Just a minor story - one more for the pile - although they do admit it is a Y2K problem. I have looked for a link on the net, but no luck yet. The article is in today's (01/16/00) Edmonton Sun in the main news section on page 22. Here it is: ------------ False Reminders Issued

HALIFAX (CP) - Hundreds of Nova Scotia drivers with ancient drunk-driving convictions have accidentally been sent curt reminders to mend their ways.

"We hope that you realize the consequences of this inappropriate behaviour and drive responsibly in the future," Paul Arsenault, Registry of Motor Vehicles compliance director, said in the letter sent recently to about 3,000 people.

The letter was supposed to go to drivers whose licence is suspended. However, a pre-Y2K computer glitch meant as many as 600 drivers with old convictions - or none at all - received the letter.

"It wasn't until we started getting the calls that we realized there was an error with our system," Robyn MacIsaac, registry spokesman, said this week.

The letter's intent was to inform motorists of new changes to drunk-driving laws in the province, as well as other Criminal Code convictions resulting in licence suspensions.

--- end ---

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), January 16, 2000

Answers

Thank you for the post. and it's not minor...It's another indication of how confused the computers are. For every problem being reported there are many, many more that aren't. The only one's that are being reported are the ones where too many people have seen the evidence, as in your case....

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 16, 2000.

Thank you for the post. and it's not minor...It's another indication of how confused the computers are. For every problem being reported there are many, many more that aren't. The only one's that are being reported are the ones where too many people have seen the evidence, as in your case....

-- Carl Jenkins

You sir, are a thing of beauty!!! You're right, this isn't minor, it's freaking laughable! Oh, boy, I bet you're glad you have three months of Spam and tuna in your pantry, aren't you? Have you never worked with computers in the last 20 years??? These glitches you are sooo afraid of happen all the time, get a clue!

-- rocket man (u_r@without a clue.com), January 16, 2000.

I agree Carl. I have had a heads-up on little bugs since just before the end of the year. I have a small business and ordered a fairly large number of products from a supplier. The orders normally take 3 days but it took over 3 weeks to get that one. Funny thing was I kept track of the visa I billed and have yet to get a charge from them. It was ordered in November and received in December. I'm also starting to get little bits of other information from my clients as in the local largest business hasn't gone back to work yet and have laid off 300 people so far. That may not be in itself anything abnormal but the fact that they have their people basically on call because they haven't finished installing their new computers systems has me curious. Thinking maybe the theme from TimeZone 2000 should be continued so that we group ourselves by area and collect glitch reports. Let the patterns emerge maybe...

-- SA (stillalert@aol.com), January 16, 2000.

Hi Steve,

Nice to see you around here.

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moyn (dtmiller@midiowa.net), January 16, 2000.

Hey, Dean. Yup. Still kickin, and this is as good a place as any to hang around and watch the glitches go by.

-- Steve Baxter (chicoqh@home.com), January 16, 2000.

You the processing time, clerk time, and mail time and postage for stuff like this costs money. In this case, the event might seem silly, but multiply it by many other places with other extensive, but trivial goofs and you have a big hairball that won't kill the systems but does impact it.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 16, 2000.