1,000,000,000 seconds since the Unix epoch.
[jm]  we should have a party
[mam] party?  I'm up for it!
[jm]  I thought I was getting a weird error since 
      I'm really used to unix timestamps starting 
      with 9
[mkf] wonder how much stuff wil be breakin for 
      that one...
[jm]  i was getting a error because I forgot months
      are 0 based, but no, the 1 billion rollover 
      is really that close.

In case you weren't aware, Unix systems tell time by knowing how many seconds have elapsed since exactly January 1, 1970 00:00 UTC. This is referred to as the Unix epoch, as in "an instant in time that is arbitrarily selected as a point of reference." (epoch 3. in the American Heritage Dictionary.)

So is this Y2K+1? Kinda. Fortunately, this issue was researched and generally rolled into the slew of Y2K fixes a few years ago, so most things have already taken it into account. Unix and most Unix-ish software are generally really good at handling time issues anyway.

But still, it's like watching the hundred-thousands place on a favorite old car roll from 0 to 1. Worth a little reflection. It puts it into perspective for me when I realize I was born just following the 9,000,000th second after the Unix epoch. Unix and I are old, and we keep getting older.

A couple of points about the above exchange: First, I converted the time to EDT, since I'm polite like that. Now, note how [mam] is ready to party, and [mkf] wonders what will break. I'd call these reactions accurately representative.