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Stan -

The book you mentioned is indeed a good reference. The problem that has me terribly worried is that with the DOD. They can say they're compliant if they want to, but I happen to know for a fact that they can't possibly be. I used to be a systems test engineer for DOD systems and Space Div. (NASA) The stuff I worked on was all classified so I won't violate that. What I can say is that one of my compatriots was (when I left the program in med. retirement) working to convert just one of their system programs from a cobol/fortran combo to the gov't specified language. Now that program was one of that agencies small ones and it weighed in at just over a million lines of code. A line, for those who don't know, can be a subroutine which in itself contains as many lines as the whole program. He started the process in 1987. By '89 he'd gotten through perhaps a couple of thousand lines of conversion. Do the math. And he was a sharp cookie. It's just that those programs are so complex and have to interface with so many other programs just as complex that getting every program used by the DOD converted (which was the directive when I left) that getting the job done even ten years later is nigh on to impossible and that's without testing time. Having done those program tests, I can tell you that an 8'x10' room sometimes isn't big enough to contain the printout of just one program.

It scares me because I know what those programs control and how very shaky they really are. Even back in the late 80's the gov't was (at least militarily, almost totally dependent on computers. If anything goes wrong with those or their programs, we're in for some really rough times.

Change of subject -

If any of you want to find out how some of those concerned see the food situation, you might trying going to www.arkinstitute.com/. The Ark promotes the use of non-hybridized seed. They advocate it not just for the family gardener but for commercial use as well. They have an interesting analysis of the coming situation and Y2K.

Also, for those who don't already subscribe, try checking out www.y2knewswire.com/. They bring in info from all over the planet for those who want to know who's seeing and saying what about Y2K.

Taiwan's quake damage has already started affecting the price of future computers since they produce most of the control chips used today. And yet they're supposedly totally compliant. So, you may ask, why do I bring that up? Well, if a natural event such as the quake can make that big an impact on the industry and they're compliant, what do you suppose might happen with all those industries which have been faking compliancy all this time, or those who deliberately choose to fix on failure?

Just something to ponder.

Claudette

-- Claudette Young (laclaud@cybertrails.com), October 20, 1999

Answers

Claudette:

You are right on in your lack of faith in some large governmental systems. I've audited over 50 large (government) installations. Finishing projects on time was not exactly a high ability area.

But that is one of the reasons why we prepare...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), October 25, 1999.


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