Until that situation changes, the DGI stance is unpatriotic, dangerous and regrettable.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 27, 1999

Answers

"DGI stance is unpatriotic,"

...perhaps the dimmest comment the witless Puddintame has made on this forum. Although the day is not over...

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), March 27, 1999.

Y2kPro = Schmuck

-- Wiseguy (got@it.gov), March 27, 1999.

Puddintame,

We are the most can do nation/country in the world. We can do this one too. We better! I'm willing to bet that you, like most other posters and lurkers here, could not handle a 10. Pray for a 0.

-- JRS (Still@Trying.com), March 27, 1999.

interesting thread

-- Dum Dum (dumDum@dum.dum), March 27, 1999.

Senator Bob Bennett in July 1998 to the National Press Club:

http://home.swbell.net/adheath/bennett.htm

[snip]

And if I may say so without overdramatizing it, it's a little like announcing that we are at war. Now, this is a different war in that it has a set time period. But if you had asked Franklin Roosevelt on the 8th of December, 1941 -- Are we going to win or lose" -- he would have said, "We're going to win" -- just the way Bill Clinton said yesterday, "We're going to win. We're going to solve this problem." But would you in the press corps say, "Oh, good. The president has told us we are going to win, so we can now ignore this story." And yet too many in the press are saying that: "Oh, we've got a three-to- one vote on the `McLaughlin Group' that says it's not going to be a big deal, so we can ignore this story."

I believe we're going to win; that is I think that civilization as we know it is not going to come to an end. It's a possibility. Possibility, if Y2K were this weekend instead of 76 weekends from now, it would. But we have 76 weeks in which to try to get this under control. But we are, in a sense, at war against this problem. And you would not have said in the Second World War, "Oh, because the president assures us we're going to eventually prevail, we do not need to cover Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, or any of the rest of it."

And so my plea to you here in the Press Club is: Do not ignore this story just because someone is reassuring you that it's going to work out all right. There are all kinds of stories out there that need to be covered and, most importantly, need to be exposed.

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 27, 1999.

I am NOT brain dead, and I resent stupid postings!

Prepare for a major depression! Do not accept noncompliant excuses. Exercise your best judgment. There is no humor in deprivation, only sorrow. :(

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), March 27, 1999.

This is a fight? You think youre in a fight? Stupid analogy.

-- Contender (knockout@punch.com), March 27, 1999.

Attention Newbies and lurkers, there is at least one person on the forum, possibly more, who post under different pen names, who are strongly opposed to y2k discussion and especially to preparation for any possible infrastructure problems.

This simple little thread, and others like it, sends them absolutely ballistic, because the simple truth of this situation is something they cannot argue with. Right now, there have been practically no announcements of compliance. ATT has said it is 99% compliant. Social Security announced compliance after a 10 year repair program, but others in the federal government have stated that Social Security is not actually compliant. I presume there are some others in the Russell 5000 universe who have announced compliance, but not many.

We're facing TEOTWAWKI until something changes. That's a fact.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 28, 1999.

Puddintame:

You state this as a fact. But is it?

I believe one "fact" is that "compliance" is not a necessary state for a company to survive post Y2k. How much is "enough" is an open question.

Certainly, if the rollover happened today, the problems that would occur would far outweigh those that will happen in 8+ months. But would it be TEOTWAWKI?

I've always thought that one precondition of TEOTWAWKI is the extended loss of electrical power. The number and results of power plant testing, along with the discussions and reasoning by Dick Mills, raise some serious doubts in my mind that we would indeed face extended ( >3 days ) power outages at this point.

Judging by the reported status of Banks, my guess would be that, at this point, if push came to shove, they could function in a year 2000 mode.

The third leg of the "Iron Triangle", telecommunications, once again seems to be in a position of being able to function, although actual data here is somewhat more scarce.

You raised an interesting question. Personally, I think we may be fast approaching the point were TEOTWAWKI would not occur, if indeed that point has not been passed. But again, my main observation is that lack of "compliance" statements is not a hard and fast indication of a companies ability to function in the year 2000.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), March 28, 1999.

Sir Hoffmeister, I must ask you, why do you believe that any power failures will be short lived? Even though the power companies got a late start, most have been working on the problem for at least a couple of years now. What magical event will occur on 1/1 that will fix everything? I also have read many of Mr. Mills' comments, as well as those of Mr. Cowles and our own Mr. Cook. I do not share the same view. Please enlighten me. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 28, 1999.

Sysman: No "magical" events. And the remark was as to today, not even as of 1/1. Primarily, two things. First, statements such as Avista, which apparently has completed testing at all their power plants, and, I quote:

"We have yet to find a single embedded controller or subsystem anywhere within our generation or transmission infrastructure that would have hampered our ability to generate or deliver energy to our customers,"

Obviously, some plant systems would have problems. The recent "test" at the Nuke plant in Pennsylvania demonstrates that.

Link

Second, the sum total of Dick Mills' articles. But in particular, this article:

Link

His "best" estimate at a "pessimistic" figure is 72 hours.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), March 28, 1999.

Sysman:

The failure of maintenance, monitoring, and billing systems wouldn't prevent the generation and distribution of power in the short term. But they might make things dicey in the longer term, and would in many cases present safety hazards.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 28, 1999.

Hoffmeister, thank you for the Avista story. It does sound like good news, and I haven't seen it before. I hope we see many more of these as the year counts down. Mr. Mills has become much more optimistic over the past few months. His older stories told quite a different tale. I sure hope you guys are correct. Power and refineries are my (I guess our) biggest Y2K concerns. Thank you too Flint. Keep up the good work guys! <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 28, 1999.

Hoff, De Jager has posted a list of promise keepers. I don't know how the formatting will work, but here it is:

Promise Keepers:

Air Products ANZ Bank Asarco AT&T AVISTA Bank One Corporation Battle Mountain Gold Bank of Montreal Bank of New York BB&T Corporation Bear Stearns Canada Trust Clarke American Checks, Inc. CNA Insurance Delta Air Lines Eastman Chemical Company Federal Express Firstar Bank FLEET Bank Frost Bank H.E. Butt Grocery Huntington Bancshares Inc. Hydro Quebec John Deere Lehman Brothers Lincoln Insurance Lockheed Martin Manulife Insurance Mercantile Bank Merrill Lynch Mutual Life of Canada NationsBank NAV CANADA NCUA Northern Trust Ontario Hydro PNC Bank Sanwa Bank Scotiabank Shaw Industries SouthTrust Bank Toronto Dominion Bank Toronto Stock Exchange Union Pacific Railroad USNRC US Trust Vanguard Wal-Mart *End paste*

Certainly, there are many many more companies that are essentially internally "ready" for y2k; I harbor no illusions that that list is complete. By the same token, those "promise keepers" are self- graded.

Some countries and companies are doing virtually nothing. The US government still has dozens if not hundreds of "mission critical" systems that are not ready. Programmers on this forum have postulated that in order to keep their "grades" as high as possible, the US government has remediated the easier systems first to improve the statistics.

The large majority of foreign governments are nowhere near ready.

Foreign businesses, for the most part, are either ignorant of the problem or standing still.

Hoff, you are right in that no one can factually prove anything about the state of the macroglitch, but I haven't seen any authoritative person argue against my theory.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 28, 1999.

Hoff, for further clarification, in my definition, TEOTWAKI is not necessarily doomsday, so I'm not sure where de Jager would stand on the current state of the macroglitch. Besides, unless he cites examples of what key organizations are currently prepared, I would not consider the opinion authoritative.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 28, 1999.

Obviously, it depends on your definition of TEOTWAWKI.

What was the saying? It's a "recession" when my neighbor loses his job, it's a "depression" when I lose my job?

De Jager's list is not the point. Is a company able to funtion with 75% of apps complete? 80%? No hard facts here, but my educated guess is that it's somewhere less than 100%, which was my original point. Claims of "compliancy", while good news, do not necessarily make up the only level of Y2k readiness that will allow a company to survive after the rollover.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), March 28, 1999.

[snip]

[Capers] Jones also validates our estimation that an enterprise starting in 1997 is likely to get through only about 80 percent of its applications; if it waits until 1999, only 30 percent. And even conceding that only 30 percent of the applications may be critical to the business of the enterprise, that 30 percent is probably attached by data to another 40 percent of the other applications that won't make the transition in time. At best, the organization will be crippled; at worst, it will no longer exist.

Peter de Jager, from Chapter Five of "Managing 00: Surviving the Year 2000 Computer Crisis".

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 28, 1999.

Gentlemen, we seem to be splitting hairs, here. What exactly constitutes TEOTWAWKI? Believe me, although long term loss of electric power would do the trick, I think that loss of clean water in cities, a collapsed banking system, etc., would also cause vast changes to be felt.

What percentage of non-Y2K compliant systems would still work "well enough" to get the job done? This is indeed anyones guess, obviously, but clearly if one assumes non-Y2K compliant = unreliable, then one has erred on the side of safety, generally the prudent thing to do.

It is practically April 1999, haggling over stuff like this is fast becoming irrelevant. Nobody knows, for sure, what the consequences of Y2K are going to be; certainly there exists no "proof" that TEOTWAWKI is going to happen. But anyone with a lick of common sense can realize that we are at great potential risk, and the prudent thing is to take actions at a personal level to minimize what may be a great disaster.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 28, 1999.

Jack:

I think you're only partially correct here.I certainly can't predict what we'll be facing even enough to know how to prioritize my preparations -- am I more likely to face food shortages or unemployment? Should I put more into medical supplies or heat and light? Am I better advised to pay off my credit cards or run them up to the max on supplies? Should I stuff cash under my mattress or spend it on guns and bullets? Will spare glasses turn out to be more important than spare TP and lamp oil? I could go on like this for a long time.

Knowing we're facing a serious threat is only half the battle. Wise preparations hinge on knowing the shape of that threat as clearly as we can. The world as I know it will change a lot more than necessary if my preparations are inappropriate.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 28, 1999.

Wise preparations hinge on knowing the shape of that threat as clearly as we can.

Agree with Flint on that. It's why I call this forum.

I bought the "Time Bomb 2000" book before I ever called here. I liked the book because instead of being told how long there would be disruptions in different sectors of society, scenarios of different lengths were presented. After reading some background on a topic such as transportation, I could better understand how problems of differing lengths in differing areas could affect me.

Coming to this forum is a way to fine tune my preparations. Since I've started reading about Y2K, I've become less concerned about about electricity and more concerned about water. I'm a bit less concerned about federal agencies, but more concerned about local goverments and businesses in my area.

I'm also realizing that the longer-term impact of Y2K on the economy could end up rivaling any shorter-term impact on utilities. In other words, I'm coming here to assess risk so my money going towards Y2K prep goes as far as it can.

And that's why I think this forum is despised by the Y2K Pro and Norm crowd. The problem is, you can't assess the types of risks potentially involved with Y2K by reading all the self-reported good news being sent out by organizations to the media.

Sure, most of the news about remediation in the U.S. will turn out to be good; the GartnerGroup estimates 85% of U.S. organizations will not experience the failure of a mission-critical system. It's where that 15% is that concerns me, and how that 15% could affect the other 85%.

The situation is worse internationally.

People call here because they are making fallback contingency plans. We see the good news about Y2K everyday. Good news about a bank in Wyoming though doesn't tell me anything about my local water company.

That's why this forum is misunderstood. It might seem as if we're only interersted in negative news, when in fact what's happening is that the bad news--a significant minority of the total news out there--has to be known about so we have a better idea of what areas are most important to be prepared in.

For example, I'm not buying a generator, but I'll make sure that that the bicycle in the basement is in good shape or buy a new bike, in case there are gasoline shortages next year.

Sometimes I get the feeling that if news about Y2K is more than 50% good, some people think that means we do not need to prepare for Y2K. If 15% of news out there can bite us and hurt, though, we need to know about it and prepare for it.

Y2K is not a trivial issue. Water and jobs are not trivial issues.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), March 29, 1999.

Hoff and etc.::

I truly love to hear about companies completing testing. My only question is, How did they do the embedded testing?? If they turned the date ahead on teh mainframe and expect the rest to follow? Did they openup each of teh embeddeds and actually read the microcode? this is my only problem here.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (reinzoo@en.com), March 29, 1999.

Chuck:

Obviously, without access to detailed test plans, an answer to your question is merely a guess. But my impression is dates are set forward on systems that can have their dates set forward.

My impression is that you are referencing the so-called "Hidden Date" problem of embedded systems. I'm by no means an expert on embedded systems, but I think this statement by 3COM was significant:

Link

Are there any 3Com products without a time or date function but could have a "hidden" component of their subsystem with a date function which could be affected by Year 2000?

3Com works very closely with its suppliers and we believe that there are no products which have this problem, sometimes described as a "hidden" Year 2000 issue. For any device to understand the date and time there has to be some input at the factory or by the user to define the initial time/date. If this is set at the factory, some power source is needed for the time and date to be kept and as there are multiple time zones around the world, the factory would have to know the correct time zone of the end user. Though the possibility of this problem occurring has been discussed in some articles, we have no evidence of any manufacturer of any product in the world who has this problem. It can further be stated that 3Com does not set time and date functions on any products which do not also have the ability for the user to reconfigure the dates and times. This demonstrates clearly that no 3Com device suffers from this alleged problem.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), March 29, 1999.