http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0029PU

"Some Major Y2K and Embedded Systems Concerns at the Rollover" along with some related background material can be found at http://www.michaelhyatt.com/discuss/ubb/Forum14/HTML/002662.html as well as several other places on the web.

Here are the points that are offered:

Some Major Y2K & Embedded Systems Concerns at the Rollover

1 ~ The Federal government has not fully comprehended the scope and seriousness of the Y2K problem. They have therefore not yet begun to address Y2K as a crisis. The energy crisis of the '70s was very small in contrast with the fuel shortages that can be expected with the Y2K and embedded systems crisis. Y2K and embedded systems problems can be expected to affect all aspects of oil and gas production and distribution, nationally and globally. This includes on shore and off shore rigs, refineries, pipelines, and tankers. Several hundred people worked full time at the Federal Energy Office in the 1970's to avert more serious problems during the energy crisis. Yet the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion has only had a core staff of ten and none of those individuals have had the kind of technological expertise needed to assess the nature and scope of the set of problems that can be expected to converge over the next months and years as a result of the Y2K and embedded systems crisis. Impacts on oil and gas production will be only one of many other problem areas that can be expected.

2 ~ The Federal Government has addressed the threats and challenges posed by Y2K and embedded systems in very narrowly focused ways with little attention until November of 1999 to the seriousness of malfunctioning embedded systems. The President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion did not publicly acknowledge until November that the embedded systems aspect of the Y2K problem had not been adequately understood and addressed. For further information and background, see the attached items on embedded systems, along with my December Comments. The latter are at http://www.gwu.edu/~y2k/keypeople/gordon

The Federal government has also focused its attention primarily on the mission critical systems of its own agencies and departments. They have also failed to fully address the non-mission critical systems. In addition, the Federal government has not focused adequate attention on preventing and minimizing impacts that could occur as a result of the failure of embedded systems in the private sector or the rest of the public sector. As a result they have neglected to focus adequate attention and resources on helping to ensure that other parts of the public and private sector were compliant and, most seriously, they have failed to do all they could have done to encourage the public to adequately prepare. Even the District of Columbia is urging its residents to put aside water and non-perishable food that will last for at least 7 - 10 days.

3 ~ The Federal government has failed to do all that it could have done and it should be doing now and into the new year to make ensure the compliance of all those highest hazard systems, sites, nuclear power plants, chemical plants, hazardous materials sites and facilities, refineries, oil and gas pipelines, water purification plants, sewage treatment plants, and dams. Failures in these highest hazard systems, sites, plants, etc., pose the greatest risks to public health and safety and to the environment. These concerns have not been uppermost in the minds of those driving Federal efforts.

Paula Gordon December 28, 1999

*******

See

http://www.michaelhyatt.com/discuss/ubb/Forum14/HTML/002662.html for related background material, that include some submissions to TB2000. Please feel free to forward the statements and the related material to the media as well as public officials and all others who may be (or should be) interested.

Thanks so much to all who have done so much to get TB2000 back in business, and so quickly too.

Best wishes as the next phase begins.

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), December 30, 1999

Answers

Paula,

Get-over-it

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), December 30, 1999.

Cherri, please show some respect. Paula has guts,class, brains, a boat load of common sense. Thank God she has stood to be counted and I am reasonably sure put her carreer on the line. I have worked as president of two fortune 500 companies and would be honored to meet this woman of character some day.

-- been around the block (davem8608@aol.com), December 30, 1999.

Cherri-

Crawl back under your rock. And wipe up that slime trail you left behind.....

-- (cavscout@fix.net), December 30, 1999.

That's quite succinct, Paula. I think it shows what business the federal government is in nowadays--which is not the people's business. I'm just a middle-class liberal who has always voted Democrat. I'm completely sickened by the stupdity exhibited by the government/our public servants. And that includes those of ALL parties. Any of them with brains and guts could have come forward instead of spouting the dangerous polly credo. History, should written accounts survive, will be the judge.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), December 30, 1999.

Paula,

You ought to have a clear conscience...you did ALL that was humanly possible to warn the people, and you got into Kosky's face...Please may the Holy One of Blessing hold you and yours in the Palm of Her Hand...

Full disclosure...I cut my technical eye teeth on Process Control AND Embeddeds...it isn't going to be pretty! These Digital Self Destruct Devices (new acronym..DSDD!) are EVERYWHERE!!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in just 29HOURS .com), December 30, 1999.

Ms. Gordon,

Just remember when reading cherri's response. the new study that just came out. 1 in 4 people have some form of mental illness.

Thankyou for all of your white papers and level,balanced,logical,experienced information. -- d....... (dciinc@aol.com), December 30, 1999.

Paula,

Just a short thanks for doing your part to alert folks, I for one, listened and understood. I wish this information had been widely disseminated and the "spin" would have been on "prepare, prepare, PREPARE" instead of the exact opposite. In one shape or form, this life or the next, everyone will have to answer to either the culpability of what they have done to either prepare the population or abandon the population. Time will indeed, tell. Good luck to all of us. I have a feeling we will need some.

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), December 30, 1999.

Paula, Your warnings about highest hazard systems have been given to those in the highest places; their ears have been deaf. We are all in your debt for your courage in speaking out so loudly. God bless you.

I expect the prosecuters to use your works in the liability trials to come. Perhaps in the trials of those who falsly claimed problems where none existed)

-- JohnLittmann (John>Littmann@MCQUAY.com), December 30, 1999.

Paula,

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0029PU

A public thank you from myself for all of your tremendous efforts. We can never know how many people have been helped by your efforts but I'm sure that they are many.

Thank you for all that you have done.

RC

-- RC (racambab@mailcity.com), December 31, 1999.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), May 13, 2000

Answers

Here's what we need. A trip down memory lane. A chance for Andy Ray to post somewhere else but on his own and point out the foibles. Should be some really, really good stuff coming up on this one.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), May 13, 2000.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001qGO

Nov. 22, 1999

Secretary Daley Urges Vigilance on Y2K Problem

Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley today urged American businesses to redouble their efforts to test for year 2000 computer problems that are hidden away in a variety of machines other than computers. Thorough testing of these "embedded systems" is a wise safety measure, Daley said.

"Ferreting out all the Y2K connections in the systems that run manufacturing plants, provide services to consumers, and control a host of operations that we all rely on is a tough job. We urge businesses to be especially vigilant in testing embedded systems," Daley said.

Embedded systems use computers or computer chips to control, monitor or augment a process. Such systems are found in everything from elevators to manufacturing plants.

The Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology and Century Corp., a computer consulting firm, have assessed the range of testing methods industry is using.

They conclude that it is possible that many important systems have not been tested adequately. NIST strongly recommends that all critical systems be tested literally from end to end.

"Managers of these systems should, as a last resort, rely on assurances from suppliers and others that the individual components of a system are Y2K compliant," Daley said. "I want to reinforce the message that I and others, including the President's Y2K Council, have been delivering about taking appropriate actions in readiness and contingency planning," he said.

A research article that includes guidelines for testing embedded systems by NIST and Century Corp. is available on the NIST web site at www.nist.gov/y2k/embeddedarticle.htm.

As a non-regulatory agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration, NIST strengthens the U.S. economy and improves the quality of life by working with industry to develop and apply technology, measurements and standards through four partnerships: the Measurement and Standards Laboratories, the Advanced Technology Program, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the Baldrige National Quality Program.

-- (Nov@ember.1999), May 14, 2000.

EMBEDDED SYSTEMS AND THE YEAR 2000 PROBLEM

http://www.nist.gov/y2k/embeddedarticle.htm

-- (dot@gov.embedded), May 14, 2000.

Well Carlos, buddy, (you're rapidly becoming my new 'Andy'),

If you don't want to read 'em, nobody's forcing you to, now are they.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), May 14, 2000.

Ah, good old Doc Gordon. Even on December 28, she was still convinced that the governement just hadn't done enough and we were still doomed. "The Federal government has not fully comprehended the scope and seriousness of the Y2K problem." What exactly did she think the Feds had been doing for the past three or so years? And what did she think they were going to start doing on December 28 in any case?

"The Federal government has failed to do all that it could have done and it should be doing now and into the new year to make ensure the compliance of all those highest hazard systems (like)....dams". As if dams were made of non-Y2K compliant materials like concrete or earth fill.

There were uneducated nitwits that made lots of wrong assumptions about Y2K and then there were educated nitwits. Doc Gordon falls into that small but distinguished latter class.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), May 14, 2000.

Aw, come on, Jim. You know as well as I do she's talking about embedded systems controlling such things as gates, water flow and river levels...

-- (logic@l.inference), May 14, 2000.

"logic@l.inference": And yet, when asked POINTEDLY for examples of ANYTHING that **could have failed**, she NEVER ONCE PRODUCED A VERIFIABLE EXAMPLE. In fact, when she appeared on C-SPAN with Lord Jim on Labor Day weekend, 1999, I remember a certain caller from Richmond, VA asking her this very question. Her reply (after considerable shuffling of papers and the requisite number of weasel words)? "See my web site." Said web site, of course, contained NO VERIFIABLE EXAMPLES whatsoever, just more of the WHAT-IF vague citations; nothing specific.

Face it, many were led to believe (by her [g]) that the entire Federal Government, including and especially those working on Y2K, had no clue, yet Ms. Paula Gordon, of NO TECHNICAL CREDENTIALS WHATSOEVER, knew all and knew better than those with actual credentials and those actually working on Y2K. Odd really, when one considers that the same people who agreed with her that the EVIL DOT GOV was lying, spinning and covering up, are now the VERY SAME PEOPLE who consistently cite the last official Y2K report as justification for their doom. Simply astounding disconnect there.

Wonder how her April Conference went over? (LOL)

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), May 14, 2000.

-- (logic@l.inference),

Can you give me an example of an embedded system that controls gates, (or flows, or levels) that even uses dates. If you can actually give an example of one that needed remediating due to Y2k concerns I would be even more grateful.

I had asked Paula Gordon for an example pre-rollover, but she opted not to respond to that question.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), May 14, 2000.

Logic:

She was talking about gates, water flow, and river levels, was she? Firstly, dams don't control anything but reservoirs. The only thing that controls river levels are God and downstream discharges from sluice or slide gates at dams. The only thing that controls water flows from a reservoir into a power house are diversion tunnels controlled by the same types of gates.

Have you ever been inside a hydro power house? No, I didn't think so. Want to bet that Paula Gordon has never been inside a hydro power house either? The gates that control water flow either through a dam or into a power house are almost all manually controlled. Many of them are controlled by a big burly guy who turns a big wheel on screw valve. The more advanced systems are controlled by flow meters that could care less about what day it is. Even those controlled by a SCADA system only care about how many megawatts are needed, which turbines are in service, and how much water's available.

Just go on believing that Paula was really on to something with her mountains of white papers. In a year or so, when almost everyone has forgotten what a ninny she was about Y2K, she'll have moved on to something else like spotted owls or a worldwide shoe shortage.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), May 15, 2000.