How many of you Doomers are hard-core Doomers that will still be believing in a Y2k apocalypse even 12 months after the roll-over.

I will consider it over after the rollover and we still have electricity, phones, and other utilities. These basic infrastructure items have been the core of the Doomer disaster, and when these utilities pass the rollover test, it will be over. Then I will be back on this forum to see how many have seen the light. And if there are still some hard-core Doomers who, like Linus, keep insisting that the Great Pumpkin is coming, I will leave laughing at the pitifulness of it all.

-- You Knowwho (debunk@doomeridiots.com), November 05, 1999

Answers

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

-- No (troll@chow.here), November 05, 1999.

Gee, isn't this THE EXACT SAME question that was asked only LAST WEEK??? Sort of in the vein of, "Please doomers, SAY that you will believe that Y2K will be all right if ONLY-ONLY the lights stay on, so that I don't secretly have to be so worried! Pretty-please, with sugar on top!!"

Moron.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 05, 1999.

Go hungry troll

-- thomas saul (thomas.saul@yale.edu), November 05, 1999.

TROLL BAIT

-- This is TROLL BAIT (thisis@trollbait.com), November 05, 1999.

Delete

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.not), November 05, 1999.

I can truthfully say that if civilization never collapses, I will believe it didn't collapse, lights or no lights.

MFU

-- Man From Uncle 1999 (mfu1999@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

Troll Bait Do not respond

-- Brian (imager@home.com), November 05, 1999.

Who cares what you CONSIDER????????????????????

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), November 05, 1999.

By this I mean that the debunking will be over. There is no need to debunk anything when the truth is plain to see. 8 weeks do or die for the Doomers.

-- You Knowwho (debunk@doomeridiots.com), November 05, 1999.

One word:

Oil.

Follow-up:

May take some time for the effects to be noticed.

'Nuff said.

-- (dot@dot.dot), November 05, 1999.

You Knowwho

For a 29-year old you still have a lot to learn. It's 8 weeks do or die for pollies. No one has ever died from having some extra supplies and provisions.

-- Brooklyn (MSIS@cyberdude.com), November 05, 1999.

You Knowwho

Yes, that is the sound of backpedaling you hear. Moderate Tinfoils are now starting to be a little uneasy that not ONE SINGLE PREDICTION made by the priests in the church of death have come true. Not one...

"On January 1, 1999 they will experience many more, and it will be much more difficult to sweep them under the rug. On April 1, 1999 we will all watch anxiously as the governments of Japan and Canada, as well as the state of New York, begin their 1999-2000 fiscal year; at that moment, the speculation about Y2K will end, and we will have tangible evidence of whether governmental computer systems work or not."-- Ed Yourdon

"... I believe we'll start seeing [disruptions] by this summer, and I believe they'll continue for at least a year. As many people are now aware, 46 states (along with Australia and New Zealand) will begin their 1999-2000 fiscal year on July 1, 1999; New York (and Canada) will already have gone through their Y2K fiscal rollover on April 1, and the remaining three states begin their new fiscal year on August 1, September 1, and October 1. We also have the GPS rollover problem to look forward to on August 22nd, as well as the Federal government's new fiscal year on October 1st.

There is, of course, some finite probability that all of these rollover events will occur without any problems; but there's also a finite probability that pigs will learn to fly."

Ed "Flying Pig" Yourdon

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

I'm a doomer and that's okaaaay I sleep at night, and I prep all daaaaay I'll have gas and I'll have heat No matter what happens; come what maaay

My garage is full, can't see the floooor The pantry's packed, bending its dooorr I'll have food, and I'll have drink My family won't starve, that's for suuure

My friends think I've cracked, they say I'm crazy That may be true, but I'm sure not lazy I've asked them about it, and all they do Is ridicule, and laugh, and talk kind of hazy

Well now I've moved to the country, far far away And left them in Silicon valley today They have my Box, but not my address I can't afford for them to come, and want to stay

Now I wear plaid shirts, and chop lots of wood And act like the tune of this bad song should So I'll end it with this quiet refrain And go back to work, and quit being rude [sic]

"I'm a lumberjack, and that's okaaaayyy"

Weird Al Jolly

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), November 05, 1999.

Troll Alert - Troll Alert - Do not Respond.

-- Butt Nugget (catsbutt@umailme.com), November 05, 1999.

Y2K Pro,

This agrument is getting old. I don't recall every "doomer" saying he or she was in exact lock-step with Ed Yourdon's chronology of Y2K events. Many of us who expect problems, don't necessarily believe they will begin promptly at 00:00:01 hours, Jan. 1. In fact, one could argue that many have already begun. Simply count the many code failures already occurring across the US.

The interdependence of events could create a really bizarre set of random failures after Jan 1. As Dale Way postulates: "Not all remediated code will survive interdependabilty (a new word?) and not all unremediated code will fail. Many subsystems of subsystems will determine the eventual outcome, based upon forward and backword derived date calculations and data. The data must be passed properly from one dependent subsystem to the next dependent subsystem.

And most import to remember: Not all buggy computer code routines will be called in the software right at 00:00:01. Some may be called much later, and some never called at all.

COBOL, I hope you are reading this. It's a pretty good start on your demand we give you a definition of "compliant", or "noncompliant".

-- TruthSeeker (truthseeker@ seek truth.always), November 05, 1999.

Do or die?????

Those who have prepared won't have to "do" anything, and are not in danger of "dying" - except from rioting panic-stricken government employees (can't call them all workers) who haven't been paid, but who decied to listen to their esteemed lair-in-chief and his administration.

Or is the government going to "protect" us?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 05, 1999.

The best service we can provide to the negative amongst us is to demonstrate to them that they are truly in the minority, both in thought and action. They need to know that we will welcome them back after the great pumpkin disappoints again. No doubt, many of them, and some, even family members will be depressed. It will be critical to get them help rather than greet them with scorn after the first. Please do not pay any attention to those on the forum that call names. Do not be offended when they refer to you as being a troll. Some of the biggest name callers are also some of the lonliest people. They deserve our sympathy rather than our scorn. When called names, reply calmly by stating and restating the facts. Planes are not going to fall from the sky, our money is safe in the bank, etc. Good luck and god speed.

-- Ed Blumberg (eblumberg@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

The meme is not so weak that a few paltry facts can debunk it.

Observe Y2K Pro's post a couple lines up, and the ensuing (typical doomer) "logic" in response. Doomers were wrong before, doomers are wrong now, and doomers will be wrong in the future regarding Y2K. Yet, they will persist.

When evidence failed to bear out Mr. Yourdon's dire predictions regarding the JoAnne (non-)Effect, he (and to be fair, other doomers with books and dried food to sell) fell back on the position that the lack of evidence justified his (their) earlier claims - the word for the day, children, was "under- estimation." The man (and the others) need psychological help, and deserve our pity more than our scorn.

(Still awaiting one shred of evidence, defined as 1) a model number a non-Y2K-compliant IC; 2) the manufacturer; 3) the test procedures utilised to repeatably determine it's non-compliance; and 4) at least one system the IC is utilised in...)

Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

AndyRay:

"Still awaiting one shred of evidence, defined as 1) a model number a non-Y2K-compliant IC; 2) the manufacturer; 3) the test procedures utilised to repeatably determine it's non-compliance; and 4) at least one system the IC is utilised in...)"

Be very careful you're not setting up a misleading set of requirements. Without question there are RTC chips that only maintain 2-digit years. In fact, there are hundreds of millions of them. No, these chips aren't non-compliant in the sense that they won't roll over from 99 to 00 as per the spec. They obey the spec.

Now, how is that 2-digit year windowed? This is a software function. The software may be burned into the part that's reading (and windowing) that year. When the 2-digit year exceeds the software's hard-wired window, you can have a problem. For one or more time samples, you may calculate a negative elapsed time. What will happen then? Depends on the exact code -- the programmer didn't anticipate this, the code isn't written to handle it, but the program will do *something*. Probably wrong.

How do you get around this? Depends on the code itself. In many cases, shutting down before rollover and starting up afterwards is sufficient. In other cases, by accident things work OK. In yet other cases, the process will stop or do something totally unexpected.

Examples? In many PC's, just set the new century one time after rollover and you're fine. In others, you need to set the new century every time you reboot. In yet others, you don't need to do anything. And what if you don't reset the date? In that case, some application will encounter negative time. What will it do? It all depends.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), November 05, 1999.

I must agree with Andy Ray. I agree because I do lots of research. When I present papers for scrutiny, my statements are not based on emotions or feel good statements. If I draw a conclusion about something without having my ducks in line I leave my self open. Believe you me, that is not a pleasant position to put yourself into. When I start seeing serious complications, ie prolonged(several days without another explanation) power outagesand telephone outages. Sure, I will concede that there have been a few problems. There have been quite a few people impacted by these. However, it does appear that these situations are being fixed and should be in good shape by the roll over. But until then, I'm afraid that I will have to stick to my position.

-- Ed Blumberg (eblumberg@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

Flint,

Your points are well-taken. My point in making several similar calls for evidence has been to demonstrate to the large and silent audience that peruses this forum for data on Y2K that the people here making the most extravagent and violent predictions about the new year in fact know very little about the actual systems involved.

The idea was sparked when a doomer, whom I will reference by the pseudonym "Lian" challenged some of my assertions by stating that this forum was "filled with Y2K remediation experts." I took him up on the challenge, only to find a slew of circular references, asserted premises, and misdrawn conclusions...and no evidence.

I know the model numbers and manufacturers of RTC ICs. I work with them regularly, and have for decades. My point is thus: the morons making the most noise simply do not know what they are talking about. They have some other reason for wishing doom upon the planet, technology, or western civilisation - and most of them haven't a clue what this would actually mean for them personally. They simply, like spoiled children, do not like things as they surmise them to now be; and desire a change - assuming that a change would be in their interests. In it's immaturity, the memetics driving doomers are astounding.

Demonstrating that, sir, is the point; though (again) yours is well- taken.

Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), November 05, 1999.

Hey Andy Ray, how's this: Herseys', IBM, AND Whorlpool! Three major corps. experenceing huge y2k problems! Is that enough, or do you need more!?! Do you also require proof of the holocaust!? How about the moon landing?!? How about the TREASON of Our Perver in Chief?! You are a fool and a scumbag, but that's what comes of living in 90's america!

-- Crono (Crono@timesend.com), November 05, 1999.

Andy Ray (are you a girl?)

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), November 05, 1999.

Finally y2k glitches hit me personally. Our business checking account overdrew because an entire batch of customer credit card deposits were lost by the processor for over a week. American Express said it was Novus (the processor) that lost millions and didn't know who they belonged to or where they went. They were suposed to be deposited within 72 hours and it took over a week. If this is an example of what is to come, we will have to hire more people to help us uncover the porblems. We are just one business that is y2k compliant, but the interconnectivness of everything we deal with will be a challange. We can't just take cash as many customers won't have much; besides, where would we bring our cash? Our bank already told us they do not have a back-up generator and willnot be able to process our deposits if the power is out. Our store would be a target if we keep the cash. If we find a bank with a back-up generator, ther is no guarantee we would be able to get the change we need the next day from the bank.

-- Sky Clark (clark@charm.net), November 05, 1999.

That is certainly an interesting choice of examples, Crono. While AndyRay beliefs may not be aligned with yours, I fail to see why requiring proof of anything is undesirable. Much depends upon what standards of proof is acceptable to an individual. I have met several persons who were unfortunate enough to be detained in concentration camps, and their story along with the attendant historical record is sufficient proof for me of the reality of the Holocaust. That the moon landings were a total prevarication is quite easily proven, if you'd care to do the research (example: go to the National Air and Space Museum and look at both the Apollo-era spacesuits and the LM. Note that the door is to small viv-a-vis the backpack of the suit to permit egress. Other such examples abound). Treason by the current administration, unless proven in a court of law, is merely an opinion (albeit a widely-held one). Opinions need no proof, one way or another, to be held.

-- PKM (.@...), November 05, 1999.

THANK YOU Andy Ray!

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0013zI

-- Thank you. Thank (you@very.much), November 06, 1999.

As requested, growing evidence

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Nnq

-- More (on@embedded.systems), November 06, 1999.

You are very welcome, Doc

(My favorite reference in this article is to "Doomer Math," which is to mathematics as ebonics is to the Queen's English.)

Amused Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), November 06, 1999.

Gregg: You should direct your question to Porky and guys in Cellblock D. They sure treat him like he is when he visits them, and Andy Ray sure seems all bubbly and giggly afterwards.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 06, 1999.

Gregg,

You should be aware that Sping of Kain suffers from maladies other than acceptance of the catastrophic Y2K meme. He is apparently homophobic, as well.

I do not believe I have made any references to my or other's sexuality in any of my posts, though I have read some posts making such distinctions in my name - and some ostensibly by me; though written, in fact, by admirers engaged in mimicry.

It is human nature to transfer to the message the validity of the messenger. This explains recent polls showing the multitudes favoring the polly position regarding Y2K: simply put, doomers cannot offer a valid defense of their position in the debate (the aforementioned doomer is an example).

Doomers made fallacious predictions based upon asserted premises, which have all failed to come to pass. Doomers have yet to produce one example of a repeatable, indepedently verifiable test procedure that demonstrates any IC fails a Y2K test. Doomers do not know what they are talking about, and they prove it regularly.

The actions which you and others are observing are the death-throes of the catastrophic Y2K meme. May it rest in peace.

Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), November 07, 1999.

I guess I would be what you would all call a newbe. I have been reading postings on this forum off and on for about a month now. I've been cruising other sites for about a year. Please forgive the formatting, as I have never before attempted to post anything to one of these before except a quick one liner to someone wanting info on a stove.

I would describe myself as a fence sitter. Not quite sure what to think of all this stuff. I've read a number of news articles that seem to leave one with the belief that Y2K wont be much more than a few days of inconvenience, and a number of web articles that claim it's TEOTWAWKI.

The "GI" position seems to be, everything is going to stop working and you better be ready to stash and grow your own food and protect it and your family from those that haven't. This is usually followed by a " But don't take my word for it, do your own research" type of statement. That's not too helpful as a search on Y2K will net you about 250,000 responses, and most of them seem to give the same general links with general facts like "If we lose 40% - 50% of the worlds computers, we're in deep s&*t!" Well I don't think anyone would deny that but how do we know it will happen?

The "Polly" position seems to be, there is no evidence, historical or otherwise, (unless you can find them some) that proves that anything will happen, so "Don't worry, everything is going to be ok. Koskinen (or the head of the FAA, or who ever) said so just the other day" Well I must say, I have never met a government official that I would trust as far as I could throw them. Please don't quote government officials in an attempt to make a point that you want any intelligent person to believe. Other than that, it is hard to find facts to support or prove a negative or non event.

The other day I ran upon this posting from Andy Ray.

Okay, since no one could produce a single independently verifiable "Y2K-doom embedded IC," we will consider that matter settled for now. In a continuing effort to identify one verifiable catastrophic failure of anything in use today, I ask the following: Can anyone produce the manufacturer, part number, a procedure for verifying Y2K non-compliance, and one current application or platform for an industrial controller (since these have been a hot topic lately). To ameliorate the request, I include the following Example of a Y2K compliant system: Example:

Manufacturer: Allen-Bradley Part Number: 1747-L511, 1747-L514, 1747- L524 Procedure: Attempt to roll the real-time clock for powered down/powered up 991231/000101 rollover tests. Results: No real-time clock in SLC 5/01; 5/02 processors, only a free-running clock. Platforms/Applications: SLC 5/01, 5/02 are part of the A-B Small Logic Controllers family of processors. Uses are varied and industry- wide.

(snip)

Regards, Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), July 06, 1999

So I took the advice of the "GIs" and now the challenge from Andy (a Polly?) to do some research on embedded chips and systems. Now I have read on other sites that 3% of these will fail. Some others I found said up to 15% will fail, but no verifiable facts. The way I figure it, if 3% of these fail then 3% of the total systems will have problems or become unusable (assuming we agree that all of the non compliant chips are found in an equal amount of computers). A 3% slowdown in everything would cause some problems, but not the end of the world. So I went to 3 different websites of 3 different companies. I'm sure there are more but I just used the one Andy used "Allen-Bradley" and the only two I could think of Texas Instruments and Motorola. I've put the addresses below so everyone could look into the horses mouth. I don't know how to make a hot link like you guys do, so you will have to forgive me.

Findings

Allen-Bradley http://domino.automation.rockwell.com/webstuff/y2k.nsf Of their 199 listed date sensitive items they listed, 89 (or 45%) need to be fixed or replaced.

Texas Instruments http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/year2000/dspsds.htm Of their 121 listed date sensitive chips, 37 (or 30%) are not compliant.

Motorola http://mot-sps.com/y2k/realtimeclocks.html They only list their non compliant chips totaling 72. I guess if it's not on their "Black status" list, your ok.

Based on this little bit of data, we must conclude that 30% to 45% of the embedded systems (and the computers they are part of) will have problems. This excludes any software problems. If this is true for all the manufactures, We will be seeing problems everywhere for some time. Even if a company doesn't fail, if everything just slowed down or services are reduced by 30% to 45% until they get fixed, we're in deep S&*T! Remember, the companies involved in doing the fixes will be slowed down too and would be overloaded under normal circumstances.

GI'S I come from the days of Woodward and Bernstein and figure there's some kid out there wanting to make a name for themselves that would want to get to the truth. I guess that's just not the way it is any more. I mean, this was not that hard to find once I knew what to look for. I haven't seen any facts like this in any news article or web posting I've read so far. Let's start finding and posting facts folks not just other WebPages that support your view with links to others that support them Etc..

DOOMER'S For those of you that are in to this for the thrill, I hope you get everything you are hoping for. I see a lot of posts on firearms and weapon of choice. Recently one on the benefits of a 22mag for shooting people as opposed to an AR-15 (or any .223) because of lower report and less muzzle flash. I just got to say, when you grow up and do get into your first fire fight (and if you survive) you will find it less cool than you thought. Unless you are a cold blooded killer. Let me tell you what to expect when it does happen. Everything slows way down. You try to drop to the ground but gravity doesn't pull you down as fast as normal. If you have more than 300cc of urine in your bladder, it will be out of your bladder and in your pants before you do hit the ground (this is a self preservation reflex, don't blame yourself). Then the only thing you can think of is how will your family take it if you don't make it. Then training or instinct takes over and you aren't you anymore. Rational thought, feelings, everything, gone, and you fight or run. I prefer to run if It's an option (stats show an 80% better chance of survival) but maybe I'm just a weenie. If you stay and fight it goes on and on and on forever, then 10 or 20 seconds after it started, it ends. One way or another it will end. Then (if you survive) you have your hole life to look forward to sleepless nights interrupted by nightmares. Gee, I hope my weapon doesn't have too much muzzle flash. There are literally tens of thousands of men and women in this country that have far superior training and experience in this sort of thing than anything you will read in Solder of fiction or see in a Rambo movie. The only battle you can truly win is the one you don't get into. All others are a varying degrees of loss.

POLLY'S I must admit, after I read Andy's post and the follow up posts, I thought the facts would come to Andy's rescue. But I guess that just isn't so. Andy, did you look at that website that you referred to in your post? You should, 45% of their date sensitive stuff doesn't work. Thank you so much for helping me off (pushing me off) the fence. To answer your post, I have found not one but 198 bad chips from 3 manufactures. I would guess there are many more, but you only asked for one. All in all I hope your right and everyone else ends up eating humble pie. I'll be the first one to take a serving, thank you.

ALL I guess now I will be considered a "Doomer" or if I'm lucky a GI. Oh well I guess I can live with it. Sorry if I offended anyone here, that is not my intent. I'm a bit shook up from all this info I found and need to digest it and act fast, but that's my problem and my fault. I would like to ask everyone to try to stick to the high road. I don't believe Dr.Yardon created this forum as a place for people to go to and through barbs at each other (I know, I know, practice what you preach). I think he did it so ideas and facts could be traded freely. I have more that I would like to say but I think this is enough for now.

P.S.

Grandpappy and Faith,

I love your posts, they are very helpful and fun to read. I hope others will follow suit soon.

P.P.S

Poole,

Get a life. At least Andy is trying to prove something he believes is true, you're just mean and deceitful. The end DOES NOT justify the means.

I DIGRESS.

-- DOC (hopefor@thebest.com), July 09, 1999

THANK YOU Andy Ray

-- (from@the.archives), November 07, 1999.

I was prepared to be disappointed yet again when I read your post, and I must say, initially, I was delightfully surprised! You are most welcome for any assistance I provided in helping you arrive at your decisions regarding the catastrophic nature of Y2K, though I question the validity of that claim - based on observations regarding your use of the numeric facts.

Your calculations are off only a little, and only in three areas - one of which a diligent post-er pointed out in a response:

1) The total products listed at Year 2000 Ready number more than 199. As a result, your math, while accurate, does not portray the ratio of date sensitive/unaffected equipment with statistical integrity.

2) There are twenty-eight listed "Known Issues," of which you counted an affected 199 systems. These issues include: ten which simply require a manual reset of the date (five of which are only affected by the leap year day 000229); six which have already been fixed with patches; two with patches shipping next month; four in which the date is merely misreported; two which are actually operating system issues (one VAX and one NT/Win9x - both of which have been addressed); two that require the customer to contact Allen-Bradley due to the custom nature of the design specifics; and two that are truly not ready.

3) If you factor the age of the systems with "Known Issues" and their installed base, the affected systems amount to less than four percent of Allen-Bradley's total offering. If you factor the "Not Ready" systems into this portion, one arrives at a 0.2857% maximum possible percentage of affected systems.

I have postulated since posting on this forum (fora?) that doomers habitually over-/mis-state their case to produce their desired numeric results. The most likely outcome must frighten them much more than any of their hoped-for scenarios; viz. the lights stay on, people shop as usual, and ignore everything doomers ever say again. And, with each passing "mini-Y2K" date, and each defection of the leadership, their cause grows yet more futile.

I noted the overwhelmingly positive response your massaged presentation (and liberal interpretation) of the "facts" received. After this post, please note the dismay, harassment, and harsh-wishes that are certain to follow. And all who sincerely seek the truth, ask yourself: Do the facts form the basis of the hypothesis? or are the facts accepted/rejected based on their agreement with the hypothesis?

Regards, Andy Ray

-- more (from@the.archives), November 08, 1999.