Lane,

I am more comfortable with serious discussions here. Here is the complete post I almost made, but cut short to post here.:

Lane,

Very gracious - a mark of good character. I must say I can understand the suspicion of anons on the Internet. At least one util guy (Dan) had his credentials verified and vouched for by a very reliable reporter from CBN. Dan's posts corroborated everything I ever posted, and saw posted by others.

So we did not convince you? That's not important. Everything reported on CSY2K by util guys was reported, in greater detail, to utility management. Industry wide - the collective work of the engineers and technicians created a very compelling case for "No Outages - no decrease in existing reliability." Unfortunately the lawyers provided the same utility management with a very compelling case.

The result - spineless, mealy-mouthed public statements by corporations that were more political/litigation minded than founded in engineering principles. The winners in the war of persuasion were you, Ed, and the company lawyers.

In this regard, the corporations bear as much, or perhaps MORE responsibility than the self-appointed "Y2K experts." I assume that the "experts in exile" made inferences, and drew conclusions based,in part on utility public statements. Our companies did not speak with conviction. The public only wanted to know if the grid would perserve. We answered with a Clintonesque "yea...BUT...". Gutless. That is part of what motivated me to make my first post on csy2k.

I speak only personal opinions and do not represent any larger entity, but for my part I regret we did not speak with the force and clarity that you and your mistaken peers did. I apologize for not being effective in persuading TPTB that 1. This was an engineering problem. 2. The problem would not result in outages or reduced reliability.

Why didn't they believe me, or (apparently) the other engineers and technicians industry wide? Several possibilities.

1. Lawyers are persuasive, engineers are geeks.

2. Utility culture is deeply steeped in consertive engineering practices and CYA management styles. They were incapable of trusting career and corner office to the opinion of a mere engineer.

3. Maybe I'm not seeing through their eyes. I assumed they wanted an accurate measurement of the problem and a workable solution. Perhaps what they really wanted was an effective scapegoat (which is almost as desirable).

To the extent that the "We're OK but no guarantees" influenced your conclusion, the utilities and their lawyers deserve some of the flak you and Ed are taking.

Happy Jubilee!

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2000

Answers

I think it was Rick Cowles who said he knew from the start that Y2K would be a public relations disaster for the utilities. :-)

My conclusion about power was Dick Mill's conclusion, for reasons I have stated elsewhere. So, eventually, I had no concerns for infrastructure in the USA. My concerns were for overseas, and only because the Senate, DOS, and CIA said there was a risk (sometimes categorized as medium or high) of infrastructure failures overseas. They were wrong, and any assessments based on them were thus wrong.

Consequently, the Crisis Event WRT to infrastructure worldwide went better than I had anticipated. This mitigates, but does not obviate, how the Chronic Situation will play out. Not before the end of January will we know if and how failures in business computer systems will break out and effect commerce. But for the first time in 18 months I am optimistic. :-)

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2000

And a very happy Jubilee!

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2000

Hi there,

It's really amazing to me that the most intelligent, most carefully thought out evaluations (in my opinion) turned out to be "wrong." However, there is one possible "glitch" that has rarely been mentioned in the readings I've done since the rollover. That is that there were a number (who knows how many) of organizations that rolled back the clock to 1972 on their systems. Wouldn't that explain the successful rollover in many other countries? Have you heard about this? I'm sorry, but in my old age (like Bonnie, I'm a sexy grandmother), I don't remember where I read about this.

Victoria

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2000

Victoria, it doesn't matter. The power is on, it will stay on. Dick Mills told me so. :-) May I suggest you read some of his articles? Index. Especially his concluding question and answer column.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Lane, Over the last week, I have spent several hours reviewing comments from many people from various forums and have given considerable thought to the last few years. To say the least, it has been a fascinating exercise in social communication and interaction. I say fascinating because my observations never ceased to astound me and they rarely, if ever, were resolved the way I had expected. Mostly I was just disgusted.

I have learned very much from these forums for which I am very grateful and will continue to hold those lessons with a firm grasp. My original intention for joining Rick Cowles forum was to gain a publics perspective of the issues for which the forum was intended. As a utility insider and task force coordinator, I felt that it was my obligation to pursue any concerns expressed by the general public that may be relevant to my customers needs and which we, as a task force, may have overlooked. I honestly felt I had found a gold mine and to some degree, I did, ultimately, come away with much more than when I joined the forum. I would like to thank Mr. Cowles for that. Sincerely!

Most stunning of all was the sudden and exceptionally broad scope of interest in the electric power industry. In my thirty plus years in the business, I had never seen the level of inquisitiveness shown as was so evident here and other forums. Given my education, training and experience, I felt I could provide some measure of assurance that the problem was being taken very seriously and that the industry had many dedicated people working to ensure that electric services were delivered without interruption. I could not have been more naove.

Did the experience have any value? Yes, it certainly did. I found the value of the experience to be immeasurable and will never forget it.

Was it a pleasant experience? No, not really. I found it terribly disappointing that the thousands who asked the right questions, so consistently failed to recognize or were unable to accept the right answers from the legitimate sources.

What was the greatest disappointment? I suppose it would be the incredible irony of it all. The unprecedented, dedicated and coordinated effort by literally thousands of engineers, technicians, managers and electric organizations to ensure the continued service reliability of our machines and then, in the end, we found we had less to fear from the machines than we had to fear from the very people those machines served so reliably.

What was my most profound lesson learned? If there is any one thing that I have learned from this, it is that regardless of the extraordinary leaps in technology, the advances in information access and the incredible speed in information exchange, collectively, we humans have failed miserably in measuring up to these changes and advances. That in spite of our intelligence and capacity to learn, we still lack the discipline or the maturity to convey or discern (at least in a text based forum) the difference between truth and deceit, reality and the intangible or fact from fantasy. To our shame, we have come to rely on the sixty-second sound bite to download all the facts as we choose to see them. You know the real story that inquisitive minds want to know.

Were we successful? Well, the lights didnt go out but I cant say that the electric industry is better off today than it was before. I certainly think we are better off technologically, but I do not think the public perception of electric utilities has improved as a result of this success. I hope I am wrong in this respect.

It frequently seemed that the bulk of people in the industry had been accused of having an agenda, a special interest and therefore were automatically exempt from possessing any measurable degree of morality, honesty or integrity. Generally, their contributions to public discourse were to be dismissed, ignored or ridiculed. To MY shame and eternal regret, I found I did not possess the perseverance demonstrated time and again by FactFinder, Dan, CL and others. I continue to applaud their efforts. They are much better men than I.

I certainly hope its is true that due to our extraordinary intelligence and adaptability, humans will always remain the higher species. These past few years do not speak well for that theory.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Hi Tis,

I don't recall ever seeing any of your previous postings. Perhaps you gave up before I joined this forum. And I guess that you honestly expected all of us to believe your statements about the state of preparedness of the electric utilities industry. This may therefore be meaningless to you, but did you read the information presented by Bennett's Y2K committee in its reports, and the reports were based on the analysis of the responses from very few utilities? Did you see the posts on the NERC website telling utilities how they could "lie" about their readiness by claiming "exceptions"? And how NERC said it would not pass any of the information along to either the U.S. Government or the public? Did you see the SDG&E website, and how they posted the exact same glib information for months and months. And as some other poster recently mentioned, when utilities made statements about their readiness, they always had qualifiers. If the utilities were in such good shape, they should have all responded to the subcomittees' questionairres. They should not have needed to lie about or hide their exceptions. It seems to me that the utilities as a whole were pretty lucky that there is not so much dependence on time calculations from data received from embedded chips.

In addition, how can you expect us to believe that you, as an individual can speak for the entire industry, when we, who are also intelligent, can read these things for ourselves.

I can understand your frustration, but don't put the blame on us because we didn't believe you. We're grateful for all the work you did, and I personally am sorry that you've felt so bad, and have lost some of your faith in humankind. But you have to realize that we had very good reasons to doubt you. You also have to realize that we know that we're entirely dependent on you and your work for our very survival. Imagine the situation this puts us in and have a little compassion for what your industry put us through over the past few years.

I for one, was a latecomer, being trusting and oblivious to the Y2K threat until the beginning of last year. After I learned about the seeming lack of readiness, I had an extremely stressful year. A year I never care to repeat. Trying to prepare my family as best as I could for all foreseeable outcomes, and not knowing what is really going on in the utilities industry, but having to guess all the time.

I'm grateful that FactFinder was "right." But why couldn't he (or she) have used his (or her) true name? If there was no threat, why the anonymity? I for one, felt very comforted by Malcolm in New Zealand, for his informative posts. For that matter, why don't you use your full name? If you wanted to get through to us, why couldn't you be more like Malcolm. I for one would have really welcomed it. One of the reasons I found FactFinder hard to take is that he seemed oblivious to the concerns of the rest of us. He made blanket statements about how everything was going to work, and made fun and light of everyone's concerns. Malcolm on the other hand discussed problems that he found, and how he and his cohorts fixed them. He even let us know about his experiences at the rollover. He became a human being to the rest of us that we could inherently trust.

You on the other hand, feel sorry for yourself, because "we" didn't believe you. You lost your faith in us. Do you realize what we went through? I for one, am extremely glad of all the preparations I've made. I love the changes I've made in my life. But I've aged about 10 years through the process and had no Christmas with my family.

I too will never forget what I learned this year. And my biggest lesson is that I will continue to strive to eliminate the dependence of my family on large profit-oriented corporations.

Victoria

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Thanks for your contributions, Tis and Victoria.

I tend to agree with Victoria in one respect: the anonymous posters never gained my trust, in part because they never gave me theirs. Moreover, it is amply documented on this forum that they were far too quick to dismiss questioners as belonging to some "Doom Society". I have never belonged to such a thing, I never will. Period. And those who dismissed me with cheap and low personal insults thereby invited me to tune them out. If they were incapable of convincing people patiently and reasonably, they should have admitted the mistake of having tried to do it on their own; I suggest now (with hindsight, true), that they should have simply included a link to one of Dick Mills article to answer questions; I think he answered them all.

On the other hand, a lot of people were simply fixated on electricity, and never with any good reason. They were the ones who were the most stunned last weekend. They, and many others, failed to draw a necessary distinction: that the ducking and dodging by officials and authorities of all kinds did not mean they knew it was going to be bad. It just meant that they were... well... as cl said, "spineless, mealy-mouthed public statements by corporations that were more political/litigation minded than founded in engineering principles". I drew the distinction whenever I could, but a lot of folks never did (and some did not bother to notice that I did).

Again, I gave too much credence to assessments of possible infrastructure failure overseas by the Senate, DOS, and CIA. That was my mistake.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Hi Lane,

You included a link to Dick Mill's questions and answers that didn't work, would you please post it again?

Thanks, Victoria

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Well, to avoid repetition I will just cut and paste my response from the thread at TB2000: http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002FXs

------------- The utility insider I admire most for both putting himself on the line by using his real name and providing detailed and accurate information is Malcom Taylor, who posted at EUY2K and here as well (his tutorial on electric power operation was superb and well received here at TB2000). I appreciate your words Tiz, but I could have been a much better man in my approach to discussing Y2K. I believe that if I had stuck with the issues even when attacked personally, I would have felt better about the whole thing. At times I succeded, at times I was the attacker. All in all, I wish my performance in this area had been better. At least I have a new year to work on that....

Now as far as my posting anonymously, this was my choice as it was for many posters at EUY2K and here, and by doing so I was afforded the freedom to post my own personal convictions regarding Y2K. I always used a valid email address, and offered on several occasions to provide my name to frequent posters at EUY2K who wished to know it. Lane never took me up on that one, so I do not accept his comments regarding "anonymous" posters. Several of his associates knew who I was, and had he asked, he would have known as well. I do admire those who are in situations that allowed them to use their names in their posts.

Even though it's still a little early do call Y2K "over", what we have seen thus far demonstrates that "using your real name" when posting about Y2K was never a good indication as to whether the poster was accurate, knowledgable, or credible. As we all know now, almost all named y2k "experts" were not just wrong, but very wrong. Even the few who posted in mid-1999 that there wouldn't be as significant a problem in embedded systems as first thought (Rick Cowles, GartnerGroup, Dale Way, and others) were a tad behind those of us working on these systems who first said this in 1998 but were totally poo-pooed by the naysayers.

Regards to all, have a happy new year.

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), January 07, 2000.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Victoria, Yes I did make statements indicating that electric power would be ok for y2k, that was an easy call based on industry findings in embedded systems, but I didn't just make "blanket" statements, I provided links to dozens of industry sources that said the same thing, and then I provided the best evidence I could as to why things would be ok by providing evidence that embedded systems y2k problems were predominantly minor. You, and some others, chose to disgregard information coming from the electric industry sources I provided for you. That was your choice.

I really didn't need, nor do I need now, for anyone to say "you were right," for as Cowles says in a post above, "the lights are on". Thats the only confirmation I wanted.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

FactFinder,

You are absolutely right about that embedded system issue. I can remember when you (and others) first started to post that you were not finding the "showstopper" embedded problems that were being forecast elsewhere. I didn't beleive it at that time. In retrospect I can see that you had it correct.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

While we're all in group catharsis mode, it might be beneficial to mull over why Y2K provoked so much animus among us.

The touchstone of every point/counterpoint, every argument/counter-argument and every rankling slur/inuendo on this and other forums (well, not really *rankling* on THIS forum) is the recognition, to greater or lesser degrees, of the level of our potential collective exposure: our universal susceptibility to mortification, you might say.

Behind every defense of *no show-stoppers* lay the necessity to be absolutely correct in that estimation. Behind every calamitous appraisal loitered an appreciation (perhaps a bit over-excited at times) of the scope of our vulnerability, be it merely inconvenience or wide-scale...what? Who can *really* imagine?

But really, the whole event is merely one in a seemingly endless chain of links which regularly serves up the reminder that time and energy, among other things, is a pocket full of pennies. The pennies are being spent, and the pocket has a bottom.

That great electrical engineer, Moses (hey, he was a key partner in an unbelievable power venture on Mt. Sinai), understood this well, and he understood what it meant in life when he stated, "teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Y2K's greatest contribution to humanity could be the salutary effects of realizing that there are a lot fewer pennies in the pocket. Perhaps we had better wake up to a truth that will one day lay claim to us all. Time to gain a heart of wisdom.

There, I said "energy" "electrical engineer" and "power" in this post, so it has to pass muster with the power-meister, right Rick?

Enyhoo, here's to another millennium full of zoomies, Deo Volente.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

Victoria, the links work for me.

FF, I believe that if I had stuck with the issues even when attacked personally, I would have felt better about the whole thing. At times I succeded, at times I was the attacker. All in all, I wish my performance in this area had been better. Something I can say for myself.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

Factfinder,

Thanks for your admission that you wish you had handled the attacks on you differently. I'm a relative latecomer to this forum, and didn't see the initial attacks against you, but saw your counterattacks. I also understand your regrets, as my father has a real temper at times, then regrets things he says. I, on the other hand, never make that mistake. :) One of the things that bothered me was your tendency to laugh at the rest of us (I remember you used the term LOL quite a bit). That too, was a bit of a put off to me. But I'm sensing a softer side to you from your post. A side I like much better. Thanks for opening up to us in that way. I remember your links too, but they were often to organizations that I didn't trust, for reasons mentioned earlier. I vividly recall, I believe, Gordon saying that he "hopes FactFinder is right." I'm glad you stuck with us through thick and thin FactFinder, and I'm extremely glad that you were "right." Though, in my sense of duality that I've had throughout this whole process, I also believe that all the others were "right" too. Though the infrastructure has held, Rick mentioned factors that could eventually wear it down, such as businesses failing due for Y2K or economic reasons, and that includes power companies. If we didn't have the depth of degree of concern that many of us demonstrated, many of us would not be as well prepared as we are now to handle disasters, that won't stop because the lights are on.

I feel we are all stronger for our preparations, and hope that all of us will continue with our new awareness of our fragilities, and our new sense of community, including all the varied, different, strong and beautiful views on this forum.

I, for one, on New Years eve, was extremely moved by a site I found where people from all over the world were contributing their experiences at the rollover, where their infrastructures were holding, and they were wishing everyone a very happy new year. People from countries that to me are normally considered underdeveloped were talking about their computer systems, the same ones we have here. I felt such a connection with them, and I felt that the Y2K threat had brought us closer as nations. It was sad too, when one of the posters said that their Y2K chief had commited suicide the day before. I have to admit that at times last year, I had dark thoughts. I knew I could never prepare enough to protect my family against the worst I could imagine. And I hoped against hope that things would be okay.

But the poster that stuck with me the most from that site, I believe from a middle eastern country, said "lets try to get along better in the new millenium." (And Rick, to me, we are in a new millenium, though they didn't have a zero year last millenium, that was just one of the zero problems of that millenium! Lets keep that lack with the last millenium, so that future milleniums can begin on time! So I hereby define the last millenium to consist of 999 years instead of 1000! We can just round it off! Close enough for Government work!)

It seems that we're taking a softer turn on this forum for the new millenium, and I find it very sweet. I hope that Tis can forgive us. I wish that I had seen his posts, and that I had been able to believe him. By the way, does anyone know how Mr. CEO is doing? He was my most credible beacon.

Victoria

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

Victoria,

Originally, I had four objectives in writing my last posting to this forum. The first objective was to offer a general commentary on my observations and participation during this period relative to the social interaction between the public at large and industry insiders over a complex and divisive issue. This forum, that is to say Rick Cowles forum (I am sure there are many of which I remain unaware) was, in my view, the most civil. Yet, in spite of Ricks brutal editing ; ) and management of this forum, there were many instances of well lets just call it silliness. I freely confess that I was one of the offenders and I have learned from my mistakes. In surrendering to the heat of the moment and not contributing to the discussions I could have, I violated my own long held convictions that the industry should be challenged and held accountable and that skepticism can be beneficial to everyone. The disappointment I expressed had much less to do with who was right or who was wrong. It had everything to do with the industrys collective defeat in their efforts to assure the public that we were taking the threat seriously and working very hard to eliminate the chance of service interruptions. Simply stated By some measure, I feel we missed a good opportunity to gain a higher level of confidence from the public we serve. To my regret, I bailed out on the forum and remained only as an observer.

I chose to use my initials or my nickname in my earlier posts because that was simply my habit. The e-mail address was/is real and I did exchange e-mail with some participants regularly.

Secondly, I wanted to acknowledge the tenaciousness and endurance of some of the industry participants. I did not mention Mr. Malcolm Taylor (to my further regret) and wish to thank him now. Jim Prosser of South Africa, was another. Jim Lyons yet another. If they truly were directly involved in their companys Y2k efforts (and I believe they were), I can attest to the difficulty in finding the time to do anything else but that. The coordinated and cooperative efforts of the North American electric utility industry was a unique and singular event. I dare say it will not be repeated given the environment of competition. Perhaps I will be proved wrong I hope so!

Thirdly, I wanted to convey to the forum and to Lane that, in my personal view, there was no need for an apology. Ironically, as frustrated as I ever became with Lanes or Gordons or anyones posts, I found that they were the very ones that I sought out the most often. Why, you ask? As I recently told Gordon in an e-mail, they each represented the highest hurdle and challenge to my personal efforts in dealing with the questions coming from my customers. Early on, they raised many of the very questions my customers were to raise later. This gave me the opportunity to be well prepared and I assure you that I did not waste that opportunity.

Fourth, and probably most silly of all I had wanted to write a brief commentary that did not use the term Y2k. It seems I was successful in that alone. : )

Finally, Victoria, I sincerely appreciate and thank you for your gentle admonition. It is your forgiveness for me bailing out that is warranted here. However, let me assure you that the last thing I feel is sorry for myself. I was responsible and accountable for a substantial portion of an important project. It was successful during four separate transition periods. Corporately, our multi-service utility, electric, water, wastewater, gas and telecommunications, came through the transition smoothly and without failure of any mission-critical systems. Post rollover testing of our non-critical business systems found one error and four corporate FAX machines returned the wrong dates. Each was addressed immediately and corrected. I simply could not be happier at this point. Our team had done a marvelous job. I am very proud of our team and I am looking forward to the next challenge as long as it is not date/time related. LOL!!!

My sincere regards to you all...

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

I wanted to convey to the forum and to Lane that, in my personal view, there was no need for an apology.

Thank you for saying so.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

Well, you stop visiting the forum for a few days, and you miss out on getting in the middle of another great discussion!

Lane, as I said on TB2000, assuming you included me in your post, apology accepted. I felt that by having Drew Parkhill of CBN, a respected participant of the forums, verify my identity and claims as an "insider", that this would establish my credibility. Evidently I was mistaken.

But that's neither here nor there any more--actually, I enjoyed your articles, even if I didn't agree with your conclusions. I have an idea--how about you contact some of those you called "y2k savvy", i.e. Bonnie, Rick, Dick Mills, etc., and write an article made up of their post-y2k comments? Just an idea, FWIW.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 2000

Dear Tis, FactFinder, Dan and others who worked so hard to fix things,

Thank you so much for all your hard work, and for fixing everything. From the bottom of my heart, and in behalf of all the people on this planet who take your work, and the flow of power for granted. I'm so grateful for what you've done.

Tis, thank you for your words. I have nothing to forgive you for. You've done an outstanding job. It was an extremely difficult time for most of us who were aware of the stakes. But I think it was handled in the best possible way. Those of us who were sounding the warnings were needed, and those of you who were doing the work were needed. Many of us are in much better shape to handle what comes in the future, as our ancestors did for eons in the past. I think there has been a permanent shift for many of us in how we perceive life, the world, our interdependencies. Even the Government, who I was angry at for not warning the people more, did a great job of maintaining the status quo. It worked out perfectly, in my opinion.

Also, though there were some hard core, intelligent people you couldn't pursuade otherwise here on the forum, most of the people on the planet agreed with you Tis, that there weren't going to be any problems with electricity. And those of us who you didn't convince before, are certainly convinced now.

I think you showed a lot of caring to come here and be battered about, so you could learn how to respond to your customers, and that is to be commended. FactFinder was great at keeping in the ring, and my sense is that he is a little thicker skinned than you. Thanks for getting back in and being with us now.

Victoria

-- Anonymous, January 09, 2000

Victoria, Thanks for your kind post. You know, I really don't believe I have a tougher skin than the others here, but I do have the ability to not take things too seriously for the most part (but even then, I had my bad days). I did have the conviction that Y2K would not be a significant event to the power industry, and that never waivered since it was based on a lot of evidence in the findings I saw in the industry regarding embedded systems. I think that's what kept me going for the most part. The other thing that kept me going is amusing in retropect, and that is the fact that I knew that I was "right."

I really just wanted to share what I knew, its the approach I took in doing that that was often wrong. My intent was good, but my words were often not. And so in the end, I was very pleased at the total success the industry had, but I felt not the least bit "vindicated" or "victorious", for in my mind, I failed.

One example of my many failures is that I unfairly labeled Lane as a "doomer," which he was not. In fact, I learned a bit from him and Bonnie regarding the PR from the industry - while generally correct, it simply was not fully open and honest in some cases. This is a problem with corporate culture and our society in general, where truth is strangled by our propensity for lawsuits.

And so as Y2K wraps up, I can't finish this thing until I have the time to make a few apologies.

Regards, Regards,

-- Anonymous, January 10, 2000

But that's neither here nor there any more--actually, I enjoyed your articles, even if I didn't agree with your conclusions. I have an idea--how about you contact some of those you called "y2k savvy", i.e. Bonnie, Rick, Dick Mills, etc., and write an article made up of their post-y2k comments? Just an idea, FWIW.

Thanks. I'm not sure I agree with some of my conclusions, now. (That was one thing I never quite understood: how anybody thought a year ago, or even a few months ago, that they knew how things were going to turn out overall. As I wrote in the middle of December, the middle of December was the time frame when almost every unremediated business system had come into jeopardy of Y2K failures: only then could we really get a handle on how much real progress had been made. Although there is anecdotal evidence of many failures since then, there is no scuttlebut that everything is falling apart behind the scenes. And, though I am very optimistic now, I wonder if it is not too soon to be such. I guess maybe I'm just tired of being cautiously pessimistic....)

I already have heard from several of them. I'm going to publish a follow-up from Ralph, but I don't know if anybody else has anything to say. One of them has already pronounced it all a hoax! Oh, brother. And another is still in wait-and-see mode because he did not subscribe to the "Big Bang" theory, as he calls it.

One example of my many failures is that I unfairly labeled Lane as a "doomer," which he was not. In fact, I learned a bit from him and Bonnie regarding the PR from the industry - while generally correct, it simply was not fully open and honest in some cases. This is a problem with corporate culture and our society in general, where truth is strangled by our propensity for lawsuits.

Thanks. Larry Sanger wrote an essay about this, called something like "Y2K and Decadence": we accept the fact that "truth is strangled" for a lot of different reasons, to the detriment of us all. (Ah, it's Y2K in Our Decadent Age.)

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2000