From his response to our questions...

"But I continue to believe that power is so important, so strategic, that administrative and economic problems will not be allowed by the government or the Fed to impact the generation and distribution of power, no matter what."

This is very much DGI material. I mean, a lot of highly intelligent DGI's continue to believe that They won't let the power fail. Can't say I do, that's for sure.

-- buzzz (cantsay@wont.say), November 10, 1999

Answers

With all due respect to mr Way I think he is dead wrong on the power issue. The lights will go out, the question is for how long. consider this,the companies that own these mega utilities have a tremendous investment to protect. If they left the juice on during the uploading of the new remedated software and the software was flawed by undiscovered fatal code errors we would have equipment fires and explosions. No they have to pull the plug, probably sometime after christmas and between New year's. They have to take major piece of equipment off line upload the new software and end to end test the sensors before letting the juice back on. this means power off until they determine it is safe to go back up. At this same time the phone comanies need to do the same thing. This is a big project that is probably going to be coordinated at the federal level. Let's hope they got it close enough to get back up quickly. Be under no illusion their investment will come first before the needs of the people. They will not throw the juice back on until they know they can do it without taking down the integrity of the Grid. I suspect down time will be short(couple of weeks) but power on the other side of y2k will be dirty for a while until all the y2k faulty embededs are found. this is no simple fix from a technical standpoint,many factors can complicate it being fixed quickly. be flexible incase of long term outages. This size and type of techincal problem has never been experienced before. The learning curve will start when the 24/7 online all the time systems get the new remediated software uploaded, then the fun begins.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation . com), November 10, 1999.

I respect the man for what he knows and his attempts to share it, but I must say that he waffles as badly as Flint. What else can one conclude when he backtracks on his claims that "we will burn in hell" and that Yourdon is too optimistic when predicting a year of disruption/10 years of depression?

-- a (a@a.a), November 10, 1999.

Buzz,

I respectfully disagree.

I read everything Mr. Way has put out. over and over and over.

He certainly does get it, in my opinion. The message that I see he is sending is in regards to huge systems and their backrooms i.e.,accounting,administrative etc. Which of course is how are entire economy stays afloat. I personally think he is asking people to consider a world where the infrastructure works but not the paper trail!! And that would includes banks,insurance,health,smallbusiness.

Hence his continuance in pointing out the need of containment at all levels in fighting the battle. And oh what a battle it will be!!

After reading his essay regarding banks!!---forget about it!!!!

specifically the comment::: ""A large bank can have 100,000 programs that run on 30 different platforms and use 50 different languages (type,vintage and compiler mfr.)Make several thousand code changes across that base in something as ubiquitous as date processing in something like banking operations.

"""How many errors will there be afer making thousands of changes to a very large 'system of systems' that no one really understands in detail????"""

Hello-- hello--- Heeellllooo-- McFly!!! knock, knock ,knock

Thankyou MR. Way!!

-- d.b. (dciinc@aol.com), November 10, 1999.

Mr. Way, I do not quite understand how the government and the fed are going to fix any technical problems. Did the fed suddenly get a new capability. As Cory says 51 days then games up.

-- Noone (noone@none.com), November 10, 1999.

OK, so the power goes down for 2-3 weeks while they remediate or upload the software. My point is, 2-3 weeks will cause a lot of chaos. Ever go without for 2-3 weeks? After 1 week, riots. Maybe we should hope for martial law. I envision that this is a very, very, very risky 'fix' at best. Getting everything back and running power wise will be, what, 50-50 at best considering what will be going downnnnnnnnnnnn.....

-- buzzz (wow@good.hello), November 10, 1999.

With all due respect Mr. Way's broad pronouncement in bolded letters "THE LIGHTS WILL NOT GO OUT AT MIDNIGHT" based on a brief window of vunerability for relatively stupid process controllers defies common sense. Notice he appeared to backpedaled in his response to Val Jones when he had to consider other "threats" to utilities such as the SUPPORT SYSTEMS for the power industry. He then resorted to the utltimate cop-out which amounts to "the government just won't let it happen."

What is a reader to make then of his big pronouncement?

Little wonder why people trying to asses the potential threat get wigged-out reading this kind of nonsense. This reads no better than "Mr. CEO" a la Gary North.

Mr. Way, please, refrain from this kind of thing unless you are going to qualify it.

-- curiously concerned (curiouslyconcerned@notconvinced.com), November 10, 1999.

With all due respect Mr. Way's broad pronouncement in captial letters that "THE LIGHTS WILL NOT GO OUT AT MIDNIGHT" based on a brief window of vunerability for relatively stupid process control system defies common sense. Notice he backpedaled in his response to Val Jones when he had to consider other "threats" to electric utilities such as the entire SUPPORT SYSTEM for the power industry and ENERGY SOURCE SUPPLIES. He then resorts to the ultimate cop-out which amounts to essentially "the government won't let it happen."

So what is a reader to make of his large cap pronouncement then?

Little wonder people wig-out when trying to asses the potential threat to electric utilitities. This is nonsense analysis. This reads no better than "Mr. CEO" from Gary North's site.

Mr. Way, please, do not make broad pronouncements unless you are going to quilify them.

(This is my second post of essentially an identical repsonse that was posted earlier and removed. I am assuming it was removed purposefully by someone. Is honest criticisim of Mr. Way's comments forbidden. Why was my earlier repsonse removed?)

-- curiously concerned (curiouslyconcerned@notconvinced.com), November 10, 1999.

Cautiously Concerned,

Your parnoia is starting to affect you - both posts are still within the thread.

-- joe bob briggs (jb_briggs@hotmail.com), November 10, 1999.

Nope my friend. I had checked twice after hitting "refresh." It was missing for a while after having appeared post insertion.

This could be a case of seriously strange software.

I'm certain we'll be seeing a lot of that soon.

-- curiously concerned (curiouslyconcerned@notconvinced.com), November 10, 1999.

"But I continue to believe that power is so important, so strategic, that ---> ADMINISTRATIVE AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS <--- will not be allowed by the government or the Fed to impact the generation and distribution of power, no matter what."

Read carefully, then discuss.

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), November 10, 1999.

I emailed this guy to get him to come 'cause he struck me as an honest GI with impeccable credentials. There were alot of places in the previous thread where he seemed to be crossing back and forth across the dividing line that separates Yardeni and Paul Milne. (I'm not convinced these two diagree as much as Yardeni currently indicates in public.) In any event, I was far from disappointed by his responses. They struck me as honest and to the point. In fact, I would say that the profound collective wisdom/knowledge of this forum and the directness of the questions very much fostered direct responses. There was some questionable optimism, but I attribute this to human coping mechanisms. A rhetorical question: has anyone else in a position of unquestionable authority (credentials) come out in this fashion on Y2K. Let's not shoot the messenger. I also apply this to even more optimistic/obtuse people like Bennett and Yardeni; by comparison they've done a good job.

As an aside, from previous posts it could easily be pieced together the relationship of "Dave" hailing from "aaa@aaa.com" and the "Dave" mentioned in Way's first sentence. While the former could remain anonymous for a long time, the latter is now inadvertently whipping through cyber space in the form of emails to family members and potential GIs as we speak. This simply reminds me that anonymous posts should be written as though they were not. You never know when your cover will be blown.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), November 10, 1999.

The problem with Mr. Way's statement is that it is written at grade fifteen or sixteen skill level. Just go back and read what he wrote till you get what he is saying.

-- (...@.......), November 10, 1999.

RC-

I did read it carefully.

---> ADMINISTRATIVE AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS <--- will not be allowed by the government or the Fed to impact the generation and distribution of power, no matter what."

This kind of comment is so vague and has so little to do his area of expertise it is of no value.

If those ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (prohibitive expense of) he mentions are related to ENERGY SOURCE SUPPLIES (oil used to deliver coal resulting in unaffordable coal for example) just how would the government not "allow" that "impact" to happen? Well, the feds could mitigate the situation by running the printing presses to increase liquidity, but eventually that kind of effort collapses under its own weight. The feds could certainly sieze and allocate energy stocks under U.S. control. And when they run out in short order, what then? Both of these are stop gap measures at best. Beyond that the government is powerless.

If he's simply talking about ECONOMIC PROBLEMS related to screwed-up back office accounting/administrative systems, the feds could conceivable force a company to operate indefinitely without the ability to properly bill or collect accounts until a liquidity crisis affects a stand still.

Again this is conjecture--hardly the stuff to base a large cap pronouncement such as "THE LIGHTS WILL NOT GO OUT AT MIDNIGHT."

He should have simply said that in his opinion process control systems will not be the culprit in any utility failure--and left it at that. His subsequent arguments have gone way beyond his credible expertise.

-- curiously concerned (curiouslyconcerned@notconvinced.com), November 10, 1999.

"If he's simply talking about ECONOMIC PROBLEMS related to screwed-up back office accounting/administrative systems, the feds could conceivable force a company to operate indefinitely without the ability to properly bill or collect accounts until a liquidity crisis affects a stand still."

Curiously, my post wasn't directed at you, but at those who mentioned the govt fixing tech problems - but I think he was referring to back-office type problems.

"Again this is conjecture--hardly the stuff to base a large cap pronouncement such as "THE LIGHTS WILL NOT GO OUT AT MIDNIGHT."

He should have simply said that in his opinion process control systems will not be the culprit in any utility failure--and left it at that. His subsequent arguments have gone way beyond his credible expertise."

Well, he is allowed his OPINIONS, too, however forcefully expressed, but I'll grant you he's occasionally prone to the sweeping gesture. If it hadn't been for the "we will burn in Hell" bit, I doubt his EY letter would have drawn anywhere near this level of interest.

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), November 10, 1999.

RC:

Let us not forget his titanic analogy (screams included), the claim that Y2K is a bigger and more complex problem than most people can fathom, his claims that the failure to define the problem causing a failure to solve the problem, the suggestion that the power companies are at risk of becoming economically non-viable, the reference to a "huge mess", implicit diasters abroad, etc., etc. I believe the "burn in hell" was overplayed in that it was a moral judgement rather than a doomsday prediction. I forgive him for the few optimistic statements that seem out of whack. Course, I could also be completely full of kosky.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), November 10, 1999.

Curiously Concerned & All Concerned-- I've noticed several times today that I had to refresh/reload the page a minimum of THREE times in order to see my post. Let's hope this doesn't mean things will crash soon...arg!

beej

-- beej (beej@ppbbs.com), November 10, 1999.

Think monitoring maybe? When the herd moves, if ever, Rowdy won't be whistling to settle 'em down. Headem up movem on, movem on headem up, headem up (whip snap)...Rawhide (ouch)! {8^}`X~~

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), November 10, 1999.

Monitoring, possibly. Only the server God's can tell. If the system appears normal to them. If updates are snappy and response is always complete going out of the server, then it could be monitoring BUT it could also be 'squid' proxy problems. A squid proxy is a server that sits between the user (some users) and handles requests for you. The squid proxy might be anywhere on the net. It's job is to intercept your download data and place it in a chache. The next time you request the same data you get what is in the cache and don't actually get a response from the server.

It is possible to set one's httpd/apache server up with a pragma in the configuration file '/etc/httpd/httpd.conf' which will tell all 'squids' not to cache pages coming from that server. This would increase the load on the server but MIGHT (if it is not already set) reduce the problem somewhat...

Monitoring, possibly, but unlikely that we would be able to detect evidence of monitoring. That can be done in a completely transparent manner.

-- (...@.......), November 11, 1999.