In my local paper there was an article that came from The Gardner Group Of Connecticut that reports that this year2000 problem is analogous with a major storm. The report said "For individuals the year 2000 will not be a catastrophe such as a earthquake or an asteroid hitting the earth or nuclear war" The group recomends thatfamilies store food, water,fuel,and medical suppliesfor potential problems, but it says five days worth should be sufficient.

i am not kidding that is what they are saying ,

MY QUESTION IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS ANY ONE GOING TO DO IN A MATTER OF FIVE DAYS TO REMIDY THIS PROBLEM, IF THIS IS SUCH A TRIVIAL PROBLEM THAT I ONLY NEED FIVE DAYS OF STUFF, YOU WOULD THINK THAT IT WOULD BE FIXED BY NOW, WE NEED TO BE AWAKE AND SEE THIS SHIT THAT THEY ARE FEEDING TO THE WORLD TO MAKE THEM GO BACK TO SLEEP , MY FRIEND SAW THIS AND CALLED ME ANT TOLD ME THAT HE THOGHT AT FIRST THAT I WAS MAKING SENCE BUT HE THEN SAW THIS AND IT CHANGED EVERYTHING , THIS IS GOING TO BE SO BIG

DONT GET ME WRONG I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT I WANT THIS TO HAPPEN , I DONT , BUT DAMIT TRY TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SELF.

MONGO

-- Ron (mongo@earthling.net), November 30, 1998

Answers

very well put mongo.

-- a (a@a.a), November 30, 1998.

Yes, indeed,...very well put. And lose the caps...we are all screaming at the keyboards with caps or no. Caps are hard to read.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), November 30, 1998.

Very good point Mongo. I never thought of it that way. I mean, why would Gartner even bother with a statement about 5 days, why not 7, or 10? They must have been thinking about electricity when they wrote that. Uh-oh!

-- Buddy (DC) (buddy@bellatlantic.net), November 30, 1998.

Me Too - MONGO IS RIGHT DANG'NABBIT!!!!!!!

-- Andy (andy_rowland@msn.com), November 30, 1998.

Tell folks to store food and water for 6 months -- and enough might just do that, leaving shelves and warehouses empty. But tell them 5 days -- and there may be enough to go round. Don't worry, be happy.

On the sixth day -- "Let them eat cake." (my apologies to Marie Antoinette).

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 01, 1998.

Five days, hmmmm? Obviously, they've never gone through a write and test software cycle. Some developer writes it, then testers have to make sure that it doesn't break, and when they find breaks (bugs), the developer has to go back and fix the bugs, and then the testers have to check it all again to make sure that the fixes didn't create more bugs, but they usually do, or uncover previously hidden ones, so it's back to the developer.

Five days? I don't think so. From where I sit, five days wouldn't be enough for some program manager to lay out a test plan, let alone get fixes in and tested.

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), December 01, 1998.

No it will take months to solve the remaining y2k problems. I can envisage organisations having constant production problems every week/day, especially with periodic runs such as statement production, weekly/monthly updates, billing, insurance renewals. Companies may find they literally have to throw as many people as possible at maintenance. Of course the problem is usually there aren't that many who are good at solving dumps (from program abends) or searching out bugs in complex programs. Of course there will be considerable pressure on IT to ensure systems are kept running.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 01, 1998.

I'm referring to the situation in 2000 itself.

-- Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk), December 01, 1998.

This is actually the Last Defense of the Y2K denialists. OK, yes it is going to be a big, horrible problem, there may be no electricity, no food, no electronic anything, civil unrest, loss of life, etc., etc., etc. But, only for 5 days.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 01, 1998.

The Gartner Group are smarter than that. They know that the "masses" the "little people" the "sheeple" will be easily appeased with such statements, so that they, and other such big wigs, will have more time to get prepared, more time to make money, more time to build their cozy y2k retreat. They're practicing crowd and damage control. When chaos arrive, they'll be safely gone. Never to be heard from again.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), December 01, 1998.

Did the Gartner Group tell us which five days it would be? I hope it is during the week - I'm pretty sure I'm going to be busy on the weekends early in 2000 - but I'm willing to take 5 days off work. If our electricity is off, I guess we'll just have to eat out for that week. Gosh, I hope they can hold off having the five days without electricity until spring comes so it won't be too cold. When is the power company going to notify us which days they will pick? Do we get to choose?

-- Dan Hunt (dhunt@hostscorp.com), December 01, 1998.

Never mind the cake..."let them eat Furbies!"

Texas Terri

-- Texas Terri (TYSYM@AOL.com), December 02, 1998.

Well, there are those who, after all, say the most important variable of all, namely power, will be able to be restarted after about 3 days if it does go down. I refer to Mr. Dick Mills (can access his commentaries at the Westergaard site)

I'm getting real tired of those Y2K people on the net who seem to want to shut out any bona fide good news.....smacks of censorship

-- John Howard (Greenville, NC) (pcdir@prodigy.net), December 03, 1998.