Geeks on y2k
fed...@halifax.com
Geeks:
Give me an honest opinion based on the following
1. Chances of full y2k remediation
2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
most part, compliant.
Paul Milne fed...@halifax.com
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cory hamasaki
In <8779313...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com writes:
FYI gang, Paul and I have been discussing this offline and I
suggested that he pose his questions to c.s.y2k. We all have a
stake in this and frankly, I don't have good answers.
>Geeks:
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
>1. Chances of full y2k remediation
Zero. I don't think Social Security or Bank Boston has a chance.
SS has been pressing hard since 1989 and my guess is their
seasoned geeks are just about to be stolen away, leaving SS
to flounder.
Bank Boston, which may be the Y2K leader in banks, went on record
in Newsweek with a horse race with the horses at the starting
gate and they've been whipping the horses for 4-5 years. The
horses aren't moving.
If SS an BB can't do it, no one can.
>2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
Corporate automation is set back to 1955.... except in 1955
people had EAM gear... 1935?
>3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
Don't know about embedded computers, I'm thinking about running a
water pipe to my desktop S/370 so it looks right.
>4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
I don't think anyone knows. This is an unprecidented event. All
computing is about to unravel, all of it. Got it, we know that
computing will fail in strange and wonderful ways. What we don't
know is what happens afterward. Mass hysteria? The mayor drops
his pants on TV and sucks on a crack pipe? Who knows.
>5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
The U.S. will not make it. It's the advanced countries that have
the problem. The Chinese and Indians don't have enough automation
to worry.
>
>Paul Milne fed...@halifax.com
>
>-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Cory Hamasaki
The Goobers
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> Geeks:
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
> 1. Chances of full y2k remediation
> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
> 3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
> 4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
> 5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
DD
Bruce B. Schupp
Ken Bradley wrote:
>
> >Geeks:
> > Give me an honest opinion based on the following
> >
> >1. Chances of full y2k remediation
>
> >2. Result of failure of y2k mediation.
> A severe interuption in humanities time line..
> >3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
S.A.A.
S.
> >4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
> Gary North is an optimist.
> >5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> > most part, compliant.
>
> (I only hope I am totally wrong and the whole mess is an aberration;)
> I do too, but I prepaid my Life Insurance to the year 2002 and am hoarding little peices of a well know metal... :^)
Zebra
PCWN
> * Kenneth M. Bradley (Sr. Tech. Analyst) Storage Mgmt Services*
> * Information Technology Services Division Victoria BC CANADA*
> * Internet-> Ken.B...@gems3.gov.bc.ca (250) 387-8001 *
> * Roman Empire Failed because it wasn't Year '0' compliant KMB *
Ken Bradley
>Geeks:
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
>1. Chances of full y2k remediation
JFK caught doing (censored). Really........ zero in Canada and US and
less than that everywhere else.
>2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
blame me). No major disaster at midnight 31/12/1999. However it builds
up speed. By the end of the first week all heck has broken loose.
Some Banks are closed. Stock market is in turmoil. Utilities are off and
on. Commercial transportation is delayed, upset, and in some cases, shut
down. Delivery of food, fuel, and other goods is disrupted and causes
major social unrest. Riots, ransacking, and rage leading to violence
occurs in some densely populated areas. Stores charge $5 for a litre of
milk or a loaf of bread and this leads to panic and looting.
I see marshall law and the war measures act (a Canadian toy).
God help us because nobody is prepared for this event. Pardon the humour
but if I don't laugh I will cry.
>3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
airports, manufacturing, and small business computer failures for a start
for instance. Don't drive, don't go to the hospital, and don't try to
run your computer (PC).
>4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
his conclusions or logic. Granted, not everyone will be affected to the
maximum at the same time, but economic collapse may be the least of our
worries. (Boy do I sound optimistic!)
>5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
comments from England, Japan, and Germany and realize Canada and the US
are ahead of them, it is scary. Wasn't it some leader from an eastern
european country told a US senator that Bill Gates will solve all our
problems. He obviously hasn't installed Windows 95.
Come on guys, and gals... respond to this thread!
After a week or two, print it off and drop it on the CIO's lap.
Should be lots of fun.
(I only hope I am totally wrong and the whole mess is an aberration;)
RandallBart
Ken Bradley wrote:
>
> I see marshall law and the war measures act (a Canadian toy).
That's "martial" law, even when the people administering it are called
marshals.
--
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Rick Cowles
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 00:01:10 -0600, fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>1. Chances of full y2k remediation
Slim to none. Slim's left town.
>2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
Did you hear the sound of bodies hitting the pavement on Wall Street
today? (550 pt. market drop.) Assign a numeric value from 1 to 10 of
your perception of that drop, 1 being "who cares" to 10 being "end of
the new world order". Multiply that value by some random 3 digit
number of your own choosing. This exercise may serve to illustrate
the relative impact of a 550 pt. Dow drop and failure to remediate Y2K
(as things stand right now). Your results may vary. ;-)
>3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
See above.
>4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
I don't think anyone has a crystal ball to predict this one. Probable
effects will become much clearer by mid-1998. I'm not ready to pass
judgement on North's conclusions yet, but am personally preparing for
some significant day to day life disruptions. Better to be prepared
and not need it than unprepared.
>5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
I don't even want to think about it. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of
my waking hours thinking about it.
In conclusion, I consider myself a reasonably intelligent and educated
man, however, my wife is beginning to think I'm going off my rocker
about this stuff. So, responding to posts like this (and reading the
followups) is cheaper than therapy, I suppose. ;-)
---
Rick Cowles
"Electric Utilities and Year 2000"
http://www.accsyst.com/writers/ele2000a.htm
RandallBart
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> Geeks:
I am not a geek. I am a nerd, a propeller-head, a bit-pusher, a
code-cranker, a digit-head, or even a software engineer, but I am not a
geek. Still, I will attempt to answer your questions.
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
> 1. Chances of full y2k remediation
If a Velikovsky-style comet comes along and stops the Earth's rotation,
then *maybe*. Otherwise not a shadow of chance. Even if we had
adequate time and resources, there are always some bugs that are
missed. Even if you think you tested everything, you never know what
you didn't test: http://members.aol.com/PanicYr00/SubtleBugs.html
> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
will go out of business. In some countries the government will
collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
> 3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
Most embedded chips will hum along just fine. Some will fail
catastrophically. Some manufacturing facilities will be unable to
function, because parts of their assembly line are down. This includes
bakeries and other food processing operations.
> 4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
Predicting the future is a highly error prone. My father always quoted
his friend Herman Kahn's statement: "Economica is a great business
because you get paid twice. Once to tell people what's going to happen,
and then again to tell them why it didn't." North's got all the right
maybes, but no one knows how many of those maybes will become reality.
I'm guessing that things will be not quite as bad as North predicts, but
it could be that North is an optomist.
If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, then
you don't fully appreciate the gravity of the situation.
> 5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
Some countries will be better off that the USA. Some will be worse. In
some countries, the government will fail. In some countries where the
industrial revolution occurred within the last 40 years, the economy
will collapse, people will starve. A few million people will die from
this.
Any company depending on just in time manufacturing will need to start
keeping parts inventories, even if their software is fully compliant.
Most major US manufacturers import some parts.
Tom Schmidt
fed...@halifax.com wrote in article <8779313...@dejanews.com>...
> Geeks:
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
> 1. Chances of full y2k remediation
> most part, compliant.
>
>
IBM had a saying that was used in nearly every technical manual during the
1960's, 1970's and 1980's that I believe will cover the y2k situation very
well:
Unpredictable results will occur.
We have entertained ourselves here (and I'm guilty of it myself on
occasion) almost since the creation of this newsgroup, conjuring up various
scenarios of failure, doom & gloom. I believe that it is safe to say that
some of the worst things will happen (probably on a more limited basis than
speculated) and that it is equally safe to say that all of the worst things
will not happen. However, if the worst thing happens to you, or someone
you are close to, it will seem like an world-ending disaster.
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <345591...@worldnet.att.spam.net>,
RandallBart <Bart...@worldnet.att.spam.net> wrote:
+fed...@halifax.com wrote:
+> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
+
+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
+
With all due respect, this is a load of s**t. This is total speculation,
and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
--
Douglas L. Miller
I apologize for the inconvenience, but the SPAMbots are getting smarter.
My email address is my initials with no dots, plus my last name, at the
domain netdirect dot net
Wsgrass
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> Geeks:
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
> 1. Chances of full y2k remediation
0.00 %
> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
I have to work on 2000/01/01. I am being paid by then $2500/hr.
Unfortunately, a gallon of gasoline now cost $100/gallon. Worst than
that, I can't watch the bowl games because the TV satellites and cable
systems were not fixed.
> 3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
major disruptions in power, water, telephones and industrial processes.
> 4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
If the line plotting Y2K remediation against time remains status quo,
yes. If the slope of the line increases enough, i.e., remediation picks
up steadily, not as bad. Question is, do the resources and will exist
to increase the slope of this line sufficiently?
> 5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
I think the answer to this question is being played out very
instructively this week (week of 10/28/1997). Look what market
instability overseas can do to the U.S. market
Larry J. Farrell
Actually, "Marshall Law" was the name of a great rock band in the Chicago
suburbs.
Wonder if they're still together.
Marshall from the amps, you know.
Cheers
Larry
Luke Silburn
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
>
> In article <345591...@worldnet.att.spam.net>,
> RandallBart <Bart...@worldnet.att.spam.net> wrote:
> +fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> +> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
> +
> +Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
> +commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
> +will go out of business. In some countries the government will
> +collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
> +famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
> +
> With all due respect, this is a load of s**t. This is total speculation,
> and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
> stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
Not much respect in that post really, Doug. Surely the point is that
nobody has any *evidence* to support their speculations. The Y2K thing
is unprecedented, so of course there isn't any evidence. That's partly
why its so.... un-nerving.
However we do know what happens to computer systems when they receive
unexpected (by the programmer) data. They fail. Similarly we do know
that there are lots of legacy systems out there that have Millenium
Cancer and we do know that not all of them will be fixed in time.
Putting those two facts together means that we can reasonably expect a
proportion of computer systems to fail in a variety of interesting ways
around the changeover date.
There's a fair degree of speculation about likely failure rates and
which sectors they are going to occur in (although the data underlying
those speculations is firming up as time passes). There's *lots* of
speculation about the possible systemic impacts of widespread
simultaneous computer failures (although a fair degree of consensus that
whatever happens is unlikely to contribute to the sum of human
happiness). Personally I think there are going to be plenty of suprises
in the 12 months either side of the roll-over, there's no way to
reliably predict how knock on effects will pan out in a complex system
such as the modern international economy.
Presumably you are working in Y2K remediation at present, so what's the
realistic approach being adopted in your neck of the woods?
Luke
--
Silb...@fate.logica.com
Suggestions for a witty .sig gratefully received
------------------------------------------------
Counter-spam: UBE doesn't have to be inevitable.
Take fate into your own hands to send me email.
RandallBart
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
>
> In article <345591...@worldnet.att.spam.net>,
> RandallBart <Bart...@worldnet.att.spam.net> wrote:
> +fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> +> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
> +
> +Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
> +commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
> +will go out of business. In some countries the government will
> +collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
> +famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
> +
> With all due respect, this is a load of s**t. This is total speculation,
> and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
> stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
>
people will die in the US or any other particular place.
Now that I've got that point out of the way:
Damn right it's speculative. <pedant> From the Latin "specula" meaning
watchtower. </pedant> I was asked to speculate, and I call 'em as I see
'em. Let's examine some evidence which I don't have a shred of:
The Y2K problem is huge. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has
been working on Y2K since 1989, and is now rumored to be in trouble.
99.9% of the world started their Y2K remediation after SSA.
Major software projects often miss their target dates. Windows 95 was
originally sceduled for release in 1993. Windows 97 is now called
Windows 98 and is now expected in "Late second quarter". Not to pick on
Microsloth, but this is case of a well publicized target date slip.
In theory, these target dates were set after a reasonable assessment of
the work to be done. In my experience, when such a date is set, the
actual work to be done is about twice the estimate. When a target date
is set externally (e g, when S&Ls started checking accounts 1981-01-01)
the actual work to be done is three to four times the estimate.
2000-01-01 is an externally set hard deadline.
There are some analysts with a reputation for estimating meetable
deadlines, but such people are rare.
Many of us have therefore speculated that huge quantities of Y2K bugs
will still be unfixed on The Day. *Everywhere* there will be problems
-- power out here, phones out there -- no one will be completely
shielded from Y2K. This will be a big hit to the infrastructure of
*every* country. Dispute this claim at your own peril.
Now look at the world. There are 6 billion people in this world in
about 200 countries. In some of those countries the economy and the
government are fundamentally sound, but in many places they are not.
Sometimes countries survive events that I would expect to lead to
downfall. I expected Yugoslavia to collapse shortly after the death of
Tito, but it miraculously survived another ten years. But in this case
*enough* countries will take a big enough hit that *some* of them will
collapse. There are many countries with existing insurgencies or large
disaffected minorities the *appearance* of weakness will promote civil
unrest.
Sure I'm yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre, but I'm only doing it
because the theatre is burning.
It's time to stop the "Pollyanna" routine and treat this problem
realistically.
Jeff Kennedy, CERTCO,INC.
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> Geeks:
> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
>
> 1. Chances of full y2k remediation
zip, none, nada no chance at all.
> 2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
It's always tough to predict the future but this one seems to be getting
easier. I'm looking at major power and utility outages and enough key
businesses going under to trigger a major depression.
> 3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
This is where surprises are going to happen. I think the failure of
legacy systems will become fairly obvious but it's the unknown/hidden
stuff that worries me even more.
> 4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
Gary North is looking closer to right than not.
> 5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> most part, compliant.
Look at what is happening to todays stock market. The whole system is a
fragile house of cards. If a blip in the far east can drop the Dow 500
pts imagine what a thousand blips will do.
>
> Paul Milne fed...@halifax.com
>
> -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
> http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Pat
Dave Eastabrook
In article <34543...@news3.ibm.net>, cory hamasaki <kiy...@ibm.net>
writes
>In <8779313...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com writes:
>
>FYI gang, Paul and I have been discussing this offline and I
>suggested that he pose his questions to c.s.y2k. We all have a
>stake in this and frankly, I don't have good answers.
>
>> Give me an honest opinion based on the following
OK - here goes. I've left just the questions.
>>
>>1. Chances of full y2k remediation
>
ROTFLMAO. Nil. Not enough time, not enough bodies. Not even enough
knowledge these days. Not only that, brand new problems will be
introduced in "corrected" code, and systems.
>
>>2. Result of failure of y2k mediation
>
If y2k was fully solved, with the cost involved, probably a recession
due to the cost of it all, with the usual unemployment and homelessness.
A fair number of bankrupcies due to the cost, and because concentrating
on Y2K destroyed their competitiveness. Or their market disappeared.
If y2k wasn't tackled at all, world-wide recession and riots, disease
and destruction, starvation and war, death and disruption. The fall of
the technological revolution and the end of the atomic age. Probably
complete degeneration of society, taking thousands or at least hundreds
of years to recover to its present level. That's if we didn't blow
ourselves up. There's a whole genre of movies and sci-fi cover this.
Computers and processors are in complete control of our daily life.
Even the air we breathe is controlled by them in towns or near plant.
The reality? Will be somewhere in between these two. We have to
believe that repair efforts will accelerate and become more effective.
And that those involved with remediation will do our best. And that
under pressure "Much can be achieved by a man such as myself".
But there are no "silver bullets", and remediation can only be achieved
by 110% motivated, efficiently deployed and qualified tireless bodies.
And there aren't enough of us. Which is, as well as false economy, why
companies and organisations are deploying, unsupervised, the bejants,
the freshers, the wet-behind-the ears. With all that means in terms of
accuracy and quality.
Even with 100% remediation, remediation would not be 100%.
>
>>3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
>
If all affected chips are found and replaced - none. Except the cost,
and the diversion of resources from routine maintenance and replacement.
If nothing is done at all - pollution, contaminated water and widespread
cholera etc., drought, flood. Oil and gas fires, leakages. No power
supply, transport, money, satellites crashing, traffic chaos until the
tank runs dry, no manufacture, complete mayhem. Any system that isn't
fail-safe will fail nasty. And not all fail-safes will work.
In reality? This will happen. How much we don't know. The result will
be somewhere between the two extremes above. The results are as in 1.
>
>>4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
>
They might be. We won't find out for 792 days, though effects will
increasingly be appearing soon, at a locality near to you.
>
>>5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
>> most part, compliant.
>
Could the US stand on its own economically? Can any country? And if
the stock markets of the rest of the world came crashing down, what
would happen to Wall Street? I might look for an island, myself, see
how it goes. But it couldn't sustain a quarter of a billion people.
:Dave
--
Dave Eastabrook. Elmbronze Ltd. Y2K Consultant.
Specialising in Year 2000 remediation work. 24+ years IBM Mainframes.
http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/ /IBM/ or /year2000/ or /telework/
Evan Robatino
Ken Bradley wrote:
>
> >Geeks:
> > Give me an honest opinion based on the following
> >
> JFK caught doing (censored). Really........ zero in Canada and US and
> less than that everywhere else.
>
> blame me). No major disaster at midnight 31/12/1999. However it builds
> up speed. By the end of the first week all heck has broken loose.
> Some Banks are closed. Stock market is in turmoil. Utilities are off and
> on. Commercial transportation is delayed, upset, and in some cases, shut
> down. Delivery of food, fuel, and other goods is disrupted and causes
> major social unrest. Riots, ransacking, and rage leading to violence
> occurs in some densely populated areas. Stores charge $5 for a litre of
> milk or a loaf of bread and this leads to panic and looting.
> but if I don't laugh I will cry.
Don't forget about all the government (and private) organizations
doing Fiscal Year 2000 processing starting in 1999. See the following
URL (Jim Lord's Y2K Tips column on the Westergaard page) for the
details:
http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Tip/Lord/lord9741.htm
Based on this URL, seems to me that there are going to be a number of
problems BEFORE the "magic" 1/1/2000 date. I'd say that most of the
"real time" stuff will hit the fan EXACTLY at local midnight on 1/1/2000
(satellite-related stuff will generally be tied to GMT). There will be
sufficient awareness by then to trigger pre-emptive nuke plant shutdowns
(better than meltdowns), interruptions in air traffic, and so forth -
too little, too late to avoid the major consequences outlined above,
whatever the details turn out to be. As several other posters have
commented, there's just too little hard information to model exact
scenarios.
>
> >3. Result of failure to test and correct embedded chips
> The usual, accidents, mechanical failure of systems in hospitals,
> airports, manufacturing, and small business computer failures for a start
> for instance. Don't drive, don't go to the hospital, and don't try to
> run your computer (PC).
>
> >4. Regardless of Gary North's religious bent; are his conclusions sound?
> Gary North is an optimist. Seriously, I find it real hard to discredit
> his conclusions or logic. Granted, not everyone will be affected to the
> maximum at the same time, but economic collapse may be the least of our
> worries. (Boy do I sound optimistic!)
>
> >5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
> > most part, compliant.
> I covered most of this in my previous rambling. When you read the
> comments from England, Japan, and Germany and realize Canada and the US
> are ahead of them, it is scary. Wasn't it some leader from an eastern
> european country told a US senator that Bill Gates will solve all our
> problems. He obviously hasn't installed Windows 95.
> Come on guys, and gals... respond to this thread!
> After a week or two, print it off and drop it on the CIO's lap.
> Should be lots of fun.
> (I only hope I am totally wrong and the whole mess is an aberration;)
>
> * Kenneth M. Bradley (Sr. Tech. Analyst) Storage Mgmt Services*
> * Information Technology Services Division Victoria BC CANADA*
> * Internet-> Ken.B...@gems3.gov.bc.ca (250) 387-8001 *
> * Roman Empire Failed because it wasn't Year '0' compliant KMB *
(LOVE that Roman Empire quote above! ;-) )
Evan
--
-------------
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Finger the above E-mail ID for public PGP
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David K. Bryant
kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) writes:
>Got it, we know that
>computing will fail in strange and wonderful ways. What we don't
>know is what happens afterward. Mass hysteria? The mayor drops
>his pants on TV and sucks on a crack pipe? Who knows.
In the case of YOUR mayor, that's not a long way to fall. :-)
David K. Bryant
The Goobers <docd...@erols.com> writes:
>> 5. Result of world wide y2k remediation failure even if U.S. is, for the
>> most part, compliant.
>
>deep kimchi
So, the Koreans are going to take over?
Is that Summer Kimchi or Winter Kimchi.
Buy stock in Altoids now.
GregSch703
>>deep kimchi
>
>So, the Koreans are going to take over?
>Is that Summer Kimchi or Winter Kimchi.
How about, we will be kie-go-gea (roast dog). Sorry, I never did know how to
spell, only how to say it.
Greg
Tony Toews
d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail
address) wrote:
>+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
>+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
>+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
>+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
>+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
>With all due respect, this is a load of s**t.
With all due respect I completely agree with Randall Bart.
>This is total speculation,
>and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
>stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
Direct evidence, no. That has to wait for the actual date, now
doesn't it? Circumstantial evidence, yes. Look at the smelter
failure in New Zealand and the power generation plant failure in the
U.K.
There's a lot of evidence where software failures cause problems.
Just that we're going to see those failures multiplied a thousand fold
come 2000/1/1.
Tony
----
Message posted to newsgroup and emailed.
Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant
The Year 2000 crisis: Will my parents or your grand parents still be receiving
their pension in January, 2000? See www.granite.ab.ca/year2000 for more info.
Microsoft Access Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
fed...@halifax.com
In article <345d5d70....@news.calgary.telusplanet.net>,
tto...@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote:
>
> d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail
> address) wrote:
>
> >+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
> >+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
> >+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
> >+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
> >+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
> >With all due respect, this is a load of s**t.
>
> With all due respect I completely agree with Randall Bart.
>
> >This is total speculation,
> >and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
> >stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
>
> Direct evidence, no. That has to wait for the actual date, now
> doesn't it? Circumstantial evidence, yes. Look at the smelter
> failure in New Zealand and the power generation plant failure in the
> U.K.
>
> There's a lot of evidence where software failures cause problems.
> Just that we're going to see those failures multiplied a thousand fold
> come 2000/1/1.
>
> Tony
> ----
No, forgive me, Tony. You folks who call the 'observant', Chicken
Little, have a lot to learn. What you call total speculation is hard
fact. When ATT has 50 million lines of date dependent code to correct in
less than 800 days, this means that they have upwards of correcting
60,000 lines per day. This is physically impossible for them to do. They
are not even in the worst shape. No, Tony, you wake up and realize that
you are in deep Kim Chee. People who can not face reality always resort
to calling the others "doomsayers". What spot will be reserved in hell
for people like you who don't warn others to prepare? I suppose you would
have led the "Noah is a nut" brigade. Paul Milne
> Message posted to newsgroup and emailed.
> Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant
> The Year 2000 crisis: Will my parents or your grand parents still be receiving
> their pension in January, 2000? See www.granite.ab.ca/year2000 for more info.
> Microsoft Access Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
GregSch703
If the banks don't make it, you can forget about FDIC.
Greg Schmeelk
Sr. Systems Programmer
GregS...@aol.com
http://www.antiy2k.com
"Hermits have no peer pressure" Steve Wright
"Can't keep my eye from the circling sky, turned and twisted, just an earth
bound misfit."
Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"
phystad
In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com says...
It's sometimes hard to identify the various posters in a thread (although it
seemed clear to me) -- all the more reason to avoid name-calling. Doug Milller
apparently thinks y2k is all a load of sh*t and "total speculation" by a bunch
of "Chicken Littles". Tony knows better, and said so.
Pam
ptrc...@cycor.ca
In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>,
And what spot in hell will be reserved for people who don't take the time
to carefully read a posting before turning on their flame throwers. I
sure hope that you don't program as carelessly as you read postings,
fedinfo :-)
I believe that a Search All Replacing "Tony" By "Doug" is in order.
I realize that you are a newcomer and therefore yet unaware of Tony's
views on Y2k (although 2 seconds spent reading his sig should have given
you a clue). Just don't be so quick to jump in with both guns blazing
next time, pardner. Tony is practically a charter member of this
newsgroup and was here supporting the "cause" long before Y2k slapped you
in the face :-)
> > Message posted to newsgroup and emailed.
> > Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant
> > The Year 2000 crisis: Will my parents or your grand parents still be
receiving
> > their pension in January, 2000? See www.granite.ab.ca/year2000 for more
info.
Kreskin
phystad
In article <63orsb$ilg...@p5-term4-and.netdirect.net>,
d.l.m...@inetdirect.net says...
>
>In article <63nsht$i...@drn.zippo.com>, phystad wrote:
>+In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com says...
>+>
>+>In article <345d5d70....@news.calgary.telusplanet.net>,
>+> tto...@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote:
>+>>
>+>> d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail
>+>> address) wrote:
>+>>
>+>> >+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
>+>> >+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
>+>> >+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
>+>> >+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
>+>> >+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
>+>> >With all due respect, this is a load of s**t.
>+>>
>+>> With all due respect I completely agree with Randall Bart.
>+>>
>+>> >This is total speculation,
>+>> >and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
>+>> >stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
>+>>
>+>> Direct evidence, no. That has to wait for the actual date, now
>+>> doesn't it? Circumstantial evidence, yes. Look at the smelter
>+>> failure in New Zealand and the power generation plant failure in the
>+>> U.K.
>+>>
>+>> There's a lot of evidence where software failures cause problems.
>+>> Just that we're going to see those failures multiplied a thousand fold
>+>> come 2000/1/1.
>+>>
>+>> Tony
>+>> ----
snippage of confused attributions
>+
>+It's sometimes hard to identify the various posters in a thread (although it
>+seemed clear to me) -- all the more reason to avoid name-calling. Doug Milller
>+apparently thinks y2k is all a load of sh*t and "total speculation" by a bunch
>+of "Chicken Littles". Tony knows better, and said so.
>+
>+Pam
>
>Pam, you ought to read a little more closely if you're going to criticize others
>for not doing so. I did *not* say that Y2K is a load of s**t and total
>speculation.
>
>I said that Randall Bart's wild ravings about Y2K causing "government[s to]
>collapse"
>and "famine [and] insurrection" are a load of s**t and total speculation without
>a shred of evidence to support them.
>
Sorry Doug, you quoted the following portion of the original post:
******************************************************************************
* >+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
* >+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
* >+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
* >+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
* >+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
******************************************************************************
And added your opinions:
******************************************************************************
* >With all due respect, this is a load of s**t.
******************************************************************************
and:
******************************************************************************
* >This is total speculation,
* >and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
* >stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
******************************************************************************
You didn't quote just the government collapse, famine, and insurrection
sentences of the original post, and I assumed that your remark referred to *all*
of the quoted material. Does this mean that you *do* or you *don't* think that
the other sentences you quoted:
"Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
will go out of business."
are:
* >With all due respect, this is a load of s**t. *
?
Which parts do you think are a load of sh*t? One, some, all? On what basis do
you make *your* judgement of future events?
>And I stand by that statement.
>
>I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism,
>some
>in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that
>I'm
>an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total
>speculation,
>unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an
>idiot:
>post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why.
>Demonstrate
>that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why
>insurrection
>will result.
>
Here again you only mention government collapse, famine, and insurrection. Does
this mean that you *don't* think that some power, telephone, communication, and
business failures are a load of sh*t? Do you find the idea of governmental
collapse so ludicrous? Where have you been the last 5 years? Do you find the
idea of insurrection so far-fetched? Where have you been the last decade? Do you
find the idea of famine preposterous? Where have you been all your life? These
crisis events are triggered by economic failures and breakdowns of the basic
systems of society.
If you believe that y2k computer failures will result in some level of
disruption to power, telephone, communication, and business, then you must take
into account the potential for crisis events to result from those failures. The
countries most likely to suffer a crisis event triggered by y2k failures of
basic systems are those that are already on the edge, the ones that can least
afford yet another blow -- but at this point, that pretty well covers half the
planet.
If you don't believe that y2k computer failures will result in some level of
disruption of basic systems of society, then I guess I've bitten into yet
another yucky troll.
>
>But don't sit here and speculate. Too many posts in this ng assume that because
>someone has imagined that some dire consequence might occur, it therefore
>follows
>inexorably that it *will* occur. Continued shouting of "the sky is falling, the
>sky
>is falling" does nothing to enhance one's credibility in the absence of evidence
>that it actually *is* falling. And simply stating that I'm wrong doesn't provide
>evidence of anything more than your difference of opinion with me.
>
>--
>Douglas L. Miller
>
If a person points a loaded gun at your face and pulls the trigger and you hear
the report, *when* do you actually have evidence that you're dead? Oops, sorry,
I guess when I saw that guy running down the street towards your house waving
his gun and yelling that he was gonna kill you maybe I should have warned you --
but I didn't have any evidence that he actually *was* gonna kill you...
Apologies for length,
Pam
Dave Eastabrook
In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com writes
>In article <345d5d70....@news.calgary.telusplanet.net>,
> tto...@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote:
>>
>>
>> >+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
>>
>>
>> >and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
>>
>>
>> There's a lot of evidence where software failures cause problems.
>>
>> Tony
>> ----
>
>No, forgive me, Tony. You folks who call the 'observant', Chicken
>Little, have a lot to learn. What you call total speculation is hard
>fact. When ATT has 50 million lines of date dependent code to correct in
>less than 800 days, this means that they have upwards of correcting
>60,000 lines per day. This is physically impossible for them to do. They
>are not even in the worst shape. No, Tony, you wake up and realize that
>you are in deep Kim Chee. People who can not face reality always resort
>to calling the others "doomsayers". What spot will be reserved in hell
>for people like you who don't warn others to prepare? I suppose you would
>have led the "Noah is a nut" brigade. Paul Milne
>
Would people please be more careful when reading articles to make sure
that they attribute any quotes correctly, and aim their rebuttals
accordingly. I've used Deja News to read threads, and it isn't hard.
The quote "This is total speculation," was made by Douglas L. Miller,
not Tony who rebutted it. Following the number of ">>>" can be hard,
but it is important to do.
RandallBart
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
>
> I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism, some
> in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that I'm
> an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total speculation,
> unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an idiot:
> post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why. Demonstrate
> that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why insurrection
> will result.
>
were intimately familiar with all the unstable governments in the world,
I wouldn't be able to say that any particular one would fail. I'm
saying that there are enough countries close to the edge that inevitably
one or more will go over. If there are 10 countries with a 50% chance
of failing, that's a 99.9% chance that some country will fail. If there
are 50 countries with a 10% chance of failing that's a 99.48% chance at
least one will fail. For further specifics, I direct you to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book for the year 2001.
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
+>No, forgive me, Tony. You folks who call the 'observant', Chicken
+>Little, have a lot to learn. What you call total speculation is hard
+>fact. When ATT has 50 million lines of date dependent code to correct in
+>less than 800 days, this means that they have upwards of correcting
+>60,000 lines per day. This is physically impossible for them to do. They
+>are not even in the worst shape. No, Tony, you wake up and realize that
+>you are in deep Kim Chee. People who can not face reality always resort
+>to calling the others "doomsayers". What spot will be reserved in hell
+>for people like you who don't warn others to prepare? I suppose you would
+>have led the "Noah is a nut" brigade. Paul Milne
+>
Paul, Paul, Paul. Watch the attributions more carefully. *Tony* didn't
write what you're criticizing -- *I* did. I don't agree with Tony at all,
but don't malign him for something he didn't write. I deserve the credit
for those remarks.
+
+It's sometimes hard to identify the various posters in a thread (although it
+seemed clear to me) -- all the more reason to avoid name-calling. Doug Milller
+apparently thinks y2k is all a load of sh*t and "total speculation" by a bunch
+of "Chicken Littles". Tony knows better, and said so.
+
+Pam
Pam, you ought to read a little more closely if you're going to criticize others
for not doing so. I did *not* say that Y2K is a load of s**t and total speculation.
I said that Randall Bart's wild ravings about Y2K causing "government[s to] collapse"
and "famine [and] insurrection" are a load of s**t and total speculation without
a shred of evidence to support them.
And I stand by that statement.
I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism, some
in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that I'm
an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total speculation,
unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an idiot:
post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why. Demonstrate
that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why insurrection
will result.
But don't sit here and speculate. Too many posts in this ng assume that because
someone has imagined that some dire consequence might occur, it therefore follows
inexorably that it *will* occur. Continued shouting of "the sky is falling, the sky
is falling" does nothing to enhance one's credibility in the absence of evidence
that it actually *is* falling. And simply stating that I'm wrong doesn't provide
evidence of anything more than your difference of opinion with me.
--
Douglas L. Miller
I apologize for the inconvenience, but the SPAMbots are getting smarter.
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
+It's sometimes hard to identify the various posters in a thread (although it
cory hamasaki
In <63oron$ilg...@p5-term4-and.netdirect.net>, d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address) writes:
>In article <63nsht$i...@drn.zippo.com>, phystad wrote:
>+In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com says...
>+>
>+>In article <345d5d70....@news.calgary.telusplanet.net>,
>+> tto...@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote:
>+>>
>+>> d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail
>+>> address) wrote:
>+>>
>+>> >+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
>+>> >+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
>+>> >+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
>+>> >+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
>+>> >+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
>+>> >With all due respect, this is a load of s**t.
>+>>
>+>> With all due respect I completely agree with Randall Bart.
>+>Little, have a lot to learn. What you call total speculation is hard
>+>fact. When ATT has 50 million lines of date dependent code to correct in
>+>less than 800 days, this means that they have upwards of correcting
>+>60,000 lines per day. This is physically impossible for them to do.
>and "famine [and] insurrection" are a load of s**t and total speculation without
>a shred of evidence to support them.
>
>And I stand by that statement.
>
>I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism, some
>in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that I'm
>an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total speculation,
>unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an idiot:
>post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why. Demonstrate
>that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why insurrection
>will result.
Doesn't work that way. The future is non-computable. There is a
segment of c.s.y2k that can detail plausable end of the world
scenarios... and the more specific they get, the easier it is to
formulate counter arguments.
Where you prove yourself to be an idiot (I'm not calling you an
idiot, I'm just using your term) is when you ask for evidence that
we know cannot be produced.
>
>But don't sit here and speculate. Too many posts in this ng assume that because
>someone has imagined that some dire consequence might occur, it therefore follows
>inexorably that it *will* occur. Continued shouting of "the sky is falling, the sky
>is falling" does nothing to enhance one's credibility in the absence of evidence
>that it actually *is* falling. And simply stating that I'm wrong doesn't provide
>evidence of anything more than your difference of opinion with me.
>
Here's the real proof, look back 9 months in c.s.y2k to the
wildest of the wild ravings.
1. Programmer salaries will spin up to insane levels.
2. Corporate recruiting will take frantic measures.
3. Power generation will fail.
4. Elevators stop working.
5. The 999999 date causes computers to shut down.
6. Mergers and acquisitions, failures.
7. The popular media will cover Y2K over and over and over until
it is a daily segment on the news... ...like a Weather Report.
In 9 months, we've moved from discussion and debate to, yeah, it's
here, it's old news, time to move on.
It's unfolding as the extreme nut-cases predicted. To ask for
explicit which governments, which precise scenarios, is asking for
a strawman, easy to disprove and knock down.
The power generation one is a good example. We had to endure 9
months of Rick Cowles morbid preoccupation with the electric
utility industry, 9 long months of his rantings and ravings about
technology of which I barely recognize the terminology.
And Rick could not, would not state WHICH electric utilities would
collapse, explain how, and show why.
But now, Rick has found a statement from HECO which explicitly
details their Y2K testing and remediation work to the point of
identifying the application, the vendor, the number and general
family of computers, the programming language, the precise
failure mode, and what they are doing to remedy the problem.
The interesting thing about HECO is that they are a U.S. utility
that is not on the North American power grid. If they fix the
problem, they fix it for themselves only. If they fail to fix the
problem, they can't take down the rest of the grid.
All the other utilities have to fix the problem or they stand a
good chance of taking down the grid.
All other utilities must get on the bandwagon or we will see
the lights go out exactly as the extreme nut-cases have predicted.
The HECO memo mentions one of the possible consequences of
failure of the software as the overhead lines carrying too much
current, overheating, and melting.
It's time to badger each power utility until they all issue a
public statement that, 1) they've looked at the problem, 2)
they've run tests, 3) they've fixed everything they can, 4)
they've run tests to verify their fixes, 5) they have
contingencies in place to cover the situations that they could not
uncover in 'unit testing'. <----<<< it is not possible to run a
full live systems test on the NA grid. Any test is at best a
'unit test'.
>--
>Douglas L. Miller
The sky actually is falling. This group has taken quarterly polls
and each time, we've stated our collective position.
Come on Doug, come over to the dark side of the force.
Cory Hamasaki
Rick Cowles
On 5 Nov 97 11:08:36 GMT, kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki)
wrote:
>It's unfolding as the extreme nut-cases predicted. To ask for
>explicit which governments, which precise scenarios, is asking for
>a strawman, easy to disprove and knock down.
>
>The power generation one is a good example. We had to endure 9
>months of Rick Cowles morbid preoccupation with the electric
>utility industry, 9 long months of his rantings and ravings about
>technology of which I barely recognize the terminology.
Gawrsh, gee golly, thanks Cory. (I think.) ;-) Everyone here seems
to have their own little morbid preoccupation, generally, those
preoccupations are in our own area's of expertise.
>And Rick could not, would not state WHICH electric utilities would
>collapse, explain how, and show why.
Did too. You weren't paying attention. Get back on the ritalin. And
go look at my webpage. :)
>But now, Rick has found a statement from HECO which explicitly
>details their Y2K testing and remediation work to the point of
>identifying the application, the vendor, the number and general
>family of computers, the programming language, the precise
>failure mode, and what they are doing to remedy the problem.
HECo was just ballsey enough to air their findings in the public
domain. I consider this a success story, because they found a
problem, fixed it, and put it out in the public domain so others in
the industry could benefit from it.
>The interesting thing about HECO is that they are a U.S. utility
>that is not on the North American power grid. If they fix the
>problem, they fix it for themselves only. If they fail to fix the
>problem, they can't take down the rest of the grid.
And that's one of the reasons they put it in the public domain. They
are in a kind of non-competitive situation with the rest of the
industry. I don't think you're going to see San Diego Gas and
Electric running high tension lines to Oahu to steal any of HECo's
business.
There's this veiw, rightly or wrongly, that sharing this type of
information is a competitive faux pas. That view is not just related
to the electric utility industry, either.
>All the other utilities have to fix the problem or they stand a
>good chance of taking down the grid.
Different equipment, different circumstances in each utility, but yes
it must be looked at. I spoke with an electric comany yesterday that
is in more egregious circumstances than HECo with the exact same
energy management system - only it's run on a platform that dies on 31
Dec 1999. At least HECo was working with a platform, operating
system, and language that was bascially OK. They just had to fix the
program. This other company has to replace the whole works prior to
31 Dec 1999, and they haven't started yet. Anyone interested in
details drop me an email.
>All other utilities must get on the bandwagon or we will see
>the lights go out exactly as the extreme nut-cases have predicted.
>The HECO memo mentions one of the possible consequences of
>failure of the software as the overhead lines carrying too much
>current, overheating, and melting.
<puffery> Gawd, now I'm an 'extreme nut-case'. I better get the wife
to tighten the straps on this straightjacket a little bit...I can
still type...and I better expedite the rubberization of the walls in
my office...</puffery>
>It's time to badger each power utility until they all issue a
>public statement that, 1) they've looked at the problem, 2)
>they've run tests, 3) they've fixed everything they can, 4)
>they've run tests to verify their fixes, 5) they have
>contingencies in place to cover the situations that they could not
>uncover in 'unit testing'. <----<<< it is not possible to run a
>full live systems test on the NA grid. Any test is at best a
>'unit test'.
Most are working on the Y2K problem now. The trouble is, as with all
industries, the quality of the programs, stage of the projects, and
levels of awareness vary greatly. Like the government, there is not a
united effort to get it done. No single industry-sponsored
organization has siezed the day to be the 'czar' of Y2K remediation
efforts, and there's some degree of turf infighting between the
various industry organzations that is actually splitting the efforts.
And finally, litigiously speaking, I don't think any company
(including your local electric utility) is going to make a public
pronouncement that they are, in fact, completely prepared for Y2K and
the product will keep flowing down the lines.
fed...@halifax.com
In article <34605...@news3.ibm.net>,
Hey Cory, These guys like Doug think that if one forsees an unpleasant
reality that one wants to have that reality. Its kind of like telling
them that there is an asteroid three times the size of earth heading
straight for us; and they respond by saying' "Oh, you want it to hit us,
therefore your warning is not based on any evidence." Look at the panic
that swept France after 24 hours of a trucker's strike. Oil refineries
shutting down, no food on the shelves due to panic buying, gasoline
rationing; and that is only after 24 hours. These Jamokes think that all
the nice people will sit in their homes twidling their fingers till all
the bad things go away. Paul Milne
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <63p1f2$c...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
RandallBart <Bart...@worldnet.att.spam.net> wrote:
+Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
+>
+> I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism, some
+> in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that I'm
+> an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total speculation,
+> unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an idiot:
+> post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why. Demonstrate
+> that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why insurrection
+> will result.
+>
+I can't state which ones, because I don't know which ones. Even if I
+were intimately familiar with all the unstable governments in the world,
+I wouldn't be able to say that any particular one would fail. I'm
+saying that there are enough countries close to the edge that inevitably
+one or more will go over. If there are 10 countries with a 50% chance
+of failing, that's a 99.9% chance that some country will fail. If there
+are 50 countries with a 10% chance of failing that's a 99.48% chance at
+least one will fail. For further specifics, I direct you to the
+Encyclopaedia Britannica Year Book for the year 2001.
More speculation, combined with pseudo-statistics that appear to have been
made up of whole cloth. What is your source for these figures? And what
is the mechanism by which you posit that Y2K will push these unnamed
countries over the edge?
"If there are 10 countries..." Well, are there, or not? "...with a 50%
chance of failing..." Where did the 50% figure come from?
fed...@halifax.com
In article <63orsb$ilg...@p5-term4-and.netdirect.net>,
d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail
address) wrote:
>
> In article <63nsht$i...@drn.zippo.com>, phystad wrote:
> +In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com says...
> +>
> +>In article <345d5d70....@news.calgary.telusplanet.net>,
> +> tto...@telusplanet.net (Tony Toews) wrote:
> +>>
> +>> d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail
> +>> address) wrote:
> +>>
> +>> >+Some power blackouts and brownouts. Some telephone and other
> +>> >+commmunication failures. Some companies will be unable to function, and
> +>> >+will go out of business. In some countries the government will
> +>> >+collapse. In some places the degradation of services will lead to
> +>> >+famine, insurrection, and other unpleasentness.
> +>> >With all due respect, this is a load of s**t.
> +>>
> +>> With all due respect I completely agree with Randall Bart.
> +>>
> +>> >This is total speculation,
> +>> >and you haven't a shred of evidence to support any of it. It's time to
> +>> >stop the "Chicken Little" routine and treat this problem realistically.
> +>>
> +>> Direct evidence, no. That has to wait for the actual date, now
> +>> doesn't it? Circumstantial evidence, yes. Look at the smelter
> +>> failure in New Zealand and the power generation plant failure in the
> +>> U.K.
> +>>
> +>> There's a lot of evidence where software failures cause problems.
> +>> Just that we're going to see those failures multiplied a thousand fold
> +>> come 2000/1/1.
> +>>
> +>> Tony
> +>> ----
> +>
> +>No, forgive me, Tony. You folks who call the 'observant', Chicken
> +>Little, have a lot to learn. What you call total speculation is hard
> +>fact. When ATT has 50 million lines of date dependent code to correct in
> +>less than 800 days, this means that they have upwards of correcting
> +>60,000 lines per day. This is physically impossible for them to do. They
> +>are not even in the worst shape. No, Tony, you wake up and realize that
> +>you are in deep Kim Chee. People who can not face reality always resort
> +>to calling the others "doomsayers". What spot will be reserved in hell
> +>for people like you who don't warn others to prepare? I suppose you would
> +>have led the "Noah is a nut" brigade. Paul Milne
> +>
> Paul, Paul, Paul. Watch the attributions more carefully. *Tony* didn't
> write what you're criticizing -- *I* did. I don't agree with Tony at all,
> but don't malign him for something he didn't write. I deserve the credit
> for those remarks.
>
> +
> +It's sometimes hard to identify the various posters in a thread (although it
> +seemed clear to me) -- all the more reason to avoid name-calling. Doug
Milller
> +apparently thinks y2k is all a load of sh*t and "total speculation" by a
bunch
> +of "Chicken Littles". Tony knows better, and said so.
> +
> +Pam
>
> Pam, you ought to read a little more closely if you're going to criticize
others
> for not doing so. I did *not* say that Y2K is a load of s**t and total
speculation.
>
> I said that Randall Bart's wild ravings about Y2K causing "government[s to]
collapse"
> and "famine [and] insurrection" are a load of s**t and total speculation
without
> a shred of evidence to support them.
>
> And I stand by that statement.
>
> I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism,
some
> in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that
I'm
> an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total
speculation,
> unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an
idiot:
> post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why.
Demonstrate
> that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why
insurrection
> will result.
>
> But don't sit here and speculate. Too many posts in this ng assume that
because
> someone has imagined that some dire consequence might occur, it therefore
follows
> inexorably that it *will* occur. Continued shouting of "the sky is falling,
the sky
> is falling" does nothing to enhance one's credibility in the absence of
evidence
> that it actually *is* falling. And simply stating that I'm wrong doesn't
provide
> evidence of anything more than your difference of opinion with me.
>
> --
> Douglas L. Miller
>
> I apologize for the inconvenience, but the SPAMbots are getting smarter.
> My email address is my initials with no dots, plus my last name, at the
> domain netdirect dot net
Only the blind need more evidence. Or maybe only those with self-imposed
blinders. I wonder how much more evidence you will need when you are
lying on the side of a road in a frozen ditch with your cracker and
parched tongue lolling out of the side of your bleeding lips while you
are looking at the bent and broken bodies of your wife and children.
Nobody wishes this to happen to you. Certainly not I. But, you go ahead
and hope for the best and do nothing in the meantime. I will prepare for
the worst. Who will be better off? At a minimum, it is Pascal's wager.
Try a little reading and some extrapolation:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,16027,00.html
http://guide-p.infoseek.com/Content?arn=ix.INSI11784&col=IX If the
'conservative' Gartner Group claims that 40% of all european systems will
fail (not to mention embedded chips) can you not see the inevitable
repercussions? If the IRS will not even begin to award contracts to
remediate their systems till late 1998, do you really think they have a
prayer? Do you really think that the rest of the world is not in an
equivalent or worse state of affairs? Go on and keep wishing for the
best. Wish in one hand and s*** in the other and see which fills up
first. Paul Milne
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <34605...@news3.ibm.net>,
kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) wrote:
+Where you prove yourself to be an idiot (I'm not calling you an
+idiot, I'm just using your term) is when you ask for evidence that
+we know cannot be produced.
+
Cory, thank you for your admission that this is all speculation. :-)
Seriously, though, the sort of evidence I'm looking for is statements
by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
For example:
1. Certain DoD purchasing systems will begin to generate overdue notices
because material ordered in Nov 1999 and due to arrive in Feb 2000 has not
arrived yet. In Dec 1999, the software will "discover" that the material
was "supposed" to have arrived 99 years and ten months previously, and isn't
here yet, and flag the supplier as overdue. I know -- I've seen the code.
2. Military aircraft navigation systems will *not* go crazy at 00:00 on 1 Jan
2000. The software neither knows nor cares what day it is, or even what time.
All it's concerned with is the elapsed time since the nav computer was powered on.
I know -- I've seen the code.
So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
with the code involved.
Harlan Smith
cory hamasaki <kiy...@ibm.net > wrote in article
<34605...@news3.ibm.net>...+In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>,
fed...@halifax.com says...
>it is not possible to run a
> full live systems test on the NA grid. Any test is at best a
> 'unit test'.
I believe that it is possible. We just have to carve out labor day next
year and say that the whole damn power grid will advance it's clocks 15 mos
and see what happens.
Likely, there will be some dramatic happenings, but it will be worth it.
We will then be busy fixing the stuff that didn't work plus the inadvertent
destruction for the next 15 mos.
But we will be doing that in the context of a national infrastructure that
is otherwise intact.
As opposed to the alternative and setting ourselves up for major repairs to
the power grid in a dysfunctional environment we will be way ahead.
The reason this isn't scheduled is no leadership. If we had leadership, it
could be done.
Why do you think this is technically impossible?
Or do you just believe its politically impossible and, if so, what does
that have to do with anything serious?
Harlan
Dave Eastabrook
In article <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net>, "Doug
Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address" <d.l.m...@inetdirect.net>
writes
>
>So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
>will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
>aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
>and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
>with the code involved.
>
completely restructured, as needed for 3 different concurrent changes,
failed when it went into production, and caused some of the lines to
stop for a few hours, until the damaged files could be rebuilt, and a
fix put in. The one-line cause was a result of misunderstanding between
users, 3 analysts and myself. I had tested this program very thoroughly,
and so had the analysts and users. Extra columns were put on the DB2
tables, but no existing data was "manually" changed.
A generalised "guess" would be that around 10% of program changes also
fail when put in production. Some fail immediately, but many continue
to function, incorrectly, for some time. Sometimes forever. The
systems are complex and interrelated. Usually the results of failure
are not as severe as the first example, but all cause inaccuracies, and
therefore loss of profit, to creep into everyday operations. Each week,
however, perhaps only 20 programs will be made live, and 2 fail.
This site started its Y2K effort relatively early, and I suspect they're
one of the better organised projects world-wide, possibly by a long way.
They also have experienced people, and many of the original creators of
the legacy systems.
During the next 2 years, between 1000 and 2000 programs, say 1600, will
be year2000 converted and made live, with IMS and DB2 tables requiring
substantial changes to the format of existing data. Testing will again
be stringent including Time Machine type testing. Various problems will
be sorted out in production, say 50%, before the critical Y2K period
which starts mostly in December 1999 for ordering and supply processes.
From December 1999 thru the first week of 2000, these programs, and the
data, will be facing their first real test. Major data changes perhaps
double the chance of program failure. During December perhaps 25% of
the program failures will occur. That is, 40 programs. In the first
week of 2000, a further 120 programs, plus 2 of those fixed in December,
will fail. Half of these failures will probably be severe, i.e. 61
programs will fail badly in one week. The changes are "trivial". The
consequences can be drastic.
I don't have the slightest doubt that there will be severe disruption to
production during December 1999 and January 2000. How long afterwards
this will last depends on the resources they will have to call on.
This is for a well-organised company, who will have completed their Y2K
remediation, and presumes that, magically, none of their supppliers face
similar problems, and that incoming data is 100.00% accurtate. I hope
they improve on my projected failure rates.
As for evidence that this will happen, clearly if that was available it
would not happen, as the programs affected would, using the neccessary
crystal ball, be fixed now. Evidence will be historical, as always.
phystad
In article <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net>,
d.l.m...@inetdirect.net says...
>
>Seriously, though, the sort of evidence I'm looking for is statements
>by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
>involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
>
snippage of examples
>
>So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
>will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
>aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
>and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
>with the code involved.
>
>
>--
>Douglas L. Miller
>
So Doug, you're saying that we should all repost all of our various personal
knowledge of code we've seen/worked on, that we've shared on this ng for the
last year, because you weren't around to read them the first/second/third/n
times they've been discussed here?
You don't even have to plow through the dejanews archives to get up to speed --
may I recommend the zipfiles of c.s.y2k posts that Chris makes available at his
Cinderella site? Find these (mirrored) at:
ftp://parsifal.membrane.com/pub/y2k/
So far there are 10 zip files, usey2k01.zip through usey2k10.zip, of posts from
this ng. Why are you asking us to do your homework for you?
Pam
Francis A. Ney, Jr.
In article <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net> d.l.m...@inetdirect.net writes:
> Seriously, though, the sort of evidence I'm looking for is statements
> by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
> involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
All right.
The IRS keypunches all paper returns on a Unisys mini running an IBM 1401
emulator. This emulator is running a program written in Autocoder that hasn't
been touched for over 20 years. The source code has disappeared. And we
already know that this program will not work after January 1, 2000.
Guess what happens to everyone that files a manual paper return for tax year
1999? Take a look at events in the Philadelphia Service Center back in 1985
for a hint.
Guess what the IRS is doing about it? NOTHING!
> So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
> will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
> aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
> and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
> with the code involved.
Ever been in a grocery store when their computer dies? What happens?
Get a clue.
---
Frank Ney WV/EMT-B VA/EMT-A N4ZHG LPWV NRA(L) GOA CCRKBA JPFO
Sponsor, BATF Abuse page http://www.access.digex.net/~croaker/batfabus.html
West Virginia Coordinator, Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus
NOTICE: Flaming email received will be posted to the appropriate newsgroups
- --
"...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of
individuals...I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty,
subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating
in their purpose."
- Robert Heinlein, in a 1949 letter concerning "Red Planet"
RandallBart
Dave Eastabrook wrote:
>
> A generalised "guess" would be that around 10% of program changes also
> fail when put in production. Some fail immediately, but many continue
> to function, incorrectly, for some time. Sometimes forever. The
> systems are complex and interrelated. Usually the results of failure
> are not as severe as the first example, but all cause inaccuracies, and
> therefore loss of profit, to creep into everyday operations. Each week,
> however, perhaps only 20 programs will be made live, and 2 fail.
I have a page on my website for war stories of subtle bugs:
http://members.aol.com/PanicYr00/SubtleBugs.html
The intent of this page is to illustrate to people who've never done
maintenance programming, how sneaky bugs can be. Currently I have only
one story there, my own. I'm racking my brain for others I've fixed (or
even written), but they're all far too technical. Anyone else care to
contribute a war story?
Doug McKibbin
On 5 Nov 1997 19:23:22 GMT, Harlan Smith wrote:
>cory hamasaki <kiy...@ibm.net > wrote in article
><34605...@news3.ibm.net>...+In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>,
>fed...@halifax.com says...
>
>>it is not possible to run a
>> full live systems test on the NA grid. Any test is at best a
>> 'unit test'.
>
>I believe that it is possible. We just have to carve out labor day next
>year and say that the whole damn power grid will advance it's clocks 15 mos
>and see what happens.
>
>Likely, there will be some dramatic happenings, but it will be worth it.
>
>We will then be busy fixing the stuff that didn't work plus the inadvertent
>destruction for the next 15 mos.
>
>But we will be doing that in the context of a national infrastructure that
>is otherwise intact.
>
>As opposed to the alternative and setting ourselves up for major repairs to
>the power grid in a dysfunctional environment we will be way ahead.
>
>The reason this isn't scheduled is no leadership. If we had leadership, it
>could be done.
>
Harlan - I like this idea. Unfortunately, nobody in position to make it
happen will, because (much like Y2K itself), the consequences of failing
far outweigh the rewards of succeeding. If the test fails (Y2K problems
found), there would be public and private outcry for action (which we all
know is exactly what the Y2K issue needs). If the test were to succeed (no
problems found), then not enough people would understand the importance and
the denial-heads would feel justified and really bark/oink/moo/etc.
Perhaps all we can do is damage control. Prepare ourselves to fix problems
ASAP after 2000-01-01. Ensure that the programmers do not take the fall
for the problem - make sure any fingers are pointed at:
a) PHMs that would not let the programmers fix the problem years ago (due
to whatever reason) and
b) denial-heads in the public, political, and private sectors.
Until then we need to do whatever we can to fix as much of the critical
systems as possible and keep hounding the PHMs, media, and legislators to
recognize the urgencies and danger of Y2K.
Regards,
Doug McKibbin (remove NOSPAM from address when replying via email)
For you automated email spammers out there, here is the current board of the FCC:
Reed Hundt: rhu...@fcc.gov - James Quello: jqu...@fcc.gov
Susan Ness: sn...@fcc.gov - Rachelle Chong: rch...@fcc.gov
And send some spam to the USPS too: cust...@email.usps.gov
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <63p2ub$5...@drn.zippo.com>, phystad wrote:
+
+Here again you only mention government collapse, famine, and insurrection. Does
+this mean that you *don't* think that some power, telephone, communication, and
+business failures are a load of sh*t? Do you find the idea of governmental
+collapse so ludicrous? Where have you been the last 5 years? Do you find the
+idea of insurrection so far-fetched? Where have you been the last decade? Do you
+find the idea of famine preposterous? Where have you been all your life? These
+crisis events are triggered by economic failures and breakdowns of the basic
+systems of society.
Rave on, Chicken Little, rave on. Obviously, famine, insurrection, and governmental
collapse occur. What I find ludicrous is the totally unsupported speculation that
Y2K computer problems will be the cause of all these things.
You've done nothing to reduce the flow of unsupported speculation. All you've done
here is to produce more ad hominem attacks: "Where have you been the last 5 years?
.. Where have you been the last decade?" and so on. You have posted no evidence
that these ravings are anything more than that. The sky is falling, the sky is
falling -- NOT. If you have the evidence, post it. If you can do nothing more than
make personal attacks on those who don't share your opinions, shut up.
+
+If you believe that y2k computer failures will result in some level of
Obviously, you believe that. What is your evidence for believing it?
+disruption to power, telephone, communication, and business, then you must take
+into account the potential for crisis events to result from those failures. The
+countries most likely to suffer a crisis event triggered by y2k failures of
+basic systems are those that are already on the edge, the ones that can least
+afford yet another blow -- but at this point, that pretty well covers half the
+planet.
And because something can be imagined, therefore it must be true.
Where's the evidence? HOW will Y2K problems disrupt electric power distribution,
for example? And don't give me a bunch of "well, it might do this, and it might
do that." Let's hear from someone in the electric power industry who has seen
some actual code, and has some idea of what problems are really likely to occur.
Some months back, there was some idiotic speculation that military aircraft
navigation systems would cease to function at 00:00 1 Jan 2000. I worked on
military aircraft nav software in the mid-80s. It doesn't care what day it is.
All it needs to know is how long it has been powered on. There has also been
a great deal of talk about other problems in government software, some of which
I have direct experience with. It's very unlikely that the DoD will stop paying
its bills or making payroll, based on the software I've seen. But it's also
quite likely that some DoD purchasing systems will begin to flag deliveries as
being 99 years overdue.
That's the type of evidence I'm talking about -- hard facts, one way or the other,
from someone who has actually worked with the code.
+
+If you don't believe that y2k computer failures will result in some level of
+disruption of basic systems of society, then I guess I've bitten into yet
+another yucky troll.
+
"Some level of disruption," yes -- obviously, yes. But famine, insurrection, and
government collapse? Do you really believe that?
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
Hey, Paul -- why not try addressing my arguments, instead of resorting
to personal abuse? WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE?
In article <8787488...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com wrote:
+Only the blind need more evidence. Or maybe only those with self-imposed
+blinders. I wonder how much more evidence you will need when you are
+lying on the side of a road in a frozen ditch with your cracker and
+parched tongue lolling out of the side of your bleeding lips while you
+are looking at the bent and broken bodies of your wife and children.
+Nobody wishes this to happen to you. Certainly not I. But, you go ahead
+and hope for the best and do nothing in the meantime. I will prepare for
+the worst. Who will be better off? At a minimum, it is Pascal's wager.
+Try a little reading and some extrapolation:
+http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,16027,00.html
+http://guide-p.infoseek.com/Content?arn=ix.INSI11784&col=IX If the
+'conservative' Gartner Group claims that 40% of all european systems will
+fail (not to mention embedded chips) can you not see the inevitable
+repercussions? If the IRS will not even begin to award contracts to
+remediate their systems till late 1998, do you really think they have a
+prayer? Do you really think that the rest of the world is not in an
+equivalent or worse state of affairs? Go on and keep wishing for the
+best. Wish in one hand and s*** in the other and see which fills up
+first. Paul Milne
+
Nick
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
> by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
> involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
>
> 1. Certain DoD purchasing systems will begin to generate overdue notices
> because material ordered in Nov 1999 and due to arrive in Feb 2000 has
not
> arrived yet. In Dec 1999, the software will "discover" that the material
> was "supposed" to have arrived 99 years and ten months previously, and
isn't
> here yet, and flag the supplier as overdue. I know -- I've seen the code.
> 2. Military aircraft navigation systems will *not* go crazy at 00:00 on 1
Jan
> 2000. The software neither knows nor cares what day it is, or even what
time.
> All it's concerned with is the elapsed time since the nav computer was
powered on.
> I know -- I've seen the code.
>
catastrophes
> will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
> aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
worked
> with the code involved.
I know some systems that'll break. I seen the Code. I seen them break too.
I know some systems that'll keep running. I seen the code.
Sorry, can't tell you which ones due to it being confidential.
So I have evidence of programs breaking. Can't show it to you. Sorry.
There is no way for me to tell what happens after the program breaks. That
is the future. All thoughts of the future are speculation. Sorry. Program
broken. Who is going to fix it? Sorry, I have to go fix this other program
first.
A thought. Isn't claiming a particuar application will break because of a
logic routine that you saw speculation? It is predicting what will happen
to the program right? Give me evidence that this DoD purchasing system will
break! Prove it to me! I don't beleive it will till you prove it! Hah, you
can't prove it can you? So it isn't really going to break... blech.
The future is unknown. All we can do is speculate. Call me in five years
and I will have plenty of evidence. One way or another.
Nick Van (If I could poroduce evidence of future events, where would I
really be?)
nickvan at itis dot com
PS. We have a testing phase for our products because the results we get
during development cannot fully predict the types of future results from
production?
Harlan Smith
Dave Eastabrook <ne...@elmbronze.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<Sgc6sBAT...@elmbronze.demon.co.uk>...
> Would people please be more careful when reading articles to make sure
> that they attribute any quotes correctly, and aim their rebuttals
> accordingly. I've used Deja News to read threads, and it isn't hard.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OK ;-)
cory hamasaki
In <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net>, d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address) writes:
>
>Cory, thank you for your admission that this is all speculation. :-)
>
>by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
>involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
I know of two large systems that will die on December 31, 1999. I
cannot discuss the facts of the systems, identify the owner, etc.
I worked on one and have discussed the specifics with someone who
worked on the other.
A lot of the generalities may be due to current contractural or
employer/employee relationships.
>So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
>will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
>aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
>and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
>with the code involved.
Power distribution is true, check w/ Rick.
Food distribution will be a problem; review the current rail mess
caused by the recent merger and do your own extrapolations.
Military and civil aviation, I'm undecided. It certainly looks
bad when the FAA is running 30+ year old software.
Nukes? I think they're OK.
Engine control? I think they're OK.
The elevator story is true.
Lots of other things will break. Some things will break as nubies
try to fix them.
Cory Hamasaki
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <63qdnk$r...@drn.zippo.com>, phystad wrote:
+In article <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net>,
+d.l.m...@inetdirect.net says...
+>
+>Seriously, though, the sort of evidence I'm looking for is statements
+>by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
+>involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
+>
+
+snippage of examples
+
+>
+>So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
+>will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
+>aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
+>and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
+>with the code involved.
+>
+>
+>--
+>Douglas L. Miller
+>
+
+So Doug, you're saying that we should all repost all of our various personal
+knowledge of code we've seen/worked on, that we've shared on this ng for the
+last year, because you weren't around to read them the first/second/third/n
+times they've been discussed here?
+
No, Pam, all I'm saying is that I'd like to see some posts from people that
actually know what the hell they're talking about on some of these subjects.
I *have* been around to read them, and I am well aware that there has been
far more speculation than substance. Very few of the posts predicting
catastrophe have come from people who appear to be in a position to know
whereof they speak.
Clearly, the posters who claimed to have heard from a friend of a friend that
auto engine computers would cease to work at 2000-01-01 don't fall into that
category. Neither does the person who started the ludicrous thread on the
possibility of accidental nuclear weapon launch. And what about the people
who claimed that the highway patrols in various states are issuing tickets to
drivers whose licenses "expired" in '00 ? Ridiculous.
I certainly don't question the fact that many business data systems will be
in a helluva mess on 1 Jan 2000. I've seen, and fixed, enough code to know
that. What I question is the idea that Y2K will bring about the end of
civilization as we know it.
cory hamasaki
In <63rbbb$n2s...@p9-term2-and.netdirect.net>, d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address) writes:
>
>Clearly, the posters who claimed to have heard from a friend of a friend that
>auto engine computers would cease to work at 2000-01-01 don't fall into that
>category. Neither does the person who started the ludicrous thread on the
>possibility of accidental nuclear weapon launch. And what about the people
>who claimed that the highway patrols in various states are issuing tickets to
>drivers whose licenses "expired" in '00 ? Ridiculous.
The auto engine story is unsubstantiated and was dropped long ago.
Accidental Nuke launches are a real possibility. Not because the
launch controls go funny but because in a general chaotic
political situation, if the indications and warnings systems are
shakey, people will make the wrong decisions.
The drivers licence issue was a couple pranksters funnin' with the
gang. I guess they got you on that one too.
>
>I certainly don't question the fact that many business data systems will be
>in a helluva mess on 1 Jan 2000. I've seen, and fixed, enough code to know
>that. What I question is the idea that Y2K will bring about the end of
>civilization as we know it.
>
Wrong newsgroup Doug, that was a spillover from the suvivalist
nut-cases <ammo is the answer, what's the question?> who swarmed
in when Jeremy was cross posting to them.
He's suckering the Aryan Brotherhood and the God-squad now, so
expect to see some fairly 'odd' articles.
>--
>Douglas L. Miller
I just realized that I can't tell if Jeremy is really the flamer
he appears to be or an extremely active practical joker.
Cory Hamasaki
Phil Barnett
On 5 Nov 1997 17:38:26 GMT, d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug
Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address) wrote:
>So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
>will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
>aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
>and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
>with the code involved.
We've seen several Y2K tested and exposed elevator failures. Search
Deja news.
... on another note ...
Our company is researching millions of lines of source code and
thousands of commercial applications crossing everything from giant
Amdahl mainframes to LAN to PC to hand held, RF, POS, ACH, AR/AP/GL,
Inventory Control, Access Control, HR, EDI, Ticketing and everything
in between.
It's a huge effort. Our IS staff is not a department, but a division.
Our Distribution Complex covers almost a million sq ft and have 5 tier
pallet racking, and the D.C. is just a support division for the parks.
Over 35,000 employees. Over 15,000 p.c's. Over 300 Servers.
That's just in Florida, not counting California WDW and Cap-Cities
ABC.
From what we've seen, it's not which part will fail, but which part
might still work. The assumption has become; "It's Y2K broken. Find
out how to replace it or recode it or upgrade it. Decide which one is
most cost effective and do it now, fixing the most critical systems
first."
Much of our testing shows that most everything fails Y2K miserably.
There were so many faulty date assumptions in the software of the last
30 years that it will amaze me if half of it is running on Jan-1-2000.
And that assumes that half of it got remediated.
What we have found is ugly. Really really ugly. We've got much of the
most critical systems past regression testing and are off into future
testing, which I hear is going very well.
They are taking this problem very seriously here, as a mandate from
the top. I believe that there will be little actual Y2K impact in our
Information Systems on the fateful day.
I'm glad they started early. Good for me. I like working here. I feel
good about their efforts. But it has been quite time consuming, and
has put virtually all enhancements on hold, unless you count
replacement as enhancement.
God help the business that ignores their Y2K software problems, and I
haven't even mentioned the hardware problems.
... and of course, the "Standard Disclaimer" ...
I do not represent Walt Disney World, Inc. The opinions posted here
are my own, and are not authorized by Walt Disney World, Inc.
---
Phil Barnett mailto:philb@iag~net <-anti spam replace ~ with .
WWW http://www.iag.net/~philb/
FTP Site ftp://ftp.iag.net/pub/clipper
"Governments, like diapers, should be changed often
and for the same reasons."
roll...@ee.cerbit
Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
> Hmmmm.... seems to me that I read that the Patriot missile systems in
> the Gulf War went crazy if the "elapsed time since the computer was
> powered on" exceeded some small number of hours... not an overflow
> problem, just some kind of continuously-accumulated-computation
> error problem (the designers never thought the systems would be left
> on continuously for such a long time).
[...]
IIRC it was floating-point precision loss, like
x0 := 0.0
x1 := x0; x0 := x0 + 1.0; delta := x0 - x1.
x1 is 0.0; x0 is 1.0; delta is 1.0
x1 := x0; x0 := x0 + 1.0; delta := x0 - x1.
x1 is 1.0; x0 is 2.0; delta is 1.0
.
.
.
x1 is .999999999e9; x0 is .100000000e10; delta is 1.0
x1 := x0; x0 := x0 + 1.0; delta := x0 - x1.
x1 is .100000000e10; x0 is .100000000e10; delta is 0.0. ERROR!
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith
> dpbs...@world.std.com
--
.sig from Oracle: If I am not here then RCS has truncated file.
10135...@compuserve.com
In article <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net>,
>
>
> Seriously, though, the sort of evidence I'm looking for is statements
> by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
> involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
>
> So far, this ng has seen a lot of wild speculation that various catastrophes
> will occur with power distribution, food distribution, military and civil
> aviation, nuclear weapons control, automobile engine controls, elevators,
> and so on -- but precious few statements from anyone who has actually worked
> with the code involved.
Check out the Real Life stories at
http://www.accsyst.com/writers/ele2000a.htm
for warnings on power generation.
The conclusion is that Year2000 problems in embedded systems can result in
the shutdown of power staions.
And from the LA Times article mentioned a couple of days ago... John
Greer, manager of computer systems at Pacific Gas & Electric "...the
computer systems that manage the delivery of electricity are the least
vulnerable. Our automated systems tell power plants to come on or off to
meet demand. All of that is based on monitoring physical
conditions--current, voltage and frequency. They're not looking at what
day of the year it is."
Either he doesn't realise that these automated systems can fail (which
would be very worrying) or he's being deliberately misleading. The same
article also said nuclear plants have backup systems that use diesel
generators. And safety mechanisms respond to changes in temperature,
pressure or power, not the instructions of a computer. The article
seemed to ignore embedded systems except at the end and then only looked
at home appliances and not industrial applications.
I would be surprised if the 1/Jan/2000 came about with no blackouts
anywhere in the world. I would not expect famine anywhere there weren't
severe shortages already, where a failure in transportation or funds
transfer hamper an existing relief effort. Insurrection, IMHO, depends on
definition. Opportunistic looting and small scale localised food riots in
places severly hit. Fall of governments ? More likely, ruling parties
being thrown out at the next election if people blame them for inadequate
warnings/contingency plans... Resulting recession would probably see a
few more political changes. [Recently read that the three week coal
strike in the UK in 1972, which resulted in power shortages and blackouts
lead to 1.5 million layoffs here]
The more done to prevent the problems now, the less impact there will be.
If people get complacent now, then the less prevention will be done and
the worse things will get.
Nigel Arnot
In article <01bcea28$6f3580a0$1242...@CRC3.concentric.net>, "Harlan Smith" <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> says:
>
>cory hamasaki <kiy...@ibm.net > wrote in article
><34605...@news3.ibm.net>...+In article <8786600...@dejanews.com>,
>fed...@halifax.com says...
>
>>it is not possible to run a
>> full live systems test on the NA grid. Any test is at best a
>> 'unit test'.
>
>I believe that it is possible. We just have to carve out labor day next
>year and say that the whole damn power grid will advance it's clocks 15 mos
>and see what happens.
>
>Likely, there will be some dramatic happenings, but it will be worth it.
>
>We will then be busy fixing the stuff that didn't work plus the inadvertent
>destruction for the next 15 mos.
>
>But we will be doing that in the context of a national infrastructure that
>is otherwise intact.
>
>As opposed to the alternative and setting ourselves up for major repairs to
>the power grid in a dysfunctional environment we will be way ahead.
>
>The reason this isn't scheduled is no leadership. If we had leadership, it
>could be done.
>
>
>Or do you just believe its politically impossible and, if so, what does
>that have to do with anything serious?
>
>Harlan
>
Oh, if only ...
You're assuming that there's *one* computer with a nice neat console
in each control room. More probably there are dozens (or hundreds) of
embedded systems hidden away in plant rooms. On the grid there may well
be teleoperated systems tens of miles away, possibly with no provision
for altering the date by tele-operation. Embedded systems often have
a hexadecimal keypad and a one-line display as their user interface.
On older ones (and some newer ones) the interface is incomprehensible
if you don't have the instruction manual. Oh, you've lost it.
Never mind, phone the manufacturer. Oh, they've gone bust? Er...
well, there's absolutely no logical reason why that subsystem should
be affected by the date, it doesn't process dates ... of course,
it's operating system might... or the embedded clock chip ...
Also can you safely alter the dates by 15 months, *asynchronously*, on
a live and operating power station? I think very likely not, or
that one of the transition states with some clocks 15 months ahead of
others will cause trouble. Shutdown and restart is not something you
can do in a day. OK. maybe you can if it's natural-gas gas-turbines, but
if it's a coal-burner or a nuke, no way. By the way, "trouble" could
mean plant damage. Almost certainly not complete destruction or
meltdown - I anticipate that failsafes will fail safe -- but something
involving significant engineering and parts replacement to correct.
What *might* be possible would be to take say 20% of stations at a time
and advance their clocks past 2000 (so "station time" would be real time
plus X years: for least calendar trouble, X=28). THe trouble
then would be data interchange between the station and the rest of the
world, which might be more solveable. If that were done, at least
we'd have a guarantee that those stations would not abruptly go
offline on 1-1-2000.
I don't even want to think about the grid.
Frankly, what you suggest is causing Y2K to happen to the electricity
system 15 months in advance. Therefore, less remediation done and
more chance of disaster. As for the rest of the national infrastructure
being intact -- is there anything left that can work without
electricity?
If civilisation does collapse in Y2K it'll be because all the power goes
off effectively forever. Rationally I can't see that as a possibility,
but as a nightmare it's displaced nuclear war in the darker
corners of my mind.
Harlan Smith
Doug McKibbin <dmc...@NOSPAM.goodnet.com> wrote in article
<sgmzsmzmwa...@phx-ts20-11.goodnet.com>...
> On 5 Nov 1997 19:23:22 GMT, Harlan Smith wrote:
> Harlan - I like this idea. Unfortunately, nobody in position to make it
> happen will, because (much like Y2K itself), the consequences of failing
> far outweigh the rewards of succeeding. If the test fails (Y2K problems
> found), there would be public and private outcry for action (which we all
> know is exactly what the Y2K issue needs). If the test were to succeed
(no
> problems found), then not enough people would understand the importance
and
> the denial-heads would feel justified and really bark/oink/moo/etc.
Who cares about "bark/oink/moo/etc". There's a lot of idiots doing that
right now.
If it fails, then the worth of it will be proved right there. If it
succeeds then no problem, no major inconvenience and we will get a needed
morale boost to face the rest of the invevitable Y2K problems.
Perhaps you are saying that poor testing methodology/preparation will
create a significant problem. Well, if somebody screws up like that then
they perhaps they deserve some criticism.
I'm going to continue to push it. I've got a commitment from Oklahoma State
representative to pass a joint state legislature resolution to form a
Presidential USA2K Commisssion. If they pass that, then I will next work on
them to pass a joint resolution for a "Labor Day 1998 Y2K holiday" to test
the whole power grid 15 mos into the future.
I have a plan to promote necessary government action. It sure beats sitting
around wringing our hands. I'd rather be pounding out e-mail to people who
might make something happen.
Who knows? Some of our government might work for us. I do not know if
anybody at the Federal level ever pays any attention to resolutions at the
state legislature level, but maybe I'm about to find out.
Harlan
Dave Eastabrook
In article <34614...@news3.ibm.net>, cory hamasaki <kiy...@ibm.net>
writes
>
>I just realized that I can't tell if Jeremy is really the flamer
>he appears to be or an extremely active practical joker.
I don't read most of his stuff now, but they often have the same format.
He starts with an interesting, controversial and reasonable argument,
then descends into the depths of daftness. Intelligent certainly,
provocative yes. I think he just gets bored playing lemmings, and starts
a fight for the fun of it. He's maybe got shares in a telecomms company
because he certainly increases the bandwidth usage.
Talking about lemmings, did anyone know it was produced in Glasgow? And
that Dundee University has started supposedly the world's first degree
in computer game software. 44 students, I think they need another
couple of lecturers.
cory hamasaki
In <01bceab8$4a48d360$1842...@CRC3.concentric.net>, "Harlan Smith" <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> writes:
>
...
>I have a plan to promote necessary government action. It sure beats sitting
>around wringing our hands. I'd rather be pounding out e-mail to people who
>might make something happen.
...
>
>Harlan
>
Go for it! Kick their butts!
Cory Hamasaki 785 days now.
fed...@halifax.com
In article <63s7n3$9b$1...@willow.cc.kcl.ac.uk>,
I do not know why you can't see such events as rational possibilities.
What you are trying to say, but hedging, is that it is too awful to
contemplate so you refuse. That is anything but rational. Try this for
rational. I have a very low opinion of the ability of groups faced with
this IS disaster to marshal their forces in a concerted effort against
the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind. This is not cynicism. It
is realism. When did you ever see a major hardware/software project
encompassing one tenth the scope of this one be completed on time and in
a successful manner? Oh, never saw one one tenth the scope of this one?
Didn't think so. There never has been one that was one tenth the scope,
or one hundredth the scope of this one. And you dare call yourself
rational to believe that this one can be pulled off. No Sir, you are not
rational. They ought to come pick your plummage now while you are in fine
feather with your head in the sand. Paul Milne
Daniel P. B. Smith
In article <63qafg$gvc...@p4-term2-and.netdirect.net>,
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address <d.l.m...@inetdirect.net> wrote:
>In article <34605...@news3.ibm.net>,
> kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) wrote:
>
>+Where you prove yourself to be an idiot (I'm not calling you an
>+idiot, I'm just using your term) is when you ask for evidence that
>+we know cannot be produced.
>+
>
>by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
>involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
>2. Military aircraft navigation systems will *not* go crazy at 00:00 on 1 Jan
>2000. The software neither knows nor cares what day it is, or even what time.
>All it's concerned with is the elapsed time since the nav computer was powered on.
>I know -- I've seen the code.
Hmmmm.... seems to me that I read that the Patriot missile systems in
the Gulf War went crazy if the "elapsed time since the computer was
powered on" exceeded some small number of hours... not an overflow
problem, just some kind of continuously-accumulated-computation
error problem (the designers never thought the systems would be left
on continuously for such a long time). Not that this has anything
to do with Y2K, nor does it contradict what you said--but it does
show that time-based problems can creep into all sorts of systems
where nobody thought they could ever occur.
RandallBart
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
> Seriously, though, the sort of evidence I'm looking for is statements
> by people in a position to *know* -- because they've been intimately
> involved with the code -- what's going to go wrong, or what won't.
Are you asking for the CEO of a company which is going to go under to
tell you that now? Are you asking for the plant manager of a Nuclear
Power plant which will shut down to tell you that now? Are you asking
for the president of a country which will have complete economic
collapse to tell you that now?
This is what we call a wag (wild ass guess). I suppose that if I had
the resources I could tell you which countries are in the 50% category
and which are in the 10% category, but why?
I can predict that some NFL player will suffer a career ending injury
this season. You could ask me which player, or which team, or which
game, and I wouldn't be able to answer. But put enough chances of
something is a row and you get virtual certainty.
Check back in three years for more specifics.
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <EJ7F0...@world.std.com>,
dpbs...@world.std.com (Daniel P. B. Smith) wrote:
+
+Hmmmm.... seems to me that I read that the Patriot missile systems in
+the Gulf War went crazy if the "elapsed time since the computer was
+powered on" exceeded some small number of hours... not an overflow
+problem, just some kind of continuously-accumulated-computation
+error problem (the designers never thought the systems would be left
+on continuously for such a long time). Not that this has anything
+to do with Y2K, nor does it contradict what you said--but it does
+show that time-based problems can creep into all sorts of systems
+where nobody thought they could ever occur.
+
You are correct. And this has been considered in the design of the
nav software that I worked with. Even with in-air refueling, the
planes don't stay up long enough to overflow the counter -- mostly
because there are limits on how long the *pilots* are able to fly.
Even fighter jocks need to sleep now and then.
--
Douglas L. Miller
I apologize for the inconvenience, but the SPAMbots are getting smarter.
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address
In article <34614...@news3.ibm.net>,
kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) wrote:
+In <63rbbb$n2s...@p9-term2-and.netdirect.net>, d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address) writes:
+>
+>Clearly, the posters who claimed to have heard from a friend of a friend that
+>auto engine computers would cease to work at 2000-01-01 don't fall into that
+>category. Neither does the person who started the ludicrous thread on the
+>possibility of accidental nuclear weapon launch. And what about the people
+>who claimed that the highway patrols in various states are issuing tickets to
+>drivers whose licenses "expired" in '00 ? Ridiculous.
+
+The auto engine story is unsubstantiated and was dropped long ago.
Too bad that hasn't happened to *all* of the unsubstantiated stuff.
But then you wouldn't have anything to talk about.
+
+Accidental Nuke launches are a real possibility. Not because the
+launch controls go funny but because in a general chaotic
+political situation, if the indications and warnings systems are
+shakey, people will make the wrong decisions.
+
This is absolute nonsense. Accidental nuke launches are a virtual
impossibility under any circumstances. My wife, a former USAF
officer -- a former USAF missile launch control officer at a
Titan-II base, to be specific -- is standing right here, reading
over my shoulder what you've written, and laughing her ass off.
Spend a few minutes talking to someone who actually knows something
about the safeguards to prevent accidental launches, which you
obviously don't, before making inflammatory statements like this.
+The drivers licence issue was a couple pranksters funnin' with the
+gang. I guess they got you on that one too.
Not me. It was obvious BS (obvious to me, anyway). But more than
a few people took it seriously. You should be more concerned than
you are about the general level of gullibility in this ng.
Phil Barnett
>Pam, you ought to read a little more closely if you're going to criticize others
>for not doing so. I did *not* say that Y2K is a load of s**t and total speculation.
>I said that Randall Bart's wild ravings about Y2K causing "government[s to] collapse"
>and "famine [and] insurrection" are a load of s**t and total speculation without
>a shred of evidence to support them.
>And I stand by that statement.
>I notice, by the way, that my comments have drawn a fair amount of criticism, some
>in the newsgroup and some by private e-mail, all implying in some fashion that I'm
>an idiot. But nobody has refuted my statements. If this is not total speculation,
>unsupported by any evidence, surely it's easy enough to *show* that I'm an idiot:
>post the evidence. State which governments will collapse, and show why. Demonstrate
>that Y2K-related computer problems will cause famines. Explain how and why insurrection
>will result.
You can never prove or disprove a hypothesis.
When you do, it's no longer a hypothesis. It's a proof. Nobody has
proof, but that doesn't make the hypothesis wrong or right. It's just
hypothesis. Learn to live with it, 'cause it's all around us every
day.
I mean, why do you fill your gas tank full at the station? How do you
know you are going to need all that gas. You don't know what is going
to happen in the future. You could be killed pulling out of the
station. I suggest that you only put in enough fuel to make it to the
next fueling station so that you will not need to hypothesize.
Oh, but you hypothesized that you would be needing all that fuel
before you had either proof or knowledge. Why do you do that? How are
you going to prove to yourself that you really do need a full tank?
This concept is so permeating in our society that once you begin to
identify your hypothesizing, you will see that you hypothesize all day
long. If we're really good at it, we have what is known as common
sense.
Thesis - What we know
Synthesis - Adding new ideas to what we know.
Hypothesis - Best guess projection at outcome. An unknown.
By it's very definition it is an unknown, and the concept is very old.
Ancient Greece if I remember correctly.
It's hard to believe that you lived all these years and never
understood it.
cory hamasaki
In <63tttc$h7c...@p12-term4-and.netdirect.net>, d.l.m...@inetdirect.net (Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address) writes:
>In article <34614...@news3.ibm.net>,
> kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) wrote:
>+
>+Accidental Nuke launches are a real possibility. Not because the
>+launch controls go funny but because in a general chaotic
>+political situation, if the indications and warnings systems are
>+shakey, people will make the wrong decisions.
>+
>This is absolute nonsense. Accidental nuke launches are a virtual
>impossibility under any circumstances. My wife, a former USAF
>officer -- a former USAF missile launch control officer at a
>Titan-II base, to be specific -- is standing right here, reading
>over my shoulder what you've written, and laughing her ass off.
>Spend a few minutes talking to someone who actually knows something
>about the safeguards to prevent accidental launches, which you
>obviously don't, before making inflammatory statements like this.
Sorry Doug, I wasn't clear. I'll try it again.
The accident doesn't happen in the silo. It happens here in
Washington DC.
The launch controls do not go funny. I have no doubt that the
paths and state transitions are well documented, clear, and as
unabiguous as one can make them.
The failure is initiated by the general chaos in the world and
combined with failures in the I&W systems causes people here, here
in Washington DC to make unsound decisions. One bad decision
leads to another.
Once that point is reached, it doesn't matter what a specific
launch control officer does.
The problem isn't launch control software. That's the doing part.
The problem isn't command and control. That's the telling part.
The problem is general chaos in I&W, EOB, the thinking part of the
system. ...and there are other at risk systems that play
important roles in this.
Does this clarify it?
This reminds me of a conversation I had with a naive young person
who had the wonderful, unforgettable adventure of being in Moscow
during the collapse of the Soviet Union. This person said light
heartedly, 'my father was worried about my safety but we stayed in
the U.S. residences and were perfectly safe.'
That person's father had just retired and had spent years working
with NATO.
"No, your father saw the parliment building being shelled on TV
and knew that it could have gone very bad, very fast."
-silence, dead silence-
Does this help?
Cory Hamasaki
Tony Toews
"Harlan Smith" <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> wrote:
>> Would people please be more careful when reading articles to make sure
>> that they attribute any quotes correctly, and aim their rebuttals
>> accordingly. I've used Deja News to read threads, and it isn't hard.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>OK ;-)
One of those in every crowd. <grin> Trouble is this newsgroup is
full of them. Smart *sses, that is. <bigger grin>
Tony
----
Message posted to newsgroup and emailed.
Tony Toews, Independent Computer Consultant
The Year 2000 crisis: Will my parents or your grand parents still be receiving
their pension in January, 2000? See www.granite.ab.ca/year2000 for more info.
Microsoft Access Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Eric Buckley
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> In article <63s7n3$9b$1...@willow.cc.kcl.ac.uk>,
> N...@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk (Nigel Arnot) wrote:
> > If civilisation does collapse in Y2K it'll be because all the power goes
> > off effectively forever. Rationally I can't see that as a possibility,
> > but as a nightmare it's displaced nuclear war in the darker
> > corners of my mind.
>
> I do not know why you can't see such events as rational possibilities.
> What you are trying to say, but hedging, is that it is too awful to
> contemplate so you refuse.
That's not what he said. It's not nice to put words in peoples mouths.
He's talking about a permanent collapse of the power grid. He's talking
about *never* having electricity again (or at least not for a *long*
time.) Now, you may disagree that it would take that much to bring down
society, and so might I, but are you really saying that mankind will
suddenly forget that if you spin a wire past a magnet you can cause a
lightbulb to glow?
> That is anything but rational. Try this for
> rational. I have a very low opinion of the ability of groups faced with
> this IS disaster to marshal their forces in a concerted effort against
> the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind. This is not cynicism. It
> is realism. When did you ever see a major hardware/software project
> encompassing one tenth the scope of this one be completed on time and in
> a successful manner?
Lots of 'em. I've also seen quite a few go off the tracks. Usually the
quality of the staff has the most to do with it. Spend the money, get
good staff, get done on time.
> Oh, never saw one one tenth the scope of this one?
> Didn't think so.
Hey! Now you're not even giving him a chance to answer before you
misquote him.
> There never has been one that was one tenth the scope,
> or one hundredth the scope of this one.
What total BS. Most mid sized companies are spending between 1 and 10
million US dollars on this. That's hardly a record in the software
industry. NationsBank just said they'll spend $100 million. Well, Alcoa
spent $100 million on SAP. I've seen oil refineries installed from
scratch for $40 million. The systems I installed were already certified
as y2k compliant (in 1985) but even if you had to reinstall everything,
there's no reason it should be any harder the second time around. It
takes about 15 months to fit a refinery. Still time.
> And you dare call yourself
> rational to believe that this one can be pulled off. No Sir, you are not
> rational. They ought to come pick your plummage now while you are in fine
> feather with your head in the sand. Paul Milne
The mistake you're making here is looking at all the efforts around the
world and calling them one project. If you added up the money that
companies spend on payroll processing every year, you might be rather
astounded at the figure. I know of several shops here in St. Louis that
have over 100 IS people working in payroll. That's larger than all but
the very largest of y2k projects. Yet people get payed on time week
after week.
Some in this group have suggested that the government should step in and
create an overall y2k project framework. I'd say that's a recipe for
disaster. We don't want to make the project bigger. If each organization
tends to its own, you have manageable chunks. Of course some will fail.
Some will take down others with them. The domino theory, however, has no
more substance in reality than the denial stance. I'm not saying it
couldn't happen, I'm just saying that it's speculation.
My biggest cause for optimism: I've done it. Twice. I'm not talking
about Joe's Deli, either. These are fairly good sized companies and they
are *DONE*. There is no reason a y2k project can't be successful. It's a
lot of work and a lot of money, but it can be done.
--
Eric Buckley
Comsys Millennium Services
eMail: remove NoSpam from above
Standard disclaimer - I speak for myself and nobody else.
Nigel Arnot
Actually my rationalisation is based on as much as I'm able to find out
about power generation systems. What I'm anticipating is that the
failsafes fail safe, leading to widespread blackouts on 1-1-2000 but
not to widespread destruction of essential plant. The last-resort
failsafes are electromechanical, not computerised.
Thereafter the engineers will get busy sorting out failed systems,
bypassing computers if necessary. There are many power plants that
predate computerised control systems, so any dependancy on computers was
layered on later and can probably be stripped out. I'm therefore
expecting that things will get less bad quite quickly (a week or two)
and thereafter it'll be like our (UK) experiences with power industry
industrial disputes: rota blackouts for 4-hour intervals to reduce
demand for months afterwards. In this connection the much-reported Y2K
test on a UK power station revealed a transient fault: it went down
at (simulated) 1-1-2000 but was restartable shortly thereafter.
Essential services use a minuscule part of the nation's power generation
capacity. Domestic service is not essential. Street lighting is
not essential. Industry could go on a 3-day or even a 2-day week.
This would still be civilisation (though not pleasant!) and is the
worst end of my probability window.
However, future gazing is an imprecise art and I can't be certain
that it couldn't get worse (no more than I can be certain that
London won't be hit by a big meteorite or an accidentally launched
nuclear weapon tomorrow). As you say, I refuse to contemplate it
because it's too unlikely and too hard for me personally to do
anything about. Lots of people live on the bay front in San Francisco.
When I was there, I discovered that a major earthquake would probably
turn the ground along the shore into quicksand and that their
houses would sink with all contents in seconds. That's a sight more
likely (in my estimation) than the above nightmares, yet those
properties are still much sought after!
I don't know what your plans are, but they probably revolve around the
wide open largely unpopulated spaces in the USA. Short of emigrating
(where to?) I have no fallback option that can handle these nightmares.
Like the folks in SF, I can still sleep OK.
cory hamasaki
In <3462F4...@edwardjones.com>, Eric Buckley <Eric.NoSp...@edwardjones.com> writes:
>
>The mistake you're making here is looking at all the efforts around the
>world and calling them one project. If you added up the money that
>companies spend on payroll processing every year, you might be rather
>astounded at the figure. I know of several shops here in St. Louis that
>have over 100 IS people working in payroll. That's larger than all but
>the very largest of y2k projects. Yet people get payed on time week
>after week.
Eric . knows . about . payroll? <you knew it was coming>
When I started working in 1969, the shop had a couple dozen people
working on the new payroll system, PL/I, Batch, ISAM. They were
late and overbudget but the boss was pouring time and money into
it.
When I left 3.5 years later, they were still trying to put the
payroll system into production.
A couple months ago, I spoke with an old geezer who worked on
a payroll system in the 1970's. He said that there have been
two failed attempts to rebuild his system, which won't work after
Y2K. A third attempt is underway now.
What is it about payroll that's so hard?
The first system was a state government system. The geezer's
system was a federal agency's payroll.
I've never worked on these things but I do the payroll for myself
and while it's a pain and very manual, it doesn't seem to be that
complex.
>
>Some in this group have suggested that the government should step in and
>create an overall y2k project framework. I'd say that's a recipe for
>disaster.
The government says there isn't a problem, ask Kathy at SSA.
>Eric Buckley
>Comsys Millennium Services
>eMail: remove NoSpam from above
>Standard disclaimer - I speak for myself and nobody else.
Cory Hamasaki
Daniel P. B. Smith
>+Accidental Nuke launches are a real possibility. Not because the
>+launch controls go funny but because in a general chaotic
>+political situation, if the indications and warnings systems are
>+shakey, people will make the wrong decisions.
>+
>This is absolute nonsense. Accidental nuke launches are a virtual
>impossibility under any circumstances.
I know about the irresistable force and the immovable object, but what
happens when a real possibility meets a virtual impossibility?
Is the result a true paradox or merely an apparent contradiction?
Chris Gilbert
phystad
In article <8788740...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com says...
>
>I do not know why you can't see such events as rational possibilities.
>What you are trying to say, but hedging, is that it is too awful to
>contemplate so you refuse. That is anything but rational. Try this for
>rational. I have a very low opinion of the ability of groups faced with
>this IS disaster to marshal their forces in a concerted effort against
>the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind. This is not cynicism. It
>is realism. When did you ever see a major hardware/software project
>encompassing one tenth the scope of this one be completed on time and in
>a successful manner? Oh, never saw one one tenth the scope of this one?
>Didn't think so. There never has been one that was one tenth the scope,
>or one hundredth the scope of this one. And you dare call yourself
>rational to believe that this one can be pulled off. No Sir, you are not
>rational. They ought to come pick your plummage now while you are in fine
>feather with your head in the sand. Paul Milne
>
Paul, you maybe want to adjust your meds? We *know* it's gonna be bad, we don't
know how bad, and Harlan and Nigel are each working like troopers to make it
less bad. What are you contributing to the cause?
We got Paul trashing us for being ostriches, we got Doug trashing us for being
chicken littles -- I cry "FOWL!"
Pam
Dave Eastabrook
In article <346129...@worldnet.att.spam.net>, RandallBart <Barticus@w
orldnet.att.spam.net> writes
>
>I have a page on my website for war stories of subtle bugs:
>http://members.aol.com/PanicYr00/SubtleBugs.html
It Will Be Linked ... sometime
>
>The intent of this page is to illustrate to people who've never done
>maintenance programming, how sneaky bugs can be. Currently I have only
>one story there, my own. I'm racking my brain for others I've fixed (or
>even written), but they're all far too technical. Anyone else care to
>contribute a war story?
Not much use to you, but:
1). Delta. In a certain circumstance it can generate incorrect Cobol,
which in a certain circumstance in a performed section causes a drop
through to the next. This is not the well-known limit of sections or
paragraphs. The problem is it's 5 years ago since I jumped through the
ceiling to the consternation of my overnight batch production support
peers shouting something like "yoicks", or "yorick, I ..." or something
like that. That was after poring through a partition dump and manually
disassembling m/c code into something, quite remarkable. And unexpected.
I think it's something to do with the EXIT statement in Cobol, with a
label without an executable instruction, being incorrectly compiled,
strangely enough, and not generating the appropriate LOAD R14 and BR 14.
It's therefore not limited to Delta generated Cobol code. I was the
only one excited by this discovery, which is probably an indictment on
the way mainframe work in general has become unglamorous and boring to
most other people.
2). XYZ. This one I can remember very clearly. Unfortunately I signed
my name in blood to be allowed to use XYZ, and my fingers go into a
spasm at the very thought of divulging the name. Basically, in a
special circumstance, the compiler generated R0 as the base register for
a control block, though not visibly in the generated assembler source
(again I had to pore over the machine code before finding the problem).
It's unlikely this could ever have got into "production", as it would
always fail - unless in a very seldom used routine, like a Synad. I used
a valid workaround, and did raise an APAR on the compiler.
Example 2, while also not of much use to you, is an example of why Doug
Miller will not receive positive proof of calamity - those who know,
probably can't tell. Or have to communicate their knowledge in a very
vague fashion, with those famous words "You've got to believe me".
:Dave [I thought I posted that, what's it doing on the mailroom floor?]
fed...@halifax.com
In article <3462F4...@edwardjones.com>,
Eric Buckley <Eric.NoSp...@edwardjones.com> wrote:
>
> fed...@halifax.com wrote:
> >
> > In article <63s7n3$9b$1...@willow.cc.kcl.ac.uk>,
> > N...@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk (Nigel Arnot) wrote:
>
> > > If civilisation does collapse in Y2K it'll be because all the power goes
> > > off effectively forever. Rationally I can't see that as a possibility,
> > > but as a nightmare it's displaced nuclear war in the darker
> > > corners of my mind.
> >
> > I do not know why you can't see such events as rational possibilities.
> > What you are trying to say, but hedging, is that it is too awful to
> > contemplate so you refuse.
>
> He's talking about a permanent collapse of the power grid. He's talking
> about *never* having electricity again (or at least not for a *long*
> time.) Now, you may disagree that it would take that much to bring down
> society, and so might I, but are you really saying that mankind will
> suddenly forget that if you spin a wire past a magnet you can cause a
> lightbulb to glow?
>
> > rational. I have a very low opinion of the ability of groups faced with
> > this IS disaster to marshal their forces in a concerted effort against
> > the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind. This is not cynicism. It
> > is realism. When did you ever see a major hardware/software project
> > encompassing one tenth the scope of this one be completed on time and in
> > a successful manner?
>
> quality of the staff has the most to do with it. Spend the money, get
> good staff, get done on time.
>
> > Didn't think so.
>
> misquote him.
>
> > or one hundredth the scope of this one.
>
> million US dollars on this. That's hardly a record in the software
> industry. NationsBank just said they'll spend $100 million. Well, Alcoa
> spent $100 million on SAP. I've seen oil refineries installed from
> scratch for $40 million. The systems I installed were already certified
> as y2k compliant (in 1985) but even if you had to reinstall everything,
> there's no reason it should be any harder the second time around. It
> takes about 15 months to fit a refinery. Still time.
>
> > rational to believe that this one can be pulled off. No Sir, you are not
> > rational. They ought to come pick your plummage now while you are in fine
> > feather with your head in the sand. Paul Milne
>
> world and calling them one project. If you added up the money that
> companies spend on payroll processing every year, you might be rather
> astounded at the figure. I know of several shops here in St. Louis that
> have over 100 IS people working in payroll. That's larger than all but
> the very largest of y2k projects. Yet people get payed on time week
> after week.
>
> create an overall y2k project framework. I'd say that's a recipe for
> tends to its own, you have manageable chunks. Of course some will fail.
> Some will take down others with them. The domino theory, however, has no
> more substance in reality than the denial stance. I'm not saying it
> couldn't happen, I'm just saying that it's speculation.
>
> My biggest cause for optimism: I've done it. Twice. I'm not talking
> about Joe's Deli, either. These are fairly good sized companies and they
> are *DONE*. There is no reason a y2k project can't be successful. It's a
> lot of work and a lot of money, but it can be done.
> --
Alas poor Eric. My naive liitle boy. You do not understand that it is not
a matter of this shop or that shop becoming compliant. It is not a matter
of 70% of all shops becoming compliant. The United State's survial is
based upon the REST of the world becoming compliant. It is a global house
of cards. It is more speculative to think that enough resources can be
marshalled to solve the problem than not. I know that you do not have the
ability to see that yet. When it is too late, you will, and end up dead
like the rest of the Polyannas. We will bury you next to the "Little
Engine That Could". I think you can't. I think you can't. Paul Milne
> Eric Buckley
> Comsys Millennium Services
> eMail: remove NoSpam from above
> Standard disclaimer - I speak for myself and nobody else.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
Harlan Smith
Nigel Arnot <N...@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk> wrote in article
<63s7n3$9b$1...@willow.cc.kcl.ac.uk>...
> In article <01bcea28$6f3580a0$1242...@CRC3.concentric.net>, "Harlan
Smith" <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> says:
>As for the rest of the national infrastructure
> being intact -- is there anything left that can work without
> electricity?
Here you have tried to deliberatelly misunderstand. If the power is only
down temporarily then the most of the infrastructure (which has not yet
suffered its own failures) will, with some small exceptions, come back to
life. If we temporarily advance the power system clocks by 15 mos and the
power system fails, we can put back those parts parts that have not
suffered catastrophic failure by setting the clocks back to the current
date. If we wait until 2000/01/01, that repair option is not available.
One could think of setting back to 199x but that would be more difficult
than a planned effort to set the clocks ahead.
If you wait for the power system to fail when all the rest of the national
computer infrastructure has failed, you have horrendously compounded the
problem.
> Frankly, what you suggest is causing Y2K to happen to the electricity
> system 15 months in advance. Therefore, less remediation done and
> more chance of disaster.
Now that you understand what I'm proposing, let's debate it in a meaningful
way.
******
Frankly, you've got it exactly right. In fact, it's exactly what I've said.
Furthermore, I will go on to say that it will be socially irresponsible to
do other than make an time-advanced full system tests of power systems.
******
I don't believe that you would ever propose to put a complex computer
system into production without full system testing. Why do you think that
it is a good idea to radically modify our power system and put it into full
production with overall system testing? What justifies the inconsistency of
your approach. Is it fear of the complexity of the power system? I fear it
too. That's why it must be tested in advance.
To commit to the labor day test, as Knoxville Utility Board has already
done, should have the beneficial impact of forcing action by the utilities
to get ready for a date that is 15 mos in advance of 2000/01/01. That will
likely have an overall beneficial impact. They keep saying, "no problem".
Well let's see "no problem".
Utilities are screwing around, worrying about deregulation and fixing their
billing systems, when they should have embedded systems at the top of their
list. An early test date will move them to the top of the list.
The fact that they commit to scheduling the test does not mean that they
cannot renege and avoid doing the labor day test, if they think they are
not ready. They would disengage from the power grid and keep their system
clocks set to current time, while others tested. If they can't disengage
from the grid and continue to function, then that's certainly a problem
that needs to be fixed too and that kind of thing will be driven to the
visible surface.
Obviously, if some utilities commit to the test and go through with it and
others renege, then we know where the problems are and where they aren't
and they can be dealt with accordingly.
I _believe it would _not be totally destructive for most utilities to
disengage from the power grid and test independently.
Those that don't pass the first part of the test (stand alone operation)
clearly have problems to be addressed. They would not participate in any
"advanced clock power grid tests".
Part of the plan could possibly to to hook back up to the power grid, those
that independently operated in a satisfactory manner to see if any other
problems that surface.
Those that don't pass the first part of the test (stand alone operation)
clearly have problems to be addressed.
Those utilities that fight this proposal are indulging of their own
self-indictment with regard to not prioritizing the remediation of their
power generation and distribution systems ahead of their billing systems.
I have a commitment from an Oklahoma legislator to "pass" a joint Oklahoma
State Legislature resolution to have a USA2K Presidential Commission
established. I will also propose to him and anybody else that is receptive
that power utilities advance their clocks 15 mos ahead next Labor day and
run tests as possible.
To think about this rationally you must realize that have choices and the
issue is to pick the "least undesirable". Let's compare two choices:
a. Advance power utility clocks 15 mos next Labor Day and test the power
systems as much as possible.
b. Wait for a full system test until 2000/01/01 when people need their
electical power (even for gas furnaces) to keep warm and do a go for broke
test.
It doesn't take much intelligence to see that selection b. is absurd. The
power system would break at the same time that the entire national computer
infrastructure breaks in a thousand places.
Back to your argument that the electric utilities won't be ready for
testing next Labor Day. I don't think all utilities will say they are not
ready. We need to know, as a matter of public concern, who will be ready
and who won't. We need to now objectively what areas will have power and
what areas won't -- IN ADVANCE!
I will read your arguments again. I think however that they are all "out of
context" and therefore not valid. The context here is choice a. vice choice
b. or some other choice we might be able to define. A good choice is
certainly not just to wait and see what happens.
Don't even think that.
Harlan
Harlan Smith
Nigel Arnot <N...@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk> wrote in article
<63s7n3$9b$1...@willow.cc.kcl.ac.uk>...
> In article <01bcea28$6f3580a0$1242...@CRC3.concentric.net>, "Harlan
Smith" <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> says:
> You're assuming that there's *one* computer with a nice neat console
> in each control room. More probably there are dozens (or hundreds) of
> embedded systems hidden away in plant rooms. On the grid there may well
> be teleoperated systems tens of miles away, possibly with no provision
> for altering the date by tele-operation.
I didn't say I was assuming that. The presence of such complexity is why we
_must test in advance.
> Embedded systems often have
> a hexadecimal keypad and a one-line display as their user interface.
> On older ones (and some newer ones) the interface is incomprehensible
> if you don't have the instruction manual. Oh, you've lost it.
What you don't realize is that you are arguing for an advance test, not
against it. If all this complexity must be addressed and fixed then that
amplifies the importance of an early test.
> Never mind, phone the manufacturer. Oh, they've gone bust? Er...
> well, there's absolutely no logical reason why that subsystem should
> be affected by the date, it doesn't process dates ... of course,
> it's operating system might... or the embedded clock chip ...
Again, you seem to be arguing on my side.
> Also can you safely alter the dates by 15 months, *asynchronously*, on
> a live and operating power station? I think very likely not, or
> that one of the transition states with some clocks 15 months ahead of
> others will cause trouble. Shutdown and restart is not something you
> can do in a day. OK. maybe you can if it's natural-gas gas-turbines, but
> if it's a coal-burner or a nuke, no way. By the way, "trouble" could
> mean plant damage. Almost certainly not complete destruction or
> meltdown - I anticipate that failsafes will fail safe -- but something
> involving significant engineering and parts replacement to correct.
Again, you are arguing _for the early test. I don't want to mix the power
system troubles with all the other parts of the national computer
infrastructure. We will then have a broke power system and everything else
broke at the same time.
> What *might* be possible would be to take say 20% of stations at a time
> and advance their clocks past 2000 (so "station time" would be real time
> plus X years: for least calendar trouble, X=28). THe trouble
> then would be data interchange between the station and the rest of the
> world, which might be more solveable. If that were done, at least
> we'd have a guarantee that those stations would not abruptly go
> offline on 1-1-2000.
That's the kind of brainstorming that should be done. The more testing you
can do, the more you can reduce the risk.
> I don't even want to think about the grid.
I do. There is complexity there that needs to be tested in advance.
I think you need to go back and read what you've written and realize that
you are really supporting an advance test.
You are saying that the system can break in innumerable places and yet you
don't want to test in advance to make sure that all the problems have been
corrected. How is that rational?
What you seem to be saying is that this test won't be easy. Why might you
think it would be easy. I didn't say it would be easy. It will be
_extremely difficult.
But waiting is worse.
Harlan
Harlan Smith
fed...@halifax.com wrote in article <8788740...@dejanews.com>...
You said it better than I have been able to say it.
> Try this for
> rational. I have a very low opinion of the ability of groups faced with
> this IS disaster to marshal their forces in a concerted effort against
> the biggest problem that has ever faced mankind. This is not cynicism. It
> is realism. When did you ever see a major hardware/software project
> encompassing one tenth the scope of this one be completed on time and in
> a successful manner? Oh, never saw one one tenth the scope of this one?
> Didn't think so. There never has been one that was one tenth the scope,
> or one hundredth the scope of this one. And you dare call yourself
> rational to believe that this one can be pulled off. No Sir, you are not
> rational. They ought to come pick your plummage now while you are in fine
> feather with your head in the sand. Paul Milne
Thanks Paul.
It boggles my mind that people who would never dream of putting a major
software application into production without thorough system testing think
it will be OK to put a system that is orders of magnitude more complex and
more important into production without thorough testing.
As I see it, there is no rational alternative to scheduling a full test of
all electric utilities with their clocks advanced.
That will be an incredible amount of work and risk. But there is just no
viable alternative.
Harlan
Eric Buckley
cory hamasaki wrote:
> Eric . knows . about . payroll? <you knew it was coming>
Hold onto your seat for a second Cory. I *managed* the payroll for a
fortune 100. SBC, perhaps you've heard of them? They just merged with
Pac Bell. How did a PCWN get to manage one of the worlds largest payroll
systems? Let me tell you a tale.
Note - very little of this relates to y2k except as an example of how
desparate large companies are for *anybody* who seems to get things
done.
I was hired to manage a Unix project. OK, I'm qualified to do that. The
project was outsourced to EDS who in turn brought me in as a
subcontractor. EDS also handles SBC's payroll. EDS was having some
problems with turnover in the payroll group, so when my project was
finished they asked if I might look at what was going on over there.
Hmmm, thinks I, management consulting. I buy my first laptop and quickly
install powerpoint. I'm talking with each member of the payroll group,
trying to find out what the problems are when one of them asks me about
a SPUFI they are trying to write. Well, I know SQL so I figure I'll lend
a hand. Word gets out that I've actually fixed some code in payroll. The
account manager asks if I'd like to hang around and run the group for a
while.
That's it folks, a successful enhancement project on a different
platform and a SPUFI qualifies you to run maintenance on 30 million
lines of code that shells out $40,000,000 every two weeks. Good
experience, though. I even learned COBOL along the way. (Well, at least
I learned it wasn't Cobalt.) And people wonder why this stuff is all
screwed up.
> What is it about payroll that's so hard?
Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions. If people all just got payed an
hourly wage or a fixed salary, it would be a no brainer. Quickbooks will
do that for you. But throw in union rules (some of them are *really*
bizzarre), bonuses, deferred compensation, gross ups, taxes in five
states and a dozen cities, savings plans, cafeteria plans, direct
deposit, etc. and let it fester for 40 years and you've got one big
hairy mess on your hands.
> Cory Hamasaki
I'd tell you what I'm currently up to, but I'm not sure your geezer
heart could take it.
--
Eric Buckley
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
> Alas poor Eric. My naive liitle boy. You do not understand that it is not
> a matter of this shop or that shop becoming compliant. It is not a matter
> of 70% of all shops becoming compliant. The United State's survial is
> based upon the REST of the world becoming compliant. It is a global house
> of cards. It is more speculative to think that enough resources can be
> marshalled to solve the problem than not. I know that you do not have the
> ability to see that yet. When it is too late, you will, and end up dead
> like the rest of the Polyannas. We will bury you next to the "Little
> Engine That Could". I think you can't. I think you can't. Paul Milne
Oh, pity me not! That is your view. It is unsubstantiated. This
situation is without precedent. Do you really think that someone with 10
years of process control experience doesn't understand dependency?
Perhaps you could learn more if you didn't assume that everyone who
disagrees with you is naive. Some of us are quite well informed, we have
just reached different conclusions.
You may be right (although I really don't see y2k causing 3 billion
deaths - even Gary North wouldn't go with that one), but like all
prophets, you should know to be vague. Much less chance of looking like
a fool when the dust settles. In the meantime, I continue to make my
corner of the world a bit more compliant. What are you doing?
--
Eric Buckley
Polyanna who *finished* his first y2k project in 1985.
Daniel P. B. Smith
In article <63ut3t$4v7$1...@willow.cc.kcl.ac.uk>,
Nigel Arnot <N...@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>Actually my rationalisation is based on as much as I'm able to find out
>about power generation systems. What I'm anticipating is that the
>failsafes fail safe, leading to widespread blackouts on 1-1-2000 but
>not to widespread destruction of essential plant. The last-resort
>failsafes are electromechanical, not computerised.
>
>Thereafter the engineers will get busy sorting out failed systems,
>bypassing computers if necessary. There are many power plants that
>predate computerised control systems, so any dependancy on computers was
>layered on later and can probably be stripped out.
Sounds right...
Feeble data point: the Chula Vista station of San Diego Gas and Electric
has two control rooms. The newer one is electronic. I don't think it's
computerized but it is electronic, i.e. the switches and knobs are
connected to wires. The older one is either pneumatic or hydraulic--I
think pneumatic but don't quote me on it. Underneath the control panel is
a maze of what look like rather thick wires but which are actually tiny
little tubes that carry air or hydraulic fluid... The older one will
probably still work in 1975. The newer one might, too. It is not
considered to be an antiquated facility. Not bleeding edge, but not
antiquated.
The _newer_ control room has a mixture of analog dials (physical pointers)
and digital readouts (like a digital clock).
(In contrast, of course, the newest facilities have rows of CRT screens
and keyboards.)
Things like electric utilities are, fortunately, built to last decades.
Therefore some reasonable percentage of the infrastructure was built
before microprocessors found their way into everything--say before 1975--
and _may_ be free of Y2K problems. Unfortunately, the systems that
write the operators' paychecks may not be...
Ken Winters
phystad wrote:
>
<snip, snip>
>
> We got Paul trashing us for being ostriches, we got Doug trashing us for being
> chicken littles -- I cry "FOWL!"
>
> Pam
All I can say, Pam, is:
We don't know how bad it will be when it gets here, we just know it's
comming, FEATHER we want it or not.
Ken (DUCKing and running)
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Winters kwin...@ford.com Auto/Quantum Mechanic (amateur status)
CAD/CAM/PIM Systems Department Phone (work) (313) 59-43074
PIM Architecture and Interfaces (home) (248) 546-1070
------------------------------------------------------------------------
RandallBart
Dave Eastabrook wrote:
>
> In article <346129...@worldnet.att.spam.net>, RandallBart <Barticus@w
> orldnet.att.spam.net> writes
> >
> >I have a page on my website for war stories of subtle bugs:
> >http://members.aol.com/PanicYr00/SubtleBugs.html
>
> It Will Be Linked ... sometime
> >
> >The intent of this page is to illustrate to people who've never done
> >maintenance programming, how sneaky bugs can be. Currently I have only
> >one story there, my own. I'm racking my brain for others I've fixed (or
> >even written), but they're all far too technical. Anyone else care to
> >contribute a war story?
>
> Not much use to you, but:
>
> 1). Delta. In a certain circumstance it can generate incorrect Cobol,
> which in a certain circumstance in a performed section causes a drop
> through to the next.
Yes, compiler bugs are not what I'm looking for here. But as long as
were swapping war stories:
In 1983, the Burroughs Medium System CobolV compiler had this bug:
SEARCH table
AT END
do-something-1
WHEN condition-1
do-something-2
WHEN condition-2
do-something-3
IF condition-3
do-something-4
ELSE
do-something-5.
do-somthing-6.
The statement do-something-6 was only executed if the condition-2 branch
was taken on the SEARCH. IOW the period which ended the IF didn't end
the WHEN clause of the SEARCH. Using an extra period was an effective
work around.
Same compiler, different bug: Under certain rare conditions it would
misinterpret a condition name (88-level) in parentheses as an instance
of the field the condition name was declared under. E g:
77 SEX PIC X.
88 MALE VALUE "M".
...
IF (MALE}
PERFORM ITS-A-BOY.
The IF statement would sometimes get a syntax error because the
condition was incomplete. If you wrote
IF COUNTRY = "USA" AND (MALE)
This was interpretted as
IF COUNTRY = "USA" AND SEX
Which expands to
IF COUNTRY = "USA" AND COUNTRY = SEX
Which doesn't get an error but isn't what was intended. Without the
parentheses
IF COUNTRY = "USA" AND MALE
was correctly expanded to
IF COUNTRY = "USA" AND SEX = "M"
Cobol Quiz.
Assuming there on no condition names in the following expression, how
are the abbreviated conditions expanded?
IF A = B OR > C OR D
cory hamasaki
In <346354...@edwardjones.com>, Eric Buckley <Eric.NoSp...@edwardjones.com> writes:
>
>Exceptions, exceptions, exceptions. If people all just got payed an
>hourly wage or a fixed salary, it would be a no brainer. Quickbooks will
>do that for you. But throw in union rules (some of them are *really*
>bizzarre), bonuses, deferred compensation, gross ups, taxes in five
>states and a dozen cities, savings plans, cafeteria plans, direct
>deposit, etc. and let it fester for 40 years and you've got one big
>hairy mess on your hands.
How big is the mess? How many lines of code in your example? I
ask because I have a client with a payroll problem and I want to
know if I should run when they start talking about payroll.
>
>> Cory Hamasaki
>
>I'd tell you what I'm currently up to, but I'm not sure your geezer
>heart could take it.
Don't worry about me... I shock the docs at my physicals. Anyway,
I look at scarier things than you can imagine, even if you do look
like Steven King.
I am, after all, in Washington DC, where the roofs leak and the
roads don't drain, and you can see the mayor drop his pants on the
evening news.
>--
>Eric Buckley
>Comsys Millennium Services
>eMail: remove NoSpam from above
>Standard disclaimer - I speak for myself and nobody else.
>
Cory Hamasaki
fed...@halifax.com
In article <346361...@edwardjones.com>,
Apparantly, you just don't listen. Making your corner of the world
compliant is futile. Ooooooo, ridiculing Gary North, now there is
something to be proud of. No prophecy, just the facts, jack. What I am
doing is making a plan for the burial of your corpse, and all the other
dead morons that will be stinking up the landscape. But, to converse
with you further would be necromantic. Paul Milne
> --
> Eric Buckley
> Polyanna who *finished* his first y2k project in 1985.
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
Jim Rivera
Dave Eastabrook wrote:
>
> In article <01bcebab$b0bc59c0$2842...@CRC3.concentric.net>, Harlan
> Smith <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> writes
>
> <snip various
> >
> >As I see it, there is no rational alternative to scheduling a full test of
> >all electric utilities with their clocks advanced.
> >
> >That will be an incredible amount of work and risk. But there is just no
> >viable alternative.
> >
> especially nuclear, or perhaps only nuclear, have full-blown simulators,
> both for training and for operational analysis. Anyone know whether
> that's correct?
>
> I wonder just how relevant such a simulator might be to the real thing,
> with embedded processors and all. I'd certainly think it would be a
> good idea setting up a Y2K simulation before doing the real thing.
>
> >Harlan
>
> :Dave
> --
> Dave Eastabrook. Elmbronze Ltd. Y2K Consultant.
> Specialising in Year 2000 remediation work. 24+ years IBM Mainframes.
> http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/ /IBM/ or /year2000/ or /telework/
I think you should evaluate the following plusses and minuses in this
area in the following way
Pluses
1. Raises public consciousness a lot
2. Gives a vital system a real-life test
3..Tests the system at a time when everything else won't be breaking
around it as well.
Minuses
4. Takes effort to run the test that mught be better spent getting ready
for the real thing
5. Some installations will be hurt by the test, either hardware (see
HECO items about incorrect voltage/freq) or software (deleted data,
expired licenses, etc)
6. May not provide a valid test - a company's software/embedded stuff
will be very different on 9/1/1998 than 1/1/2000 (or I hope so). A
company may not be at all ready 15 months ahead but quite ready on The
Day.
I think that items 5 and 6 are persuaders, and I vote no test. But not
by a large margin, I could still be persuaded the other way.
JR
PS a simulator run gives you a good test of the simulator in this area.
How many simulators have Y2K-compliant software?
Doug McKibbin
On 6 Nov 1997 12:33:13 GMT, Harlan Smith wrote:
>Doug McKibbin <dmc...@NOSPAM.goodnet.com> wrote in article
><sgmzsmzmwa...@phx-ts20-11.goodnet.com>...
>> On 5 Nov 1997 19:23:22 GMT, Harlan Smith wrote:
>
>> Harlan - I like this idea. Unfortunately, nobody in position to make it
>> happen will, because (much like Y2K itself), the consequences of failing
>> far outweigh the rewards of succeeding. If the test fails (Y2K problems
>> found), there would be public and private outcry for action (which we all
>> know is exactly what the Y2K issue needs). If the test were to succeed
>(no
>> problems found), then not enough people would understand the importance
>and
>> the denial-heads would feel justified and really bark/oink/moo/etc.
>
>Who cares about "bark/oink/moo/etc". There's a lot of idiots doing that
>right now.
>
>If it fails, then the worth of it will be proved right there. If it
>succeeds then no problem, no major inconvenience and we will get a needed
>morale boost to face the rest of the invevitable Y2K problems.
>
>Perhaps you are saying that poor testing methodology/preparation will
>create a significant problem. Well, if somebody screws up like that then
>they perhaps they deserve some criticism.
>
Agreed, but what I'm afraid would happen is it would be at that point the
mainstream media (i.e. not computer-related) would jump all over it and try
to defuse Y2K. I also hope and expect that same media to have its eyes
opened if/when the tests fail and reveals the Y2K problem in all its
hideousness.
>I'm going to continue to push it. I've got a commitment from Oklahoma State
>representative to pass a joint state legislature resolution to form a
>Presidential USA2K Commisssion. If they pass that, then I will next work on
>them to pass a joint resolution for a "Labor Day 1998 Y2K holiday" to test
>the whole power grid 15 mos into the future.
>
>I have a plan to promote necessary government action. It sure beats sitting
>around wringing our hands. I'd rather be pounding out e-mail to people who
>might make something happen.
>
>Who knows? Some of our government might work for us. I do not know if
>anybody at the Federal level ever pays any attention to resolutions at the
>state legislature level, but maybe I'm about to find out.
>
>Harlan
>
More power to you. And thanks in advance for such efforts.
Regards,
Doug McKibbin (remove NOSPAM from address when replying via email)
For you automated email spammers out there, here is the current board of the FCC:
Reed Hundt: rhu...@fcc.gov - James Quello: jqu...@fcc.gov
Susan Ness: sn...@fcc.gov - Rachelle Chong: rch...@fcc.gov
And send some spam to the USPS too: cust...@email.usps.gov
COBOL Programmers Wanted
David K. Bryant wrote:
>
> kiy...@ibm.net (cory hamasaki) writes:
>
> I want to
> >know if I should run when they start talking about payroll.
>
> The short answer when "payroll" is the question:
>
> Run. Far and fast.
>
> Payroll is one mess that you always want to outsource
> to those who do only payroll.... ADP, etc.
'Be afraid, be very afraid' is probably closer to the response, but also
consider that if the payroll system works in place, then it is probably
quite consistant in it's mishandling of dates. If it has not be abused
too much, then 'fixing' the 'weekly' will more that likely fix the
monthly and quarterly and yearly....
Jeff Kennedy, CERTCO,INC.
Harlan Smith wrote:
>
<snip good stuff>
>
> To think about this rationally you must realize that have choices and the
> issue is to pick the "least undesirable". Let's compare two choices:
>
> a. Advance power utility clocks 15 mos next Labor Day and test the power
> systems as much as possible.
>
> b. Wait for a full system test until 2000/01/01 when people need their
> electical power (even for gas furnaces) to keep warm and do a go for broke
> test.
>
>snip>
> Harlan
Well said Harlan. I like the idea of a scheduled power outage during a
time when it isn't 30 below 0 in many parts of the country. I worry
about the liability of doing something of this magnitude "on purpose"
but with adequate warning many critical places such as hospitals would
have ample opportunity to test their auxilary generators so there will
be some ancillary benefits derived from the planned outage also.
Remember the "Civil Defense" tests of the 50's and 60's. This would be
kind of like those only one step further. Realisticaly what aree the
odds of something of this magnitude happening. Probably just a shade
better than having full remediation by y2k. But if even a handfull of
power companies participated it would point out problems to all similar
companies.
Pat
Dave Eastabrook
In article <01bcebab$b0bc59c0$2842...@CRC3.concentric.net>, Harlan
Smith <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> writes
<snip various
>
>As I see it, there is no rational alternative to scheduling a full test of
>all electric utilities with their clocks advanced.
>
>That will be an incredible amount of work and risk. But there is just no
>viable alternative.
>
cory hamasaki
In <63v7t6$8...@drn.zippo.com>, phystad writes:
>In article <8788740...@dejanews.com>, fed...@halifax.com says...
>>feather with your head in the sand. Paul Milne
>>
>
>know how bad, and Harlan and Nigel are each working like troopers to make it
>less bad. What are you contributing to the cause?
>
>chicken littles -- I cry "FOWL!"
>
>Pam
Buck buck buck ba-gawk! Oh look, it's a golden egg.
Cory Hamasaki
John Carter
Eric Buckley <Eric.NoSp...@edwardjones.com> wrote:
>fed...@halifax.com wrote:
[snip]
>
>> And you dare call yourself
>> rational to believe that this one can be pulled off.
>The mistake you're making here is looking at all the efforts around the
>world and calling them one project.
[snip]
(Apologies if I got lost in the >>>>)
Perhaps not "one project" in the sense of having a single coordinator
and a common timeline. However, it is a large group of (at least for
many companies) interdependent projects with a common end date.
If everything at GE/ AT&T/Kroger/your_choice_goes_here gets fixed, but
some of their customers' and suppliers' interface systems don't work,
can the "fixed" systems provide any useful function?
Visit my source code page at http://www.mindspring.com/~johnecarter
Visit my favorite school at http://www.mindspring.com/~addison
Get PR-Tracker -- tracks problem reports, defects, bugs
INFORMATION: http://www.prtracker.com/info.html
DOWNLOAD: http://www.prtracker.com/download.html
David K. Bryant
N...@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk (Nigel Arnot) writes:
>Lots of people live on the bay front in San Francisco.
>When I was there, I discovered that a major earthquake would probably
>turn the ground along the shore into quicksand and that their
>houses would sink with all contents in seconds.
But we digress.....
In theory, there should be some liquifaction of the filled
areas along the bay. Don't expect to see any until we
start having 8.0+ quakes. Even in the Really Big '06
quake there was only some shifting and settling not sinking.
Japan sees some liquifaction in their filled areas but
the quakes in Japan are entirely different than those
here in the Bay Area. Been thru some substantial quakes
in both locales. The quakes in the Bay Area are horizontal
in nature... they shove. A Japanese jishin is a whole
different animal. They're more vertical in motion...
they bounce. I'll take a nice domestic model any day.
The ones in Japan scare the shit out of me.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program....
ptrc...@cycor.ca
In article <8789533...@dejanews.com>,
fed...@halifax.com wrote:
>
> In article <346361...@edwardjones.com>,
> > > a matter of this shop or that shop becoming compliant. It is not a matter
> > > of 70% of all shops becoming compliant. The United State's survial is
> > > based upon the REST of the world becoming compliant. It is a global house
> > > of cards. It is more speculative to think that enough resources can be
> > > marshalled to solve the problem than not. I know that you do not have the
> > > ability to see that yet. When it is too late, you will, and end up dead
> > > like the rest of the Polyannas. We will bury you next to the "Little
> > > Engine That Could". I think you can't. I think you can't. Paul Milne
> >
> > Oh, pity me not! That is your view. It is unsubstantiated. This
> > situation is without precedent. Do you really think that someone with 10
> > years of process control experience doesn't understand dependency?
> > Perhaps you could learn more if you didn't assume that everyone who
> > disagrees with you is naive. Some of us are quite well informed, we have
> > just reached different conclusions.
> >
> > You may be right (although I really don't see y2k causing 3 billion
> > deaths - even Gary North wouldn't go with that one), but like all
> > prophets, you should know to be vague. Much less chance of looking like
> > a fool when the dust settles. In the meantime, I continue to make my
> > corner of the world a bit more compliant. What are you doing?
> >
>
> Apparantly, you just don't listen.
Apparently you have the bigger problem in that area, Paul.
>Making your corner of the world
> compliant is futile.
So what you are saying is that we should all give up and do nothing? Just
sit back and let it happen? Sheeaa! Well, that might work for you but
fortunately most of us have higher goals as human beings.
>Ooooooo, ridiculing Gary North, now there is
> something to be proud of.
nope, Eric was ridiculing you (actually, that is proving to be not much
of a challenge)
>No prophecy, just the facts, jack.
And what "facts" lead to your conclusion that 3 billion people will die
because of Y2k? I can't speak for the others but you lost all credibility
with me when you made that ridiculous statement. Now, by needlessly
attacking (not just disagreeing with, but out and out inflamatory
attacks) long time contributors to this NG, people who aren't burying
their heads in the sand waiting for the worst to happen like you, but
people who are out there doing as much as one person can do to lessen the
consequences, you have lost respect ... your words no longer hold any
meaning or value.
>What I am
> doing is making a plan for the burial of your corpse, and all the other
> dead morons that will be stinking up the landscape. But, to converse
> with you further would be necromantic. Paul Milne
Oh, that's mature ... you sound like those kids over in some of the other
NG's. Paul, on more than one occasion you have been asked to state your
quals i.e. what background, what experience you have that would lead us
to believe that you are just not an irritating misinformed troll? Are
you a programmer? What Y2k research have you done? How long have you been
researching it? Have you been doing Y2k remediation for 12 years like
Eric or 9 years like myself? Have you done ANY remediation work? How long
have you been out in the business world? Or are you (as the tone of your
postings suggest) still showing up for Professor Jones' History 203 class
every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning?
Fess up or shut up ... stop avoiding the question of whether you have the
necessary credentials to make *intelligent* (big key word) commentary
here.
Kreskin now back to saving the world (or at least my little corner of it)
.... where'd I put that program listing? It's Saturday morning? No dear,
I'm not playing on the computer, I'm working ... but dear! ... yes dear,
I'll go rake the leaves
Harlan Smith
Jim Rivera <jam...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<3463D2...@worldnet.att.net>...
> Dave Eastabrook wrote:
>
> I think you should evaluate the following plusses and minuses in this
> area in the following way
>
> Pluses
> 1. Raises public consciousness a lot
> 2. Gives a vital system a real-life test
> 3..Tests the system at a time when everything else won't be breaking
> around it as well.
>
> Minuses
> [10]. Takes effort to run the test that mught be better spent getting
ready
> for the real thing
> [11] Some installations will be hurt by the test, either hardware (see
> HECO items about incorrect voltage/freq) or software (deleted data,
> expired licenses, etc)
> [12]. May not provide a valid test - a company's software/embedded stuff
> will be very different on 9/1/1998 than 1/1/2000 (or I hope so). A
> company may not be at all ready 15 months ahead but quite ready on The
> Day.
>
> I think that items 5 and 6 are persuaders, and I vote no test. But not
> by a large margin, I could still be persuaded the other way.
>
I think I have pointed out some more plusses and I've renumbered your
minusses 4, 5, 6, to [10], [11], [12] to make room for them.
4. Labor Day 1998 is in the early fall when people won't be devastated by
lack of heat. Even gas furnaces have an electric blower.
5. If problems are found, they don't have to be fixed in a panic. There
will 15 months to have new parts built or whatever it takes.
I think your #11 is spurious. That is some things that you mention might
happen but there is no reason to believe that there will be more of these
miscellaneous aggravations on Labor Day 1998 than would occur on
2000/01/01. I think its an advantage actually because we certainly can
tolerate such problems better on Labor Day 1998 than New Years Day 2000.
To me there is only one reason for not running the test early and that is
that segments of the system just may not be ready. Those segments of the
system not ready should abstain from the test and re-schedule for May 1999.
Those that delay their testing will still have the benefit of the knowledge
gained by those that do run the test.
I see it as a Win, Win, Win, Win, Win for 5 reasons and very little down
side to it.
Rick will likely supply some details that may fall on either side of the
debate.
Harlan
Harlan Smith
Jeff Kennedy, CERTCO,INC. <jak...@ibm.net> wrote in article
<346370...@ibm.net>...
> Harlan Smith wrote:
> Well said Harlan. I like the idea of a scheduled power outage during a
> time when it isn't 30 below 0 in many parts of the country. I worry
> about the liability of doing something of this magnitude "on purpose"
> but with adequate warning many critical places such as hospitals would
> have ample opportunity to test their auxilary generators so there will
> be some ancillary benefits derived from the planned outage also.
> Remember the "Civil Defense" tests of the 50's and 60's. This would be
> kind of like those only one step further. Realisticaly what aree the
> odds of something of this magnitude happening. Probably just a shade
> better than having full remediation by y2k. But if even a handfull of
> power companies participated it would point out problems to all similar
> companies.
>
> Pat
Thanks for your participation in the debate Jeff (or Pat).
I really haven't had anybody tell me why the disadvantages of an early
clock-advanced test outweigh the advantages.
To me, it's strictly a no-brainer.
The issue isn't whether there will be cost, or inconvenience or some other
negative related to the early test, it's which is better, an early test or
waiting for a mid-winter diasaster which might result in lots of things to
be fixed in a very poor repair environment.
With regard to who shows up for the test and who doesn't. Governor Ridge
called a State/Federal CIO Summit and 40 states were represented. That's
not bad. All 50 states will benefit from that meeting.
The same thing will hold true for the advanced-clock utility test. If there
could be 25% or 50% electric utility participation that migh achieve the
objective. One thing we might learn is how important it could be for the
abstaining utilities to participate in a May 1999 test.
Harlan
fed...@halifax.com
In article <8789820...@dejanews.com>,
We'll just have to bury you too. Ho Hum. Read all of the testimony given
to the Science commitee on Nov 4 1997. What they say to congress is worse
than all that I have said. There are links to it on garynorth.com Nov 8
links in the new stuff section. But you probably won't bother to check
the facts. You would rather beat a dead y2k horse. Go ahead and rearange
the deck chairs on the Titanic if it makes you feel better. Polyanna Paul
Francis A. Ney, Jr.
In article <640ldc$k74...@p20-term2-and.netdirect.net> d.l.m...@inetdirect.net writes:
> Time to get a grip on reality.
Sounds like Doug has a grip on a body part I don't discuss in polite company.
---
Frank Ney WV/EMT-B VA/EMT-A N4ZHG LPWV NRA(L) GOA CCRKBA JPFO
Sponsor, BATF Abuse page http://www.access.digex.net/~croaker/batfabus.html
West Virginia Coordinator, Libertarian Second Amendment Caucus
NOTICE: Flaming email received will be posted to the appropriate newsgroups
- --
"...I am opposed to all attempts to license or restrict the arming of
individuals...I consider such laws a violation of civil liberty,
subversive of democratic political institutions, and self-defeating
in their purpose."
- Robert Heinlein, in a 1949 letter concerning "Red Planet"
RandallBart
Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
>
> Perhaps you never heard of the Black Plague. Or the Holocaust. Maybe you
> are too young to be aware of the spectre of thermonuclear war that hung
> over much of the northern hemisphere forty years ago. The fall of the
> Roman empire had consequences far worse, and far longer lasting, than
> anything that even the most hysterical posts here have predicted to result
> from Y2K.
>
Actually, the most hysterical post would be Paul Milne's projection the
half of the world's population could die from Y2K. Even the Black Death
didn't kill half the world. (It did kill the majority in many parts of
Europe, perhaps even half the population of Europe, but not the world.)
Bill Lynch
RandallBart wrote:
>
> Doug Miller...see my sig for real e-mail address wrote:
> >
> > Perhaps you never heard of the Black Plague. Or the Holocaust. Maybe you
> > are too young to be aware of the spectre of thermonuclear war that hung
> > over much of the northern hemisphere forty years ago. The fall of the
> > Roman empire had consequences far worse, and far longer lasting, than
> > anything that even the most hysterical posts here have predicted to result
> > from Y2K.
> >
> Actually, the most hysterical post would be Paul Milne's projection the
> half of the world's population could die from Y2K. Even the Black Death
> didn't kill half the world. (It did kill the majority in many parts of
> Europe, perhaps even half the population of Europe, but not the world.)
>
You're overstating the effects of the Bubonic Plague as far as its
overall mortality on Europe. The Plague's mortality rate varied widely
in different areas, from one-fifth to nine-tenths (the latter is what
was observed in the first outbreak of Ebola, in 1976, and which was
termed a "street sweeper"). The overall mortality in Europe was about
one-third*.
Bill Lynch
(sig snipped)
* source: "A Distant Mirror", by Barbara Tuchman, pp. 92-94. Going back
to "A Distant Mirror" to find this, I was struck by how much the
symptoms of Bubonic Plague resembled a hemorrhagic fever, e.g., Ebola.
Francis A. Ney, Jr.
In article <63v568$amo...@nottingham.ac.uk.nospam> itzc...@hermes.nottingham.ac.uk.nospam writes:
> Fish.
The fish of the day is Trout a la Creme. Enjoy your meal.
B-)=
RandallBart
Harlan, it's not going to happen, so give it up.
Rick Cowles
>In article <01bcebab$b0bc59c0$2842...@CRC3.concentric.net>, Harlan
>Smith <hws...@nowhere.cris.com> writes
>
><snip various
>>
>>As I see it, there is no rational alternative to scheduling a full test of
>>all electric utilities with their clocks advanced.
>>
>>That will be an incredible amount of work and risk. But there is just no
>>viable alternative.
>>
>Trying to cast my mind back, I've a feeling that power stations,
>especially nuclear, or perhaps only nuclear, have full-blown simulators,
>both for training and for operational analysis. Anyone know whether
>that's correct?
I'll take the bait, Dave. (What a surprise.)
All nuclear stations on this side of the pond are required to have
plant specific simulators. The problem is, the simulators model
system responses to various modes of equipment operation and equipment
malfunction, but do not model failure mechanisms (eg. what _caused_ a
pipe to break; what _caused_ a pump to stop running). That's the
simplest way I can explain it. If you don't understand the
distinction, I'll try to clarify in a later post.
>I wonder just how relevant such a simulator might be to the real thing,
>with embedded processors and all. I'd certainly think it would be a
>good idea setting up a Y2K simulation before doing the real thing.
Control room computer responses to date rollover _might_ be able to
be simulated because the simulator and control room equipment are
supposed to be identical. Again, plant eqipment failure mechanims;
no.
I've been reluctant to jump onto Harlan's testing thread because I
wanted to see where it was going to go. I don't think it's possible
(or even adviseable) to perform such testing on a massive scale,
although in theory it sounds like something which should be
considered.
I'm working on a post explaining my reasoning, but I needed to check a
few technical facts first. Hopefully, I'll post before the weekend's
out.
---
Rick Cowles
"Electric Utilities and Year 2000"
http://www.accsyst.com/writers/ele2000a.htm