January 26, 1 B.C. Dear Cassius, Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us to sort out at the last minute. I spoke to [Augustus] Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't foreseen this problem when he was sorting out the calendar in 46 BC. He said he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in the consulting astrologers, but they simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work, as any idiot can see. As usual, the consultants charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards. Gossip around the forum has it that there are three wise men in the east working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive till it's all over. Some say the world will end at the moment of transition, and they're spending borrowed lira like there was no tomorrow. Anyway we are continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem and I will send you a parchment if anything further develops. Plutonius.