Follow-up article by E.L. Core, from Westergaard's site.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), April 29, 1999

Answers

Well, that confirms MY Y2K prediction - that since no (major, mindblowing) problems showed up in the recent cluster of critical dates, some folks would start pushing back the dates for trouble PAST 1/1/2000. And the question I asked then is still valid - how far are YOU going to let it be pushed? I have this vision of a few still hanging on in 2005, waiting in the hills for TEOTW. How many want to end up like Paul Milne, he bugged out in 93, scared of AIDS or something, and is looking to Y2K to validate his decision.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), April 29, 1999.

Paul,

You are so much more intelligent than the rest of us on this forum (with the exception of Flint) that I just don't know why you waste your time with us. Why don't you take your really big brain and go somewhere you will be truly appreciated?

-- Pollyslayer (frustrated@pollys.whohavealltheanswers), April 29, 1999.

Paul,

Read the five points about April 1st I posted on the following thread...

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000kW0

...and then try to weigh which ones are likely to account for no known failures on April 1st, and which ones aren't likely to account for it.

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

Kevin,

No tap-dancing and handwaving allowed. Paul's point was crystal clear: it is a FACT that, prior to 1999, most of the well-known Y2K Prophets were saying that we would be seeing clear signs of Y2K-related problems BY NOW.

It is also a fact that, in view of the horribly-failed predictions for April 1st, the Jo Anne Effect, etc., etc., that many of them are now trying desperately to change the lyrics to the song ... and Lane Core is just one example of many.

What Paul said is spot on the money: the Prophets are now trying desperately to play down the previous disastrously-bad predictions, and they're changing their tunes.

"The US won't get hit that hard, but worldwide, it'll be a disaster."

"We won't see any major problems in January, 2000; they'll continue at random through the year (and the next, etc.)" . . .. and so on.

Maybe YOU didn't make these prophecies, and if not, that's to your credit. But they sure have, which makes it PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE for me to question their prophetic ability in general.

And on that point, if past performance is any indication of future results, you'd be more likely to see the future in tea leaves.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), April 29, 1999.

Kevin:

Your implication is that the 5 statements you posted are the only possible explanations. Stephen and others have pointed out at least 1 more:

6. The people who predicted widespread failures on April 1st did so based on supposition and conjecture rather than a careful examination of the facts and thus overstated the potential problem significantly.

Given those 6 statements, I would lean heavily on #6, some on #3. I would also have serious doubts about how accurate any of the other prognostications are as well.

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), April 29, 1999.

Look at the "progress report" about NorthWestern last week - their actual percentage of failures, responses, need of extra money, extra time, interface problems with Detroit airport, bad reports/late reports from venders, and expected affect on operations is so similar to what was expected you'd think the "doom & gloomers" bribed the airline to spend (waste) 25 million dollars just so they could sell more books.

Look also at the NERC detailed report - they too confirm the need for remediation.

Now, how many of the Fortunate 50,000 are ready now? how many of the Fortune 500? do you seriously believe that all will magically finish "just in time" with no problems by December? NO large company, no state, no even medium sixe city, and less than 50 counties have declared their remediation and testing are done.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), April 29, 1999.

Most of the 'battle' going here is between a few woolly speculations on one side and a few hollow reassurances on the other, with one hell of a lot of silence in between. Now, how is this silence to be interpreted? Pessimists consider it ominous -- few declarations of compliance or details about testing means we have a long way to go and nobody is admitting it. Optimists find the silence comforting -- if all these problems were so serious, why aren't we hearing a lot more about them?

Without question (this is certainly well documented) the predictions for effects to date have resoundingly failed to materialize. So now is this a bad silence (it means more trouble later) or a good silence (it means fears were overblown)?

So we're not really arguing over the facts. We're arguing over the meaning of the lack of facts. Our imaginations lead us in different directions when we hear funny noises in the dark.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 29, 1999.

We have a big bunch of unknowns. So the pollys (optimists) say, "no problemo". The doomists (pessimists) say "TEOTWAWKI". The argument is unproductive.

I consider myself a realist. Quick example:
"the glass is half full" (optimist)
"it's half empty" (pessimist)
"it is in a state of holding 50% of its capacity" (realist).

What's the objective situation?

Everyone involved has their agenda. Gov and businesses will continue to put on the happy face. Maybe they are right. But, as a realist, I have seen both lie many times in the past, so I am skeptical. (They will fiddle while Rome burns.)

If you don't prepare
bump -- you lucked out
TSHTF -- you're toast

bump -- your're out some of your prep costs.
TSHTF -- you have a chance.

-- A (A@AisA.com), April 29, 1999.

I left out a line towards end of above

If you don't prepare
bump -- you lucked out.
TSHTF -- you're toast.

If you DO prepare
bump -- your're out some of your prep costs.
TSHTF -- you have a chance.

-- A (A@AisA.com), April 29, 1999.

RMS,

Your point #6...

6. The people who predicted widespread failures on April 1st did so based on supposition and conjecture rather than a careful examination of the facts and thus overstated the potential problem significantly.

...sounds a lot like my point #1. For clarity in this discussion, I'm going to list those five possible reasons again:

1. Y2K never needed to be fixed. It was all a hoax from the beginning. Problems will be minor even if no remediation takes place.

2. It's easy to make an organization Y2K compliant. (But if that's true, then most everyone would have finished by December 31, 1998).

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

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

5. There are problems with accounting software going on at some agencies, but we don't hear about it. Problems with software affecting manufacturing or distribution are what's newsworthy, but we won't hear about those until 2000.

RMS, if you put any kind of credence in point #3, then harsh criticism of April 1st predictions is not justified. Point #3 leaves open the possibility that an organization has a lot of other Y2K work ahead of it; it's the accounting software that's been dealt with so far.

The notable thing about April 1st is that we heard about no accounting software problems on April 1st--none, zip, nada, zilch. None from the Canadian or British government, none from New York State, and none from from companies whose accounting software entered its fiscal year 2000 on April 1st. I believe some combination of points three, four and five are the reason. Otherwise, one would be left with assuming that all of the above organizations are already 99% or 100% compliant, and we all know that's not true.

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

doesn't it also make sense that the look-ahead programs would be fixed before anything else? THEY wouldn't want to give us any more warning than they have to. SHEESH!

-- sarah (qubr@aol.com), April 29, 1999.

sarah,

Exactly! But the "optimistic" here have trouble understanding that point (and points four and five) for some reason.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 30, 1999.

Robert,

I'm not going to be put in a box by Kevin's Five Possibilities, and I'm not going to let you classify me with a binary solution set: 1 or 0 -- either Y2K is a real problem or it doesn't exist.

I've said here repeatedly that Y2K was a serious problem. It needed to be fixed. But it IS BEING FIXED.

April 1st actually demonstrated that the PROBLEM IS BEING FIXED.

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), April 30, 1999.

Stephen,

April 1st demonstrated that accounting software has been fixed, or "bandaged", or doesn't cause problems that affect manufacturing or distribution.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 30, 1999.

>> THE PROBLEM IS BEING FIXED

Y2k isn't ONE problem, it's many problems. Much work IS being done, but we are still in the dark as to actual results.

The spike date predictions not coming to pass, does not cast in stone anyone's "prophetic ability." (If Y2k were a monolithic single problem, then it might be easier to generalize about that, but it is many different kinds of problems which will occur at once, not in a vacuum of a test environment.) We just won't know, until the rollover and after.

There is no need for anyone to get defensive that predictions didn't pan out, and I don't perceive that anyone who made prognostications IS getting defensive. It's an educational process. "Pollys" who are looking at this as a win/lose argument are perceiving that the opposition is in retreat with their tails between their legs, in defensive skirmish posturing, etc. I don't see it that way, I look at it as a collaborative learning effort. The lack of problems showing up just means we are learning more about how Y2k problems do or do not show themselves. If people change their position, it is because they learned something (hopefully). But only hindsight will really tell.

The "systemic" aspect -- computer problems having a domino effect -- hasn't had a chance to be tested. This may be very important, or it may not. The question of how computers interact when there's a lot more stress on our infrastructure (from glitches that didn't get dealt with) has not been tested. i.e. is the infrastructure brittle, or is it resilient? -- this to me is the whole issue, and frankly I can see it both ways. but the downside looks far enough down, that I want to prepare. But we can't know until we get there.

The "polly" argument is that Y2k problems are no different from computer bugs that occur and get dealt with all the time. I have a hunch this isn't true, but I could be wrong. I listen to the rational arguments and the evidence, but in the end it's my hunches I go on. Just like anyone else making predictions.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), April 30, 1999.

If there is no major trouble by the second working week of 2000, then anyone sensible will decide Y2K was a might-have-been. At that point you can get on with normal life (which for a serious DnGer presumably means worrying about WW3 or bioterrorism or the next wall street crash. )

Note the if. I'll be very happy if it is business as normal, but I doubt it will be.

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), April 30, 1999.

Nigel - good point.

Flint, you made a better one:

" So now is this a bad silence (it means more trouble later) or a good silence (it means fears were overblown)?

So we're not really arguing over the facts. We're arguing over the meaning of the lack of facts. Our imaginations lead us in different directions when we hear funny noises in the dark. -- Flint "

That's the biggest part of the problem - and may remain unresolved until we know whether the one trillion spent was wasted (Flint, Y2KP, RMS, others), was well-spent, or should have been two trillion (my opinion.)

You'll get the same disgreement w/r computer testing: the programmer wants to test to show his program ran so he can release the software to production, the production manager wants the testing to finish so he can sell the program to the customer, but the test manager want to test to find out what bugs are left in the software so he can remove them before selling it to the customer.

The custoemr wants the software to run correctly and predictably.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), April 30, 1999.