Headline: Bring on 2000!

Subtitle: Kalamazoo says its computers are ready for the new Millennium.

Body of story:

Friday, July 16, 1999

The city of Kalamazoo and its computer systems are ready for the year 2000, Deputy City Manager Keith Overly said.

All testing on computer systems will be completed by the end of the third quarter and the city is confident it is prepared to handle the Y2K computer bug, Overly said in a statement released Thursday.

"Because of the unprecedented and complex nature of the Y2K issue, the city of Kalamazoo cannot guarantee that it won't experience Y2K-related problems," Overly said. "We are confident, though, that we have instituted a plan that will minimize the impact any Y2K-related issues may have on the critical operations of the city."

The city is "roughly" 90 percent completed with its software modification and nearly 75 percent finished with its software testing phase, Overly said. Also, all network file servers, mainframes and personal computers throughout the city are Y2K compliant, he said.

The city started planning for Y2K in 1995. Early preparations have allowed the city to keep its expenses at about $3.15 per resident, lower than the state of Michigan, which is expected to pay $5.98 per capita, the city said.

The city is projected to have spent nearly $250,000 by the time the New Year arrives.

The city is completing a series of contingency plans in the event of Y2K emergencies outside of its control, like a major power outage. A detailed report will be given to the City Commission Aug. 2.

End Story

Folks, your opinion? Is this a sloppy reporter or "feel good" press release, or both?

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), July 17, 1999

Answers

Snip:

"The city of Kalamazoo and its computer systems are ready for the year 2000, Deputy City Manager Keith Overly said.

All testing on computer systems will be completed by the end of the third quarter and the city is confident it is prepared to handle the Y2K computer bug, Overly said in a statement released Thursday. "

How can one be ready and still testing??? Oooops, I forgot "y2k Ready" is the new paradigm for the utility industry.

I'm sure one will be able to write a book about the "Weasel Words" coming out of the politicians in the next six months.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), July 17, 1999.

How can they be "ready" and not even be finished? How can they be tested and not even be finished? And minimizing the impact, what does that mean? What if the "impact" is catastrophic? Mimimizing it won't mean squat. They haven't even finished their contingency plans. And what are those plans? If power fails, what will they do? It's the same all over, "everything's fine, everything's rosy" but oh by the way, we're still not done. We still have 10% in software fixes and 25% in testing and we're still meeting about making plans. So are we ready? You bet!!!

-- (starkrav@kdsi.net), July 17, 1999.

How can these two sentences BOTH be true:

"The city is "roughly" 90 percent completed with its software modification and nearly 75 percent finished with its software testing phase, Overly said. Also, all network file servers, mainframes and personal computers throughout the city are Y2K compliant, he said."

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 17, 1999.

Linda:

To play devil's advocate, it is possible that the file servers, etc., are part of what has been fully tested.....

This whole article, to me, is a combination of printing press releases as "news", doublespeak by the city, and maybe ignorance on both sides as to what the numbers quoted might mean in the world of software.

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), July 17, 1999.

As a thought experiment, put yourself in Overly's shoes. You started out with a huge list of things to assess, and if necessary remediate and test. By now, everything is assessed, almost everything (and all the important stuff) is remediated, the most critical things are tested, you're in the process of remediating unimportant or peripheral systems and testing things of 2nd-tier importance. If rollover happened today, you'd have some problems but (to the best of your considerable knowledge) no big problems. Three months from now, you expect to reach the point where there will be no *known* problems, even small ones. You can *never* guarantee that there won't be *any* problems, that's the nature of the beast.

Now, along comes the local rag and asks you how you're doing. So you do your best to summarize your status, what else? You go into substantial detail on the important stuff. You answer all questions as honestly as you can, and try to correct any questions based on false assumptions (leading questions). They you pray that the final story will come reasonably close to what you said. You *must* pray, both because you can't control the final story, and because your description was of necessity too complicated to summarize easily.

And here we have the final story. Are you happy with it?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 17, 1999.

Flint, remember the first rule of y2k for most government and corporate entities, NEVER let it be known that there are problems. LYING is acceptable to protect the population !!

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), July 17, 1999.

Flint,

You are starting to worry me here. This is not like you at all. You are on the defensive and really winging it for ole Kalamazoo. This story is one of *major* disconnect, isn't that obvious? How do you know they worked on all the hard stuff first, when experience has shown in the past that sometimes the easiest stuff gets done first? Is this just more of your nagging "things can't be all that bad" position?

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), July 17, 1999.

Flint:

Isn't that stringing a lot of assumptions together? Occam's Razor, sir. The least complicated answer has a high degree of being correct.

Myself, I realize I shouldn't have made the heading an "either-or". How about an assistant manager who can barely turn his PC on but is trying to relay what he has been told by the IT department to a very junior reporter who doesn't know any more than he does on the subject.

Never underestimate the power of ignorance. It is far more likely to be the explanation of something than conspiracy is.

-- Jon Williamson (pssomerville@sprintmail.com), July 17, 1999.

Gordon and Jon:

Of course, we do not know what we do not know. So I described a hypothetical situation (which might be the case, and might be way off, since we don't know), and showed how this article might be a description of that case. Certainly the contents of this article are *consistent* with my hypothetical case, although you are absolutely right that the article can be equally consistent with a wide range of conditions in Kalamazoo.

The article says they are about 90% complete with remediation and 75% complete with testing, and they have networks, mainframes and PCs completed. Besides embedded systems, what's left? It could easily be the case that they haven't even touched things like water treatment, stoplights, etc. Certainly we've established on this forum that completion percentages are guesswork.

I think it's safe to say that they feel they've made a lot of progress, they know they aren't done yet, and they're hoping for the best (an educated guess, which is the best anyone can do). I don't see any disconnect at all.

Of course, you can be like Ray and selectively disbelieve entirely anything that doesn't fit your fantasies. This approach has the advantage of leading to a high degree of confidence that you're right. It has a drawback, though: it guarantees that you'll be wrong despite all the confidence you can bring to bear.

In the throes of a broad-based remediation project, about the best anyone can say is, We're doing our best, we're hoping for the best, we can't guarantee the best. This article goes further, detailing what *has* been completed, and making guesstimates about the rest. What more could you realistically ask for?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 17, 1999.

roughly 90% complete, nearly 75% finished.... gotta love the certainty....

then "we cannot guarantee"

they sure can't guarantee anything if the employees have done no prep work...

The same attorney DID write all of these deceptions......

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), July 17, 1999.

PJC:

In a complex project like this, precise measurements are not possible. Even rough guesses might not be close.

If you're asking for precision, you are demanding deception.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), July 17, 1999.

If you are asking for precision, you are demanding deception. That's a good line Flint. I think I'll tuck that one away. A double edged sword. Maybe it should be, if you are demanding precision, you are asking for deception. Either way, it does tap into an area of human nature that frustrates us, doesn't it?

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), July 18, 1999.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible." -- Aristotle

-- (Hallyx@aol.com), July 18, 1999.

Don't attribute to malice that which can be adquately explained by stupidity.

Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), July 19, 1999.