http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-201-922546-0.html?tag=st.ne.1002.tgif?st.ne.fd.gif.b

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), November 04, 1999

Answers

It's funny, you guys sit around clicking away on your keyboards, bitching about how terrible of a mess technology has gotten you into. The irony of this and the story that St. Fran gave a link to is just priceless.

Okay... rational people please exit stage left... Doomers stay here and spout off about FUD.

-- Troll #10035 (bye@bye.birdy), November 04, 1999.

stfrancis,

do you REALLY believe that article?

lou

-- lou (lanny1@ix.netcom.com), November 04, 1999.

The article makes some good points, but its stupid to release something like this now. We simply dont know what will happen until 1/1/2000 or a short time thereafter. Why the author thinks now is the time to "look back" at Y2k as being a non-issue is beyond me.

I do agree with the overstatements. I have always been pissed at the "Weiss Reports" and "International Monitoring". Gary North's past as a terminal naysayer and the fact he always writes in "doomer sound bites" doesnt help.

We still have 57 days or so. Its still to early to put a nail in Y2k's coffin, but I am certain it wont be as bad as many have been saying. Common sense tells you that a tremendous amount of work must have been done AND alot of the work isnt needed to keep things running. We will see problems, maybe badly impacting small regions but the talk of cascading problems just doesnt sound right to me.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), November 04, 1999.

Whenever I see the words "Don't believe the hype!" I find myself wondering which set of hype I should be skeptical of: The one that says the machines will fail in myriad ugly ways, or the one that says the machines will be fine & that people are the only problem.

Which sounds more plausible, finally? -- given the natural human tendency to lie, distort the truth, & spin.

-- thanks (for@the.link), November 04, 1999.

Okay, Troll. Back up your statement and show me where I bitched about the mess technology has gotten us in. I LOVE TECHNOLOGY.

However, the story that they presented seems a little disingenious to say the least...

Companies wasted their money for the hell of it...??? You GOT to be kidding....

-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), November 04, 1999.

Sorry I forgot, I have to put little warning labels like "you know who you are", and "to whom it may concern" all over things otherwise you tinfoils get your little panties in a bunch. I just wonder why, if it really didn't concern you then why does it upset you so? I guess if you put enough Doomers in a room together they'll form their own society, and cast out anyone who dare point out the obvious.

Like I said, rational go left, tinfoils stay here. As for me I'll be on my way now to champion the truth somewhere else.

And for those of you who didn't "GI" about FUD, it's Fear-Uncertainty- Doubt. Apparently it's all you pathetic souls have left to rely on.

TTFN.

-- Troll #10035 (bye@bye.birdy), November 04, 1999.

For an interesting perspective from a writer doing his thing (1909) long before the world was interconnected and run by computers read:

The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster

http://www.plexus.org/forster.html

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 04, 1999.

It never ceases to amaze me that people will say "it won't be bad now because so much excellent work has been done ..."

As someone frequently posts in BIG letters "Y2K CANNOT BE FIXED"

There is just way too much interconnectedness for any amount of remediation to successfully blanket.

-- matt (whome@somewhere.nz), November 04, 1999.

>> "The overall impact to the economy will be a lot like what happens due to a snowstorm," said Robert Kugel, an analyst with FACEquities. "We'll experience some minor inconveniences, most likely. People won't come into work for a few days, and they'll have to work weekends to make up lost productivity." <<

After many hundreds of billions of dollars spent to fix the Y2K bug in the USA alone, the optimistic outlook is that it will still shut down business for a "few" days (no doubt while fix-on-failure is going on)?

Compound this with reports that dozens of countries like China and Russia are in deep excrement in regard to fixing the problem, and recall that a very substantial part of US production relies on foreign raw materials and manufacturing, and it gets to be like one of those good news bad news jokes.

"Well, the good news is that we're not all gonna die..."

I'm so pleased. If this is the optimistic position...

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), November 04, 1999.

Oh it certainly can be fixed, givenenough time, money, and effort.

The troubles can be minimized, given enough testing and redundancy in the distribution of goods and services.

The probable social upheaval stemming from the loss of basic goods and services might be avoided, given enough love, faith, understanding, forgiveness, and helpfulness towards others in totally unselfish ways.

The probable loss of our fundemental freedoms and our current Constitutional Republic would have been avoide if there were enough true leadership in Washington and in the local governments...

---

But has enough money be spent?

Has enough testing be done?

Is there enough love and respect for others remaining in today's media-driven immoral lifestyles that stress immediate pleasures over lasting morality?

Is the political leadership available?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 04, 1999.

BRAVO Robert, great answer. I also saw your answer on the Atlanta question. Very enlightening. Thanks a lot.

-- Earl (earl.shuholm@worldnet.att.net), November 04, 1999.

Hamsters are rather stupid animals who mostly sit in their cages and do nothing. That's a very appropriate name for you, Hamster; I see why you chose it.

It doesn't matter how well we have remediated in this country because we are highly dependent on the rest of the world in order for our economy to function, and 95% of the rest of the world is light years behind us in Y2K code remediation. Their disasters will soon become our disasters. It may take a few weeks or a month or so, but their Y2K failures will most certainly turn our molehills into mountains.

If you prefer to sit in your cage, rummaging around in the woodchips and hamster poop, hoping someone will feed you, that's typical of those of your mentality.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), November 04, 1999.

Cody,

I beg to differ. Hamsters have those little wheels that they jump on and get exercise.

-- (GuineaPig@myCage.com), November 04, 1999.

Cody, Perhaps you are confusing hamsters with gerbils. If your gerbil escapes, just leave the cage open and it will return. Most gerbils are not very smart and tend to be nervous. Hamsters are much smarter and calmer. They often like people. They are hard to keep from escaping and they like to store up big stockpiles of food which they carry to their hiding places in their cheek pouches. dandelion

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), November 04, 1999.

The Titanic had a lot of money spent on it, too; there was also a high degree of quality work that went into it. Come to think of it... there was a tremendous amount of money spent in the development of ancient Rome, and lot's and lot's of quality work had gone into that as well.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), November 04, 1999.

Amen Cody!

Where does alot of that oil come from? A)the government B)Mid-East C)Dieter

What percentage of code is outside the country? A)100% B)78% C)10%

Approx. how many of the approx. 67,700 government systems are they working on? A) all of them B) 6,300 c 40,000

What percentage of software projects FINISH ON TIME? A) 90% B) 60% C less than 50%

What is the largest software project in history? No help here, junior

All of you middle-of-the-roaders, "we don't know what's gonna happen" yahoos... THE FACTS HAVE ALWAYS SAID OTHERWISE

Y2K is as much about mass denial as Klinton is about intern chasing

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), November 04, 1999.

Cody

Actually Hamsters are very good escape artists. A neat trait at times no doubt.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), November 04, 1999.

Y2K and remediation is like a patchwork quilt. We sent instructions out to all the "experts", and they are sending back the patches. On Jan 1st we will put them all together and see how good a quilt we have.

Saying Y2K is fixed because it cost us a fortune, is like saying. "It will be a good quilt because it's really huge" (from DGI council on Y2K)

-- ouch! I found it (Needle@haystack.com), November 04, 1999.

(Sombody PLEASE tell me whose observation this is! Been driving me nuts for two days.)

Anyway, this about sums it up for me, too:

There are only two reasons why Y2K won't bring about disaster: Either enough was repaired, or technology wasn't really that important in the first place.

Adjusting my wool-lined tinfoil beret,

-- Faith Weaver (suzsolutions@yahoo.com), November 04, 1999.

Cody, if you dont agree with what I said, why not get specific. To do the hamster jokes is "cute" but it doesnt explain what you find wrong with my statements. I just cant toe the line that the true doomers do and I get troubled when I see the only people backing up us "preppers" are the wackos and the self-serving people like I.M., Y2knewswire, ArtBell, GaryNorth, etc... The people with some credibility who were on "our side" are gone now.

ps - I only poop in one corner of the cage, stupid.

-- hamster (hamster@mycage.com), November 04, 1999.

Read the history of France before the Revolution. For several years they'd been talking in the salons about what was coming. BIG topic. But as political concessions were made, citizens began to believe it was going to be avoided, the Revolution headed off at the pass, the transformation bloodless. Right up until--literally--the day before the fall of the Bastille. It is even more interesting to read on. Whose heads rolled, that is, in the tumult that followed Bastille Day. The question I ask is, whose heads will roll if this transformation is as bad as I think it will be? I'm bettting that instead of the aristocrats-by-birth, it will be the programmers and virtually anyone who worked for government. My recommendation to those of you who fit in such categories, on New Year's Eve become bartenders and stock clerks.

-- stantheman (Heidrich@presys.com), November 04, 1999.

It is amazing to me that reporters go to stock brokerage employees to get an expert opinion on y2k. These are the same people who are saying that a Nasdaq price/earnings ration of over 100 is OK because we are in a new era. Next year, they will find out what a new era really means.

-- Danny (dcox@ix.netcom.com), November 05, 1999.