One of the confounding aspects of Y2K for GIs where DGIs and DWGIs are concerned is the high level of confusing information bandied about. Take the FAA for example. Y2Knewswire today has a piece about that agency and its recent track record regarding compliance claims. Last September administrator Jane Garvey said the FAA was 99 percent complete. In November she said it was 100 percent. This month an FAA spokesman said it would be 65 percent done by March 31. The inspector general says 31 percent of the computers are fixed, and FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto says all its systems will be compliant by June 31... yeah, June 31.

Read it here
-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 18, 1999

Answers

June 31, 1900, to be exact.

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), March 18, 1999.

No, no, June 31 because that one extra day will make ALL the difference.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), March 18, 1999.

It's not a leap year yet - give him credit - as soon as June 31 arrives, the FAA will be 100% compliant.

Trust him - he's a loyal Democrat in the Clinton administration.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 18, 1999.

Vic:

I agree that there is a lot of contradictory information floating around out there. Take the Postal Service issues. Some guy named nine_fingers makes a post and you all accept it without question because it conforms to your preconceived notions. You even recommended that people like NORM read his post since it came from 'a guy on the front line who obviously knows what he is talking about.' Now, Chuck Harper makes a post that essentially shows that ol' nine_fingers may be on the front line but apparently does no know as much as he thinks he does. So, do you and the others now rethink your opinion of the USPS or do you dismiss Harper's statements as unverifiable.

-- Another NORMal Person (Sam Malone@BettyFord.com), March 18, 1999.

Hey....my calendar producer must not be Y2K compliant....it only has June 30th. I must inventory my calendars, assess them, and remediate them right away....

Man, can't trust anything anymore ***tossing calendar in trash****

Mr. K

-- Mr. Kennedy (looking@calendar.hmm), March 18, 1999.

Is the person who said that FAA would be compliant by October 1st,1998, still the head of the agency? They have gone from 99% to 31% in 6 months. Soon they will be back to where they started.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), March 18, 1999.

Re: FAA - "inspector general says 31 percent of the computers are fixed"

Dang. When Cory Hamasaki criticized FAA's backward slide (Weather Report #108), he estimated 40 percent. I guess he was overly optimistic.

Here's to visual flight rules, next January.

Got parachutes?

-- Margaret (janssm@aol.com), March 18, 1999.

I think Rep. Horn stated it best with his comment last year:

"What is the FAA's contingency plan? Binoculars??"

R.

-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), March 18, 1999.

You, Another Norm, are guilty of low debating and arguing skills when you say we accept nine fingers' post because it conforms to our preconceived notions. That simply isn't true. Rather, Nine's post and what it contains becomes a part of the reservoir of knowledge we all use to reach a conclusion. Actually, Nine's comments tend to comfort the argument that the USPS will crash which is based, in my case, on the postal service's Inspector General. You would do well to hop on over to that site and read the report of Karla Corcoran--in its entirety--before you accuse me and others of shallow interpretive skills. If, after reading the report, you still feel it necessary to defend a defender of the USPS, come on back and we'll talk some more.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 18, 1999.

You'll find it here
-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 18, 1999.

Vic:

OK, so I read the report. It sounds very positive to me. They admit more work needs to be done but so what? It's only March! I am the Year 2000 Business Manager for my company and we are only about 50% complete at this time so, if someone asked me, I would say that we are not complaint yet and more work needs to be done. But, we WILL be complaint well before December 31st so what is the big deal? Now, why don't you tell me what it is about nine_finger's post that you find more credible than Harper's?

-- Another NORMal Person (Sam Malone@BettyFord.com), March 18, 1999.

At the risk of being petty, it's "compliant," not "complaint," there, 'Nother Norm. Let me try one more time. I read both posts with interest, factored in information and data from other sources, and came to the conclusion that the USPS probably won't make it. Unless your organization is a small one, methinks you're in trouble, too, boyo. May I add that you have no way of knowing that your company WILL be compliant come year's end. You cannot prove that. It is merely supposition on your part. I am not a computer or systems expert, but I have seen enough written by those who are to believe that the USPS simply doesn't have enough time left to get all its systems fixed.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 18, 1999.

As you have no way of proving that the USPS will NOT be ready.

In fact, my company is one of the largest automation system suppliers in the world and I have absolutely no question that we will be ready. I have looked at what we have done, what we have left to do, the resources available, and concluded that we will certainly be ready. Everything may not be 100% compliant, but we will be ready. People tend to look at raw numbers like the number of external suppliers that they have not contacted yet. If you assume that they will all be non-compliant and that their non-compliancies will render them non-functional, then you probably would believe that the mail system will come crashing down. But that is not reality. Non-compliant does not infer non-functional. That is what contingency planning and work arounds are all about. If my mail gets delivered with a postmark that has 'XX' instead of '00' for the year, so what? It's non-compliant but it served its primary function which was to get my mail to me. If the information center in my car says 'January 1, 1900', so what? It still works and serves its primary function which is to get me from point A to point B. I'll hang a calendar in the backseat if I need to know what year it is! I'll be the first to admit that there will be millions of systems that are non-compliant and millions more embedded chips that aren't but I've spent enough time working with computers and control systems to know that the doomsday scenarios being painted are just pure fantasy. If the doomers would divert their energy from fear-mongering into more productive endeavors, everyone would get through this in a lot better shape.

-- Another NORMal Person (Sam Malone@BettyFord.com), March 18, 1999.

Norm,from the sounds of the statements by the State Department and the CIA, the size of your world is about to become very small.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), March 18, 1999.

So, your only purpose on this NG is to help shepherd us poor, ignorant GIs through the next 8 and 1/2 months? I posted yesterday about people who view Y2K with blinders; I think you're one of those. You can't (or don't want to) comprehend the systemic nature of the problem. Believe me, if you have to refer to a calendar in your backseat to know what day it is, we're all in a heap o' trouble. If you admit that millions of systems will not be compliant and that millions of embedded chips will be at risk, and contend there won't be massive problems, then you aren't sophisticated or smart enough to be on this board.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), March 18, 1999.

As time grows so short, optimistic Y2K outlooks such as the above by "Another Normal Person" just become incredulous. Our very lives are at stake from what may very well be non-Y2K compliant systems (especially embedded systems), but confidence is expressed that enough will get done that everything will basically turn out OK. And, to top it off, certainly nobody can prove that Y2K will cause big problems, so why should we worry about this possibility?

Thats what I call "riding on a smile and a shoe shine".

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 18, 1999.

Another Norm - How long has your company been working on Y2K? How long has the FAA? <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 18, 1999.

Dear Another NORM:

<< I'll be the first to admit that there will be millions of systems that are non-compliant and millions more embedded chips that aren't but I've spent enough time working with computers and control systems to know that the doomsday scenarios being painted are just pure fantasy. >>

Couple comments: Your conclusions are no better than guesses. I've tested lots of programs, under many different circumstances, and found, based on experience, that the d**m things fail in many, many more ways than they work - and they keep working based on the time and talent from people like "nine-fingers" who sweat to make the things run. Yes - I'll trust him over an administrator anyday, becuase based on the details in his messages, and on my sources in other USPS offices, he is credible person - and since the spokesman for the FAA can't seem to read a calender, I'll question his/her ability to make a schedule, and his/her ability to count and keep a schedule. The FAA is demonstrately and uncredible (incredible too!) sources of information.

Therefore, I will not believe them until they begin to issue some consistent and useable data.

If, as you put it, there are millions of busted systems out there, then it is my opinion htat htere will be millions of undiscovered problems come next Jan, Feb, Mar.... It is therefore my opinion, based on my experience with the infrastructure and the design of industrial systems worldwide, that there will be millions of problems that will collectively hurt millions of jobs, millions of businesses, and millions of families, in the US and beyond.

You claim doomsday scenarioes are pure fantasty. Why? Assume I agree with you that a "doomsday scenario" (an irrecoverable return to a small farm 1890's civilization) is not likely to happen.

That indicates that some other problems will occur. Perhaps we will recover in 3-4-5-6 weeks, perhaps a bit shorter. You continued, in your effort to persuade people not to preppare:

<> What are you afraid of? What advantage is it to you to persuade people you don't know NOT to prepare for problems? Do you want people to suffer? How long? How much suffering do you want people to submit to?

If a family chosses to prepare for uncertainity, so they are self-reliant and not dependent on the government, what "more productive endeavor" would be appropriate?

Do you WANT people to be dependent on the government? Why? Do you get more money that way? (Who pays your salary? What is your benefit if people prepare? You claim families who prepare for uncertainity have an agenda - if so, what is the agenda of those who tell them NOT to prepare?)

Now, let us assume that some people are incapable of taking care of themselves. Will you grant that the government cannot baby-sit 260 million individuals for even two hours, much less 2 weeks? If more people are preparing, does that not let the scarce government resources be applied to those who truly need it?

Your comments and attitude indicate that you are in a blind fear of people preparing for uncertainity - and are grasping at straws in a shear panic trying to prevent a bank run when people decide next Nov - Dec that the government is continuing to lie to them. You (and others) have decided that you must discredit those with solid evidence of uncertainity and blessed with a degree of indepence that you cannot tolerate .

Because (in my opinion) your bosses feel that only by discrediting reasonable people trying to prepare, and interfering with their discussions, can the government isolate the greater masses of citizens from independent sources of reliable information. And, with a compliant media who will repeat (your bosses') manipulative words without investigation or balance, this forum represents such an alternative - hence, it must be discredited in the eyes of the public.

Sorry - it isn't going to work.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 18, 1999.

Guys, c'mon. AnotherNORM is kidding.

-- Franklin Journier (ready4y2k@yahoo.com), March 18, 1999.

Comments gean elsewhere, but are more appropriate here:

<< I am getting so sick of Jane Garvey that I hope if a plane really does fall out of the sky, its the one she is on!

-- Taz (tassie@aol.com), March 18, 1999.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taz - never hope she is on that airplane - it will have innocent people and flight crewmen aboard who don't deserve her fate.

Now, what I do wish is that she is squished in a third class seat for 24 hours waiting to take off: inthe seat immediately behind the exit row above the wing - (the one where she demanded they remove 6 more inches to make room for the window the next row up) - seat-belted in with no peanuts because the women next to her is a hypocondriac who is allergic to everything, and a warning not to leave her seat again because the restrooms don't work on an airport runway in 10 degree weather and no drinks. With a whiney bureacrat behind her and a fat guy next to her.

With no heat, no magazine, and only a filled barf bag to read.

Also - no, NORM, and his aliases, are all too deadly serious in the efforts to persuade people to abandon preparations for uncertainity. They are too frequent, too well orchestrated, and too consistent in their similarities to be "real" people. Having said that, I have already committed to admit publicly next year to any errors I may have made inmy assumptions or planning- next January 21, 12:00, on the stage in Kennesaw - provided any "NORM" will be there with me and admit his personal responsibility for anybody's failure to prepare.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 18, 1999.

Hey, did anybody miss this Norm-ism?

Everything may not be 100% compliant, but we will be ready.

I'm going to eat supper now.

Mr. K
***So happy knowing there are brilliant Business Managers***

-- Mr. Kennedy (bursting@the.seams), March 18, 1999.

Just read the latest House GMIT testimony, then wait for the next round. They're always slipping.

BTW, what if something defined as "non-mission critical," really is? What's in a definition? And WHO defined it?

Diane

House Subcomittee on GMIT Government Management, Information & Technology
Hearings & Testimony

http:// www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/hindex.htm

Recent Hearings

"Will Transportation and FAA be Ready for the Year 2000?"
March 15, 1999

http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/testimony/ 990315h.htm

WITNESSES

The Honorable Mortimer L. Downey
Deputy Secretary
Department of Transportation

http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/testimony/ 990315md.htm

Ms. Jane F. Garvey
Administrator
Federal Aviation Administration

http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/testimony/ 990315jg.htm

Mr. Kenneth M. Mead
Inspector General
Department of Transportation

http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/testimony/ 990315km.htm

Mr. Joel C. Willemssen
Director, Civil Agencies Information Systems
General Accounting Office

http://www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/testimony/ 990315jw.htm

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 18, 1999.

I will respond to a few of the attacks leveled at me:

--From Vic: I posted yesterday about people who view Y2K with blinders; I think you're one of those. You can't (or don't want to) comprehend the systemic nature of the problem.

** It is you that have the blinders on. There is all sorts of talk about systemic failure modes but it is all conjecture. No one has ever shown one piece of independent verification that this will indeed happen. Show me the results of any test that shows one system infecting another and bringing the whole mess to a halt.

--More Vic: Believe me, if you have to refer to a calendar in your backseat to know what day it is, we're all in a heap o' trouble. If you admit that millions of systems will not be compliant and that millions of embedded chips will be at risk, and contend there won't be massive problems, then you aren't sophisticated or smart enough to be on this board.

** The calendar staement was a joke -- lighten up! But it points out a very real exaggeration of the numbers in that my Jeep may not be technically Year 2000 compliant but it will still work just fine. My contention is that the overwhelming majority of these non-compliant embedded chips will be the same. Either they don't use date calculation functions at all or they use them in a non-critical way such that, even if they have an incorrect date, the system integrity is maintained.

--From Robert Cook Couple comments: Your conclusions are no better than guesses.

** Why are my conclusions, based on doing similar work as you apparently have "no better than guesses" while you want everyone to believe that your conclusions are flawless?

--More Cook: Yes - I'll trust [nine_fingers] over an administrator anyday, becuase based on the details in his messages, and on my sources in other USPS offices, he is credible person

** I am sure he is a fairly credible person but I would assert that Harper is as well. And he seems to know more about the overall system than your frontline guy. Harper clearly pointed out that the lack of downloading the latest address changes will not cause a complete system breakdown -- they just use the the most recent copy of the database. It is erroneous conclusions like this (i.e. if it doesn't work 100%, it is a complete system failure) by people with a little bit of knowledge that has started this whole doomsday mentality.

--More Cook: ... then it is my opinion htat htere will be millions of undiscovered problems come next Jan, Feb, Mar.... It is therefore my opinion, based on my experience with the infrastructure and the design of industrial systems worldwide, that there will be millions of problems that will collectively hurt millions of jobs, millions of businesses, and millions of families, in the US and beyond.

** And, in my opinion, "your conclusions are no better than guesses."

--More Cook: You continued, in your effort to persuade people not to preppare: {remainder editted for brevity}

** Where exactly did I try to persuade anyone not to prepare? All I said is that inducing unwarranted panic based on myths and wild conjecture was wrong. I have never said that there will be no problems nor have I ever tried to convince anyone not to take reasonable precautions. I have no vested interest in whether people prepare or not. Why are you trying to put words in my mouth (or fingers)? What is YOUR vested interest?

--And yet more Cook: Your comments and attitude indicate that you are in a blind fear of people preparing for uncertainity - and are grasping at straws in a shear panic trying to prevent a bank run when people decide next Nov - Dec that the government is continuing to lie to them. You (and others) have decided that you must discredit those with solid evidence of uncertainity and blessed with a degree of indepence that you cannot tolerate .

** You are partially right. In my opinion, the Gary North's and Ed Yourdon's of this world are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you scare enough people into removing all of their money from banks and the stock market, you will indeed create economic chaos. If they actually had solid evidence, that would be one thing. But most of your so-called "evidence" is nothing more than unsubstantiated rumors on forums such as this. One example: the alleged Fire Engine problem. Ed Y made the statement, and when called on it, said he admitted that he didn't have any facts to back it up but had enough "circumstantial evidence" to believe it and state it as a fact. Well, his circumsatntial evidence turned out to be three posts in a thread on this site, two of which were proven to be 100% false and the other unverifiable. If you really are a P.E. and can accept drivel like this as "evidence" then we have nothing further to talk about. Now, I admit this is one instance but does it not bring into question Mr. Yourdon's credibility? I have read several posts on here that conclude that because someone made an incorrect statement, they would not beleieve anything else they said.

--One final from Cook: Because (in my opinion) your bosses feel that only by discrediting reasonable people ... {remainder editted due to excessive paranoia}

** What the hell are you talking about? Who do you think my "bosses" are? I am merely trying to present my perspective on this issue. yes there is a problem, no it it not a bump in the road but it is not TEOTWAWKI either. I have seen and heard too much about the "impending catastrophe" from people with very little practical experience in these issues and their words are taken as gospel because it plays off the average persons fear of the unknown. By exploiting the general public ignorance of computer technology, these fear-mongers have contributed nothing towards solving the problems and diverted people from looking for solutions and towards looking for bomb shelters.

--From Mr. K Hey, did anybody miss this Norm-ism? Everything may not be 100% compliant, but we will be ready.

** I hope you enjoyed your dinner. And I am glad you pointed this out to everyone because it is the very heart of my argument. Being 100% Year 2000 Compliant is NOT a requirement to avoid TEOTWAWKI. And that is the subtlety that you and the others either don't understand or don't want to admit because it hurts your arguments. Being Y2K "Ready" is far more important. Like I said, if the clock in my car says 1900, it is not compliant but it still runs and thus meets its primary function -- it is Y2K Ready, i.e. the transition to the year 2000 will not cause a failure. I have no doubt that there will be many systems that exhibit similar performance. But, jsut because something is not 100% Y2K, does not mean it will fail or cause other systems to fail. Even if the date is wrong in some embedded chip, unless the system actually uses that date to perform date calculations in a non-compliant way, it will not casue a problem.

-- Another NORMal Person (Sam Malone@BettyFord.com), March 19, 1999.

From above

Agenda - I have no agenda, and am making no profits from any of these issues. (You, and others, seem to fear profits and freedom, so I'd figure I'll throw that in.)

I do want to see my country manage to see its way through this upcoming mess so my children can live their lives freely and independently. Because of this, it is my opinion that the more informed and aware of the nature and reasons for the uncertainities ahead, the less likely they will panic. I have never assumed TEOTWAWKI conditions are absolute, and my personal preparations do include those conditions.

You, for some reason, appear to prefer they remain ignorant and unready. I would like to understand that reason - please elaborate.

<< Who do you think my "bosses" are? >>

You are acting as if they are federal spin agents, who they actually are I'd don't know, and am unable to independently verify.

Also - I have not blindly accepted any single piece of evidence of failure - such as the oft-quoted fire engine failure (which has appeared in several other references as well). What I do notice is accumulated indications of several hundreds of examples of actual failures from many hundred different independent observers worldwide. To use one situation at point as evidence is wrong - but I have seen now several dozen cases of deliberate lies and exaggerated stories of compliance and "readiness" by the official representatives of your federal government.

Such as: reporting the food industry will be ready based on 3 replies returned from over 500 companies surveyed. Revolving FAA compliant completion dates, and known failures of FAA programs at five airports when the "fixes" were pressed into service.

The federal government has no credibility in this issue, based on its observed lies in the past, and its obvious fears for the future bank panics. Because I have seen federal reactions to independent groups, news agencies, and investigators who have challenged the Clinton government in the past using the IRS, FBI, and ATF, I believe I have enough evidence to distrust those agencies as well as politicized and corrupt.

I have no evidence the past 6 years that they are independent and trustworthy.

USPS - I reviewed both extensive threads you mentioned about the USPS, neither contradict each other in any but minor technical details concerning back-ups and the locations of retrieved files. Fine - thus it confirms that the USPS, if even 5% less efficient through manual handling (and this is assuming power, heat, light, and water are continuously available and airplane traffic is capable of supporting the mail) may operate manually for a while. After two weeks (10 days) they will be stuffed with 50% undelivered mail from the previous days inefficiency, and the other routine operations of even the bar-coded mail will slow, perhaps to stop all together.

Overall, until remediation actually finishes in the USPS, I will accept the Inspector General's conclusion that the USPS is in deep trouble.

The End Of The ... I have always maintained that we collectively must be ready for an unknown series of interuptions of services over an unknown number of areas for an unknown period, each outage starting and stopping at irregular periods and being caused by many and various causes. I have debugged and tested many thousand individual and system construction and testing scenarios, including industrial, infrastructure and life support, and power transmission and generation systems, programs and process errors over the past 20 years - I can assure you, they will fail in more ways than any writer has yet thought of. And in every case, it the bueacrats and administrators who made the matters worse - and the engineers, programmers, and technicians who solved it and kept things running.

So, it is my opinion based on my observations and knowledge, that the majority of the American public is greatly concerned about year 2000 issues, and that they instinctively and intuitively belief the Clinton and the federal government will continue to lie to them about this issue. Thus, if they are persuaded by others such as you to avoid preparations - and you have never recommended any specific level of preparation or planning to combat your disinformation and trivialzation of the issue - they will only have one recourse when the potential troubles strike - panic.

If they are mentally and physically ready for intermittant losses, whether those losses are for 3 days or 3 weeks is irrelevent, they will accept the failures as inconveniences and continue on until things are restored.

By the way, how many people can the federal government take care of at one time? And who decides who is taken care of and who is left outside the shelter in the cold?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 19, 1999.

Robert wrote:

"After two weeks (10 days) they will be stuffed with 50% undelivered mail from the previous days inefficiency, and the other routine operations of even the bar-coded mail will slow, perhaps to stop all together. "

[snort!] Even inbred lab rats quickly learn to stop pressing the bar when no more food is being dispensed. The Cook Theory that people are dumber than lab rats is ludicrous. This is linear thinking at its most simplistic.

I don't doubt that things will fail in strange and wonderful ways *that worked OK in testing*, simply because test environments are necessarily circumscribed. There will surely be enough royal screwups to keep us on our toes. Whether these screwups will snowball to unmanageable levels is another question altogether. Which depends on how much real testing is being done.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 19, 1999.

From above

Agenda - I have no agenda, and am making no profits from any of these issues. (You, and others, seem to fear profits and freedom, so I'd figure I'll throw that in.)

I do want to see my country manage to see its way through this upcoming mess so my children can live their lives freely and independently. Because of this, it is my opinion that the more informed and aware of the nature and reasons for the uncertainities ahead, the less likely they will panic. I have never assumed TEOTWAWKI conditions are absolute, and my personal preparations do include those conditions.

You, for some reason, appear to prefer they remain ignorant and unready. I would like to understand that reason - please elaborate.

<< Who do you think my "bosses" are? >>

You are acting as if they are federal spin agents, who they actually are I'd don't know, and am unable to independently verify.

Also - I have not blindly accepted any single piece of evidence of failure - such as the oft-quoted fire engine failure (which has appeared in several other references as well). What I do notice is accumulated indications of several hundreds of examples of actual failures from many hundred different independent observers worldwide. To use one situation at point as evidence is wrong - but I have seen now several dozen cases of deliberate lies and exaggerated stories of compliance and "readiness" by the official representatives of your federal government.

Such as: reporting the food industry will be ready based on 3 replies returned from over 500 companies surveyed. Revolving FAA compliant completion dates, and known failures of FAA programs at five airports when the "fixes" were pressed into service.

The federal government has no credibility in this issue, based on its observed lies in the past, and its obvious fears for the future bank panics. Because I have seen federal reactions to independent groups, news agencies, and investigators who have challenged the Clinton government in the past using the IRS, FBI, and ATF, I believe I have enough evidence to distrust those agencies as well as politicized and corrupt.

I have no evidence the past 6 years that they are independent and trustworthy.

USPS - I reviewed both extensive threads you mentioned about the USPS, neither contradict each other in any but minor technical details concerning back-ups and the locations of retrieved files. Fine - thus it confirms that the USPS, if even 5% less efficient through manual handling (and this is assuming power, heat, light, and water are continuously available and airplane traffic is capable of supporting the mail) may operate manually for a while. After two weeks (10 days) they will be stuffed with 50% undelivered mail from the previous days inefficiency, and the other routine operations of even the bar-coded mail will slow, perhaps to stop all together.

Overall, until remediation actually finishes in the USPS, I will accept the Inspector General's conclusion that the USPS is in deep trouble.

The End Of The ... I have always maintained that we collectively must be ready for an unknown series of interuptions of services over an unknown number of areas for an unknown period, each outage starting and stopping at irregular periods and being caused by many and various causes. I have debugged and tested many thousand individual and system construction and testing scenarios, including industrial, infrastructure and life support, and power transmission and generation systems, programs and process errors over the past 20 years - I can assure you, they will fail in more ways than any writer has yet thought of. And in every case, it the bueacrats and administrators who made the matters worse - and the engineers, programmers, and technicians who solved it and kept things running.

So, it is my opinion based on my observations and knowledge, that the majority of the American public is greatly concerned about year 2000 issues, and that they instinctively and intuitively belief the Clinton and the federal government will continue to lie to them about this issue. Thus, if they are persuaded by others such as you to avoid preparations - and you have never recommended any specific level of preparation or planning to combat your disinformation and trivialzation of the issue - they will only have one recourse when the potential troubles strike - panic.

If they are mentally and physically ready for intermittant losses, whether those losses are for 3 days or 3 weeks is irrelevent, they will accept the failures as inconveniences and continue on until things are restored.

By the way, how many people can the federal government take care of at one time? And who decides who is taken care of and who is left outside the shelter in the cold?

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 19, 1999.

Hey that's interesting - multiple postings cluttering up the forum - "but computer's don't fail" -

Well, however they got there - sorry about that, only pushed the button once here.....

I noticed this was hidden in the above from the NORM alternate.

<<"By exploiting the general public ignorance of computer technology, these fear-mongers have contributed nothing towards solving the problems and diverted people from looking for solutions and towards looking for bomb shelters.">>

Figure I'll point out that the average citizen out there can't do a d**m thing to repair or remediate anything - he can't inventory, assess, repair, replace, or repropgram anyway hardware or software at any level in any process that provides him food, water, clothing, heat, light, power, or a job. HE MUST DEPEND EXCLUSIVELY on the local and federal governments and the monopolies in the utilities for all of his essential services. For this, he pays taxes and puts up with the government errors, HE HAS NO CHOICE - other than going to prison.

So, to repeat the question, what can the average citizen do? He can choose to listen to you, believe you (chanting the the federal government mantra) and then panic when (if) things fail. (Because the federal government cannot support even 1/2 of 1% of its citizens.) Or, he can listen to me (representing any who recommends preparations), remain calm, and prepare now to remain independent of services until they recover. If so, there is no problem.

Sir Flint - ref USPS - if the "people" are treated like "lab rats" and given false and misleading information - YES they will continue pushing the bar until the post office is stuffed full of undelivered mail. Treat them like citizens - like Churchill treated the British citizens and promise them hardships but give them hope they will recover, and they will follow you and recover.

But "Blood, sweat, toil, and tears" don't boost Clinton's poll numbers among people too dependent on the federal government to think clearly.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), March 19, 1999.

Complaint before July? Yep, and monkeys fly out my butt. And there's a Santa Claus. And an Easter Bunny. Oh yeah, and Clinton did not inhale. And the Black Hills belong to the Sioux for as long as there is earth and sky. And the Tuskeegee test subjects weren't witheld treatment for syphillis, they were just being examined for "bad blood." And the Persian Gulf War was fought in order to "free Kuwait." And the War on Drugs is being "won." And the aspirin factory was a chemical weapons depot. And the troops would be out of Vietnam by 1964. And the break-in at the Watergate Hotel was just a random event, unconnected to politics. Sure, whatever.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), March 19, 1999.