The Fallacies of Factfinder Mythology

In Factfinder's earlier thread:

Factfinder attempts to smear and distort the truth and reality of the Y2K status of the oil industry. He does so by attempting to propose the notion that we've promoted "Myths". Because of the length his posted thread it is impractical for me to present a manageable response on that thread. It is also difficult to address them all on one thread. SO we will focus on his "myth #1" which is no myth at all but rather FACT... a fact that Factfinder doesn't wish to face because he's simply a biased polly troll.

To wit...

Myth #1: The oil industry can't finish on time and instead will "fix on failure."

"The oil industry is fixing now and testing now, and most systems are complete." ----------------

RESPONSE: Name one...1 ... please name 1... O-N-E oil company major or minor in size that has been CERTIFIED by an independent auditing firm as being 100% completely compliant. PLEASE just name 1. You can't because there are NONE !!! Period. The oil industry is like so many others, it's simply spinning. PROVE that these companies statements of "readiness" means compliance.

IF... IF... they were compliant there would be no need for contingency planning now would there? The reason they are not certified compliant is because they are NOT DONE, and won't be done. ENRON in their 10-Q assessment admits this very fact that they are not done and won't be done. They also point out that they are not the only ones facing problems. Here's a cut and paste from ENRON's 10-Q:

" Because of the imponderable nature of potential Year 2000 deficiencies, their impact cannot be quantified. None of these problems is unique to Enron."

NOTE THIS LAST SENTENCE: "None of these problems is unique to Enron"

Later in the statement they essentially repeat this more emphatically:

" Enron believes that the possible adverse impact of the embedded chip problem is not, and will not be, unique to Enron. "

Also, ENRON points out that they only completed one phase of the process...its Iterative in nature.

"It is important to recognize that the processes of inventorying, assessing, analyzing, converting (where necessary), testing, and developing contingency plans for mission-critical items in anticipation of the Year 2000 event are necessarily iterative processes. That is, the steps are repeated as Enron learns more about the Year 2000 problem and its effects on Enrons internal systems and on Outside Systems, and about the effects that embedded chips may have on Enrons systems and Outside Systems. As the steps are repeated, it is likely that new problems will be identified and addressed. Enron anticipates that it will continue with these processes through January 1, 2000 and, if necessary based on experience, into the year 2000 in order to assess and remediate problems that reasonably can be identified only after the start of the new century."

In other words: "problems that reasonably can be identified only after the start of the new century."

ENRON continues:

"Enron anticipates that it will not be able to find and remediate all embedded chips in systems in Enrons business units. Further, Enron anticipates that Outside Entities on which Enron depends also will not be able to find and remediate all embedded chips in their systems. Some of the embedded chips that fail to operate or that produce anomalous results may create system disruptions or failures. Some of these disruptions or failures may spread from the systems in which they are located to other systems in a cascade. These cascading failures may have adverse effects upon Enrons ability to maintain safe operations and may also have adverse effects upon Enrons ability to serve its customers and otherwise to fulfill certain contractual and other legal obligations. The embedded chip problem is widely recognized as one of the more difficult aspects of the Year 2000 problem across industries and throughout the world. Enron believes that the possible adverse impact of the embedded chip problem is not, and will not be, unique to Enron.

Let's repeat that last sentence again... ". Enron believes that the possible adverse impact of the embedded chip problem is not, and will not be, unique to Enron. "

MORE ENRON NOTES:

"Enrons contingency plans will contemplate an assessment of all its mission-critical internal information technology systems and its internal operational systems that use computer-based controls. This process will commence in the early minutes of January 1, 2000, and continue for hours, days, or weeks as circumstances require. Further, Enron will in that time frame assess any mission-critical disruptions due to Year 2000-related failures that are external to Enron. The assessment process will cover, for example, loss of electrical power from utilities; telecommunications services from carriers; or building access, security, or elevator service in facilities occupied by Enron.

NOTE: ENRON is admitting this could go on for weeks! not a few hours...though it might be just a few hours. They also note that utilities going down could be a real problem despite those industries protests to the contrary.

Final points made by ENRON in their closing summary: "from a forward-looking perspective, the extent and magnitude of the Year 2000 problem as it will affect Enron, both before and for some period after January 1, 2000, are difficult to predict or quantify for a number of reasons. Among these are: the difficulty of locating "embedded" chips that may be in a great variety of mission-critical hardware used for process or flow control, environmental, transportation, access, communications and other systems; the difficulty of inventorying, assessing, remediating, verifying and testing Outside Systems; the difficulty in locating all mission-critical software (computer code) internal to Enron that is not Year 2000 compatible, or that may be subject to re-coding errors or sabotage; and the unavailability of certain necessary internal or external resources, including but not limited to trained hardware and software engineers, technicians, and other personnel to perform adequate remediation, verification and testing of mission-critical Enron systems or Outside Systems. Accordingly, there can be no assurance that all of Enrons systems and all Outside Systems will be adequately remediated so that they are Year 2000 ready by January 1, 2000, or by some earlier date, so as not to create a material disruption to Enrons business. If, despite Enrons reasonable efforts under its Year 2000 Plan, there are mission-critical Year 2000-related failures that create substantial disruptions to Enrons business, the adverse impact on Enrons business could be material"

CONCLUSION: No oil company is certified compliant. No oil company claims to be certified and compliant. No oil company has submitted to an independent audit to prove compliance for insurance or any other purpose. Until you can prove that ALL oil companies are certified compliant there is nomyth #1. PERIOD!!! ENRON was willing to at least come partially clean in their 10-Q assessment when they stated that they're not gonna make it and that they are not unique. No oil company is going to make it. Neither are they going to be ready. IF that were so, we'd not be seeing these new press releases stating that these oil pipeline companies are shutting down operations on the rollover. IF they were really compliant...IF they were really ready there would be no need to shut down at rollover. And these news releases are just the tip of the iceberg...there's a lot more to come. The refineries will be shutting down also. Here's an excerpt from a Reuters Newswire story:

"NEW YORK, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Explorer Pipeline Co. said on Monday it plans to idle its entire oil products pipeline system, which feeds the U.S. Midwest, for 20 hours starting on New Year's Eve to guard against any unexpected Y2K incidents. We will do the same thing as Colonial. We will shut our system temporarily,'' Explorer President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Van Dyke told Reuters by telephone."

Here's another that Gordon posted earlier about Seaway ... from PLATT'S:

"For educational, research and bewilderment purposes only:

PLATT'S: Arco plans temporary shutdown of Seaway pipeline Dec 31 New York (Platt's)--16Nov1999/110 pm EST/1810 GMT Atlantic Richfield plans to enact a temporary, precautionary shutdown of its Seaway pipeline in the hours leading up to and passing the turn of the millenium, a company spokeswoman said Tuesday. The spokeswoman said that although no firm shutdown schedule has yet been set, the likely shutdown on the 220,000 b/d line would be from three to five hours on either side of midnight, Dec 31. Seaway runs from Houston to Cushing, Oklahoma."

[read Gordon's whole posting on this]

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

Factfinder,

Either you're a complete MORON or a "shill" from the gov't. If you really have swallowed this stuff from the oil industry then you're a MORON because any sane individual could/would recognize when someone is talking the talk and walking the walk. Their actions speak louder than words. The pipelines and the refinery shutdowns tell the real story here. Were they truly ready and believed it, they wouldn't shut down and cost themselves business. IN FACT, there's risks in shutting down. OH YOU BET THERE'S RISKS... big safety risks, especially in refineries. I know, I grew up in the biz. There's safety risks for a refinery in both shutting down and starting back up again. You don't do either one for just kicks and grins. It's only done because its a "have to" situation, otherwise you're risking and playing with people's lives and the companies money and assets. So which are you??? I suspect you're a "shill"... no one is stupid enough to not to recognize something isn't adding up when companies say one thing and do the opposite.

I must admit you do qualify to be a Bill Clinton ("I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski")spinmeister. In fact your tactics are very reminiscent of Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi's. Should we do the goose-step in your presence herr shlieckmeister??? Fact of the matter is that I have only just begun to expose you for the fraud that you are. Facts? You don't deal in facts...you just spin tales of deception. You're on the level of pond scum in my book.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 17, 1999

Answers

While I appreciate the efforts of R.C. and many others, I truly despise references to Goebbels, Nazi's, etc.

Stick to rebutting "Factfinder"; both "sides" of this crucial issue need to be presented.

All of the emotionally charged language adds heat but no light.

-- Civility (ple@s.e), November 17, 1999.

I don't think there's any need to dispute the "facts" or otherwise of this - or any other - compliance issue, and here's why.

1) All large business Directors know about Y2K and believe that it is a real threat to their profits and therefore salaries and bonusses and status at the country club.

2) All large business Directors have taken action to protect themselves against it's effects, so that they can continue to make whopping profits and protect their salaries and bonusses and status at the country club.

3) There are about four or five layers of people MINIMUM between the Directors and the engineers doing the testing and fixing. Every person in that chain has their own goals, objectives, budget and agenda.

Based on those assumptions about human factors - care to debate them? - I'm assuming that the statements of compliance from big companies DO actually represent a genuine belief that they are as compliant as they can REASONABLY be. I don't know of any company where the statement of compliance is signed by the engineers who actually did the work, so it's all hearsay anyway.

I don't think there's a conspiracy of silence, just a crossing of fingers all the way up the corporate chain of command. It's pointless to debate what WILL happen, because even the people involved in the fixes don't really know.

And, no, I don't think that's good enough.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 17, 1999.

Colin brings up a valid point. Many times pollies say that to not believe the Y2K readiness report by a company or government agency implies that EVERYONE who works there must be "in on" a vast conspiracy. But that is not the way it works; each (non-)"conspirator" may simply believe that their piece of the pie is somewhat dubious, but that probably everyone else is in reasonable shape. And, of course, if their piece has problems, isolating and resolving the problems will be straightforward since "everyone else" is probably in good shape.

That is at least one scenario, I'm sure that there are others. The point is that you can have a Y2K project report that is rotten to the core, without every seed knowing everything that there is to know about it.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 17, 1999.

Thanks R.C.

Can you explain the advantage of the oil companies shutting down operations just before rollover? Wouldn't the same problems exist when they restarted the operation later?

-- Rob Carroll (flyingred@montana.com), November 17, 1999.

Thanks R.C. and I'd like to point out to Civility, that there were hundreds of thousands of German citizens who had THEIR fingers in their ears as well. You may place yours back into your ears now, once again.

Oooops! You dropped your blinders on the floor. :)

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), November 17, 1999.

I'll take a stab at that Rob. First off everyone has their doubts about whether the power grid is actually going to stay up. And I'm not talking about JQ public. Every article you read on these government command centers, Military contingency plans, and large corporations mentions auxillary power supplies. I'd call that a real clue in just what the actual status of the electrical utilities is. By shutting down early the refineries and pipelines have control of the process and can purge lines, slowly drop pressures, regulate temps, etc. A sudden blackout could cause pressure spikes in the system, or a brownout could leave the system running in only a partial and or unpredictable mode. This could easily lead to catostrophic failures.

Reason number two is that if you have a dozen pipelines or refineries, even if they are of different design, many of the embedded chips and controllers will be of the same make and will be laid out in a similar if not identical shematic. So by shutting down ten or eleven of the applications you can run one or two through the rollover as a smoke test. A smoke test is just that. It is common practice in the electrical utility industry that if an elctrical circuit is giving undiagnoseable problems you just station some guys with fire extinguishers around it and pour the juice to it until it frys. Everything that burns out is then replaced. Problem solved. In the case of refineries or pipelines though the smoke test is likely to ignite the product causing a huge fire or explosion, possibly killing or injuring workers and civillians. Nobody is going to admit to this strategy in the oil industry or chemical plants, but you can bet your bottom dollar it is on the table as an option.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), November 17, 1999.

Rob Carroll;

A controlled shutdown and restart will allow the company to bring each module of the operation back on line one module at a time. This should reduce the risk of a serious failure and reduces the probability of multiple simultaneous failures. If a module shows a fault during restart it could be isolated and "fixed" prior to continuing the restart.

This is better than running at full speed into the possibility of multiple failures internally and externally. It is assumed that the restart would not be initiated until the company's suppliers, especially utilities give an all clear - ready to start indication.

The timing for the outage and sequencing the restart is contoversial. This is especially so for power companies supplying big users under a noninteruptible power supply contract. The big users pay a premium for the non-interuption of power. It is possible that a big user will try to dictate to the power company when they are ready to start - note the above timetables stated by the pipeline companies. If too many big users try to shutdown and restart simultaneous this could overload the utility and cause the plant to trip offline; damage both supplier and consumer equipment; and delay any restart.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), November 17, 1999.

Thanks Nikoli, Bill

Can you imagine the responsibility of coordinating such a project at rollover? I wonder who's position that is; and wouldn't it be remarkable to be able to speak with them?

-- Rob Carroll (flyingred@montana.com), November 17, 1999.

Thanks Bill and Nikoli. Nuclear power anyone? Just how many links are in this chain anyway?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), November 17, 1999.

A second reason to shut down/restart - rahter than "running through" the rollover is more subtle.

IF (and that is an assumption) the underlying processor can run with a 2000 (or even a "00" date, then any timing fuction may (most likely) rely on a (date-time-group previous reading) - (date-time-group current reading) to determine values of "something": pressure, temperature, flow rate, volume, whatever.,

So, if you are starting up after 1 or two days into 2000, the "delta" is less likely to screw things up since a "psitive number" of days,hours,minutes,seconds has gone by. With any positive number - if the year is the same between the two readings, the control function is less likely to screw things up.

Many (don't know exactly how many) fossil power plants - once they were "advanced date tested" and passed - simply kept their control clocks set ahead, rather than return to the real date. So, right now, they are runing "ahead of date" in next year already. If so, the actual rollover (12/31/99 - 01/01/00) has "already happened."

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 17, 1999.

R.C. said:

Name one...1 ... please name 1... O-N-E oil company major or minor in size that has been CERTIFIED by an independent auditing firm as being 100% completely compliant. PLEASE just name 1. You can't because there are NONE !!! Period. The oil industry is like so many others, it's simply spinning. PROVE that these companies statements of "readiness" means compliance.

Time and again the feeling hits me that the reason the doomers will never ever be satisfied is that they expect far too much. Why should an oil company have to be "certified by an independent auditing firm as being 100% completely compliant"? Come to that, why should any company have to be "certified by an independent auditing firm as being 100% completely compliant"? The whole idea that some third party has to say "Yeah, we reckon your systems are still going to be functioning after 1/1/2000" seems a bit strange to me. Who's in charge of making sure that companies undergo Y2K-related third-party scrutiny, anyway?

And how, for crying out loud, are you supposed to prove that a company's statement of readiness means compliance? R.C. may be tempted to respond to that question with a triumphant "Exactly!", but in that case, what does he really want? Verification of compliance direct from God, or something?

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@hotmail.com), November 17, 1999.

WOW. How did you type that post with your fingers in your ears, Richard?

Why the hell should we have ever 'expected' them to conduct end to end testing as well? Some Doomers are SOOOOooooo 'picky'.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), November 17, 1999.

I can't speak for R.C., but I'll tell you what *I* really want. I want dimlit individuals like yourself to spare doomers the agony of attempting to light your bulbs FOR you.

It is the unenlightened, apathetic citizens and government officials (just like you) who have created this crisis to begin with.

Go back to sleep, sir, but pull over to the side of the road FIRST this time.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), November 17, 1999.

Will continue said:

Why the hell should we have ever 'expected' them to conduct end to end testing as well?

Er, I'm just guessing here, but because they'd probably want to do so, if they have any interest in

• how their systems are going to cope with the rollover
• actually being able to operate after the rollover

Anyway...my point is that for the vast majority of computer- operated systems, no third-party certification that they do or will work is needed or wanted. A company's own interest in keeping its systems running ought to be enough to ensure that the required development, testing and repairs are done. And if it's not enough, what is that company doing in business?

So, why should Y2K be a special case?

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@hotmail.com), November 17, 1999.

Some observations;

1. Government and Military judgement that there will be grid outages.

I have worked in utility testing and remediation of Transmission and distribution devices (and yes, reported the results to management and NERC) and found few faiures of embedded devices. The rare failures were cosmetic in nature and would not lead to any outage. Similar results have been reported here by FactFinder, Dan, and others. QUESTION: Why would a soldier or a politician be more credible in making an engineering judgement regarding the reliability of the electrical power system than utility engineers? I would not venture a guess as to whether military readiness is adequate - I would rely on the military's testing program because they are the ones to be in a position to know. Politicians cannot display competence in the area in which they are directly responsible - demand independant verification of their conclusion that there "will" be isolated outages. I don't believe there will be any Y2K initiated outages, reliability will be the same, the risk of outages will be the same, the consequence of outages will be the same as today, yesterday, and always.

2. Contingency Plans = Certainty of Y2K Failures.

To accept this premise requires some real intellectual gymnastics. My power company maintains and periodically practices a System Restoration Plan (blackstart). Does the presence of this plan indicate that a blackout is imminent or even expected? NO.

3. Independant Auditing.

The utilities have had nuclear plants technically and procedurally audited by the NRC. The positive (and in some case down-right complimentary) conclusions have done little to impact pre-conceived opinions regarding Y2K readiness of these facilities. I can just hear the cries of "yea sure, they were independantly audited - but who paid the auditing firm? they were pressured to find positive results, this is just spin" You want independant audits of my test program - you pay for them.

What is perhaps more important and has been demonstrated is INDEPENDANT CORROBORATION OF TEST RESULTS. EPRI, and NERC provided a forum for the sharing of best test practices and the exchange of test results of utility embedded devices. Multiple utilities, and the vendors conducted independant tests and arrived at the same conclusion. Don't you see any value in this?

In addition, my utility has an internal auditing department that is reviewing process and documentation. I'm sure other utilities are doing the same. Additionally, some utilities have done cooperative peer reviews of each other's Y2K programs.

3. Embedded Chips - For Robert Cook

Robert, not all discreet embedded devices use a "delta-time" function in their operation. As Dale Way explained, these types of embedded devices have a very small window of risk that occurs right at the rollover. Protective relays and all T&D PLC's fall into that category. And our results are consistant with Dale Way's statement that these failures will be easily found, quickly fixed and of little consequence. How many oil embedded devices also fall into this category? Perhaps not as many as the electrical utility side, but I bet that most of the inaccessable ones fall into this category.

QUESTION FOR ROBERT COOK -

Early on, there was a myth that stated that if a controller chip had an embedded RTC, the RTC (even if unused) could cause a failure of the entire chip. In reading the ENRON statements above, I suspect that they are assuming this myth to be fact (as I did early on - I believe we discussed this some time ago on EUY2K). Read the ENRON statements regarding embedded chips and give me your opinion if it is possible that the ENRON response was colored by this myth.

-- cl@sky.com (cl_sky@excite.com), November 17, 1999.

Rob Carrol;

Your point is correct - coordinating the shutdown and restart of multiple big users is difficult and without precedent.

My understanding of the law is that the Contract between the power utility and the big user may be the only legal basis that applies. A non-interupt contract commits the power company to supply uninterupted power in return for a premium price. Some big users are interpreting this to be "on demand" power delivery resulting in the big user telling the power company to supply power according to the big user's time schedule. If a power company has several big users all dictating different schedules, the safe restart procedure is made much more difficult. If the power company has other Y2K concerns occuring simultaneously, they may easily become overloaded in tasks and in kilowatts.

Robert Cook,

SW Ohio's Cinergy (formerly Cincinnati Gas & Electric) have all five of their generating stations running on post-Y2K dates, with all clocks pushed forward for 11,000 megawatts of capacity. Cinergy is net exporter to the grid, their served market customer demand on 12/31/1998 was 3,000 MW.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), November 17, 1999.

Bill, thank you for the confirmation. The first I heard of this practice was from a couple of other plants in Ohio. ... Might be more common a practice than expected; if so, the rollover itself might be less of a problem (could this be a reason for Mr K's "power generation" optimism?) than previously assumed....

Also: No way to tell exactly on which control systems ENRON is judging, nor how many they needed to individually survey before they came to their conclusion that there are so "out there" ready to potentially fail. please, don't get too locked up in the "embedded chip" terminology: the control process (from instrument to connections to processor to processor regulated power supply to control signal to receiver/transmitter to feedback to system to actuator .... all has to work correctly.

The difficulty lies not only in being able to determine exactly which functions in that chain might be date-time-group sensitive (deliberately), which might be date-time group sensitive (accidently, incidently, or un-intentitionally), and which might be date-time sensitive through induced secondary and tertiary effects (pass-through values)

....since only the "deliberate" date-time sensitiveity can be analyzed through inventory and remediation - by looking at circuits and their functions, and since not all of the incidental and accidental and pass-through sensitivite functions - at all levels - can be tested through advancing the date on the test computers, there are many (millions? tens of millions ? hundreds of millions ?) of "surprizes" left out there.....in place, ready to fail.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 17, 1999.

there are many (millions? tens of millions ? hundreds of millions ?) of "surprizes" left out there.....in place, ready to fail. - Robert Cooke

Excatly....how....did you come to that conclusion?

(I hope this thread doesn't die. It's discussions like this that make y2k forums worthwhile. even with a bit of heat!)

-- Curious (hmm@hmm.hmmm), November 17, 1999.

Well...

There were some oil industry-related posts a while back that featured an "insider" informant by the initials of R.C. I didn't have time at that point to read them, but I made a note here on my desk to go back and read them later.

This morning I take a moment to peruse the board, and I see this thread, in which R.C. attemts to rebut an earlier thread by using NOT inside information, but the same complaints that have been made on this board a million times:

1) "It's all self-reported information." 2) "Having a contingency plan equals admitting your systems will fail."

Plus a heaping helping of "MORON", "Goebbels", "Nazi"s and "goose-stepping" crap, which was not a response IN KIND in any way.

I just tore up the note on my desk. I guess "insiders" ain't what they used to be.

Ashamed of my monogram,

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), November 17, 1999.

Really, this is just too good.

Let's see what replaced the "-----------" in FactFinder's post:

Oil and Gas Revisited - IT and Embedded Systems

Fact: The oil industry is fixing now and testing now, and most systems are complete. No major software projects are ever truly "finished", especially projects as large as y2k which involves much new software. But the oil and gas companies can finish mission critical systems in time, or worst case, will have contingency plans in place for the few systems that might not complete. Will they do it perfectly? Even the industry expects some Y2k bugs to occur - mostly minor but possibly a few more serious. That's why they have contingency plans - this isn't "fix on failure", this is taking precautions. Perfection was never achieved in computer systems prior to the year 2000, and it's not required for the year 2000. Even so, the status provided by the organizations and companies below indicate that overall, the oil and gas industries are in good shape for y2k.

Hmmm. So FatcFinder's original post states and acknowledges, from the outset, that:

1) Y2k Project's in their entirety aren't and won't be complete. Perfection has never been required in the past, and is not required for Y2k.

2) That contingency plan's are in place for systems not completed.

3) And that even so, bugs will occur, to varying degrees of seriousness.

Now, R.C. "exposes" this as a "sham" by a diatribe that no company is 100% certified as complete. Well gee, could have gotten that quote directly from FactFinder's post.

Next, R.C. "exposes" this as a "sham" by quoting Enron's 10-Q, which states that no, they won't be 100% complete. Again, agreeing with FactFinder's post.

Enron states they are developing contingency plans, and expect to find and deal with problems on into the New Year. Redundant, but again agreeing with FactFinder's statements.

Truly an amazing piece of work, R.C. "Exposing" a "sham" by basically agreeing with the post, and providing more backup.

To FactFinder

Appreciate the effort. More and more doubting whether the effort is worth it, but appreciated all the same.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), November 17, 1999.

Yeah, Hoffy, R.C. is an interesting guy.

In a thread about potential 9/9/99 problems back on August 4th or thereabouts, he said that he had engineering contacts who told him that they had run into problems with 9/9/98 dates. R.C. then opined (I'm paraphrasing) "goodness knows what that means for 9/9/99". (I'll try and dig up the thread). When I queried him about the 9/9/98 problem he never replied.

Also, don't forget R.C. has yet to prove his bona fides. He has made claims of being a former PR person at a very high level at the (US) executive level of government and also that he knows the oil biz. Prove it. The doomers wailed at Dan the Power Man when he made comments about the electric industry and called him all sorts of names. Finally, he agreed to prove his legitimacy to Drew Parkhill (who did it without revealing Dan's identity to the wider forum). Afterwards Dan's post were granted a much better reception - Sysman in particular was very gracious.

To R.C.:

I say to you, prove to us that you really do have the background that you claim to have. You don't have to give us your identity, but deal with someone who we can all trust (perhaps Chuck?). Until you do that there will be a segment of the posters and lurkers here who will assign very little weight to your posts.

Please don't construe this as a personal attack. It's not.

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), November 17, 1999.

To all,

I've had technical trouble in getting back into this page to post follow ups so those wondering where I've been...now you know why.

Collin,) All large business Directors know about Y2K and believe that it is a real threat to their profits and therefore salaries and bonusses and status at the country club.

This was not the case back when the critical decisions were necessary. Most key execs in the oil biz didn't pay any attention to this until it was too late. There were still independent Oil barrons in West Texas that didn't know what Y2K stood for as late as last December and January. My personal eyewitness meetings. Still others still clung to the notion that Bill Gates would fix it. One of my key contacts IS a well known and respected designer and remediator of embedded systems on oil wells, and he has been so frustrated because key clients even now are still thinking that any day now Bill Gates is going to announce the silver bullet fix for every Y2K issue. Talk about a pollyanna attitude, this is the ultimate. I talked earlier tonite with a retired major oil co exec. who again related that virtually everyone posting in opposition to my comments, including the so-called "oil engineer" experts and embedded systems experts (I forgot who these new posters were) don't EVEN have a CLUE as to the reality of embeddeds out in the oil industry. OIL INDUSTRY SYSTEMS are completely different animals from other utility embeddeds. Virtually every embedded in oil is specially customized individually and there is very little documentation (especially on the wells) to provide sufficient efforts at remediation. More on this later to other posters. -----------------

2) All large business Directors have taken action to protect themselves against it's effects, so that they can continue to make whopping profits and protect their salaries and bonusses and status at the country

Only in the legal sense. Many are still in the dark about the ramifications of what may yet come. Others do have the ability to grasp the technicals and have lately begun to hear some of the "bad" reality reports.

Conclusion: Don't believe what the corporate spin meisters will tell you. Inside at the top levels, oil execs are running flat-out scared. But they'd never be caught dead admitting it in public. ---------------------- 3) There are about four or five layers of people MINIMUM between the Directors and the engineers doing the testing and fixing. Every person in that chain has their own goals, objectives, budget and agenda.

True...and this is a point that I made several times on various posts several months back.

----------------

You also stated: "I don't think there's a conspiracy of silence,"

Ahh, but I know better, but of course I can't prove it in a court of law without exposing those threatened. I know for a fact there is a conspiracy cause many including relatives of mine have been threatened! Not one of my contacts feels safe enough to come on any forum or go public with what they know.

Re: statements of compliance. Some of my key contacts would beg to differ with you from their first hand diaologue with those who put the statements together. Technically, the lawyers write these statements. But in at least a couple of major oil co cases...the head honcho's did indeed know that key remediators had repeatedly kept them updated that not only were they not going to make it but needed 5 to 10 more years to transfer everything over to a fully compliant status with one co. With the other the company top brass was told that there was no way compliance could be achieved anywhere close to 1/1/2000. The execs saw to it that the lawyers posted it anyway. This from a couple of folks who were involved in heated debates on this.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

Rob,

I'm told that "a" prime if not "the" prime motive is the newer criminal liabilities that can now be assessed to oil co. execs if a new Exxon Valdez type of environmental disaster occurs.

These execs don't want to do jail time for obvious negligence should a pipeline blow out a massive oil spill somewhere or cause explosions (espec. in case of natural gas)...of course there are the obvious financial risks also.

By shutting down ahead of time they can avoid negligence charges and avoid EPA violations, etc. In other words the motivation here is prudence and fear of a crisis that could put their butts in the wringer. No one wants to be the next Exxon Valdez scapegoat of the Environmental movement. Big Oil is terrified of environmentalists and their lobbying power with Congress. Can you blame them?

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

Nikoli,

The oil industry embeddeds is a completely different animal from the electrical industry embeddeds. Oil embeddeds are notorious for not having any schematics and for haphazard customization on each system. Your conclusion that they can do what the electric industry did is completely invalid. Sorry. See my other above post for the main reasons...and also Bill P. posts other aspects that I felt didn't need to be restated.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

Richard Dymond,

Oh gee, the polly's expect the skeptics to live by the highest standards of proof, but the shoe is placed on the other foot, well that's no longer okay. Polly's are such hypocrites. (among other things). Pollys can't even be honest with others or themselves. So why should anyone trust them on anything??? You polly's demand proof, but those of us who are skeptics are not allowed the same right to demand proof?

Compliance is what is necessary to avoid criminal and civil prosecution in courts of Law. Failure to be compliant means that in normal civil cases the part is liable. Now with the recent congressional laws that has been mitigated to varying extents. Nevertheless, for our debate purposes, compliance certified by independent auditors is the only way we can know whether or not the truth is being stated by a company when it makes claims that there is nothing to worry about.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

TO CL and all the other electrical utility engineers called in here by Factfinder and co.

The embeddeds issues for the oil & gas industry are different animals from the utilities situation. The oil industry especially has notoriously (and especially in the oil wells sector) and nearly universally engaged in such customized applications as to be seemingly unrecognizable to applications for other industries. Thusly, as others here have posted in other threads, you guys are out of your league and don't know bullshit about the oil embeddeds specifically. It would be the same if an oil embeddeds designer came out to state something completely at odds with what you know regarding the electrical industry embeddeds. Frankly, you guys are completely in the dark concerning oil, so keep your pontificating noses out of the world of absolute certainty.

Meanwhile... I've also had contact with numerous electric utilities engineers who would beg to highly differ with you, based on personal experience.

Furthermore... I've had 2 nuclear engineers write me to state that the nuclear power plants they work at are NOT Y2K compliant nor ready and by law, failed to meet the initial Y2K standards that the NRC had initially established. To wit, the problems involve "cooling" concerns. The NRC knew this allowed it to pass anyway. Frankly, these guys are highly concerned. I want state any further details because to do so would give away the identities of these two individuals. Consequently, your claims of a wonderful and safe Nuke situation for rollover only proves to me that you don't know what you think you know.

Meanwhile I've had folks with more than a few midwest power co's tell me that their co's were not going to make it. Some were field remediators. Some were code remediators of software. I could name names but I won't simply to avoid legal entanglements and to keep those sources from being exposed for things stated to me confidentially.

I personally think that some of the biggest bullshit in this whole Y2k debate comes from the electric industry. There are at least 6 power co's (some very big) whose codes are still not fixed. I won't even go into the "windowing" issue.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

To Civility and RC (randyxpher@aol.com)

The feeling is mutual on this end...and to RC -- I was here before you were otherwise I would not have used the same initials as yourself.

Facts are indeed facts. The fact is, no company can claim compliance and as such legally retains liability. For purposes of debate in this forum, polly's are stating that we are to believe everyone that posts good news and to reject anything of a negative nature. They further more demand court of law documentation for anything negative, but scream bloody murder when anyone dares to suggest let alone demand court of law documentation for any spinmeister statements.

We've been over and over the whole issue with Factfinder and company and still we get the deceit, the lies and the hypocrisy and the tactics that were used by the Nazis. AND YOU HAVE THE NERVE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ME POINTING OUT THEIR NAZI TACTICS?????? NOTE: I DIDN'T SAY THEY WERE NAZIS... I MERELY POINT OUT THAT THEY FOLLOW THE SAME LOW STANDARDS OF CONDUCT REGARDING EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.

I'm not sure which is worse their conduct or yours. It appears that your hypocrisy is also showing.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

Hoffmeister,

Again another classic example of twist and distort.

IF you'd bothered to read (and I'm sure you did) my post you'd have noticed that I wasn't going to finish with my posts or comments regarding Factfinder anytime soon. My time has been limited. You jumped the gun deliberately no doubt. You are indeed the quintessential polly that chooses to engage in many of the more subtle aspects of diatribe so often used by totalitarianists like the Nazi's and Communists. Yes, you seem to fit right in to both groups. But I will state that you do so with a certain panache lacking in some of your colleagues. Nevertheless, you are an opponent of truth.

For the record, I'm not done with Factfinder. And I've got more info to post before I bring all the conclusions together, so hold onto your horses, bub.

-- R.C. (racambab@mailcity.com), November 18, 1999.

Translation from R.C.:

Yes, you're right, and I can't refute what you said. Instead, I'll try to smear you with some name-calling. That should satisfy the crowds.

Have fun, R.C. Won't be long now.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), November 18, 1999.

Hi Curious,

Please, re-read my post up above; and then see if you need to ask your question again. What part did you not understand?

I can try to make it more clear for you, but need to figure out what you cannot understand first.

Taken as a whole for every control system in every automated process in every refinery, chemical processing, shipping, storage, and packaging plant out there worldwide, which part of my question ( .... assuming that a "surprise" is any unexpected operating condition resulting from, or caused by, any disruption associated with the upcoming troubles....) isn't clear.

Remember, it's your job to PROVE the plants are safe to operate, not mine. Failing that ability to PROVE they are safe, it becomes your responsibility to put them in a safe condition prior to potential failure, not mine. It's my responsiblity to alert others of potential safety, environmental, and economic impacts if problems occur.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 18, 1999.

R.C.

Thank you for your thoroughness and dedication in presenting critical information.

I hope you and your contacts are wrong - hopefully overly pessimistic in order to identify the "worst case scenario".

It appears that at a little over 40 days until the rollover - Someone is going to have to step up to the plate and hit the ball by naming names and actuallities on the record. I would think that of all the many "in the know" someone with a conscience would blow the whistle loud and long.

Enron seems to be saying this - but they also seem to be stating a "worst case" scenario not exactly a "probable scenario". Do you know who Enron's customers are and what effect an Enron disruption would have on other third parties?

Please keep up your excellent work.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), November 18, 1999.

Richard

If God were to put his stamp of approval on the Y2K efforts he immediately becomes part of the conspiracy with this group.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), November 18, 1999.

Nope.

If it is: "In God I trust....."

But, "For computers I verify."

----

For y2k....

Anything automated is subject to failure.

Anything not remediated is subject to failure - but might work.

Anything remediated is less likely to fail than anything not remediated.

Anything remediated, but not thoroughly tested, is still subject to failure, but is much less likely to fail than things not remediated.

Anything tested thoroughly might fail anyway.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), November 18, 1999.