we were fully prepared for whatever might have - or will - happen. and i do mean *fully* prepared. now all these people are asking if we feel foolish for having done this. dont any of these pollies have children or family they care about? this is still all about risk, and although it was/is small the stakes are still enormous.

although we are truly relieved the grid stayed up and there were no major catastrophies (which our polly friends actually believe we are disappointed about!), we are also happy to have prepared and be ready to face most future uncertainties.

geeeeesh .. can people really be so naive as to believe the danger has passed? there are soo many problems this world is facing going into the new year its unbelievable. while we're hoping for the best, its a terrific feeling to know that if TSHTF - for any reason - we wont be in desperate straits for a long time.

happy new year everyone!

-- lou (lanny1@ix.netcom.com), January 03, 2000

Answers

I can't understand declarations of Y2K victory based solely on the lack of problems with embedded systems. Last Spring electronic engineers were publishing reports that very few embedded systems had Y2K problems and most of the problems were cosmetic, such as the wrong date on a report. Soon we'll know how many mainframe applications have problems and how serious those problems will be. We'll have some problems today, at the end of this week, end of January, end of first quarter and end of the year. The fact that we had electricity on January 1 is not proof that every computer in the world will be fine. The bulk of Y2K remediation spending was on computer software , not on embedded systems and automated controls.

-- Richard Greene (Rgreene2@ford.com), January 03, 2000.

And odds-versus-stakes, can-use-the-preps-anyway, need-weeks-to-know-for-sure, yada-yada-yada.

Forget it folks, the pollies will never understand.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), January 03, 2000.

To LadyLackingLogic: Elapsed time calculations where the current date is in 2000 and the other date is in the 1900's are new computer problems. Y2K problems started in 1970 when computers first faced 30 year bonds and mortgages that reached the year 2000. Y2K problems accelerated in 1999 and should peak in early 2000. How quickly systems people can repair new computer problems caused by unremediated code, data corruption, or bugs introduced during remediation remains to be seen. Coming to any conclusions about Y2K today (except for conclusions on embedded systems/automated controls) is premature. Of course, reaching conclusions without data is your specialty. You could be right. Even a broken clock is "right" twice each day.

-- Richard Greene (Rgreene2@ford.com), January 03, 2000.