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cory hamasaki's

DC Y2K Weather Report

July 30, 1999 - 154 days to go. WRP127

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(c) 1998, 1999 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and reproduce this newsletter as long as this entire document is reproduced in its entirety. You may optionally quote an individual article but you should include this header down to the tearline or provide a link to the header. I do not grant permission to a commercial publisher to reprint this in print media. This entire document is a Year 2000 information disclosure as defined in the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act, S 2392.

--------------------tearline -----------------

In this issue:

1. How Bad

2. Small Business

3. CCCCC

-- How Bad --

How bad I think it will be... And what you can do about it

by Steve Heller, WA0CPP (stheller@koyote.com)

I can assume that everyone reading this newsletter takes Y2K seriously. The question, of course, is how bad it will be.

I think it is going to be very bad. In fact, the best possible case for which there is any hope is another Great Depression. Why do I say this?

Ironically, my main argument for a terrible outcome is based on one of the primary Pollyanna arguments: "They'll work around it. They always do."

The key here is not "it", which we all agree is shorthand for "whatever problems arise because of Y2K failures". No, the key is who "they" are: the engineers who keep our industrial infrastructure running. Yes , they *do* work around it on a regular basis; in fact, that happens every day.

But what would happen if these engineers were not available? Who would work around these problems then? I think the answer is obvious: no one. And what would happen to our civilization in that case? The answer to that is just as obvious: i t would cease to function until and unless it were rebuilt.

The reason I'm so concerned about a long-term outage of the infrastructure is that I don't believe that most of the engineers will survive very long after rollover.

To see why I'm so concerned about this, let's start with what I expect to happen soon after rollover. On January first, there'll be a spike of errors in process control systems that will cause widespread power outages, communication outage s, and other immediate effects. However, some power companies will manage to keep the power on in many places, and many people will breathe a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, this relief will turn out to be premature. Over the next several weeks, breaks in the supply chains to the power companies, primarily fuel supplies, will result in a gradual degradation of the infrastructure. Water treatment plants will run out of supplies, hospitals will stop functioning properly due to lack of drugs and other supplies, and this will be repeated in every industry. The economy will grind to a halt.

But the most serious problem, in the north at least, will be frozen pipes. If the power's off for more than a few days in the middle of winter in Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and other northern tier cities, th ey'll be devastated by frozen water pipes and sewer line backups. Plague will follow shortly. Most of the inhabitants of the northern cities will die within a matter of a few weeks, from cold, disease, fires started in an attempt to keep warm, or random v iolence.

This is bad enough, of course, to qualify as a disaster ranking with the Black Plague, if not the extinction of the dinosaurs. But wait, there's more: Most of the engineers that could actually rebuild the infrastructure, or work around the problems in the remaining infrastructure, live in the cities. If we lose too many of them, we may end up in the sort of devolutionary spiral postulated by Infomagic.

Obviously, there's nothing you or I can do to get the engineers to move out of the cities to someplace safer; the information about how bad it might be is widely available on the Internet, not least via this newsletter. If they haven't fig ured out yet, it's not likely they will.

However, there may be something that we can do to prevent the devolutionary spiral from going all the way down. We can preserve the information on how to restart our industrial infrastructure from a level of technology that does not requir e working computers.

Of course, this is a gigantic undertaking, but I think it's possible. Ironically, it is partly the availability of small, cheap, fast computers with large storage capacities that makes this even remotely feasible. In particular, laptop com puters that have CD-ROM players can provide access to a gargantuan amount of information while being rechargeable from a small solar panel.

For example, I have recently purchased the entire run of QST magazine, the official journal of the American Radio Relay League, from 1915 to 1994, on a set of about 35 CD-ROMs. I bought this set not because of an academic or hobbyist inter est in the history of amateur radio, but because it contains thousands of articles on how to put together an amateur radio station without recourse to commercially built transceivers.

Why is this important? Because I think it is entirely possible that we will lose our manufacturing capability for electronic products. By "our manufacturing capability", I specifically mean not only U.S. manufacturing, but foreig n manufacturing. Since most amateur radio equipment, for example, comes from Japan, even if the United States somehow miraculously gets through Y2K without serious damage, a Japanese Y2K disaster could still interrupt our supplies of that equipment. In su ch a case, knowing how to build and repair amateur radio equipment is likely to be absolutely vital.

Why do I consider amateur radio so important? Because if the experts on any topic who do manage to survive a Y2K disaster are going to be maximally useful, we will need some way to consult them even if they aren't in our immediate vicinity . If infrastructure-dependent communications and transportation are seriously disrupted for any length of time, as I believe they will be, amateur radio will be the only reliable means of communication over any distances farther than you can walk.

Of course, there are many other areas of knowledge that we will have to preserve. One example is the construction and use of metalworking machinery. There is a series of books called "Build Your Own Metal Working Shop from Scrap" , which begins with a charcoal foundry with which you make your own aluminum castings. This series of books is available from "Lindsay Publications"

(http://lindsaybks.com/HomePage.html),

which also publishes a lot of old, out of copyright, books on practical subjects from the pre-computer era. According to the Popular Mechanics WWW page on this publisher (http://homearts.com/pm/diybuzz/04bookb1.htm),

"You've got all the pieces here to jump-start a smaller version of the industrial revolution: first make some charcoal, use it to melt and forge metal, build some precise but simple machine tools, use the tools to build bigger and bet ter machine tools, make products for export and domestic consumption, use the hard currency to upgrade industry and infrastructure, and away you go. Come to think of it, we could use some of this right here in the United States."

So that's the good news. If enough people have this kind of knowledge, no matter how badly our infrastructure falls apart, we'll be able to put it back together again eventually. Of course, we have to survive the collapse first, so make su re that you have your food, water, heat, and other necessities taken care of. But once you've done that, you should do your part in trying to preserve the tools that we can use to start everything up again. And get that amateur radio station set up (http: //www.koyote.com/users/stheller/ham.htm) so you can share your knowledge with others!

--

(c) 1999 Steve Heller, WA0CPP

This article is published as part of cory hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report and may be reproduced under the same terms and conditions. All other rights are reserved to the author.

PGP public key available from http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 http://www.koyote.com/users/stheller/homepage.html

Author of "Who's Afraid of C++?", "Who's Afraid of More C++?", "Optimizing C++", and other books

-- Small & Medium Sized Businesses --

(Lone Figure enters room full of 12-steppers) "Hi, I'm Bud and I'm a moderate polly." "Hi Bud!" choruses the people in the room. Us moderate pollys get lots of abuse.

The doomers laugh at us, saying how foolish we are. We sort of shrug at the doomers, but we really don't think the world is going to be as bad as they say; we think, or at least hope, that Infomagic is crazy.

Too many people, especially some of the utilities, have made significant progress in the last six months. It looks more and more like at least part of the infrastructure will hold up. On the other hand, we detest the denialists, who thin k that why-too-kay is just going to be another day at the office. These people haven't been listening to the real problems that have already occurred, or surely would have occurred, if remediation hadn't been done.

Now, however, we have a new foe, people I term the neo-denialists. These people are featured on recent news media reports, almost always saying that "planes won't fall out of the sky" (this of course was never going to happen, never said by me or almost anyone else, but just a convenient media hook).

The neo-denialists now say, well, we did have a problem, but guess what, we're all done now and all we have to worry about is making sure the tests go okay. They say, we've dodged a bullet, but everything is going to be okay. I don't do enterprise systems software remediation. And the few I know that do, work for organizations that have always taken y2k very seriously. So I can't verify one way or the other like Cory or Arnold whether the big systems are going to stay up. There is lo ts of debate on this topic, evidence in both directions

(I know one guy at a firm that is not only done all remediation and testing, they are keeping him for two months on the payroll "just in case" something turns up). Instead, I'd like to focus on an area that nearly everyone agree s is messed up. And that is small and medium sized businesses.

Now, first, some explanation of what I mean. I'm not talking about the millions of 1 or 2 man businesses. Those don't matter that much to me in regard to y2k, their problems are relatively simple. And I'm not talking about "small ca p stocks," billion dollar firms, which have significant resources on hand. No, I'm talking about the small but bedrock firms of your local community, those that have 50 to 500 employees. Those that are large enough to be heavily co mputerized but a re still small enough that every once in a while it is a little tight to make payroll (as opposed to tiny businesses that always seem to be week-to-week on life support).

Over the last two years, every study I've seen has said many of these folks are clueless. Almost no one, not even Kosky, has said anything else. Every study has said many of these businesses have barely started fixing their systems.

On the other hand, newspaper articles have recently begun touting the fact that small businesses are conquering the bug. They apparently haven't polled the students in my classrooms who work for small businesses. Oh yeah, who in the worl d am I to talk? Well, I don't program. But I do teach business strategy, small business management, e-commerce ventures, and other business-related courses. My research area is in technology and business strategy. I've been doing IT-related consulting and analysis since 1985 when I went to work for the GAO. So I've known about y2k for a really long time.

But, now, in the classroom, when I ask "has your business tested your security, internal phone, or heating systems?" my students eyes' get very wide indeed. They can't figure it out, what in the world am I talking about? Didn't we fix our y2k problem with that $20.00 or $50.00 program from CompUSA?

My students represent a cross section of smaller businesses. Most have never ever heard that y2k could affect them at all. We are not even talking about concerns at the supplier or customer level. They have no knowledge at all about the issues that are well known to almost any reader of this article. Or if they do, they have decided fix-on-failure works for them.

Well, I hear the skeptics, the neo-denialists, going all a-twiddle now. The students you teach just don't know what is going on. Their bosses have it all together. Their CIOs know what is going on.

BZZZT. The students I am talking about are graduating seniors with several years of work experience (the MBAs tend to be from larger firm s), and in many cases they are far more knowledgeable than their entrepreneurial bosses, especially in technological areas.

In one memorable incident about three months ago, one student who had just changed jobs got highly motivated and sent a memo to the president of her new firm warning him about potential y2k risk areas. They had done absolutely nothing, as she soon found out. Yet that firm was a distribution firm with 90 employees. As my student and I went over the incredible number of risk areas for her firm, I suggested she keep her resume warm.

Some skeptics may be a bit unnerved, but I bet others are reloading their ammunition. Why, you are just hearing anecdotal reports. Perhaps, but most studies agree with me on this one, for example, those conducted by the National Federati on of Independent Businesses. I heard one recent study conducted by a Northeastern state government found that over 50% of small-medium manufacturers were not ready. If you need more ratification, read the material on Senator Bennett's website, talk to your regional SBA official, or talk to a congressional staffer.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, SBA announced that of the $500 million that has been allocated for y2k-related small business loans, less than $2 million has actually been given out.

Some local officials here have also heard my perspective, and they strongly agree with me. They see this giant cloud coming. Some heard my talk on y2k contingency planning given at a special Chamber of Commerce-spon sored conference on y2 k. Besides me, several no-nonsense-relative-polly-real-experts (not including me) talked about the serious risk areas of y2k. The conference had local newspaper advertising, as well as heavy publicity and an announcement in the Chamber meeting by a cong ressional staffer himself.

Exactly 3 small business people showed up at the conference. That represents about .01% of the businesses in the county. And two of the people who came were already knowledgeable, and had registered early since they had already figured o ut many of the issues for their own firm, and they assumed it would be standing-room-only. They were more surprised than we that no one else came. But it seems that most people, convinced that TEOTWAWKI will not happen, have gone to sleep. There is no concern for their business, as long as they are pretty sure the ATMs will work.

One interesting aspect of this is that I am usually presenting with our academic colleagues from an unnamed Institute of Technology in Georgia. They keep finding that many small businesses are clueless, even after they think their y2k reme diation is "done" (that usually means that they have bought new PCs).

And I'm not even talking about the international situation. I personally talked to the y2k coordinator of a small struggling country the other day, and he is not at all certain that even the basic infrastructure there will hold up. This country has had its share of troubles recently, and the population is basically saying "So what?" He knows that it will not be very good at all to eliminate the infrastructure.

Your mileage may vary, but I do believe that many firms get their goods from overseas suppliers. The only possible answer, and I have heard this from some of the neo-denialists, is that small business really doesn't count for much, as lon g as the big boys are ready.

Beyond the question of the supply chain issue, one would have to go back and deny the conventional wisdom of the last two decades that small business is the engine of the economy. The total number of jobs at Fortune 500 firms was flat or shrank over the last decade. You can look it up. So why aren't we hearing more about this?

Well, the neo-denialists think there is no need, and the doomers are spending all of their time in personal preparation, ignoring the fact that making sure their local small businesses make progress would eliminate a good deal of their pro blems. Meanwhile our federal government cynically tries to downplay the serious economic risks of y2k, while acknowledging the plight of small businesses upon questioning. Occasionally, the feds throw a bone like SBA loans.

You see, the feds' all-out major goal is to stop people from withdrawing money from the banking system. I agree in principle with that goal. But they have thrown the economic baby out with the panic bathwater by not understanding that th e same people they are assuring that there is "no major problem" are also the people who need to fix their own business's problem. It will require a major campaign by the feds to even begin to alleviate this situation.

I get people mad at me when I tell them that it will NOT be panic of the people that causes the majority of y2k problems. It really will be problems with the systems. Most of all it will be problems with corrupt data that won't be found until far after the 1/1/00 threshold. At a minimum, we'll be fixing the accounts receivable and accounts payable messes for years to come.

It would be relatively trivial to fix things well before 1 /1/00, but most businesses are apparently heading, intentionally or not, to fix-on-failure. And many small and medium sized business will do just that, fail. If you want to know more, you can go to my website at http:/www.y2khelp.com. If you're a small business person, you can even order a video I've created on small business y2k contingency planning, "Weathering the Storm." But my guess is that you already are pretty aware if you are reading this.

Instead, get the local business person who performs services for you, or maybe who borrows your lawnmower, or goes to church or synagogue with you, to get a clue.

Cause us moderate pollys are getting angry, and a little worried.

(c) 1999 Bud Hamilton, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Management Georgia State University Robinson College of Business

Speaker/Consultant on Contingency Planning for the Year 2000 "Weathering the Storm": Get the Video! http://www.y2khelp.com budham@negia.net (404) 651-0765

This article is published as part of cory hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report and may be reproduced under the same terms and conditions. All other rights are reserved to the author.

-- CCCCC --

The question, is how bad and how soon will we know. The news over the last few months has been steadily worse. There have been a few successful public demos and claims that one organization or another was done, only to have the news c ome out later that the announcement was premature.

In spite of all this, it is still not certain what will happen.

There have been some funny episodes; this week -bks- (a regular in comp.software. year-2000) decided to bait the mainframe newsgroup with a question, do mainframers think there's a Y2K problem?

There were a few responses to the post, some thought there would be problems, others said outright that Y2K was hype.

On the second day, something odd happened, several threads on Y2K appeared and there were almost 40 posts about Y2K in the mainframe newsgroup, including flaming and screaming.

Oh well.

Anyway, as a result of -bks-'s experiment, it's clear that the work hasn't been done and systems will fail. What I don't know is how bad the failures will be.

I suggest meeting with your family or team and making a guess, how bad do you think it could get. Once you've identified that, decide on a minimal level of safety and comfort and prepare accordingly.

With 154 Days, you don't have time to overprepare or miss important loose ends. I've spoken with both Paul Milne and the Baron and both volunteered that they are feeling the pressure of time.

If you believe that there will be intermittent power outages for a month, as has been suggested by Rick Cowles, and you live in a mild climate, maybe you don't need a generator.

Given the shortage of time and resources, pick your worse case with a non-zero probability; make minimal preparations for that case. Don't try to solve all scenarios.

You don't have to be 100% self sufficient.

-cory

Fine Print -- Subscriptions --

You don't have to subscribe to the WRPs, you can keep reading the issues on the web or in Usenet or however it gets to you. I do think it's nervy for people who don't subscribe to send me email complaining that their "free&quo t; newsletter is late or asking for technical advice. I'm not singling anyone out, this has happened at least a dozen times. Let me tell you, it's pretty surprising considering that several people have sent in contributions to pay for others. One perso n said they just wanted to help out and send in a large contribution

At some point we may close off public access to the WRPs, but not yet.

All members will receive a mailing about once a quarter. The first mailing was the 1919 Gardening Book, this will remain in print along with the instructions for making the LED flashlight.

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Fine print -- publishing information --

As seen in

USENET:comp.software.year-2000

http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/year2000/

http://www.sonnet.co.uk/muse/dcwrp.html

http://GONOW.TO/Y2KFACTS

http://www.ocweb.com/y2k/weather.htm

http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge/cory_launch.html

http://www.kiyoinc.com/current.html

Don't forget, the Y2K chat-line:

http://www.ntplx.net/~rgearity any evening, 8-10PM EST.

Please fax or email copies of this to your geek pals, especially those idiots who keep sending you lightbulb, blonde, or Bill Gates jokes, and urban legends like the Arizona rocket car story.

Contact webmasters at other Y2K sites and ask them to link to the WRPs. They can link to any of the mirror sites or to our current.html. Help get the word out and fight denial.

Slap them around for me. Give em, what fer.

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), July 30, 1999

Answers

Y2K is such a problem. It is a bug on the relay contacts.

It is not a god given call to doom of man. It is an error in the design of the program. We have not lived with computers all that long. I remember well the Punch card bills that came with the warning "DO NOT BEND, SPINDLE, OR MUTILATE". Y2K is the ultimate BEND-SPINDLE-MULTLATE. It is a path that some programers have chosen to walk (short date fields) that is a dead end. Lots of us have followed these "leader" programers into a blind canyon. It has happend before it will happen again.

Y2K is bad. Is it as bad as those who died in blind passes on there way to California in the mid 1800's. Maybe. Will humans live through Y2K. YES. Will corporations, individuals, countries, try to exploit Y2K? YES! YES! YES!

NOTICE:

We (humans) have been led up a blind pass. The problem is that some systems we utilize to cloth, feed, and house many of you will not work after Jan 01, 2000. We will develop new systems, many of which are under development right now. There is reason for concern. Make your plans acorrdingly. Some will make the transition, some will not.

I hope to see you on the other side.

Keep the faith.

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), July 30, 1999.

Common sense is Y2K compliant.

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), July 30, 1999.

Helium.. thanks for that analogy of a blind pass. Good one. I find the timing of Y2K interesting. I don't mean the calendar thingy. I'm thinking in terms of generations. One generation ago we could at least cook from scratch, and things like sewing our own clothes and gardening were quite popular. A generation ago we were just starting computerization and the workers who knew how to do without the "gol dern contraptions" were still onboard. Two or three generations ago families had many skills that could make them more or less self-sufficient, and communities produced much of what they needed to survive.

But now the self-sufficient generations are pretty much pushing up daisies and the "manual workaround" generation is pretty much retired. J.I.T. has "outsourced" as much "real" work overseas as possible and lulled us all into a live-for-today take-no-care-for-the-'morrow lifestyle that will make the coming disruptions MUCH MUCH worse than they would have been for our grandparents.

We had just enough time with computerized life to become hooked, and not quite enough time to manage the addiction.

Withdrawal is going to be rough. The DT's on a global scale.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), July 31, 1999.