I keep reading all these stupid headlines saying "Blah, blah, blah not likely to fail" and "No disruptions expected with blah, blah, blah." Here is one recent example:

HEADLINE:

"U.S. Phone System Looks Ready For Year 2000"

Sounds good to the average moron right?

But if they bother to read the article they'll find statements like these:

"unlikely to suffer major outages"

"are expected to be 100 percent ready"

"could experience some problems"

`We think it prudent to expect some delays,''

``We have attempted to take that into account,''

``We have tried wherever possible to test those interconnections.''

"we will be redoubling our efforts,''

``We must acknowledge a certain degree of risk"

Who are they kidding? When you get right down to it, the more accurate headline would be this:

"U.S. Phone System Could Experience Some Problems For Year 2000"

To all the "Don't get its" and the "Don't want to get its":

THE BOTTOM LINE:

NO ONE KNOWS ANYTHING FOR SURE, AND NO ONE WILL KNOW WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN UNTIL IT DOES!!

So, at least from my perspective, it isn't even computer failures that we are worried about, it is the NOT KNOWING. The vast majority of humans are control freaks. They may act now as though they are not worried, but at some point in time nearly everyone is going to realize that there is no way for them to know what is going to occur after Jan. 1, 2000 and no way for most of us to have any control over it.

This is why you can go into denial if you like, but the sooner you get ready, the better off you will be.

As the saying goes, "the only thing that never changes is that everything changes."

(P.S. This post is not intended to mock the efforts of all information technology personnel working hard to resolve these problems, but to the contrary, their efforts are greatly appreciated. This is a very complex problem however, and they are only human, they will make errors. My opinion of the media in spinning these unrealistic and misleading headlines is not so admirable. They are either just very stupid, or purposely putting the welfare of the common man at risk for their own hidden agendas, which is wrong.)

-- @ (@@@.@), March 30, 1999

Answers

link

-- @ (@@@.@), March 30, 1999.

@,

It was mentioned by Mr. Powell in the press conference on C-Span2 that testing done on the phone networks has been with simulations carefully constructed to represent the "real" phone system that cannot be tested in real-time. Between the "ifs" and other qualifiers, what it came down to was that the FCC really doesn't have a clue what's going to happen telcom-wise. In the world of programming, Murphy's Law always reigns though. Especially when so many systems are affected......

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), March 30, 1999.

Another cheery headline to start your day. The federal government is upbeat about the status of its computers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-03/31/024r-033199-idx. html

-- Gearhead (2plus2@motown2.com), March 31, 1999.

The link above has an embedded space ..
 
 
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-03/31/024r -033199-idx.html
 
 


-- Dan (DanTCC@Yahoo.com), April 04, 1999.

PJC:

I've done a number of FPGA parts in simulation. Fast, cheap, and I knew *exactly* what they'd do in practice. And they did it. If you really believe simulation gives you no clue what's going to happen, you ought to tell those who write simulators as well as those who use them. They would be highly amused.

Anyway, whatever the reality is that is coming 'later', I hope we all live to face it. Whatever it may be, it's better than the alternative.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 04, 1999.

Flint,

If this were the case, then Boeing should be able to answer the question on rudder hard-overs. they have not been able to simulate ANY situations that would generate the hard-overs that are being (and have been ) reported, and have been blamed for a couple crashes costing roughly 500 lives.

I suspect that it depends on what you are trying to find out in simulation.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (reinzoo@en.com), April 04, 1999.

Chuck:

OK, you're right, simulations are simulations. They aren't reality, and they aren't perfect. Sometimes the simulation does things that reality doesn't and vice versa.

But this is a far cry from telling you nothing at all. Sometimes, if you run a 24x7 operation, and it takes you a week to shut it down and a week to start it back up, the test itself is moot -- you'd go broke running it anyway. Shutting down the entire global communications system for a week falls into the same category - not doable.

In cases like these, you do the very best you can with whatever tools you have, and then you must wait and see what happens. If your tools are very good, this can be a lot.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 04, 1999.