Can't post URL for this yet, but it should show up shortly on Yahoo, etc.

(Snip)

Y2K bug will hit early, reverberate - UK report

By Neil Winton, Science and Technology Correspondent

LONDON (Reuters) - The millennium computer bug is more than just a problem for midnight on December 31, 1999, a British report published Tuesday said.

The report from Taskforce 2000, a privately funded organization seeking to raise awareness of the millennium computer bug problem, said about 60 percent of computer errors and data disruption will occur during 1999.

Around 30 percent will happen after the revels greeting the new century have died down, it added.

``The current focus on 1st January 2000, (which) although understandable, is simplistic and unrealistic,'' Ian Hugo, assistant director of Taskforce 2000, told a news conference.

``In particular, the media focus on the rollover from 1999 to 2000 is mistaken, as we believe that this will be only five to 10 percent of the problem.''

(Snip)

Got water?

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 20, 1999

Answers

Mass media mastication of Gartner report, see thread below.

Chuck

-- chuck, a Night Driver (rienzoo@en.com), April 20, 1999.

Other interesting quotes from the above article:

(Snip)

Hugo said the lack of news about computers failing did not mean that problems had not occurred. ``You only hear about the failures that can't be covered up. Only real messes get heard about,'' he said.

Hugo reckoned that the riskiest area concerned large corporations that were late to fix their computer systems.

``Large projects that are late; that's where the chance of failure is greatest,'' Hugo said.

Hugo said in the report that what he called the ``drag factor'' could cause problems to spread over days or weeks.

``The reason that problems will continue for longer than many think is due to the ``drag factor.'' This is the lag that occurs between technical errors occurring and disruption becoming noticeable. A failure in one area may take weeks to cause problems elsewhere,'' Hugo said.

(end snip)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 20, 1999.

I guess we should rename it the Y1999 bug. NOT! Yes, see this link... <:)=

Gartner

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 20, 1999.

This is good, isn't it? The lights are still on and people can still get to work to fix the problems.

-- shy ann (shy@really.shy), April 20, 1999.

Sorry FM, ... duplicate thread ...

Y2K Problems Will Drag On, Taskforce Warns (Taskforce 2000)

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000k4Y

With a link to Taskforce 2000 web-site.

Gotta love that statement ... Hugo said the lack of news about computers failing did not mean that problems had not occurred. ``You only hear about the failures that can't be covered up. Only real messes get heard about,'' he said.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 20, 1999.

shy ann,

The lights are still on, in some places, and people can still get to work to fix the problems, in some places, NOT all.

And we won't "know" where, until we get there.

Fun game, huh?

*Sigh*

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 20, 1999.

Duh. You're just now figuring this out? And the vaunted JAE is part of that 60% in case you didn't know.

-- This is old, old news (duh@this.one), April 20, 1999.

Yep, they are absolutely correct. We have already had at least 25% of the total of Y2K problems that could be expected, some would say as much as 50% due to the fact that such errors started as far back as 97/98. Just been plumb earth-shattering, hasn't it? And I think the 'hidden' argument is just baloney - if the error is not bad enough to disrupt daily operations, then it isn't bad enough for the public to worry about. Why do you want to know about minor problems anyhow? Except to blow them up and yell "DOOM" I mean.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), April 20, 1999.

Paul,

Personally I hope that ALL problems are minor, and that I don't hear about most of them, and that most of them won't affect me.

That's my hope. My CONCERN however, is that problems with the availability of drinking water, electricity, natural gas and oil may surface AFTER the new year. 'Hope not, but if so--to quote the Red Cross--I'd rather be in my home than sleeping on a gymnasium floor.

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 20, 1999.

Paul,

So are you saying that almost everyone has already fixed Y2K...or are you saying that it never needed to be fixed in the first place?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 20, 1999.

Paul Davis is a Pollyanna idiot. Don't bother responding to him.

-- No One (noone@nowhere.com), April 20, 1999.

I'm not going to flame Paul Davis or be uncivil, so I'd like to calmly ask again...

Paul, what do you think is the reason that Y2K failures appear to be small so far? Is almost all Y2K work finished, or was Y2K remediation unnecessary in the first place?

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 21, 1999.

Kevin - well thanks for a civil response. I seem a bit touchy at times, largely because of the subject we are talking about right here - many problems are already behind us! Once you understand that, you understand that Y2K isn't going to be TEOTWAWKI, more like An Unending Series Of Annoyances (AUSOA).

As to why most everything so far has been minor, I actually put it down to greed and market forces. I think many/most outfits with heavy computer exposure saw Y2K as a chance to force out anyone who did not remediate. As this word spread, some heavy Y2K fixes were put into place. There are a lot of companies that are done and not talking about it (I am utterly certain of several, one trucking firm in particular that won't talk about Y2K at all was done YEARS ago), hoping for the other outfits in their field to go slow and stumble. Then they are going to take the business in for themselves. I really think this is why so much has actually been done so well.

Now this absolutely does not rule out some places having trouble or even shutting their doors, but it certainly implies others standing ready to step into their shoes. In other words, I expect changes and some upset on the corporate level, but not much in the way of stuff that affects the man on the street.

As for the 'prepare for the worst' arguement - I live in flood country. I keep food and such all the time. But apparently I can imagine much worse than most - the first step on the road to the Mad Max scenarios is killing off 95% of the population - if you take the current number as 280,000,000 in the US then you are doing in 266,000,000. Now how the dickens can you prepare for that? The whole idea is ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that 99% of the survivors would be serfs/slaves to a very few - most likely remnants of military forces. Frankly, I think the whole Mad Max/Gary North thing is the biggest bunch of baloney I have ever encountered.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), April 21, 1999.

Paul,

Then your answer, basically, is that almost everyone has already finished their Y2K work. If this is true, then I don't think you need to worry about panic late this year or early next year.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 21, 1999.

Not exactly Kevin, I think there has been ENOUGH done so that any who falter will have someone standing ready to take over. Companies may fail, but others will take over for them. We may indeed have shortages in some items - mostly imported things - but are a bit too far away from January to make any sort of solid prediction. A bit short of information too.

If I really had to name my most likely candidate for a price jump/shortage - it would probably have to be coffee. Almost totally imported, from third world countries, goes through many hands before it gets here - and if there is any sort of disruption in Columbia the local rebels down there will make all the trouble they can PLUS Y2K problems.

So you see, I don't follow some sort of party line. My ideas are my own, and I will say what I think.

As the sheriff said at the OK corral - it ain't comfortable being in the middle.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), April 21, 1999.

...I think there has been ENOUGH done so that any who falter will have someone standing ready to take over.

Paul,

Your comment puts us back to square one on this discussion. If there are companies in danger of going out of business due to Y2K, then why didn't we hear about any accounting software problems on April 1st?

Possible explanations...

1. Y2K never needed to be fixed. It was all a hoax from the beginning.

2. Y2K is easy to fix. (If that's true, then most everyone would have finished by December 31, 1998).

3. Companies have prioritized their remediation and made sure that accounting software was dealt with early on.

4. Companies changed the end date of their fiscal year 2000 from March 31, 2000 to December 31, 2000.

5. There are problems with accounting software going on at some companies, but we just don't hear about it.

My personal opinion is some combination of points three, four and five.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 22, 1999.

Correction. Line four should have said:

4. Companies changed the end date of their fiscal year 2000 from March 31, 2000 to December 31, 1999.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 22, 1999.