By now most of us have come to a conclusion on what we expect to happen. Some people expect far more than a three day storm. Those people are likely to seek out negative Y2K articles/posts and dismiss positive articles/posts.

Be honest now -- Have you found yourself drawn to articles/posts that support your own conclusions?

Don't worry, that's human nature.

I admit to avoiding "everything will be fine" articles because they never seem to provide an explanation of WHY everything will be fine ... and fail to inform readers that most large software projects in history were "fine" until perhaps 90-95% done, the project leader said everything was fine and on schedule ... then the problems started.

My only suggestion is to ignore all Y2K articles/posts that offer conclusions without supporting details, data, facts, examples, anecdotes, etc. even if they are written by someone who's worked with computers for 30 years. Actually, that advice applies to everything you read on any subject. They should teach useful advice like that in school.

-- Richard Greene (Rgreene2@ford.com), December 02, 1999

Answers

That would mean ignoring 99.9% of the articles in current circulation. Your right about us making up our minds. Mine was made up long ago. Great time to be with family.

B

-- Bill (bill@year2000.com), December 02, 1999.

Richard:

I read every article I get, then screen it for facts. I look for substantiation of opinion, and care not one hoot about reputation of the author/speaker...

If the argument is sound, it'll sell itself.

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), December 02, 1999.

TROLL

-- easyto (spot@this.one), December 02, 1999.

I absolutely hate the title of this thread. NO I don't hope Y2K will be serious, in fact I hope it's a non-event. I hope all the pollies and the government are absolutely right.

I have a great life and I really don't want to see it change. Two years from now I would like to have this same life, not a life where I live is some cold shanty eating two year old rice left over from my preps.

-- Mabel Dodge (cynical@me.net), December 02, 1999.

Richard Greene,

Could this be the same Richard Greene I worked for? If it is hello if not hello anyway. Half Moon Bay, CA, project?

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), December 02, 1999.

Do you hope Y2K will be serious?

Only in a sense that I would like to see SOMETHING happen that causes people, both as individuals and as a collective, to become more aware of the consequences of their actions (or inactions as the case may be). Besides that small caveat, hell no! I've put my musical career on hold so I can do the prep work I fear may be necessary for me (and maybe a few others around me) to get through this. Quite frankly I have kind of enjoyed the intellectual challenge of trying to predict various scenarios and position myself accordingly...but besides that small abstract pleasure I have to say that I HAVE HATED EVERY DAMN SECOND OF THIS WHOLE ORDEAL!!! Prepping is a total drag and I want my frigging life back!!!

So, on reflection I would have to say no.

-- Ludi (ludi@rollin.com), December 02, 1999.

I rather hope it won't be serious, hate to have my world turned upside down and my income stream interrupted. However....

I would like to see it be serious enough so that folks will stop and think about modern day life, take more interest in their communities, schools, government, think about their values, etc. A little shock might not be a bad thing. If Y2K turns out as I suspect I expect it will have a longterm positive effect on society...though the year 2000 may be a real bear.

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), December 02, 1999.

I used to hope it would be serious enough to cause radical change (for the good) in this country. To get ppl's eyes off THEMSELVES, but alas, I have less confidence that any failures would cause such a radical change in society.

This forum has become just another example of the ME-ME-MINE mentality. Nonsense threads having NOTHING to do with Y2k, but ppl that smear there "opinions" like slime on every damn board. (circuit-riding-BS) LOOK AT ME! I NEED RECOGNITION!! Everyone wants their "moment" in the lights. If there was a net rulez book, that no one could post more than once with the same name and NO EMAILS PLEEZE caus' nobody gives a shit, that kind of crap would disappear in a heartbeat.

So, I hope Y2k is a "1" now. I want to make long range plans and leave the wacko/chemtrail/sky is falling crap behind like a bad memory.

And ppl wonder why the government monitors us and continually takes FURTHER rights away? Just read the crap they are posting and you wish they'd get a bigger net.

-- n/a (faggettaboutit@like_it_matters.com), December 02, 1999.

Mr. Greene,

I find your labeling the quality of being drawn to certain material and disregarding other material because it supports ones argument or position, "human nature," inherently erroneous. It's a broad generalization. Perhaps it is true for you, it however, is not true for everyone. Your opening premise, "By now most of us have come to a conclusion on what we expect to happen," is a supposition on your part, based on what? Your "human nature" theory. The building block of your argument is flawed. You give neither supporting data, nor facts on either your "human nature" theory or on your premise that "most" of us have formed our conclusions. This is not effective because if we follow your advice, we must disregard your infomation as it is not based on "supporting details, data, facts, examples, anecdotes, etc." If you'll permit a small comment about the tone of your post...it's somewhat patronizing and could, in some cases, cause the reader to dismiss your intent. I strongly disagree with your advice to disregard information from people who have worked in the IT field for thirty years. IMHO, people with extensive experience have valuable information and opinions to offer, based precisely on that experience. Granted, they may have been merely inadequate in their profession and their opinions less than accurate, but that is when one should use ones intelligence and research that indivdual's qualifications. Just a thought. Personally, I have not formed any conclusions based on my expectations, and I do not hope Y2K will be serious.

-- Casey DeFranco (caseyd@silcom.com), December 02, 1999.

Serious? NO! I am not set up to profit from a Y2K catastrophe. I just want to stay warm and fed, even if it does turn serious. But why in the name of god's green apples would I want any part of the infrastructure to go down? I'm not crazy. That stuff helps me and my family live easier lives.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), December 02, 1999.

Ohhhhhhhhh Yeeeeeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhh! I just can't WAIT to sweat my hiney off, trying to raise food crops, in the hot summer sun, next year. That sounds like WAY more fun than the occasional puttering in the garden I do now.

And walking everywhere, in a very hilly area? PAR-TEEE!

And you know, heat is a highly over-rated concept. A little hypothermia toughens you up. What's a few lost fingers and toes to frostbite, as long as you're bringing the old constitution up to par?

Oh yeah. I'm looking forward to this (Does anyone know what the proper emoticon is, to indicate "rolling my eyes"?)

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), December 02, 1999.

Are You Serious???? Why the heck would I EVER want to rebounce (re-live) to 30 years ago, little/no heat, nor AC? Why would I ever WANT to rebounce (re-live) to my Mother's recollection of War Rations? I am an old version of a "Material Girl". You think "bad things" don't happen to Good People? Sheesh!

-- Material Girl (olefolks@home.com), December 02, 1999.

Rich replies to his own post:

The title of my post was not good, and I apologize for that.

When writing "Do you want Y2K to be serious?", I was actually thinking: "Do you want Y2K to be serious enough enough so you can say 'I told you so' rather than admitting 'I was completely wrong about Y2K'"

I hope no one wants Y2K to be serious enough to hurt people. Lot's of million dollar phone bills are okay, but I certainly don't want anyone to suffer.

Since I'm a 2 to 4 on the ten point Y2K scale, depending on my mood, there would not have to be many problems for me to be "right" about Y2K. I do not personally know anyone who believes Y2K will even be a "2" out of 10 -- I'm the "doomer" in my crowd!

It now occurs to me that some website visitors here do expect Y2K problems far more serious than I've imagined. "Serious" means something else to them. So I'll re-phrase my question:

Have you been ignoring Y2K articles/posts that don't support any conclusions you've already come to about Y2K?

-- Richard Greene (Rgreene2@ford.com), December 02, 1999.

Honestly, yes. Because the reports seem to contradict each other. But my bottom line was "I wasn't going to stand in a long check out line "Ever Again", like we did with Floyd. No masking tape, no water, and I was using my vacation days to try and find those items. What did Scarlet say? "I will never be hungry again, nor stand in a long grocery line". That says it!

-- Material Girl (olefolks@home.com), December 02, 1999.

Let me put it this way. I'm thinking 7, hoping for a 1 or a 0. I also try to read everything possible and draw my own conclusions. I must admit to having an extremely difficult time with some Pollys though. A reasonable and thoughtful opposite view is fine...no problem. The problem arises when a Polly starts throwing a tirade without arguing the FACTS. There have been a few in my experience who delight in waving their arms and loudly voicing their contempt for MY views BUT at no time can they justify THEIR views. Please pardon the expression, but that sort of exchange is nothing more than a pissing contest and adds nothing to the debate.

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 02, 1999.

As weird as it may sound, I kinda hope at least some things happen, in order to justify all the time spent preparing and worrying about this subject that I've done. If nothing happens I think I'll be kicking myself in the rear saying "I can't believe that you believed all the hype!"

-- Rich (rubeliever@webtv.net), December 02, 1999.

I have a family,five kids, one in college one a senior in high-school, one in middle school, one in elementary and one in pre-school. I have been developing software for over 20 years. The truth is, the projects are overdue and cannot be finished this year. Our company makes system and application measurement software. Today, you overpay for almost everything you buy because not one company out there tries to optimize applications, they just by faster computers and claim it is cheaper. It isn't, it is EASIER. For instance I have two customers that just bought the latest Sun and IBM UNIX systems respectively, one 400 Mhz and the other 460 Mhz (respectively). The old systems were 336Mhz and 332Mhz respectively, the old systems cost 100,000 and 500,000 respectively. The new systems cost 545,000 and 1,000,000 respectively. Neither customer has benefited from the increase in CPU speed because the applications (C++) are so big and badly written that they almost always keep the cache refilling.

Both customers bought the previous computers last year. Both customers make things in your life more expensive. The first is a federal government contractor and our taxes pay for the new computer. The second is a company that provides high-priced legal search capability to lawyers. They just charge the lawyers more, who in turn sue more people and raise their rates to cover costs.

Computers have become a huge throw-away resource, buy one and when you don't like it, throw it away and buy a newer faster one. There are more deadly and toxic chemicals used in making a computer than anything else you buy. Processing silicon wafers uses deadly gasses and solvents, the same is true of building circuit cards. Let's not even talk about the things in a disply.

This event will put computers and careless technologists in their place, the ash-pile, where they belong. The use of computers in society has produced many benefits, the irresponsible use of them just to make more and more money is ruining us. This event will be a watershed, no longer will hackers with no formal training or real knowledge of computers and computing be allowed to develop software.

I had several friends that were Cobol programmers in the '70s, one had 70 hours of college credit in English, another had a math degree and yet another had an associates degree. Maybe the person with the math degree had the sophistication to consider what would happen when you subtract 97 from 00, the others probably never thought about it. Their programs worked in 1970 and that is what they were paid for.

We react with shock when we see what irresponsible short-cuts builders took in Turkey and Taiwan and tell ourselves smugly, that couldn't happen here. After all, we have building codes with inspectors and engineers have to be registered and seal their plans. They can be held accountable. We have exported to the rest of the world, the same kind of shoddy craftsmanship in the software and systems we outfit the rest of the world with.

No other industry is allowed to have as many failures without reprisal as the software industry and people that are constructing rube-goldberg internet systems with expensive computers. If you trade on line and lost money because a limit order got completed 15 points below where your limit was because they order system was too slow, you might have a clue as to what I mean. There is a come-uppance on it's way.....potentially.

Computers can be good and have been good for us but irresponsible use has been tolerated for far too long and this situation may bring some changes. If those changes can come about without severe relocation of society, good. However, that has never been the case.

Sorry to be a gloomy gus but I have spent years telling my management and my clients to do things one way and they always do it the short-cut way. It is dissapointing to say the least.

So in conclusion, I look for the ones that contain real data and those tend to be the ones like Hersheys, Whirlpool, the school district of Philadelphia, the government computer system that manages the tracking of the background checks for security clearances. There are 600,000 people waiting up to a year now for a clearance that should only take 90 days and in special cases 6 months. The companies that need those people to have clearances have to pay them to do something they cannot charge the Govt. for. How many do you think are going to lose those jobs. Many of those people are military, how secure are our national defense secrets going to be without proper security clearances? Apparently that wasn't considered a mission-critical system because they only recently discovered it wasn't Y2k compliant and it was put in in Oct. 1998.

I could go on, but this is enough.

-- William R. Sullivan (wrs@wham.com), December 02, 1999.

NO

I hope to spend most of next year apologizing to friends, relatives and co-workers for frightening them. I have almost $1000 in bets on the outcome. I would rather loose them all, if it means keeping tap water, cable tv, and the internet. I don't want to become a 1900's pioneer.

BUT, I think it is going to be at least a 5.

-- woody (woody11420@aol.com), December 03, 1999.

Rich has a good point, and I'd like to refine it just a little further. I hope nothing happens, but if it does, I really, really hope that it receives enough publicity that it can't all just be covered up as "prevailing economic climate" and "human error".

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), December 03, 1999.

The only reason I want problems is to tell the arrogant a$$hole Pollies (you know who you are) "WE TOLD YOU SO YOU BASTARDS!!!!!"

OTOH, I would love for them to tell me (even arrogantly, if they like) "I TOLD YOU SO YOU (fill in the blank)!!!!!!!" In fact, I would much prefer it.

Just saying what some others are probably thinking, but haven't said...

-- counting down (the@days.now), December 03, 1999.

It's kinda like wondering what your own funeral would be like. But I don't want to really go through it to find out. I wish I could live in a parallel universe where in one world it happened and in another we were just spectators. Sorta like a star trek eposode.

-- Itol D. Youso (mrosscorecomm@hotmail.com), December 03, 1999.

"Do you hope Y2K will be serious? " ANSWER: no, I do not hope it will be serious. I will tell you why.

If it is serious, I am convinced the fallout will be something that our governments will not recover from. That spells carry a big stick!

Even if there are minor y2k problems we still face the inevitable ordeal that the economic system will deliver us soon. The financial debacle, of and by itself, has the capability to render governments powerless.

Economic laws are like iron. Woe to the nation that violates them. We have abused credit and now it is ready to abuse us. That is history, that is reliable, that is a promise and a certainty.

"Have you found yourself drawn to articles/posts that support your own conclusions?" ANSWER: Yes. Let me tell you why. A reasonable person will look on life and death issues and then take action. I have taken action and will make further preparations if I feel the need. I will feel the need if I hear something significant.

I remember seeing the people of Saigon trying flee the city when IT WAS TOO LATE.

-- earl (ejrobill@pcpostal.com), December 03, 1999.