I'm totally schizophrenic. Though I've been "preparing" relentlessly for months (I don't have to tell anyone on this board what that is about), deep insideI don't really think y2k is going to take it all down. I believe in the Joel Skousen model (moderator of GN's "Relocation" forum, who, ironically, doesn't believe that y2k is the final takedown at all, who says people can ride it ou comfortably t in suburbia, but that the hammer'll really come down in about 10 years in form of nuclear war).

My reasoning is as follows (weak, but somehow persuasive to me...)

1. y2k failures will NOT be simultaneous, but sequential, peaking at Jan 1 2000 but with an upramp through 1999 and a downramp through 2000. This oddly enough is the greatest safety valve. y2k is NOT a common-mode failure. Think of concentric circles: - all software (100%); - the software that knows/cares what year it is; - the software that cares about year that uses only 2 digits; - the software that cares about year that uses 2 digits that won't be fixed in time; - the software that [etc] ... and that will really crash in a system for which no other software or manual work arounds of any kind are available.

What % are we left with ?

2. software already is full of bugs, but civilization limps on. Even existing software functioning today cannot be GUARANTEED to be bug-free, this is mathematically impossible. Likewise, no software will ever be "certified" y2k compliant in any meaningful way, but this does not have to mean the end of civilization.

3. Critics always say that software is always over schedule, over budget. So y2k fixes are impossible. I say, the reason software is over time and over budget is creeping "featuritis" that is, the escalation of goals and ambitions in the course of the project. This should not apply to y2k, where the goal is clear - continued operation at existing levels of functionality.

4. The assumption that when services fail, people become mad dogs and immediately start killing each other. Now, I'm a total gun nut with extensive tactical training and experience, but Rodney King notwithstanding, I just don't believe that's how most people will react. People will mostly stick together and even in a case of total collapse with minimal or zero preparation by the sheeple, things'll get functional again quickly. In San Francisco where I used to live, after the '89 quake, everybody was incredibly helpful and nice to one another. I know what ya'll are thinking: yeah but give it a few weeks with no outside help... What a bleak view! As observed in Ecclesiastes, and I think Diane on this board re-iterated it, basically "and the sun also ariseth, and the earth abideth forever".

The danger isn't from the people or the computers, but only from the government.

But ya'll might be right about y2k. Another case of .308 please, oh and reach me that carton of 12 ga slugs, thanks...

-RC

-- Runway Cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), December 02, 1998

Answers

Runway,

Here are three articles to read if you're trying to guage the impact of Y2K.

1. "US News & World Report" article from June, 1998 http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980608/8y200.htm

2. U.S. government misses its September 30, 1998 deadline http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1998/1005/fcw-newsy2kshort-10-5-98.html

3. Asia, Y2K, and % of IT failures predicted by nation http://www.computerworld.com/home/news.nsf/all/9811124asia

I think these three links give a good idea just how complex this issue is.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), December 02, 1998.

Hey - this is going to be a schizophrenic ramble... fast forward if u need to!

"I'm totally schizophrenic" - sounds like me too. I have a problem. I'm a Brit living in San Francisco. For 5 years. "Should I stay or should I go....". I disagree with young Runway, I think events will be a lot more "interesting" as the Chinese like to say.

I *know* deep down, *something* is going to happen (I've had this feeling, growing, for quite some time now).

And along comes y2k. Something I've known about professionally for a long time. Didn't pay much heed to it at first, other than to think to myself in a blink of an eye many many years ago "uh oh - that could be a problem..."

So here we are - one year to go, I've more than "got it", I've done my research, I keep abreast, I've been around, I've travelled, I've read, been married and divorced (twice), I've been in jail..... basically what I'm trying to say is that intellectually I *know* what's going to happen (or I think I do, I hope I'm wrong), yet it *still* hasn't quite sunk in for me. Without the Internet I would still have the same feeling, but not know what it was all about. My daily research politically/economically/environmentally reinforces my worst misgivings, alas.

I sort of blame this on where I live - North Beach, San Francisco - bit like N'Orleans Mardis Gras every night of the week! The people are great, the food scrumptious, happy hours galore. Party town. Its so easy to live here :)I'm gonna miss it.

I rent an apartment, I could literally go anywhere. I want to stay in the USA. This is now my home, I love the place, I waited 11 years for a green card. Lots of friends (all pretty much working for the Yankee Dollar, impervious to my broachings on y2k :-( ) and no serious romantic ties.

Left my job, cashing in my 401k in January, selling my sports car, gradually getting with the program.

Subconciously I know what I have to do, but it's going to be a hard twelve months.

No idea whatsoever where I'll end up. It's difficult to stockpile while you're renting. But I'll get by. I will be winging it. When the right situation arises I will know. Quite frankly I'm more worried about my family here in the US than myself. They are not going to know what's hit them. Two listen.

So for me it's "up periscope", "ear to the ground", "a word to the wise", "schtum", basically watching the signs and doing a little preparation. Back-up/bug-out plans being worked on.

Hope things are working out better for you guys!

Later, Andy, aka 20th Century Schizoid Man

-- Andy (andy_rowland@msn.com), December 02, 1998.

Response to "ride it out comfortably in suburbia". I wish I could see that possibility happening. Evaluating circumstances "truthfully" requires that you examine the facts from many sources. For me personally, it is also necessary to lay aside pre-conceived opinions that may interfere with my ability to honestly think through the facts at hand and make as truthful an assessment as possible. I live in a big city. (I'm moving soon.) When I visit relatives in a small town, my expectations change as to what is "normal". (I don't expect traffic jams, mugging, car theft, rudeness, long lines in the grocery store, etc. in a small town. However, where I presently live, it is all an every day awareness that any of the above may happen to me TODAY.)

No one knows for sure that it will be the end of civilization as we know it. Nor, do we know that it won't be. I do know that those who have been through a natural disaster will see the potential for disaster differently than you would had you never been through one. Try going for a week without electricity, without gasoline, without running water and start using a porta-potty. Then write back, and tell us to live in suburbia comfortably.

-- M.Doe (M.Doe@usa.net), December 02, 1998.

Andy: Head east to Grass Valley or Nevada City (Hwy 49 above Sacramento). Nice rural towns, go check it out, I bet you won't want to leave.

-- Bardou (bardou@baloney.com), December 02, 1998.

RC,

Check out Westergaard Year 2000 http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Tip/Lord/lord9845.htm

Tip of the Week #63 Is Gary North Wrong About Y2K? By Jim Lord November 9, 1998

...Dr. North believes there is no possibility of changing course. His analysis is worst case and he is convinced that is the only case. My belief is that we have enough time to take meaningful action. I think we can miss the rocks and perhaps only run up on the sandbar. I think catastrophe can be avoided but, I do admit, a lot of hard work and painful decisions are in our future.

Here's why I think the good Doctor misses the target...

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 02, 1998.

RC, you are a living example that should inspire everyone who reads this forum. Although you believe it will be bad, you don't personally think its going to be that bad -- yet, you are preparing as if it will be!

I think that you have pretty much identified the key to how bad it gets as being how people will react to the "upramping" of Y2K in 1999. However, the key to Y2K reactions in 1999 clearly will be on how people react to fiscal year 2000 rollover problems beginning in April (not to discount the Jo Anne effect on 1/1/1999, but I'd be surprised if this caused any real panic, since its so specific to financial accounting software). My own belief is that the FY2K rollover problems will be enough to have people lose confidence and make bank runs, which will absolutely shut them down. And this will be the beginning of the end -- from there, it only gets worse: GPS rollover in August, and then the Big Ones on or about 1/1/2000.

Y2K may not meet the strict definition of "common mode failure", but I think that is "close enough" to do the job. (A la "fuzzy logic".)

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 02, 1998.

Andy- It was pointed out in another thread that it may take a couple of months to actually receive your 401k money, so if you are holding out until January for the sole purpose of delaying paying taxes on it until 2000 (which may mean infinitely...), you might consider actually doing this early -- the tax will apply only to the year that you actually receive it.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 02, 1998.

Jack - thanks ever so much - I suppose I am being a big wuss in order not to incur the wrath of the IRS. Its a very complex subject, as you well know, and I've sussed it out pretty well, but not that well!!

Roll-on the flat tax - save a lot of mucking about and the CPA's can do a real job for a change, charming though my one is every spring. And his missus isn't too bad either.

-- Andy (andy_rowland@msn.com), December 02, 1998.

I'll tell ya, Cat... if people will trample each other in a mad scramble for Furbies, what makes you think they won't do the same thing to feed their children? Neither do I think you can mention the Rodney King aftermath episode and then blithely dismiss it by using the word "notwithstanding." Recent history has shown that the immediate propensity of some is to steal a TV set when the power goes off. That thin veneer of civilization peels away quickly in some instances... usually the one where the perpetrator thinks he can get away with it.

-- Vic Parker (rdrunner@internetwork.net), December 02, 1998.

Vic, you have a point. I read an interesting article on the Miami area riots. Personal experience of the author was:

He was living in a trailer park in the general riot area. Looters came by the hundreds through all the streets. But as soon as he saw what was coming down, he and his friend ran back to their mobile homes, grabbed the only guns they had (a couple of old .22's - no ammo!) and set up chairs at the driveway entracne to the park. They just sat there almost on the sidewalk at the entrace, with the .22's over their shoulders, looking out at the street as every neihboring area/park/store got looted and burned. He said the looters, everybody, took one quick glance and ran right by them! Not one cent worth of damage to their mobile home park.

-RC

PS My Benelli S90 and Armalite 10-A4 have PLENTY of ammo !

-- runway Cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), December 02, 1998.

runway cat, do you have a link to this?

* Joel Skousen model (moderator of GN's "Relocation" forum, *

-- fly . (.@...), December 02, 1998.

Fly, I'm a long time reader of the GN relocation forum. Many months back, Joel posted a noted stating basically what I said, it was in a response to somebody asking a question about his/her local area. Since then a number of his posts have been in that same vein:

a) y2k isn't likely to be THAT big a deal b) nuclear war is almost certain within 10 years or so

I shouldn't speak for him at all of course, but that is what I remember, and his ideas are covered more fully in his book, "Strategic Relocation". Unfortunately, GN fora are totally nuked every once in a while, so I doubt these posts from him are recoverable.

Well, in any case self-reliance is indisputably a good thing, even if y2k isn't TEOTWAWKI. My cousins headed out to a 300-acre farm, pond, wood-stove, etc. years ago, nary a thought of y2k in their minds.

-RC

-- runway cat (runway_cat@hotmail.com), December 02, 1998.

fly, here is a direct link to Gary North's "Relocation" forum:

GN Relocation Forum

In practice, you might find that going to http://www.coolpages.net/2000 will give you access to a lot of forums, including both the GN forums as well as Yourdon's TimeBomb2000.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 02, 1998.

Ok, just for the fun of it, let me 'ave a go at it. I promise not to call you a butthead.

"1. y2k failures will NOT be simultaneous, but sequential, peaking at Jan 1 2000 but with an upramp through 1999 and a downramp through 2000. This oddly enough is the greatest safety valve. y2k is NOT a common-mode failure."

Wrong, wrong, wrong. If the slope was gentle, and therefore left sufficient time per failure for a fix, you would have a point. But the occurence of failure will more approximate a parabolic curve(rapidly increasing rates of failure per unit time). So just as resources are mobilized for one failure, another occurs and then a shorter time later another and so on. The sum of the failures in a given organization will quickly overwhelm resources. The steepest part of the curve (change in time/rate of failure or delta t/delta rf) should be Jan 2000. Its why "fix on failure" guarantees failure.

" Think of concentric circles: - all software (100%); - the software that knows/cares what year it is; - the software that cares about year that uses only 2 digits; - the software that cares about year that uses 2 digits that won't be fixed in time; - the software that [etc] ... and that will really crash in a system for which no other software or manual work arounds of any kind are available."

You are forgetting that much of the software that "doesn't care" may well be trashed by other related software that does. If program A is date dependent and feeds data/calulations to program B that "doesn't care", program B will fail. In fact, this amplification effect is whhat makes Y2k so computer lethal.

'2. software already is full of bugs, but civilization limps on. Even existing software functioning today cannot be GUARANTEED to be bug-free, this is mathematically impossible. Likewise, no software will ever be "certified" y2k compliant in any meaningful way, but this does not have to mean the end of civilization."

Yes, all software is "buggy" BUT it is homeostatic. That is to say it functions in a useful way (most of the time) WITHOUT causing other pieces of software to fail. Its "bugs" are contained and self-limiting. Further, if you look across systems within a company, these "bugs" are hetergenous - not all of the same ilk. In fact, thats a quality which limits their damage. Y2K "bugs" are exactly opposite.What you are trying to say is that since all software has bugs, why should we worry about another one? Answer There are billions of these "bugs" and they are cloned. Further, they will arrive on your doorstep over a relatively short time span.

"3. Critics always say that software is always over schedule, over budget. So y2k fixes are impossible. I say, the reason software is over time and over budget is creeping "featuritis" that is, the escalation of goals and ambitions in the course of the project. This should not apply to y2k, where the goal is clear - continued operation at existing levels of functionality."

I don't know how many IT projects you have been involved in, but you can rest assured that many PHM's are/were saying, "While you 're in the code anyway, how about changing x,y and z.". Up until very recently, Y2K projects were inflicted on very junior programmers often in conjunction with some other upgrade project. Further, the reason IT projects are over schedule is a failure to correctly assess the true scope of a given task. Many of the "add-ons" in a project occur with the words, "Oh, I forgot to tell you about ....". Look at the increasing budgets of Citicorp, AT&T, FAA etc. The reason they are increasing is they DIDN'T UNDERSTAND the scope of Y2K.

"4. The assumption that when services fail, people become mad dogs and immediately start killing each other. Now, I'm a total gun nut with extensive tactical training and experience, but Rodney King notwithstanding, I just don't believe that's how most people will react. People will mostly stick together and even in a case of total collapse with minimal or zero preparation by the sheeple, things'll get functional again quickly. In San Francisco where I used to live, after the '89 quake, everybody was incredibly helpful and nice to one another. I know what ya'll are thinking: yeah but give it a few weeks with no outside help... What a bleak view! As observed in Ecclesiastes, and I think Diane on this board re-iterated it, basically "and the sun also ariseth, and the earth abideth forever".

Totally pollyanna dude! You may have gun training, but have you ever gone hungry for 72 hours? People quickly revert to the primal. I have gone through multiple survival schools in the military. It was always amusing to see people's reaction to "survival" food after just 24 hours. Snake, armadillo, buzzard, insects look very tasty on an empty stomach! In '89, you KNEW you had help coming from outside. Hunger, disease and cold were pretty much non-factors. Some people will "stick together" and many will not. People at least know what an earthquake is. Y2K is an alien event that may well go on and on and on. Yes, the sun will come up and many will end up under the earth.

"The danger isn't from the people or the computers, but only from the government."

Wrong. It is potentially from all three. People panic and push, shove, run, kill. The computers can lose control of nasty little things like nuclear weapons, biological labs, toxic refineries etc. The government is last as it removes individual rights in defense of the common good.

"But ya'll might be right about y2k. Another case of .308 please, oh and reach me that carton of 12 ga slugs, thanks..."

Finally, a thought I can agree with but include a .223.......

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), December 02, 1998.

RD, what's the attraction of a .223? I should think .308 or 7.62 mm ammo (not equivalent I believe?) is easy to find. Is .223 more abundant?

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 02, 1998.

fly- Art Bell had Joel Skousen on as a guest back in August. As I remember he talked about Y2K and his reasoning for his concept of "strategic relocation". Some of what he said stuck me as farfetched, but it *was* interesting.

Go to Art Bell Archives '98 and scroll down to Monday Night/Tuesday Morning 8/10/1998.

-- Max Dixon (Ogden, Utah USA) (Max.Dixon@gte.net), December 02, 1998.

Tom,

.223 Remington is identical with 5.56 mm NATO and is the standard US military round. It is also extremely common in US law enforcement circles. So, yes, it is probably more abundant, even now.

.308 Winchester is identical to 7.62 mm NATO and is far less common since the military shifted to the 5.56 mm, although it is still in the military supply system as it is used in several weapons in the current inventory (the M-60 light machine gun for one).

To furthur confuse the issue, there is a flood of 7.62 mm Russian on the market. Actually, there are several "flavors" of 7.62 mm, with the projectile being 7.62 mm in diameter and the case length varying. (the 7.62 Russian is 7.62 X 39 mm and the NATO round is 7.62 X 51 mm while there is yet another, the 7.62 X 54 mm Argentine Mauser!)

As you might imagine there is little, if any, manufacture in the USA of anything save .223 and .308, so post-Y2K availability of the "Commie stuff" will probably not be as good.

Additionally, most of the foreign ammo is Berdan primed which makes it a lot more difficult to reload than the Boxer primed US standard (reloading is a whole other can of worms)

Ballistic wise, the .308 is the heaviest duty round, while the 7.62 X 39 that the AK-47, SKS and other communist bloc weapons use equates more to a heavy pistol round.

Opinions as to effectiveness will vary, but ballistics, physics and Nature's other laws will not. The data are all available in any number of places.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), December 03, 1998.

In ref RWC's # 4. "In the Northridge Quake>>>" At that time, the victims had a set of very reasonable expectations of a maximum of 36 hours before the red Cross would be able to bring in enough people, food and materials to shelter, clothe, feed them. Also, all of the victims had some experience with smaller quakes, and all of them could look at the news, and see that there was a world out there, 40 or 60 miles away that was running as it had the week before.

NONE of the above will be true when the organic material impacts the rotating oscilator!

a) the Red Cross will NOT be there from all over the country. Those volunters and staff will be busy in their own towns!

b) The materials will not be available as they will be needed where ever they would have come from.

c) The victims will have no reason to expect that this will last more than a day or two (THANK YOU GOV'T), and at week 1.5 will start to become RESTLESS!

(Parenthetical note: In 1996(+/-) we had a wind storm in my community which required the re-wiring of nearly 60% of the community. By week 2.5, the power company, the city services people, and anyone working onthe problem were being carefully shadowed by law enforcement for protection. We had no active injuries to workers but the folks who had been out for a couple weeks were beginning to complain, and to say rather ah, um, "inflamatory" things about the groups doing the work. And this was in a situation where you could almost literally walk from anywhere in the affected area and get dinner, AC, etc.)

No one has seriously suggested that on 02 Jan 2000 there will be riots, etc. However, by 15 Jan or 21 Jan the natives could be quite restless, as they see NO "rescue from on high," and could force the Martial Law scenario.

Chuck who wishes the storm and Quake analogies had never been used, as they are SO FALSE and so specious (and I can be so redundant)

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 03, 1998.