Read all about it in today's Washington Post:

Wash Post article

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 24, 1998

Answers

The Washington Post was only one of (at least) three newspapers that reported different information about how many states would be late finishing their unemployment insurance systems. I've written a long essay about what this means -- namely, that it's a good indication that y2k is deja vu all over again -- in a new essay on my web site. It's called (surprisingly) "Y2K Software Projects: deja vu all over again" and it's located at www.yourdon.com/articles/y2kdejavu.html

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), December 27, 1998.

And so it begins.... Kitty in VA

-- Kitty in VA (kittyfelton@webtv.net), December 24, 1998.

The story Jack posted a link to is about unemployment insurance benefits in some of the states. There's an end date to these benefits that is one year in the future, so somebody applying for benefits in January (19)99 would have an expiration date on these benefits of January (20)00.

But the federal government has made sure these states and territories will have workarounds or contingency plans in place next month. If it wasn't for Koskinen, unemployment benefits might have been the first date failure the general public became aware of. Notice the title of this article in "USA Today" on the same news story:

"Feds proud of Y2K victory" http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cte039.htm

I first read about this unemployment benefits problem about a month ago in a "Federal Computer Week" article. At that time, Washington D.C. was singled out as the state or territory most likely to have this bug. Here's the link for that:

http://www.fcw.com/pubs/fcw/1998/1123/fcw-aglabor-11-23-98.html

"Y2K an early show in Labor data"

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), December 24, 1998.

This may well be another little "glitch" cropping up, all claims to the contrary. -- Diane

New York Times http://search.nytimes.com/search/daily/bin/fastweb?getdoc+site+iib- site+112+0+wAAA+Y2K

December 24, 1998

Attention Drivers: New Inspection Stickers May Be Outdated

By MONTE WILLIAMS

Bill Lorenzo, a freelance artist from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, drove his gold Ford Tempo to an inspection station on Tuesday. Before the station's mechanics would give his vehicle its yearly checkup, they stopped him dead in his tracks, warning him that the inspection sticker he would receive would not have the expected expiration date of Jan. 1, 2000, but Jan. 1, 1991, instead.

The problem was not Y2K, the flaw that many fear will create computer chaos at the turn of the millennium. This problem was local, not global -- a fault in the software of a vendor used by nearly 1,200 of the 3,900 inspection stations in New York City, Westchester, Rockland and Long Island...

[Article continues]

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 24, 1998.

Diane, I live in NY state. This is indeed true. I saw something about this posted in the c.s.y2000 newsgroup. I wrote to the DMV to inquire about it and here's the reply I received from Mike Maher at the DMV:

-------start quote-------------- What you heard is correct for the most part. Inspection stations that have one vendors equipment (There are 3 vendors that supply equipment, the vendor is ESP or Environmental Systems Products) and a certain version of software are printing 1991 expiration dates instead of 2000 (91 vs 00). DMV has notified police, parking and courts about the error. All Inspection stickers with blue stripes are currently valid, the expiration date of 91 should be considered as 00. Therefore a blue sticker that has a 1/2/91 expiration date should be treated the same as one that has a 1/2/00 expiration date. The vendor is changing the software in the machines now, it is an older version of software that is in about 1200 of the vendors 2200 machines. Later versions of the software do not have the problem and the remaining 1000 ESP machines are printing correct expiration dates. ESP will have the software changed in all the machines late next week.

There is no effect on registration renewals issued by DMV or on the dates of inspection records. The proper date is stored but the wrong date prints.

As long as you have a blue inspection sticker with a 00 expiration date you are okay.

Hope this helps, if you need anymore info, let me know.

--------end quote-------- It's starting..... Bobbi http://www.buzzbyte.com/

-- Bobbi (bobbia@slic.com), December 24, 1998.

Oh, but this wasn't a year 2000 bug? Eh? What?

Just a regular programming error - like the one down here that forced several car owners to go through several hundred dollar repairs because the program incorrectly "flunked" older cars?

By the way, notice that the "error" in GA's case was actually traced to a "too early" set date for failure at certain polution levels, not that the failure level itself was incorrect. In other words, the EPA already had decided to force the program to fail certain cars - but not yet. They didn't want these cars to fail until later in the regulatory cycle - after the program was entrenched.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 27, 1998.

In re :

http://www.yourdon.com/articles/y2kdejavu.html

Ed's latest "Deja vu" essay is mandatory reading for all!!!

- may even be the y2k "smoking gun"...

The jump from "Deja vu" to "Set Recovery ON" is more wholly plausible, for sure.

If the monotony of y2k-preps or the holidays have gotten you down, you need a kick in the pants, or a whack on the side of the head, or if you have had any slight bit of doubt about the reality of this y2k-mess, digest this latest essay. Your time will be very well spent.

He lights a helluva fire with this one! [at least, my butt's in motion]

Thanks, Ed! You're a scholar - and a gentleman.

Perry Arnett

-- Perry Arnett (pjarnett@pdqnet.net), December 28, 1998.