The following misrepresentation of my position appeared in the article Why The Power Will Fail In 2000 on the TimeBomb 2000 forum, posted by "Worried Utility Worker":

The April 9 drill was a PR stunt. Lane Core was right.

(The article was also posted to the Electric Utilities and Y2K forum, and Gary North picked it up. It has since been removed from both sites.)

I immediately posted the following at the Yourdon forum in the article April 9th NERC Electrical Utility Industry Drill:

I don't appreciate having my position misrepresented.

I also provided a link to what I myself had written about the drill: NERC's April 9 Y2K Drill: What It Is, And What It Is Not. In that essay, I had written this:

Far from being an event rigged to fool the public, the April 9th drill is part of exactly what we should hope the electrical utilities are doing: preparing and testing fall-back procedures to use in case of Y2K remediation failures.

(See also the version at Westergaard.)

Upon reading "Why The Power Will Fail In 2000", an outraged utility worker sent an e-mail to me in which he demanded that I explain myself "in the name of Truth"; he immediately apologized when he had the opportunity to read my real position.

I told him that Stephen Poole has misrepresented my position on the drill, and that the anonymous poster must have picked up on that. I was wrong.

Poole has admitted that he himself was the "Worried Utility Worker" who posted the hoax in which my position was misrepresented. His inexplicably gleeful exposition of his sophomoric prank is available at The Problem is Being Fixed: An Experiment in Journalism, where we read the following: "I am the author of this piece of fiction. I wrote it as a test and to prove a point."

Since one point proven by the hoax is that Poole has no scruples, he failed the test.

And he certainly owes me an apology.

Matthew 5:23-26

(See also Was this posted before? Sorry if it was, but this guy is a real ring-dinger (Cess Poole that is...) and Hoaxer 'fesses up (Re: "Why the power will fail").)

-- Anonymous, July 06, 1999

Answers

Apparently, Poole doesn't see fit to post to this forum except to post a hoax that, among other things, misrepresents another man's position.

For anybody interested, here is his alleged apology on the Yourdon forum.

How do you like that? He misrepresented my position, but it's somehow my fault because I don't have a sense of humor.

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999

Lane, Can I at least have an "excuse me" for the many times you have misquoted me? ;) My ego does not require a full apology, lol. Regards,

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999

Sure. Excuse me? What are you talking about?

-- Anonymous, July 17, 1999

BTW, thanks for reminding me of something. I have been meaning to suggest that those who don't frequent the TB2000 forum might benefit from a long look at your "Fact" Finding over there: they might find it illuminating, especially Mr. Burbank's reply. Since I don't want to "misquote" you, here's a link.

-- Anonymous, July 17, 1999

Funny, how "Fact" Finder quit posting to that TB2000 thread, ain't it? :-)

-- Anonymous, July 17, 1999

I would like an apology from Gordon.

{snip}

And as far as the Japanese, if you know *anything* about their culture and mentality you will understand that they will do everything possible to hide serious mistakes and errors.

{snip}

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0016AO

-- Anonymous, July 18, 1999