I, as many of you, have been told that businesses will simply "go back to doing things manually" if Y2K is any problem at all. This gives them comfort but they have not really thought it through. I have found that my telling them that there are no longer properly trained people for that sort of thing does not work well. What has been successful, with my mother anyway, is to remind her of her first job as a telephone operator. Yes, she was one of those ladies we see in old film clips who sat in an entire room full of women attached to large head sets in front of board with hundres of holes making connections with long patch cords to complete calls. She knows that they were replaced with the next generation of large, machine driven, switching rooms which worked with rotary phones. She knows that the large switching machines were later replaced with large, computerized switching machines. She knows that the large computerized switching machines have been replaced by small computerized switching machines. In short, it suddenly dawned on her that "doing it manually" was several technological generations ago and that the people and the equipment for this earliest way of doing the job no longer exist. Just something to think about the next time this line of discussion arises.

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), June 06, 1999

Answers

Another example of how the Doomlits here try to marginalize everyone into one of two groups: those who support preparation, and Pollyannas who want people to die. You're either one or the other. Likewise, Y2K itself is forced to adhere to simple binary solution sets.

The biggest example, of course, is "either the computers are remediated, or we're toast." That's Lane Core's, and Paul Milne's, and Cory Hamasaki's argument in a nutshell. "No companies are compliant to date; we're toast!"

I HAVE NEVER AGREED WITH THIS METRIC. IT IS INVALID. That's what Paulie boy didn't understand in another thread where we exchanged love letters; he wants me to name companies that are "100% compliant and/or done with remediation." Paul, I'm NOT going to play the game by your rules, BECAUSE YOUR RULES ARE ARBITRARY AND INVALID.

(And just for the record: when I say, "toast," I don't mean "TEOTWAWKI." I'm talking about shortages that would necessitate storing food, water, fuel and other essentials -- so don't try THAT bit of handwaving, either.[g])

Whether you want to believe it or not, many things CAN be done manually or the "old way."

Can all of them be done this way? Of course not. But enough of them CAN be done to forestall catastrophes. (Remember, the standard doomer response to, "we'll just do it by hand" is, "there aren't enough people and/or there'll be too many problems and we'll be overwhelmed ...")

Again: the Win95.CIH Chernobyl virus is the WORST COMPUTER DISASTER IN HISTORY. I've been collecting data on that thing since it happened. You people can poo-poo it and downplay it all you want; that thing was CATASTROPHIC. Corporations lost entire databases. Entire networks went down -- not for an hour or two, either; for DAYS. That virus hammered hundreds of thousands of PCs in a single day.

And yet, Asia has worked around it. Imagine that!

I will remind you that the hue and cry here immediately after April 27th was that "this would be a GREAT example of Y2K!" Yep, it sure was. :)

THEY WORKED AROUND IT.

But back to doing it manually or the "old way." Power companies are a good example. Go read what Dr. Mark Kinsler had to say about this at my Web site.

As Mark notes, power companies tend to be very conservative about equipment. When they put in a new widget, they're very likely to leave the old widget in place as a backup.

(Just for the record, we do that in our industry, too; MOST do this. If my top of the line digital processor goes out, I fall back to the analog Optimod; if that fails, I've got ANOTHER backup gathering dust in the rack.)

THIS is why the now-infamous Peach Bottom story was actually good news: it showed that the older backup systems worked just fine.

Do you HONESTLY believe that, if the computers die, everyone will stand around and wring their hands and say, "oh, no, we're out of business! What'll we do?"

Just because I've gotten good at anticipating arguments, I'll go ahead and deflect the next one. I am NOT saying that Y2K wasn't a serious problem. Of course it was. But it was NEVER necessary that we fix ALL bugs, only enough to make the workarounds feasible.

HOW a problem is solved doesn't interest me (insofar as it's not illegal, of course!). All I care is that it IS solved.

Paul Milne says I have no facts. ROFL! The best example I can imagine is staring you right in the face. You can finesse and try to shrug it off all you want, but there it sits in all its glory: Asia worked around the BIGGEST COMPUTER CATASTROPHE IN HISTORY in a matter of days -- and the overall effect on their (already bad!) economy was minimal.

JUST as I predicted. And here's my next prediction.

Some of you people are holding out for July 1st; you're thinking (hoping?) that tons of problems will crop up then. Don't get your hopes up. Yes, there will be some problems -- but nothing like what you're anticipating.

It'll be a redux of the Euro thing, where, yes, there were some problems (including a couple of whoppers) ... but the European banking community worked around it.

Bet me. :)

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 06, 1999.

I'd like to know what the differances of Win95.CIH and Y2K are, and wether or not Asia could work around the latter just becasue it proved it could eliminate the prior. No, that notion has no fact to it at all, but it's just as plausible as Poole's statement. He says if A is one thing, B must therefore be the same. Sounds like deluded logic to me.

-- (workathome@atl.ga), June 06, 1999.

As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken....

Buddha

"The conveniences and comforts of humanity in general will be linked up by one mechanism, which will produce comforts and conveniences beyond human imagination. But the smallest mistake will bring the whole mechanism to a certain collapse. In this way the end of the world will be brought about."

Sufi Prophet Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan's prophecy (Complete Works, 1922 I, p. 158-9)

"Where's my screwdriver???"

pooleCrETin (June 1999 - with just 111 working days to go...)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 06, 1999.

Mr. Poole, Thanks for the response, but you seem to miss my intention and salient point. I am not waiting for things to collapse or people to die. My personal challange was to make an elderly mother who is unsophisticated in technology understand that some problems may occur. Her problem is that she had heard too many people, such as yourself, say that all will be well. She has heard a myriad of statements which include: There is no problem, its a hoax. Business will not allow a problem to exist, it would be too costly. The government would not allow for such a problem. The computer industry will provide a last minute fix, for a large fee. The bump in the road will only affect undeveloped nations. Business will make work arounds to solve the problem. Fix on failure will work in a few days. And finally, "They can do things manually." You are correct, some things can be done manually. I recently checked into a hotel and their new credit car machine, via modem, did not work. They did it manually. They imprinted the card with an old machine and phoned in a verification. It did work, but took 20 minutes to check in. Other things will readily be done manually, but some will certainly not work, such as the phone example I provided. It had the effect, it helped an elderly woman understand the potential problem and allowed her to accept some prudent precautions. Enough? No. But better than what she had. Mr. Poole, your proclivity to promptly attack a post is difficult to understand. You errect a straw man and marginalize my statement by puching me into a group of those who wish for the end of the world and the death of many. My desire was honest and aimed at helping an elderly woman, who can not walk without help due to polio, accept some help. Is your motivation as generously based?

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), June 06, 1999.

Stephen

"Don't get your hopes up" you say.

Milne was wrong and Andy was wrong. Your are not a moron or an idiot at all. You are insane.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), June 06, 1999.

workathome:

As I understand it, the popular domino theory doesn't really care *what* caused the computers to crash and databases to be lost. The domino theory only assumes widespred and catastrophic computer failures. Which is exactly what the Chernobyl virus caused. It is indeed to the point to notice that the dominoes didn't fall far and didn't stay down long. The failures happened, and they were major. But they didn't cascade. This is good news. Why not recognize this?

This was one of our rare opportunities to actually witness, in real life, what happens when a huge number of computers suffer simultaneous major failures, complete with collateral damage. This gives us perfectly valid and genuine insight into the process. Dismissing it as unrelated to y2k is missing the point. Unless you're *trying* to miss the point, because your precious collapse didn't happen?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 06, 1999.

Flint: "The failures happened, and they were major. But they didn't cascade. This is good news. Why not recognize this?"

Of course it's good news. And it's recognized as good news. Nothing in the posts above suggest otherwise.

But I suggest that it's not enough good news. Electricity was still available, fuel was still available, food was still available. Everyone involved in repairing the damage was able to get to work.

Can these conditions be guaranteed next year?

Is it folly to make provision for a situation not as benign?

Is it folly not to?

For me, and perhaps for others, many unknowns remain.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), June 06, 1999.

Tom:

I agree, it was not a full-blown y2k dress rehearsal. It was simply as close as we can expect to come beforehand. However, it did strike exactly where y2k is expected to hit hardest. We seem to have immediate infrastructure problems under control, though of course with no guarantees. We'll never get *enough* good news, while so far we've had hardly any bad news at all (but *lots* of warnings, lots of potentials, lots of serious concerns).

I expect that a year from now, we'll all have a shiny new concept of what "good enough" really is.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), June 06, 1999.

Flint:

I wonder what the differances are in the two bugs because I work at home on various mainframes and I know that different viri act in different ways. Some cause me to go seek headache medication and some are about as worrisome as a rainy day. So I pose the question in hopes of understanding the nature of the problem, BEFORE I give the people who fixed it a whole lot of credit. I understand it was bad, but did it wipe out databases or just render them inaccessible for a few hours? I need logistics to base a comparrison on, I think you know what I mean. As far as fantasies of catastrophe, I served in southeast asia in 1968 and had my share of ordinace coming my way, and not looking forward to anything (y2k riots)that causes said ordinance to be loaded into any ordinance propelling devices.

-- (workathome@atl.ga), June 06, 1999.

Stuff a sock in it Flint. You're so -bleep-ing flustered, your drooling on yourself. Don't mind him, smfdoc, his big brain is ready to suffer a blow-out because he's been forced to argue with common sense on several other threads and I fear he's going to begin smoking soon (hopefully, implode rather than explode....for safety reasons). to return to manual methods is like hoping Santa Claus is real. If TSHTF how many "cubical" employees would continue to show up to work, and yet, are we to believe that tens of thousands of "new" employees will suddenly appear at the doorsteps of corporate America looking for a pencil and paper job(providing they don't run out of pencils)? or a "stand outside in the middle of January" job, throwing switches and starting generators until the gas runs out? The skills to go manual are gone. Shoot, when was the last time someone was "able" to count your change back to you? What about all of the manual "equipment" that *used* to have a purpose. Who is *still* producing it? Do corporations and utilities have warehouses filled with these 30+ year old items, hidden in the New Mexico desert someplace? Anyone who would even suggest this poopie caca is not in touch with reality. And don't try to throw the "that wouldn't be the case for every industry" *fluff* at me either, because I'm too tired to dis-cussss the fault tolerence. Poole and Flint are joined at the hip! Hope that helps, doc. Good luck, it's a daunting task to say the least!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 06, 1999.

Hello, this is The ABC Power Co. All of our customer service representatives are busy now. Please listen to Muzak for a while...

... ... ... ... ...

Hello, your call is important to us. Please stay on the line. Someone will be with you shortly...

... ... ... ... ...

Hello, please stay on the line. If you hang-up, you will only have to wait longer when you call back. What type of Muzak do you prefer? Enter 1 for...

... ... ... ... ...

Sorry, we just had a power failure. Our phone system just reset itself to 1900 again. Please call back tomorrow, after we try and figure what's going on here...

... ... ... ... ...

Thank you, and have a nice day... ... ... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 06, 1999.

Flint:

You took the words right out of my mouth. If the domino effect and all of this "interconnected" stuff was anywhere close to the fact that the Doomlits assume, Asia would be a quivering, smoking ruin right now. :)

Tom Carey:

The power will be on next year. There will doubtless be a few minor interruptions here and there (which will be worked around rather quickly), but virtually NO ONE except for a few nuthouses say otherwise anymore. You need to join 1999 and get out of 1997; that old news is starting to become stale.

To All:

Here's another disconnect for you. Read this carefully:

EMBEDDED AND CONTROL PROBLEMS: Possible effects on the lights, water, oil, etc.

ENTERPRISE DATA PROBLEMS: Possible economic effects, NOT effects on the lights, water, or food supply. (Not necessarily BAD effects, either ... for example, unemployment could drop to .001% if what the Doomlits screech is accurate.)

They're two separate things. All together now; repeat after me!

EMBEDDED AND CONTROL PROBLEMS: Possible effects on power, water, oil, etc.

ENTERPRISE DATA PROBLEMS: Economic effects.

See how this works? I am amused that some Doomlits use statistics from the LATTER to prove that you should prepare for the FORMER. :)

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), June 06, 1999.

Poole said:

"The power will be on next year. There will doubtless be a few minor interruptions here and there (which will be worked around rather quickly), but virtually NO ONE except for a few nuthouses say otherwise anymore. You need to join 1999 and get out of 1997; that old news is starting to become stale."

I don't think I can trust anybody's opinion who makes a statement like that. Yeah, the power very well might be on, but I find it confusing how you of all people came to possess this amazing power of precognition. BTW, you got any tips for next week's Braves game?

-- (workathome@atl.ga), June 06, 1999.

Poole's feeling kinda lonely again. This is the only place he has any friends, Flint's feeling sorta blue tonight too.(he just cleaned himself up after an accidental brush with the truth....he's wandering around various threads, even as we speak, looking for the truck that hit him) Maybe you two could get together and phoo-phoo tell it hurts.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 07, 1999.

Know how to spell ASS-U-ME? It'll make an ASS out of U and ME.

I ain't happy with that big 75% NERC number. It's an average. Sure FPL is at "95%" as of a few weeks ago. That means someone else, just as big, is at 55% to get that average. We're at LESS THAN 7 MONTHS here folks. FPL has been at it since 1995. They should be ready. Most got a much later start. Dan the power man says don't worry. Sorry, I can't help it. Dan says it'll look much better next report. Can't freaking wait...

Y2K power is not looking all that great, IMHO. But what do I know. I'll leave it to people like Mr. Cook, and Dan...

I assumed the answering machine was compliant. Silly me. Please call back in another day or two. We'll add you to the list... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 07, 1999.

Manual workarounds?

Here's a manual workaround for you!

When Mrs D is not in the mood, I can usually find a "manual workaround" that gets the job done.

It isn't as good though, and I fear that some productivity may be lost due to excess time involvement.

In short, (yeah, HA HA) it ain't the same thing, even in the best case scenario.

Cheers,

-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 07, 1999.

Thanks for sharing, Unc :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 07, 1999.

heeehooo. That's good you guys. I think it's time for me to get some sleep. I've just had way too much fun today. I always know I'm getting punchy when I start Cracking MYSELF up...whewwwww.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 07, 1999.

Flint: "I agree, it was not a full-blown y2k dress rehearsal. It was simply as close as we can expect to come beforehand. However, it did strike exactly where y2k is expected to hit hardest."

Huh? How do you figure? It only had the potential to hit PeeCees running Win 95/98. It did not hit embedded systems. It did not hit big (or medium) iron. It did not hit NT systems. It did not hit older PeeCees with Win 3.x or DOS running various industrial processes.

Even though it primarily hit only office workers with fairly modern PCs, the results were pretty dramatic, and are probably far from over at this time. There are certainly examples of enterprises that had a computer outage which caused a mortal wound, but they lived a while longer before their final collapse. Do you really think that we already know the whole story on the damage it caused? I sure don't -- and we probably never will.

But the significant thing is that it only hit a small subset of the systems that are vulnerable to y2k. Think of the "spider web" analogy. If you break one of the key anchor strands of a web, say, once an hour, the spider can fix it and still have time to eat as well. If you break one every 30 minutes, the spider can probably deal with that too. But, start breaking several at a time, and do it more frequently, and the whole thing eventually caves in, or the spider just doesn't have enough time to take care of everything and slowly starves.

Given the limited set of computing systems that the Chernobyl virus impacted, I don't see that it is even remotely usable as a "good news" indicator re: y2k. Don't misunderstand, I'd be verrry happy to see some good news, this just doesn't seem meaningful -- it didn't break enough strands of the web.

The one y2k illustration that comes from it, I believe, is that -- even with considerable warning and an easy solution -- Asia was largely asleep until it was too late....

-- Randy (randyjones@techie.com), June 07, 1999.

"But, start breaking several at a time, and do it more frequently, and the whole thing eventually caves in, or the spider just doesn't have enough time to take care of everything and slowly starves."

Randy,

I like that. 'nough said... <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 07, 1999.

poole: "unemployment could drop to .001% if what the Doomlits screech is accurate."

Yep, money-as-zeroes-and-ones will cease to exist, reducing the $ in circulation by 90%+, but unemployment will drop to .001%.

7 months to go 'til civilisation hits a brick wall, and we're spending our time debating a retard. Maybe we're crazy too.

-- humpty (Iam_not_a_number@hotmail.com), June 07, 1999.

Cess Pool;

I don't think the Asia thingie had anything to to with code fixin or chip huntin. I think most of the PC's could be cleaned up by their operators. My anti-virus program takes about 5-min. to clean my system. It is absured to argue the manual point with anyone. Try to tell my local gas station that, no geny - no hand pumps. Or maybe you would like to ask your local super sized grocery store how they could keep track of their inventory mannualy with 20 people working there. Computers have replaced trained people. When is the last time you saw a cashier that could count change back without the register telling her/him how much to give you? You Sir, are a JOKE.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), June 07, 1999.

And a really bad one at that, FLAME.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 07, 1999.

To prove your chances... take a single die and roll it. There is a 16.67% chance it will roll the number you want. Now... take the die and roll again, hoping the "6" doesn't come up. You may be able to roll the die three times, four times, maybe ten times and the "6" will not come up. OR, you roll the die and the "6" comes up EVERY time, four times in a row. This is called chance, or luck of the roll.

So, what is the roll going to be on 010100?? What percentages are you comfortable with? What percentages are being reported in your neck of the woods??? 75%???? 50%??? 83%??? At what percentage are you willing to bet your life, and your family's life?

Hedge your bets... If the government rolls a "6", will you be affected? What about power? Will you be affected if power rolls "snake eyes"???

That's what I hate about percentages and SPIN. I am not comfortable if they say there is a .01% chance of failure. Is the data they are taking this information from accurate?

What were the percentages that an F5 tornado would have formed over Oklahoma? Or a hurricane like Mitch FORMING in the Gulf of Mexico.

I HATE percentages...

Got preps???????????

waterin' the bushes,

The Dog

-- Dog (cmpennell@juno.com), June 07, 1999.

hey sysman,and when you make an assumption,you make an ass out of you and umption!

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), June 07, 1999.

As I asked on an earlier thread, I manage an employment agency:Temp, Temp to Perm, Contract, and Permanent placement. Where are we going to get the people for these manual workarounds?

Let's start out with some working assumptions.

1. No business will be impacted enough to lay off significant numbers of employees.

2. There will be a need for new workers for these manual workarounds at, say, 40% of firms of all sizes. On average, they will need to increase their staffing by 25% to accomplish these "backup" procedures.

3. We will assume NO supply line problems at all (otherwise we would be seeing layoffs, etc). Any and all needed supplies will be readily available.

4. All presently unemployed persons are literate and capable of working with these manual systems.

4. We maintain a national unemployment rate of about 4%.

Now, 25% of 40% is a 10% increase in needed workers. Where do they come from, based on the assumptions above?

I realize that this is a "thought experiment" and that my numbers are totally arbitrary (frankly, chosen to show the problem ).

Seriously, there are NOT hundreds of thousands or millions of bookkeepers, mail sorters, switch operators, etc., available and willing to work for under $8.00 to $10.00 per hour.

Sure, I can find you a lot of unemployed middle managers, non degreed engineers or project managers, etc., who are unemployed. They are looking for $40,000 to $75,000. They are not going to be real happy about working for $10.00 an hour. If they were willing to do so, they would be doing it now.

And I MUST question my assumption #4, above. It isn't so, folks. A large percentage of the current unemployed are:

A. Felons or have a Felony record. Do you want them working with your financial information?

B. High School dropouts. They are functionally illiterate, cannot do simple math, cannot spell, read or write coherently. Not a happy thought for your critical backup, hey?

Seriously, I live in a county of about 200,000 people. Every employment agency in town, working together, couldn't find 200 good bookkeepers/paper ledger people if our life depended on it without robbing other companies. The qualified (meaning able to work on at least a high school graduate level) candidates are not out there.

Where will we get these people when we need them?

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), June 07, 1999.

Am I the only systems person who's worked with Purchasing Patty and Materials management Murphy who keep JIT/MRP/Inventory records in their heads and only physically enter data records as a courtesy?

We better hope these old-timers are still around circa the rollover....

Oh, and a word about credit lines....... lots of manufacturing businesses use their accounts receivable as collateral for credit lines. Those A/R payments better get there on time... via the US mail?...

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), June 07, 1999.

Sorry 'bout dat.

-- lisa (lisa@oops.bad_dog), June 07, 1999.

Many manual workarounds will be possible, even Unc's. I'm sure he's gonna be compliant even if Mrs. D isn't.

So, big deal. Some things will be done manually, but not everything will be and certainly not at the levels necessary to sustain the current comfort levels in western countries, especially the United States. How people react to this major shift in their zone of comfort is going to be really, really interesting.

Going manual cannot provide the kind of efficiency and productivity required to sustain the current population levels. It's all about carrying capacity. Things don't have to go Infomagic for people to die.

Regarding the Chernobyl virus and the ability of the system to recover after it's effects...

Fine, they did a masterful job. It caused disruptions but they were overcome.

You need to consider all the other issues related to the interconnectivity and the interdependence of the system and then consider how much strain the systems will be under if disruptions are widespread. Also, then factor in that it's believed that there will be a large amount of new and lethal virus's around the 2000 rollover. Also, it's believed that the market will suffer a large correction which will impact consumer confidence and spending.

You can call a brick wall just a bump in the road but if you crash into it my common sense tells me your gonna suffer a few big disruptions.

Mike ===============================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), June 07, 1999.