y2k? give me answers

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well folks there is 88 days left close to 87 now... i liked all the prez answers, anyone can run i guess but no one will except the ones that no one wants.. tipacal (sp) what i want to know now is beings there is only 88 days left till the thing happens. whom is y2k compliant. whom is y2k ready, what do both those words mean compliant and ready? hell if the prez does not know what "is"means how can you classify compliant and ready? anyway i want numbers and proof anyone got any??

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), October 04, 1999

Answers

Sandy- I've long felt that the potential presidents who are truly qualified for the position, wouldn't want the job! And just look what that leaves us!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 04, 1999.

The banks are all ready like they say. However, NONE of them are compliant. Get you money out as fast as you can!

-- freddie (freddie@thefreeloader.com), October 04, 1999.

Let me try....nobody is compliant. The lawyers won't allow them to say so even if they think they are. They probably aren't anyway. (clear as mud?)

Everyone and their uncle is Y2K Ready. Ready to:

use papers and pencils instead of computers

ready to take early retirement

ready to layoff all the workers

ready to blame terrorists and bad managers that have been fired

ready to keep right on lying all the way to 1/1/01

ready because they sold all their company stock in August

Help me out with some more.......

-- Bill (bill@tinfoil.com), October 05, 1999.


Sandy, Can't speak for any other companies, but the one I work for is one of the leaders in Y2K remediation, been at it since 1994. As of today, I was informed that they are offering $1000 PLUS two extra vacation days (and they NEVER give extra vacation) to anyone who is willing to be onsite from 11pm 12/31/1999 until 3pm 1/1/1900. Also was informed that if there isn't enough response, there will be mandated shifts at that time. (Don't know what sort of compensation they will offer for that). Was also informed that there is enough uncertainty (translation: we aren't compliant, and we aren't going to be compliant, and this after, by my count, 8, count 'em, 8 announcements that we are 100% Y2K compliant this year.) that our official policy is now 'Fix-on-Failure'. I suspect that if this company is in this shape, that there probably isn't anyone much better off. As for 'compliance' versus 'readiness', as I understand it, these are defined as: Y2K Compliant - All systems, 'mission-critical' or not, are Y2k remediated, tested, re-remediated to correct all bugs found in the original testing, and retested. (Translation: Nobody, Nowhere, Nohow.) Y2K Ready - All systems have been assessed, we have determined which ones are 'mission-critical' (means we cannot continue our business without this), and we are into the process of remediating this, but understand that there isn't any way that we will get everything complete, and probably have done an analysis to determine how much stuff we can manage to fix and have declared that much stuff to be 'mission-critical'.

Hope these definitions help.

-- just another (another@engineer.com), October 05, 1999.


I would have to agree with the Y2K ready statement. I read a post back around March 99 in which United Airlines announced they were compliant and they outlined the time line of their efforts. As I reacll, they spent 6-7 years on the total process from start to end. In reading the time line it was very straightforward and believable. If their timeline was accurate, as it seemed to be, one would have to seriously question any other major company of similar size who claims the same compleation status in just 1-2 years.

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), October 05, 1999.


Just about 49 Federal workdays 'till the Roll. Since there will be NO heavy lifting in December, (remember, most people will be short timers by definition) that works out to just 23 productive days at best!

Things have already begun to slow down, yet time has mysteriously sped up! We're committed now, can't portage around the Falls, which we can now hear and is so much more than the once expected Whitewater rapids; the FEAR is beginning to morph into intense, almost Orgasmic EXCITEMENT at the prospect!



-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), October 05, 1999.


thanks another, the definitions were great, wish i knew more about puters, took computer science 1 in college, dropped it after 2 weeks, took me 280 trys to make the machine make a happy face(justX for eyes,O for nose and___for mouth} the next week was computing simple interest... can't even do that in my head let alone make a machine do it for me is when i dropped the course went back to psycology and history and literature, good luck with your company, if i was you would go for the bonus and extra holidays... unless u head for the hills before then

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), October 05, 1999.

Sandy, After talking it over with the wife, and as of today's meeting with boss, who suggested strongly that I 'volunteer' before I get 'volunteered', and seeing as that I am only thirty-five miles from the house (and even as old and decrepit as I am, can do that in about a day if the car won't start), decided to take the money and be here.

Although I have absolutely NO IDEA what the heck I am supposed to do if anything breaks. Assuming that we have power, and assuming that the computers in the network are all up and running (in the immortal words of Paul Milne, BWAHHAAHAHAHAHAH), what I am supposed to do to fix software that won't work on a compliant operating system (always assuming that that one actually is, the one we are on was supposed to be, and I busted tail the first half of this year driving a project to get onto the 'compliant' OS, which now turns out to have BIG problems), and in any event, resides on a non-compliant OS, I haven't a clue.

In any event, this particular company has about 1500 major installations of a product whose primary embedded chip is Zylog, Z8000, which is 1970's era technology, and was last produced, if I am correct, in 1988, and wasn't compliant then. (The ones I remember got their date off of a clock chip, which is probably compliant, as this would be a big red flag, but then on the chip they had a hardwired 6 digit register in which to put it. And unless they changed the lithography for the chip, an expensive proposition, they probably still are, which means that two of those compliant 8 digits are being dropped on the floor. (Best guess is that it is the first two of the year since that way all of the software for it would still work, until 87 days from now, anyway. )

Bottom line is, I haven't been posting here, or even lurking very often the last couple of years because I have been A). making like Davy Crockett at the Alamo on the Y2K thing for the company, B). trying like mad to find some hard factual evidence that nothing big will happen, and C) making preparations for the outcome I now feel is almost foreordained. There are 87 days, and there isn't a thing I can do at this point, other than add a couple more months of canned goods, another couple hundred pounds of rice, beans, etc., add a couple more cords of wood, and sit back on New Years Eve and watch the lights go out in an inexorable advance across the globe. For all that everybody has done, attempted, for all of the 'awareness' attempts, for all the efforts of 'scary Gary', and Ed Yourdon, (who by the way, for any of the pollys reading this, has a reputation among engineers who actually do work on stuff like embedded systems, and such, the things that make stuff work, as not walking on water ONLY because he doesn't want to embarass the 'experts' who can't), there is no longer enough time to do anything about the 'oh gee I forgot that those programs were all compiled on a 13 year old server, and the compiler, OS, assembler, and linker are all non-compliant' types of problems that are lurking in the weeds out there.

Sorry for the diatribe, but today has been a real bad hair day.

-- just another (another@engineer.com), October 06, 1999.


AAAaacccckkkkk, just another (another@engineer.com) !

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 06, 1999.

other you are refreshing with your puter lingo and all, but u do make me realize from my non puter knowledge that it will be bad. good luck to you if you ever need to know how to make soap milk a cow or plant a garden get in touch i am going to unplug everything the day before newyears good luck to you and yours, and thanks for the info.

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), October 06, 1999.


Just Another:

Please stop. You are scaring me too much.

Thank you

-- TrustHim (ItComes@Soon.now), October 06, 1999.


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