Just asking. If the GPS rollover has more effect than we are conjecturing--are you ready? I'm not, actually, but certainly ready enough to survive.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWAyne@aol.com), August 17, 1999

Answers

Bring down the grid this early might be a good thing. In isolation it might get fixed and would serve as a wake up call to many. No real feel for the chances.

-- rambo (rambo@thewoods.com), August 17, 1999.

Your too funny. Wake up

-- smiley (laughing@u.com), August 17, 1999.

confusion, panic, more lies

-- King James (an.iceberg.is@straight.ahead), August 17, 1999.

Actually Mara, hadn't thought of the Grid going down, but am a little concerned about the effect on International Banking - all those international interbank transactions that go on between US banks and oh say Venesula and Saudi and Switzerland (how is their banking system - anyone heard?) and the Caymans or Italy? GPS time is used and the question is not so much the Sats as their receivers I would think. Interesting. Do any of Wall Streets transactions from international buyers of Dow/Nasdaq stocks rely on GPS time? Just a curious thought...

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), August 17, 1999.

If the grid went down, I'd fire up the genny, and continue on, living on the food cache if needed. And I think I might just fill the last of my water barrels before 8/21, "just in case".

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), August 17, 1999.

To be just a little bit "brisk" here: don't get too worried about this effect.

First, there is no specific direct cause to assume that even if the timing element links fail (in banking or power distribution), that this failure has not been eliminated in the past "repair" efforts that are supposed to have finished this summer. Note however, that the powers that be have publically talked about the GPS turnover w/r to either system.

Now, at this point in time (Aug 1999) if either systemic failure happened, there would be instantaneous and widespread reaction to "fix it". Yes, if either failure occurred it would be difficult to "reboot" everything simultaneously but certainly it's possible.

Further, the reason for the failure would be obvious and resolveable relatively quickly: if only one system went down on Aug 20/21, it's not to figure out what the specific interface is in subordinate systems and replace it or develop a work-around.

The potential parallel next Jan and Feb is that multiple systems may be failing due to multiple overlapping causes all at once: this makes troubleshooting and fixing things much more difficult. Not impossible, even then, just much much more difficult.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 17, 1999.

I am not too aware about the Banking Industry's approach to deriving a timing signal but it would make sense that they would employ redudant systems. Within the telecom world one does not rely only on a GPS receiver through which to generate your timing signal - alot of the Switchs (Ericsson, Nortel, Lucent, Alcatel, etc.) employ at least three backup clocking modules...Some of the providers employ GPS as the primary, T1/E1 as the secondary and third source(s) and finally in a last ditch effort the switch can use the last stored GPS reference (as a seed) within its own oscillator and continue to operate for awhile. The timing signal will start to "drift" with respect to each switch but there are methods to compensate for the above effect. Does anyone have similar information on the banking industries synch method? Regards,

-- w holst (w_holst@hotmail.com), August 17, 1999.

Am I the only one who thinks it is weird that a number that represents the month is turning over on August 21st, as opposed to midnight August 31st? What kind of computer code do you write to accommodate this? Wouldn't a change in this number happen once a month, when the month ends?

Flint?

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), August 17, 1999.

Hey, Amy, I believe the GPS is rolling over at 1023 weeks - not by months.

-- lisa (ex-@amper.myself), August 17, 1999.

Weeks - Amy. From whenever "they" started the GPS "counter" its been 1023 weeks, resetting to 1024 (or in the wierd parlance of computers, 0000.)

Why 1024 limit? Comes from the base 2 system for bits and bytes: basically, in the original processor systems, there wasn't enough "room" for more characters (0's and 1's) so the base 2 limit was imposed.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 17, 1999.

Isn't this the first time the GPS has rolled over?

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), August 17, 1999.

IMHO the GPS rollover is the biggest wild card of all. I am treating it like a dress rehearsal for Y2k. If nothing happens - great. I will feel that much more prepared. I too am concerned about telcos and bank data transfers.

I read a post in an earlier thread that said it would take 8-12 days for effects to be felt. I'll see if I can find it.

In any event I would not expect a lot of fall out necessarily on the 21st/22nd. It could well be more gradual - lulling everyone ino a false sense of security.

There are a lot of dire predictions covering that space of time (Aug 20 - early Sept) regarding the stock market. If I *knew* that data transfers would start to go wonky round the beginning of September I would drive the dow up as far as possible and then look to get out between now and the end of August. I would watch to see if people who should know (like Steve Case)start dumping stocks like mad.

On the other hand. Maybe it will be no big deal. Either way, with only 4 months to go till 00 its not a bad idea to be on alert from this point forward.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), August 17, 1999.

Yes - this is the first time.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 17, 1999.

I don't think the GPS rollover will be a major event. As for the grid, it SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN NOW AND TESTED. It will be winter when it really counts. I would MUCH sooner be without power now, than in Jan.

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), August 17, 1999.

I actually brought this up because, although we talk about the GPS rollover, I wasn't sure that people were prepared. I got a little extra water today and will take a flashlight with me when I go on on Sunday. If the elevators go out, I can walk back up the stairs then with no problems. It's just another little precuation, since we are taking so many.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), August 17, 1999.

Absolutely, FLAME AWAY. A brilliant idea.

-- PNG (Peter Gauthier) (png@gol.com), August 17, 1999.

Interesting little snippet from an article Linkmeister found...

Paris, Tuesday, August 17, 1999
The Internet May Be the Biggest Question Mark of Them All
By Thomas Fuller International Herald Tribune

http:// www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/FPAGE/netbug.2.html

[snip]

Internet users may get a foretaste of Y2K confusion on Aug. 24, when, for reasons not directly related to the millennium bug, the clocks in some satellites that carry Internet traffic will reset themselves to zero. That could affect the way computers linked to the Internet register such things as financial transactions.

[snip]

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), August 17, 1999.

Flame;

A "nice" question. Wouldn't it be nicer if we tested the grid while it is UP and hope for the best, and take the failures as they come, rather than, "Shutting it all down man".

Just a thought, might minimize the impact a bit.

Things will get worse before they get better.

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), August 17, 1999.

I am doing something this week in which a portion of what we do is controled by GPS. (It tells the coordinator where each of his medical vehicles are, using APRS and GPS over a 75 + mile course) both saturday and Sunday. Since we'll ALL be off the course before 2000 EDT (0000 Z or 0000 UTC) Saturday, i don't expect problems then, but SUNDAY may be interesting, depending on the GPS software and the interface to APRS, which is the mapping system we use (Amateur Position Reporting System, or some such).

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), August 18, 1999.

Chuck - this is a matter of life and death (for those in the ambulance at least).

Should that "Amateur Position Reporting System, or some such" at least be "Professional" Position Reporting System, or some such" ....

8<)

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 18, 1999.

So will this happen at 7:00 Eastern Standard Time? Or 8:00 Eastern Standard Time?

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), August 18, 1999.

7:59:47 p.m. EDT

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), August 18, 1999.

A new and quite thorough article about the GPS rollover by Lane Core Jr....

http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Computech/Issues/lcore9933.htm">

"The August 21-22 GPS Rollover: What It Is, And What It Is Not"

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 18, 1999.