"Airplanes will fall from the sky." Gad, I would have thought this sort of editorial had gone the way of the buffalo:

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sunday, August 1, 1999:

Y2K -- The non-story of the century

By Steve Oualline

August 1, 1999

This will come as a great surprise to a great many people who believe that the Y2K bug will destroy civilization: The world will not end on Jan. 1, 2000.

As many people assume by now, the Y2K bug is a computer problem caused by programs that store the year as two digits. When 2000 comes around, these computers will think it's 1900 and shut down.

Because computers are everywhere, some believe this bug will cause power plants to shut down, food distribution systems to fail, banks to lose all your money, and civilization as we know it to end.

The truth is far more mundane. The alarmists ignore the fact that most computers will be unaffected by the bug.

Even if a program does have a Y2K problem, that doesn't mean it will crash. Also, there are work-arounds for almost all computer related problems. Believe it or not, we got along just fine before computers.

Let's take a look at some specific predictions and see what might really happen.

Power plants will shut down

It's true that power plants use a lot of computers. However most of these do not care about what day it is. They're concerned about matters such as seeing that the proper amount of steam gets to the generators and that the voltage is correct.

One thing people tend to ignore is that there is a lot of redundancy built into the power system. Generating stations are hooked up to a grid. If one goes off line, there are others that can pick up the slack.

Because all the power plants use custom software, all the programs in many different power plants would have to fail for there to be a blackout.

Supermarkets will run out of food

All major stores do use computers for their inventory and distribution systems. If a store's computer fails, the store may not be able to order food from the warehouse.

Such a failure might affect one or two supermarket chains. But in San Diego, we have Ralphs, Vons, Food 4 Less, Costco and many other stores. If one fails and doesn't have any food, we just drive a little farther down the block to one that does.

Also there are ways that a supermarket can deal with a dead computer. For example, a store manager who sees that his shelves are empty can easily call up the distribution center and say, "I don't care if your computer is working or not, send me a truckload of food."

There is one failure that you probably can expect to see at your supermarket. Your receipt for Jan. 1, 2000 may read 01/01/100 instead of 01/01/00.

Banks will lose all your money

Banks have known about the Y2K problem since 1970. After all, they regularly deal with 30-year mortgages and bonds. Most of their computers were Y2K ready three decades ago.

There is one Y2K problem that banks are going to have trouble dealing with. That's the one caused by millions of scared people withdrawing all their money in December 1999 because they are afraid of the Y2K bug.

Airplanes will fall from the sky

Very little code in an aircraft cares what day it is. Also the quality control that goes into flight software is much higher than is used for something like Microsoft Windows. If Microsoft Windows crashes, you curse, and reboot. If flight-critical software fails you lose a plane and several hundred lives.

So flight-control software is designed not to fail. And even it does fail, it's designed to handle the failure properly. The computer designers know that failure is life threating, so they do everything possible to see that it does not happen.

There is one prediction that will come true, unfortunately. Lots of people will be scared of the Y2K bug. This will be fueled by the pronouncements of many "Y2K experts" who will grab as many headlines as possible by predicting gloom and doom. They will be helped by many people eager to blame every computer problem on the Y2K bug. (Believe it or not, there were software bugs around 40 years before Y2K was invented.)

I'm not saying that no computer will be affected by the Y2K bug. There will be a few that crash. There will be a few businesses dependent on a single business-critical program that will go bankrupt due to Y2K problems. But then there will always be crashing programs and businesses that fail because they depended on buggy software. And in spite of these failures life goes on.

Probably the only thing you'll notice about the Y2K bug is the number of people going around crying about the end of the world. But don't worry. The sun will come up Jan. 1, 2000, and except for a whopping hangover that day will be much like any other day.

Oualline is a software engineer and computer-book author with over 20 years in the business. He can be reached via e-mail at oualline@www.oualline.com.

Copyright 1999 Union-Tribune Publishing Co

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 01, 1999

Answers

mohawked ex-yuppies will steal your food and rape your ass for not trying harder to convince them to prepair when YOU had the chance

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), August 01, 1999.

"It seems to be part of American popular culture to consider optimism, in itself, to be good. In the face of disasters, our political and social leaders frequently castigate the 'prophets of doom' who fail to accentuate the positive and who want the lifeboats manned merely because the ship is sinking. Our entire society seems to suffer from a sort of mental block and may refuse to take action to correct its fatal course until it has passed the point of no return."

"The End of Affluence." Paul Ehrlich, 1974.

-- Let's (learn@from.history), August 01, 1999.

More articles like this, zzzzzzzzzz, no panic until January 4, 2000. Prepare, don't panic.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 01, 1999.

Its good this story is copyrighted, I'm sure everyone will want to steal their thought provoking insights!

What Idiots.

Come on Pollys --- how do you defend such garbage? The honest ones (?) have to admit how stupid this story is. Whats your excuse?

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), August 01, 1999.

Whereas My intellect seemed somewhat insulted by this article. Especially after reading all of the comprehensive information that is available that points towards big problems. I have always maintained that the biggest mental challenge involved with this EVENT is to be able to have a somewhat duplicitous consciousness. As I Can clearly imagine the worst, I can also clearly imagine a bump in the road. The problem with articles like this is--they seem to have such incredible conviction about something that sooooo many intelligent people honestly admit could go either way!! And that seems incredibly irresponsible when it comes to something that truly has a potential for unprecendeted social upheavel.

Of course media and irresponsibility seem synonomous these days!

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), August 01, 1999.

I can't BELIEVE I read that... Oh... Oh... Just a moment... I think I feel a "Milne" coming on..!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

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

There... I feel So much better now. And I got lots of ammo for those mohawked ex-yuppies... ;^)

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), August 01, 1999.

Anyone got the reporters name who did the article?

It would be nice to keep a list of thier names when the problems really hit.

Bob P

-- Bob P (rpic99206@aol.com), August 01, 1999.

I did a search on the author of the article, and discovered that he's an expert in C programming and lives in the San Diego area. He's apparently written very little about Y2K in the past.

My guess is that he wanted to debunk the idea held by a few that Y2K will bring about the end of civilization, not realizing that his comments in the San Diego newspaper could result in many small businesses and families doing nothing at all to prepare themselves for Y2K.

His web site:

http://www.oualline.com/

Another one of his articles:

http://www.pcinews.com/hp/dec/oualline.html

"Built to last"

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 01, 1999.

Another "clueless" non-investigative reporter.

So many. So little time.

*Sigh*

Oh well. Or not so well.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), August 01, 1999.

I read things like this, and it makes me so angry. 20 years ago I was a reporter with a top-notch newspaper. My editor NEVER would have allowed me to get away with something like this. You can see that this person is willfully carrying his thoughts on the matter only so far. Unfortunately, that same paper I worked for would probably let this article into print now, just like the Union-Tribune did.

Re: his example with the supermarket, last week I was in our local Albertson's. While I was standing in line, the register began to spit out a continuous tape of gobbledy-gook characters. The cashier couldn't stop it. The manager couldn't stop it. The failure occurred on just one terminal, but though there were three other lines open, within five minutes shopping carts were backed up into the aisles and it took me 20 minutes just to buy my two items and get out of there.

Throw a spanner in the works at one place in the system, and it WILL ripple through that system

-- CD (CDOKeefe@aol.com), August 01, 1999.

With regard to Paul Ehrlich's claims from 1974....the time of the Nixon problems, the Arab oil embargo, the end of Nam and the like....I see the opposite. Dennis will no doubt want to strangle me for wishing to get philosophical here again, but since Let's Learn brought it up, here goes. I see American culture as the opposite of Ehrlich's claims. Here in the middle of the road, I can see that his comments are relative to a percentage of people in the do-nothing camp. Yet, how can anyone discount the idea that we are becoming a nation addicted to anti-depressants due to our incessant need to fret and hold anxieties over the times.

Things have been good for a long time now, and even so, there are a number of people---especially in the gloom area--that feel because of good times, things are bound to go awry. Both mentalities employ shoddy thinking here, and it's unfortunate that more of Ehrlich isn't presented towards that end. Anyone studying American culture today is struck by a number of strange turns in the past 3o years:

--the departure from a we society to a me society...that is....every man for himself. The idea of neighborhood and community largely disappearing.

--the decay of society due to the failure of the family. (I'd go on for days with this one, but it doesn't have a place here)

--the psychological frailty of our society as a whole...always worried about some malady that will afflict us because, well, we're due for something.

In 'Excalibur' Arthur asks Merlin if the continued run of good times means that they have conquered evil, to which Merlin replies that you can't have good without evil. When Arthur asks where evil lies then, Merlin answers, 'always, where you least expect it. Always.'

That line seems very applicable to the powers that be working within our hallowed halls today.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), August 01, 1999.

CD.. you seem to be implying that it is just the reporters foolishness and the editors lack of diligence that allowed this article to reach print.

I don't think so. This is NOT a difficult subject to research [time-consuming, yes, but not difficult]. There are tons of facts and reports available with the click of a mouse. Senate testimony, GAO reports, U.S. Dept. of Commerce, State Dept., C.I.A., NERC, NRC....

A report like this - especially this late in the game - does not represent laziness on the part of the reporter. It represents willful disinformation, nothing less. It could have been written by any yahoo, [as it was only a compilation of Y2K cliches] but they chose a software programmer to give it some legitimacy.

It is just more of the same effort to keep the truth from the public in order to keep down panic...

... which is an indication of just how bad things really are.

Sigh.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 01, 1999.

One clarification: Mr. Oualline is not a reporter for the U-T (as it's known locally). He's apparently just a local software geek (C programmer... hmmmm...) that decided to submit this Op-Ed piece to the U-T, who in turn decided to run it.

On a more positive note: the city of Poway (east of San Diego) is hosting another Conniry "urban prep" session later this month. Poway is helping people prepare and not panic. The U-T and, as far as I can tell, the city of San Diego itself are not.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 01, 1999.

Linda, sorry, I didn't really state what I was trying to say clearly enough. In a way, that's exactly the point I wanted to make. The editor IS guilty of letting this type of thing get into print. Anyone who thinks that media reportage and editing have not changed over the last two decades, is fooling him or herself. Wish it weren't so!

-- CD (CDOKeefe@aol.com), August 01, 1999.

Geesh. You people fell for it. Hook, line, and sinker. A man that stupid couldn't read, let alone write books. ;-)

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), August 01, 1999.

This "article" is the most obvious piece of crap i've seen and even as i believe y2k will be managed, even when disruptive, this garbage has no place in a newspaper. Maybe in a crack-house, for the use of anus cleansing. Do not forget to crumple first, several times.

-- Jorge del Valle (intlplastics@mindspring.com), August 01, 1999.

We have a recently arrived market name from the Pacific Northwest here...just last week, the computers had a big time problem...so dozens of customers left full baskets and walked out.

Hope that learns 'em!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@It's ALL going away in January.com), August 01, 1999.

Mac.. glad to hear from a local. I have heard the realaudio Poway prep sessions... very impressive. Have they been well attended? Sorry to hear the city of S.D. is apparently doing little as I have family still there. Spent 20 years there myself (and loved every minute of it), but am very VERY glad to be far away from there now.

And as for the Op-Ed piece. Even if he is not employed by the paper I smell disinformation. This does not read like an empassioned letter to the editor from someone who knows whereof he speaks. It is just a bunch of Y2K slogans, cliches, strung together. No insider programing details to counter the gloom and doom. Its too much the standard don't-worry-be-happy party line not to have been a set-up.

IMHO

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), August 01, 1999.

Linda -

I've read quite a few Op-Ed pieces in the U-T of late that had me scratching my head. It's as if they need to fill the page and are using these local reader-generated pieces to do so. I've seen a number of half-page items which were really quite poorly written and which used a great deal of newsprint to say little of real value.

What's worse is that they're placed near columns from folks like George Will, Cal Thomas, and Robert Kuttner, and they suffer greatly in comparison.

Ah well. We are at "T minus 5 months", and all will become much clearer very soon. Maybe Mr. Oualline is right. I hope that he is. I'm preparing that he is not.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 02, 1999.