Issue date: 21 January 1999 Article source: Computer Weekly News UKto lose Y2K race, claims study... Bill Goodwin

Almost half of the UK's largest firms are significantly lagging behind in their efforts to tackle the millennium date bug problem, it was claimed this week.

A significant number of the UK's top 1,000 firms have not yet completed the first stages of tackling the problem while others are less than half way through their year 2000 work.

The findings from a survey of leading industrial and commercial companies fly in the face of assurances from the government-funded campaigning body, Action 2000, that large companies are well on track with their millennium bug programmes. --------------------------

Robert Egan and his PATHETIC synopsis of The UK doing well are LAUGHABLE. The UK, one of the 'allegedly' best prepared countries in the world is sunk.

Now, for the feint of heart and those who could not possibly drag themselves to make a conclusion on the evidence....

Most of the countries in the world are light years behind England. England is not going to make it. Economically, this is disastrous.

These are the FACTS:

"Sixteen per cent of companies surveyed have not yet completed their central IT inventories - the first step in tackling the bug - and 45% have yet to complete their embedded chip inventory, raising fears that many firms could face critical failures in the year 2000. "

"The survey also reveals that one in 10 of the 60 companies that responded to the survey did not begin work on Y2K until last year - leaving little time to complete their projects. And with less than a year to go, fewer than half of the firms have spent more than 60% of their budgets."

Yet action 2000 maintains that 'all is well'. of course they do. They are liars. They are government PR flaks. If they told the truth britain would be in a state of pandaemonium before dawn. And THAT is their goal. To prevent panic. It is not to disseminate the truth. It is to prevent panic at all costs. And the first casualty of that battle is the truth.

England is not going to make it. Neither will over 90% of the rest of the countries in the world. Pareto's Law with a VENGENCE. Only ignoramuses (ignorami?) can not see the handwriting on the wall, and Action 2000 (1900?) is doing the best it can to cover up that handwriting.

http://www.computerweekly.co.uk/cwarchive/news/19990121/cwcontainer.asp?name=C7.htm

Paul Milne If you live within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast.

=================

Kiss your butts good-bye boys and girls.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), January 21, 1999

Answers

Paul...

to quote from an old movie:

"Gee Mr. Milne, you use your tongue prettier than 20$ hooker "

-- Taggart (Blazing@Saddle.com), January 21, 1999.

[*sigh*, I envy Milne his energy and available time.]

Almost half of the UK's largest firms are significantly lagging behind in their efforts to tackle the millennium date bug problem, it was claimed this week.

[OK, 'it was claimed'. Love that passive voice. Who made this claim? On what evidence? How was the evidence collected? Who paid for it? These questions are important. The right answers to these questions make the claims devastating. The wrong answers make them propaganda.]

A significant number of the UK's top 1,000 firms have not yet completed the first stages of tackling the problem while others are less than half way through their year 2000 work.

[OK, what's a 'significant number?' It sure would be nice to know *which* firms aren't going to be ready, and how bad their problems will be. If the significant number is 500 and their problems will be severe, Britain is in real trouble. What are the 'first stages' according to the author? How is 'less than half way through' measured -- according to an assessment, according to LOC, according to budget? These are important questions. Without answers to them, we cannot distinguish this report from any other anonymous scaremongering.]

The findings from a survey of leading industrial and commercial companies fly in the face of assurances from the government-funded campaigning body, Action 2000, that large companies are well on track with their millennium bug programmes. --------------------------

[OK, who did this survey? Who paid for it? How were the data collected? This is getting tiresome. What is a 'campaigning body'? What does 'on track' mean? Of course the government is applying a positive spin, that's what governments do. That's what *everybody* does, even anonymous surveyors funded by anonymous sources.]

Robert Egan and his PATHETIC synopsis of The UK doing well are LAUGHABLE. The UK, one of the 'allegedly' best prepared countries in the world is sunk.

[What earthly difference does it make what Robert Egan's opinion is? Based on the material here, I can't tell if his synopsis is laughable or not. Anything resembling a clear description of 'sunk' would certainly help us understand what you think will happen.]

Now, for the feint of heart and those who could not possibly drag themselves to make a conclusion on the evidence....

[Meaning everyone but you? But you formed your opinion before you ever even heard of y2k. But go ahead, tell us what we're supposed to think, you always do.]

Most of the countries in the world are light years behind England. England is not going to make it. Economically, this is disastrous.

[OK (sigh), how far is a light year in this context? What do you mean by 'make it'? What's the measure of an economic disaster -- if more than 50% of economists agree, or if you tell us?]

These are the FACTS:

"Sixteen per cent of companies surveyed have not yet completed their central IT inventories - the first step in tackling the bug - and 45% have yet to complete their embedded chip inventory, raising fears that many firms could face critical failures in the year 2000. "

[OK, where did these numbers come from? Have critical systems been identified? How justified are these fears? If the fears are reasonable, how long will these critical systems be down? And once again, WHO are you quoting? Bill Goodwin? Even if these summary statistics are both current and accurate, it's like the old saying that if you have one foot in the oven and one foot in the icebox, on the average you're comfortable. Statistics are one step worse than damned lies, we know this. Without details, where are we?]

"The survey also reveals that one in 10 of the 60 companies that responded to the survey did not begin work on Y2K until last year - leaving little time to complete their projects. And with less than a year to go, fewer than half of the firms have spent more than 60% of their budgets."

[This sounds like the Taskforce 2000 numbers being superimposed over Goodwin's summary (Milne doesn't say). The last time Milne superimposed numbers like this, he had US small businesses making *at least* 10x the US GDP! LOL! OK, here we go. How realistic are these budgets? How much of these budgets are for post-2000 contingency planning? Six companies started last year. Is Britain 'sunk' if six companies are so bad off (by no means proven) they go bankrupt? Wait a minute, these numbers are from a different source than the one cited! Otherwise, how can we be talking about 1,000 firms, and suddenly it's shrunk to 60? Does 1,000=60? Neat trick. Well, when you have the Truth, who needs an honest presentation of the facts?]

Yet action 2000 maintains that 'all is well'. of course they do. They are liars.

[They're putting their spin on it, for sure. So is your source (sources? hard to tell). A classic case of *forcing* the data to fit the conclusion, even if this means you have to pick and choose from different sources. And Milne gets upset when someone takes *him* out of context! Well, it's all for a good cause, of course.]

They are government PR flaks.

[They are when you disagree. When you agree, they spout FACTS! I guess double standards are what everyone else has.]

If they told the truth britain would be in a state of pandaemonium before dawn.

[And Santa Claus lives at the north pole. But without question the government sugarcoats the problem and crosses their fingers. There's certainly a game of 'plausible deniability' going on here.]

And THAT is their goal. To prevent panic. It is not to disseminate the truth. It is to prevent panic at all costs. And the first casualty of that battle is the truth.

[Groan! Agreed, the government's top priority is to prevent panic. Agreed, if the truth were as bad as you say, the government would cover it up as much as possible. Unfortunately, if things were as bad as you claim, coverup would be impossible right now. Anyway, at least one of your sources here claims things are very very bad. Where's the panic? The only explanation is that the bad things haven't happened yet, but they will. Even if true, would panic make things better?]

England is not going to make it.

[Again, what does 'make it' mean? Does it mean there will be problems? Sure there will, but how bad, and for how long?]

Neither will over 90% of the rest of the countries in the world.

[Unsupported assertion, and unsupportable as well. Many of the world's countries have very little computerization, the population is barely subsisting, and for most of those people the government itself is invisible and irrelevant. I think what we're really talking about here is the continued availability of raw materials the US needs. I'd be surprised if some of these materials didn't dry up, but I can't prove it.]

Pareto's Law with a VENGENCE. Only ignoramuses (ignorami?) can not see the handwriting on the wall

[You gotta love this. Agree with ME, or you're an ignoramus.The plural is ignoramuses, but I like ignorami.]

and Action 2000 (1900?) is doing the best it can to cover up that handwriting.

[very likely]

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 21, 1999.

I respond to Milne:

How many gallons of water in a tsunami? Huh? You say a tsunami is coming but you have not calculated how much water is in a wall of water. And who said it was a tsunami? Do you know what the difference is between a tsunami and a mere tidal wave? Well? Do you? huh? What if it just a tidal wave that hits those straw huts on the beach? Not as bad as a tsunami, is it? Wise guy.

I am not saying it "won't" be a tsunami. I just want Milne to get his facts straight. I am just trying to help people out. They need to be able to distiguish between a mere wall of water and a tsunami. How many oceanographic researchers actually agree with the survey about the approching tsuami? Did you check with all of them? No? Then how do you know whether the is 'alleged' tsunami is coming? Are you a tsunami expert? No you're not.

I am going to respond to every one of your posts whether you have made sense or not, and despite whether I make sense or not, just becuase I respond to any of your posts like a salivating pavlovian dog.

I am not saying that the dog 'has' to salivate'. I am just saying that I have not checked with all of the dog psychologists yet so I can't say if they are 'actually' salivating.

Anyway, When I see that a whole lot of oceanographers can actually tells us the difference between a wall of water and a tsunami, then I will find something else to berate you with and call it an honest appraisal of the facts. OK, Tsunami boy?

-- flint (flint@flying up my own ass.com), January 21, 1999.

Boy, if I could accomplish the acrobatic gymnastic feat Paul Milne recommends, I could join the circus. Should I take up hatha yoga in earnest? Will such goodbye kisses flutter their way upward to impress the angels and pour mercy upon human pretzels? How to use time this last year, such a delenema.

Why is Mr. Milne so obsessed with the center of gravity portion of the human body? Did he have a traumatic mooning experience? Is it a Y2K anal retention fixation? Maybe it's his buttress against buttstress.

Lessee, practical application: when a person is dying, their pressure point is on the buttocks & coccyx, and bedsores can develop rapidly if the person is not turned and repositioned side-to-side at least every two hours. If ppl are busy fending off the more.ruders, nobody will have time to turn you. So your bottoms will turn to painful infected mush, ulcerating from the bones outward with putrifying flesh. Yes, this must be what Paul is referring to. It's a horrible way to go.

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia, hospice caregivers agreeing with Mr. Milne

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 21, 1999.

It would appear that 'flying up my own ass' (why are jerks always anonymous) prefers propaganda to facts, *provided* the propaganda agrees with his opinion. Well, nothing is more reasonable than a shared prejudice.

To flying: In 1932, Atlantic Monthly magazine did a survey to predict the outcome of the next Presidential election. They weren't biased, they genuinely wanted objective data. They selected numbers at random (real random) from the phone book, called the people up, and asked them how they would vote.

Then they published their results: Alf Landon would win. Unfortunately, Franklin Roosevelt won by the biggest landslide in US history (up to that time). How did Atlantic Monthly go so wrong?

Well, the telephone was very expensive at the time, and only rich people had them. And the rich favored Landon. The sample was random, but the population it was selected from was biased. Constructing and conducting a survey to learn the truth is a *bitch*. Doing so to butress a predetermined position is a piece of cake. BTDT.

Milne goes one step further: he blends multiple sources together, picking and choosing what he wants to support his foregone conclusion. And you *trust* this process? Or do you just cherish your ignorance? Just wondering.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 21, 1999.

Yeah, all surveys are made by a bunch of biased guys who never want to tell the truth anyway. DON'T listen to surveys. That's the ticket.

This Milne guy really gets me. He keeps posting the results os these no good surveys. The surveys ALL sya that the work is not getting done. The Only survey's that DO say enough is getting done are from those government guys. They all say their survey's say everything is going swimmingly weel. They have nothing to hide. No self-serving interests. The government would never deceive anyone. They always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a timely manner.

Its all those other damn surveys that are the problem. You know, the ones that say that the OBJECTIVE evidence shows that not enough is being done. Those lousy objectivists.

Anyway, the correct criteria for a survey is that if Paul Milne Posts it , it has to be a lie, becuase it is bad news. That is not balanced. We must balance the objective surveys with the government PR reports to get the true picture.

-- flint (flint@flying up my own ass. com), January 21, 1999.

Flying, if you read (if you can read, of course), I said this to Milne:

"Agreed, the government's top priority is to prevent panic. Agreed, if the truth were as bad as you say, the government would cover it up as much as possible."

Now, I'll make it simple so you can understand it. Am I saying the government can be trusted, or or you lying?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 22, 1999.

No matter what Milne says, I, the amazing FLINT will attack him. If he says the sun is out at noon, I will say it is the moon, and if he syas the moon is out, I will equally assert that it is the sun. It matters not what Milne says, for I, the amazing Flint, live only to contradict his every word in complete ignorance and contradistinction to the facts or evidence.

My course is clear. Seek not the tuth. Seek not the facts. But all the while MAINTAIN that that is what I am doing. Contradict and obfuscate. Then summarize by backpeddling and saying what I am 'not saying'. That's the ticket.

-- flint (flint@flying up my own ass.com), January 22, 1999.

Honestly, with all the analtocomical abnormalities on this Forum, we need more nurses. Hardliner, where is Nurse? Did she escape?

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), January 22, 1999.

"Now, for the feint of heart and those who could not possibly drag themselves to make a conclusion on the evidence.... Most of the countries in the world are light years behind England. England is not going to make it. Economically, this is disastrous."

Milne, are you trying to spare us GI's too? Do you really believe the USA is ahead of England? I don't think so myself. What I think is that the USA gov. is just better at lying, coersing, and forcing truth to shut up at gun point.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), January 22, 1999.

Congrats Flint - when the trolls start chasing you, you know you are a success. Good points, BTW.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 22, 1999.