Please don't make any responses on that thread. No, I'm not laughing right now, Vic, though I do laugh at some of the doomer posts. I really want to know if I've left anything out of this logical sequence of statements. Did I?

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999

Answers

Yes.

Number 11. I'm an idiot and I really don't care what the answers are or about logical thought. So I'm posting a bunch of crap no one has ever said to generate responses from people that don't know any better, so I can go back to deboonkah and brag to cpr what a smart and wise person I am.

Piss off troll

-- ariZONEa (not_biting@this_crap.com), June 23, 1999.

Yes doomers are becoming more vile, yours is a case in point.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999.

Watch this video in the RealPlayer format of Senator Bob Bennett. I think he does an excellent job of explaining the possible ramifications of Y2K:

http://www.bog.frb.fed.us/y2k/CSPAN/19980715/Complete.ram

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 23, 1999.

Well, I'd make the statements a little less firm.

1. Y2K comes from year miscalculation, logic omissions, special-use of date fields and a few other things.

2. Computers will know the year as well as they ever did, but for some of them the year 99 becomes the year 00. They won't think it's 1900 because they don't know it's 1999 now - they just think it's 99. For the affected programs, time will seem to run backwards, and that never happened before. That makes Y2k inherently unpredictable.

3. SOME computers (hardware, software or embeddeds) will fail, if not remediated, and our problem is that we don't know which ones.

4. Not enough time to remediate. Yup, got that right.

5. So with the above statements, we can conclude that some fraction of computers will have some processing problems, which are unpredictable at this point.

6. Many things (but not everything) depends on computers.

7. Lots of things are interconnected.

8. This interconnected world has a breaking point, that is, a number a failures that would cause collapse.

9. That breaking point is totally unknown. The best we can do is sketch scenarios and guess. There are no experts, but there is a wide variation in people's willingness to grapple with the problem and to analyze possible vulnerabilities.

10. Taking statement 5 with statement 9, we can conclude that the risks are extremely high, and a prudent course would be to prepare for disruptions. The computers don't care what we think; what breaks will break.

There, that looks a little better.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), June 23, 1999.

Maria,

Also see the article...

http://www.joc.com/issues/990308/p1age1/e20324.htm

"Experts warn of Y2K trade upheaval"

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 23, 1999.

AL-D likes to pet my pussy cat. Meow

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999.

Marias old thread...

I think I get it or Im not a rocket scientist but know how to launch them

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

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), June 23, 1999.

This is a test. This is a polly test to determine exactly what will or won't get deleted.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), June 23, 1999.

Give me some hot monkey-lovin!

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999.

Thanks bw for that response. It represents a more rational approach to Y2K issues.

The responses from the imposter Maria are most humorous if you have a sick kind of humor. I didn't find them funny but I'm not that sick.

Link, I've been watching the video. Can't find anything germane here. Please which points in particular did you think belong in the sequence I posted?

-- The real Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999.

Whoa I like to eat gravel.

-- The real Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999.

I find myself in agreement with BW.

And Maria, I try to refrain from name calling. It's really counter- productive, and just gets people on the defensive, while doing NOTHING AT ALL to further debate on the issues.

Personally, I don't care WHAT a person's belief system is, "polly" or "doomer". NEITHER group seems to admit that the other is capable of anything other than arguing about an "all or nothing" scenario.

I find these meaningless forays into hysterical name-calling and hyperbole ("memes" and related crap) to be childish in the extreme. (and YES, I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else, from time to time.)

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), June 23, 1999.

ROTFLMAO!

-- three (faces@of.maria), June 23, 1999.

Dennis, I will apologize for calling you an idiot. But please tell me how you could agree with bw when you believe in doom? Bw's logic doesn't imply any doom but that disruptions will occur. Don't you think that there will be enough disruptions to create chaos? I'm just trying to understand how smart intelligent people can come to their conclusions. I exclude a, Ray, and a few others from that list of smart intelligent people.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 23, 1999.

Maria,

Many times, my personal opinions of what will happen vary from "a bad month" to "6-12 months of hell". It just depends on how I feel that day, and what info crosses my screen. Only at the very beginning of my research did I fear TEOTWAWKI in the classic, literal sense.

I am fairly new to this site, and don't know the personalities involved. I started my personal research last fall. Since then I've put literally hundreds of hours into it. Having been in the programming biz for many years, I've actually WRITTEN some of the code that now needs to be repaired. (Sorry)

I am more of a "general pessimist" I guess, and not specifically related to Y2K. Since I *DO* feel that there will be problems, my obsessive-compulsive "evil half" (so to speak) drives me to prepare for short- to intermediate-term power loss (we live near Minneapolis, and January can be -20 deg.!), as well as some supply-chain disruptions. Of course, the oil companies NEVER need much of an excuse to jack gas prices through the roof!

We are in the process of setting up food storage, but at 4 months' worth, we're not even MAINSTREAM according to our church! (LDS). Do I "go overboard"? You bet; I just do it on ANY topic (you should see my bike!) I enjoy reading different thoughts and mindsets on the Y2K issue, but really have no interest in "bashing" anyone.

I have postulated more than once that, as the clock ticks down, the levels of hysteria (on BOTH sides) would dramatically increase. I have seen this take place. I am not a "zealot" or a "doomer" in the classic sense; I just want to play Y2K on the safe side. I have even (gasp!) found myself in occaisional agreement with the "polly" camp!

I don't understand why the two sides seem to take such "lip-smacking delight" in verbally abusing each other, I guess. After all Maria, I don't know you at all; why should I insult you? If I disagree with your opinion, I'll say so, and try my best to back up my position. The only people who consistently "get my goat" (and who I've flamed in the past) are people that actively urge others to do nothing at all, and those that think that gov't "spin" or disinformation is a GOOD THING, and that the public should NOT be given accurate information. I also distrust the federal gov't HIGHLY, but I was in the service, and have what I consider to be valid reasons for that feeling.

I think a little preparation is good for the soul, and if done calmly, rationally and EARLY, can largely obviate the potential panic at the last minute. Although I think Americans are basically good people, we certainly DO have a larger "lunatic fringe" than other countries, and we tend to see conspiracies under every rock.

Anita Spooner (with whom I correspond offline) has helped me overcome my initial "doom and panic" mode. (She's far from a polly; she's preparing for a month or two).

And ultimately, what each of us does to prepare (or not) is our own business, and I applaud all efforts, however slight they might be.

Sorry this post was rambling, but it's hard sometimes to accurately state my feelings on all this. You WILL see me more on the negative side, but I do my best to give everyone their own space and respect.

I hope you take some understanding from this post, and if you wish to email me, the addy is a valid one.

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), June 23, 1999.

Maria,

The video of Senator Bennett is especially good at explaining points six and seven. It's well worth your time.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), June 24, 1999.

Maria,

If you would like a rational discussion about your enquiry where you won't get abused then please feel free to email me at dragon@wair.com.au

If you have any questions I will attempt to answer them, if you do not want me to know your email address then just set up a Yahoo/Hotmail/Whatever Free Email Service account and we can converse with you using one of those.

I 'could be classified as a doomer', and I don't condone the abuse that flies around in this forum.

Regards, Simon

-- Simon Richards (simon@wair.com.au), June 24, 1999.

I'd love to hear what you have to say. I think I sent to the wrong address (different than in your by line). Here's what I posted on the other thread.

Gia, I see you left out number 5. Good, 5 is a conclusion based on the previous statements. Now why did you leave out 9 when you should have left out 10. 10 is a conclusion and IMO 9 is the heart of the Y2K issue. 9 obviously can't be proven and is left as an exercise to the reader. 1. Y2K stems from a year miscalculation. - True Do you actually need proof?

2. Some computers wont know the correct year. (The rest dont care what year it is.) - True. Examples of these are systems which sort dates or determine delta t. I do not include those systems which merely display dates. That's not what is meant by year calculation.

3. All computers (hardware, software or embeddeds) will fail, if not remediated. - True However I assume that some of these may have viable work arounds.

4. Not enough time to remediate (and besides all projects come in late). - I'll call this a half-truth. We remediated code (only 3% left to finish as of the end of May)

5. So with the above statements, we can conclude, all computer that wont know the correct year will fail. - Valid conclusion based on the facts (and one not so fact) above.

6. Everything depends on computers (hardware, software or embeddeds). - True I had to think about this one but came to the conclusion that this is true if we consider an indirect dependence. All businesses depend on communications which in turn depends on computers.

7. Everything is interconnected. - True, if we consider upstream and downstream. However I also assume that redundancy plays in this interconnectedness and there are also alternative options for suppliers.

8. This interconnected world has a breaking point, that is, a number a failures that would cause collapse. - This is where the doomer logic breaks down IMO. We can't model this interconnected world; we have no clue what the breaking point is, where the single points of failure are, and the number of redundant paths in this network.

9. That breaking point is less than or equal to the number of computers that need to know the correct year and wont be able to know the correct year (from statement 5). - Again we have no data to draw any conclusions; we don't know how many systems that are year dependent won't be remediated in time.

10. Taking statement 5 with statement 9, the number of failures will break our interconnected world and we can conclude doom. - We all reach our own conclusions based on our experiences and knowledge.

That shouldn't include the "see the rabit" euphemism (the "I'm not a rocket scientist" thread posted some weeks ago)

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 24, 1999.

"Bw's logic doesn't imply any doom but that disruptions will occur."

Well, doom is not INEVITABLE, but certainly possible. My predictions center around a 7, less chance of 8, even less of 9, but 10 is still on the charts. 1 or 2 is already upon us, just remains to make itself known.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), June 24, 1999.