It seems to me that the main brunt of Y2K problems are likely to be the insidious ones, the ones that nobody notices because they begin so small, only to emerge in a few days/weeks as big ones. How many politicians and tech guys are going to be willing to hear about problems, or tell us about them, once the damn rollover is over? Just because the growling dog hasn't bitten you yet doesn't mean its your friend...

-- Jim Osborne (osborne@umr.edu), December 31, 1999

Answers

We're now in the last day of the year, and your house hasn't burned down. Does that mean you're disappointed with yourself for having spent the money on fire insurance?

I would be delighted if nothing goes wrong -- amazed, actually, but also delighted.

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), December 31, 1999.

You make a point Jim, but if the power is up everywhere or darn near everywhere and the basic infrastructure is holding, it will be much easier to fix the problems that show up.

-- Butt Nugget (catsbutt@umailme.com), December 31, 1999.

Main Y2k problems the insidious ones? Sorry, can't agree. The Y2k problems that we're currently NOT having would be the nasties. Water supplies going out, electricity, telecommunications etc.

Basically, and In My Humble Opinion as a Software Engineer with 20 years experience of mainly real-time systems, about 3/4 of the problems to be expected in Australia have already occurred. Many happened at 01 Jan 1999. Others at 09 September 1999. (Many) Others at 01 January 2000. I fully expect to see glitches involving building security, bills saying "payable by X/X/19100" etc. most of which will manifest themselves in the next few days. There may be some pretty awful things happen on 29th Feb 2000, and others that will manifest over the next 18 months or more.

But the Killers, the Showstoppers, appear to have been avoided. Here, anyway.

So the growling dog may not be my friend, but at least I know now he's not a growling Tyrannosaurus Rex, which at one time was not just a possibility, but a likelyhood.

0330 on 1st Jan, 2000 in Canberra, Australia, and All's Well (and at this point, I'll add a cautiously optimistic HOO-RAH!)

-- Alan E Brain (aebrain@dynamite.com.au), December 31, 1999.

Grasping at straws, YEAH! Maybe we will still have problems!! Too bad they will be so small that no one will tell us about them, Jim. Not quite what we've been hearing from the doomers, though, is it?

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), December 31, 1999.

The "small, insignicant" problems are the ones that could 6-8 months from now crash the economy.

-- Tiara (sorceress5@hotmail.com), December 31, 1999.

Come on Jim,...enough's enough. I prepared when we were still in the great unknown,....wondering if perhaps the worst would happen. Clearly,..society in Australia, Japan, and China has NOT come crashing down on itself, and second guessing what can clearly be seen in front of us is pathetic at this point. On other web sites, people are posting that "they" are somehow keeping the truth from us,...people who at this point won't face the reality that they spent a lot of time and effort preparing for what is quickly proving to be a minor bump in the road,....trying to forestall the inevitable conclusion that they were basically wrong.

Personally, I feel pretty stupid right now. Conned by my own distrust of the Government and the media, and by many whom, on some cognitive level, wished that Y2K would be a real event. Even in my most cautious mode, before the date change, it was evident that many web posters felt themselves to be at the bottom of society's totem pole. Y2K represented thier grand opportunity to somehow rise to greater prominence the much more primitive, brutal society in Gary North's apocalyptic vision. Stop conning yourself friend, Gary North has discredited himself for the final time,.....things are going to work out.

Sincerely, A former skeptic

-- Mike Webb (webbmj@aol.com), December 31, 1999.

Apparently that well-known DOOMER (as we all know, right?) Koskinen thinks the big sign of relief may be a bit premature...

"It may take two or three days for degradation of service to become apparent in power and telecommunications systems in developing countries. so weve got a little ways to go before we can declare victory, U.S. Y2K czar John Koskinen told CNN early Friday."

http://a bcnews.go.com/ABC2000/abc2000tech/y2k_bug.html

kc

-- kc (kc@yahoo.com), December 31, 1999.

Obviously there's lots of reported good news today.

But wait and watch for problems in the supply chains, which in many cases span the globe. And many (most?) of these are small to medium- sized businesses. Various surveys showed enormous numbers of these businesses as doing very little to remediate or replace systems, except as fix-on-failure. Further, they are vulnerable to the condition of the infrastructure of whatever country they're operating in. And the infrastructure itself is obviously dependent on its key suppliers holding up.

Supply chain problems can take some time to manifest themselves.

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 31, 1999.