More drivel from Taos Toasty

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Poole's Roost II : One Thread

DRIVEL ON NUKE POWER (after the same shit he did in Y2k......"I'm no expert on........X or Y or Z "......
http://www.yourdon.com/tyr/issues/Vol02/0203.html
NOW IT WAS ..........THE PRESS AND SOUNDBITES.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know Is On The Internet

To acquire a superficial understanding of a topic, most of us rely on newspaper articles, television reports, and other traditional sources of information. Unfortunately, these sources typically present a shallow, superficial "sound-bite" summary of a topic that is often multifaceted, subtle, and complex. Perhaps they feel that average citizens wouldn't have the attention span to listen to more detail, or that they wouldn't be capable of understanding the complexities and subtleties. Whether or not that's really true, it creates an obvious problem for those of us who do want more detail, and who feel that we can understand the concepts as long as they don't require the second-order differential equations that we've long since forgotten from college calculus. Also, one of the things that I learned from my interactions with the media during the Y2K era is that many publications and TV news programs have a very definite "agenda" about the topics they cover -- i.e., they've already decided on the conclusions they want to present, and they scurry about to find only the information that supports whatever their conclusion happens to be.

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2001

Answers

Too funny from Flipper. "Ya bud, like a pile of more info would have helped you out of the Y2k sinkhole you were in", pleeze. Oh ya like Yourdon didn't know about Y2k? Freaking guy knew and took a bunch of people for a ride on his own personal profitwagon.
Keep It Simple Stupid works if ya have common sense(or known as awake). Sadly many it seems are so brainwashed, so filled with memes all competing for attention the obvious gets lost in the noise. Many are so lost they can be inches from the door and miss it.
Y2k flew basically because many around think the laws of nature somehow selective. That the mere fact MOST were not running for the hills indicated to these sleepwalkers that it was the OTHER guys(all millions of-em) that were asleep. Just how dim is one's light to buy that one? And this coming from many who claimed to be Christian? Great advertisment there boys.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

Oh, this is just too funny.....
"...they've already decided on the conclusions they want to present, and they scurry about to find only the information that supports whatever their conclusion happens to be..."
Wasn't that the entire premise upon which the Y2K "doom argument" was based?!?!

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

Yes and they go one step further and paint anyone and anything which doesn't fit their insanity as Liberals. Course this flys right in the face of reality. To counteract "their built on sand belief structures" requires many hours and days of reshoring. One simply has to turn a radio to AM to see this process. With Y2k we had webfora after webfora all spewing the same identical crap.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

Patricia:
That is a good one. Kind of like starting with the conclusion "Bush stole the election" and scurrying from there. Notice that when you *agree* with the conclusion, then this exact same procedure is not only reasonable, it's necessary.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

One of the better samples of "IGNORANCE OUTSIDE ONE's FIELD":
http://x27.deja.com/=infoseek/getdoc.xp? AN=317554795&CONTEXT=938984066.498073612&hitnum=97
Subject:
Re: A dose of y2k reality?
Date: 1998/01/19
Author: Ed Yourdon

Bryan,
You've already received some other interesting responses to your post, but I'd like to focus on just one snip of your message: "the powerful will make sure of that". I'm not sure how literally you meant this, but as you probably know, this was one of the major themes of "Atlas Shrugged". In that case, the hero (John Galt) declared, quite consciously and deliberately, "I will stop the engine of the world." In our case, none of the programmers planned it or wanted it to happen -- but the fact still remains that only the geeks can fix the systems. The "powerful" don't know how to program; even if they did, there aren't enough of them...
What concerns me about the activities currently going on within the banking system, various branches of government, and other parts of the private sector, is that managers and many others are still under the illusion that the "powerful" can prevent the y2k crash by EDICT. Senior executives can command their programmers to work 24 hours a day, but they don't have the power to overcome Brooks' Law. One of the latest examples, which floated through various Internet newsgroups, was Union Pacific's wonderful statement that "we will DEMAND that our 16,000 suppliers by Y2K compliant!" Managers can command until they're blue in the face, but they can't scare all those little Y2K bugs buried in the code, and they can't control the behavior of 16,000 more-or-less independent suppliers, some of whom may go bankrupt whether Union Pacific likes it or not.
If a bank fails because of a Y2K bug, the "powerful" can command that the bank be reopened, and they can stuff it full of freshly-printed cash right up to the ceiling -- but they can't command the computers to begin running again. They can command martial law to be imposed, they can command rationing to be imposed, they can command the allocation of people to work on various parts of whatever they feel to be most urgent ... but meanwhile, the broken computers computers are going to sit there, impervious to the demands of even the most powerful of politicians. Bring on the Y2K Czars, bring on the Genghis Khan of Y2K if you want... my guess is that, sooner or later, the programmers of the world will begin chanting, "Who is John Galt?"
---------------------Reply Separator----------------------------
Bryan Cowan wrote:
> > It seems to me that opinions on the internet about y2k have divided into > two extremes: the Pollyannas, who insist it's all been overblown and > that nothing significant will happen, and the Chicken Littles, who are > preparing for the collapse of civilization by fortifying farms in remote > areas. It occured to me that as with most extremes, the truth is > somewhere in the middle. Which means that y2k will be painful and > inconvienient, and disastrous for some, but that human civilization will > weather the storm just fine. I really doubt that the people who hold the > real power in the world are dumb enough to fiddle while Rome burns. > Critical systems will come through just fine-the powerful will make sure > of that. The financial ramifications will be similar to the S&L > scandal-a lot of small banks going under, but the big boys will survive. > The always volatile stock market might crash, but it's way overvalued > anyway. A lot of businesses might find out that their cash registers, > ATM machines, and older PCs don't work, but most of them will probably > handle it. A lot of people underestimate human ingenuity-people will use > manual typewriters and even pen and paper to do business if it comes to > that. Consumers will use cash instead of plastic, and the crisis may > even wean the American consumer off his debt fix. People may put a lot > less faith in computers and more in humans. Bottom line: keep paper > records, your money in a major bank, some cash on hand. --
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Edward Yourdon, 1008-A Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, # 261
Taos, NM 87571 <====> phone/fax: 888-814-7605
mail: ed@yourdon.com Web: http://www.yourdon.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

You know something, Flint? I'm going to tell you something here, and to you at least, it will be earth-shattering.
***YOU*** are the one who "bought the spin". When the "liberal media" called Junior as the "winner" on Election Night (because of information fed to them by a spurious source -- the VNS), the rest was pretty much written in stone -- thanks to the Republican Spinmeisters.
I am going to "divine" something here: If the "liberal media", based on VNS "information", had called the election for Gore, or if the "liberal media" had done the right thing and said it was too close to call FROM THE START, you'd never be sitting there so sure Junior "won".
Once again, ***YOU*** "bought the spin".
I suggest you learn to deal with it.
(BTW, remember on "that" thread on Unk's board where I said that I can mentally write your responses? It gets easier and easier every time I post something.)

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

Patricia:
Read my post. Then read your response. Bingo! I could not possibly have made my point myself as clearly as you just made it for me.

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

CPR,
It's the same old logic from Yourdon: "everything is more complex and interconnected than you poor lil' sheeple realize (and if you'll pay me a little munnie, I'll s'plain it to you!)."

-- Anonymous, February 08, 2001

Pat, I feel confident when proclaiming to you that many MOTR conservatives such as myself could care less about VNS and the role it may have played. In this election, the overwhelmingly critical goal was to remove the �Clinton/Gore/Chinese/Criminal Scumbag Team� from any position of power. I�ve yet to live through ANY election that was without some controversy or accusations by sore losers, from both ends of the political spectrum. This one was certainly no exception.
In the end, George W. Bush became our President and Al Gore was sent into obscurity, where he should fit right in. Unfortunately, our �lounge lizard� Ex-President Clinton continues to embarrass �hisself� and shame our country. Whatever it took to rid this Great Nation of this kind of �trailer trash� leadership was to be righteous (no religion evoked here!). Now, it�s time for you and the Doc to prove just how smart you are and readjust your thinking a tad or so. To continue to be so aggressively supportive of this group will certify you as one who may be wasting their own natural resources.
<<<<(((((((Incoming)))))))>>>>

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2001

Whatever it took

any questions what I oppose Barry? ya extremist.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2001

No "incoming", Barry; I'm going to return the favor you once extended to me and "cut you some slack".
Flint, some day you will realize the futility of hanging on to your beliefs as you do now. The only sad part is that I probably won't be around to see it.
Little by little we are seeing what Junior is really about, and it's NOT the reasons you all "voted" for him. You, too, will eventually see this; if it's not too late.
I realize I should have stuck by my self-imposed "political exile" where dittoheads are concerned :-)
(Do you guys write Rush's show for him? Sure sounds like you do.)

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2001

The key to EY's ignorance outside of systems: He assumes there is (just takes for granted there is a "the "powerful""). From that comes all kinds of conspiratorial thinking. The onset of such thinking is that that "powerful" exists. Once you buy into that shit, the variations from the extreme Left or Right are very easy to take home along with the garbage. At it is some weird belief that while "you" and "I" can do our job, understand the mystical forces (Because we "Get It") NO ONE ELSE IS CAPABLE OF THAT. Playing to such fears and paranoias are the Banjo Strummers like Gary North or Missler, Pat Robertson or the Flakies of the Far Left.
Y2k may be historical in that it was one of the very few times that a DooDoo Carmichael or Paula Gordon would attribute the slightest amount of Credibility to a North or Cory or Core DumbDumb. Or to witness a North quoting as valid sources: a confessed marijuana distributor, a gold coin dealer convicted of Tax evasion, Tom Atlee, a bearded relic of 1968 making a living selling pots to tourists or the empty headed Grocer/Farmer/Y2k "Expert": Cynthia Beal.

If a bank fails because of a Y2K bug, the "powerful" can command that the bank be reopened, and they can stuff it full of freshly- printed cash right up to the ceiling -- but they can't command the computers to begin running again. They can command martial law to be imposed, they can command rationing to be imposed, they can command the allocation of people to work on various parts of whatever they feel to be most urgent ... but meanwhile, the broken computers computers are going to sit there, impervious to the demands of even the most powerful of politicians.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2001

Charlie, I'll take that one step further and say that Y2K was the first time a "DooDoo Carmichael or Paula Gordon" were GIVEN any credibility despite their lack of qualifications in the areas in which they WERE given credibility.
I think that's probably a more important point to make; stick a Ph.D. after someone's name and VOILA! you have instant expert.
Of course, in Ed's case he used his prior reputation.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2001

Patricia:
We see this same syndrome in other was as well. Look at the questions asked of famous athletes and actors. They are somehow supposed to be experienced and knowledgeable about politics, foreign affairs, just about anything outside a field where they have talent often unfettered by any knowledge of anything at all.
In a nutshell, we equate fame with universal knowledge. I wonder why.

-- Anonymous, February 09, 2001

With a worldwide population of over 6 Billion, we humans are somewhat awe-stuck over anybody that �sticks out of the crowd�. Flint has pointed out the folly of assuming that most of these people are well rounded in many areas. There are many famous athletes that left school a wee bit too early, and were pulled along to get as far as they did. And most actors are �natural liberals�, hoping that real life will mimic their own make-believe world. I have had the good fortune to personally meet some real VIP�s and there is a chemical reaction that takes place, regardless of their ability to spell C A T.

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2001

Y2k may be historical in that it was one of the very few times that a DooDoo Carmichael or Paula Gordon would attribute the slightest amount of Credibility to a North or Cory or Core DumbDumb. Or to witness a North quoting as valid sources: a confessed marijuana distributor, a gold coin dealer convicted of Tax evasion, Tom Atlee, a bearded relic of 1968 making a living selling pots to tourists or the empty headed Grocer/Farmer/Y2k "Expert": Cynthia Beal.
Cpr, there are fringers on both sides of every major issue in society, and Y2k was no exception. Note the November election! I believe the reason you see the above as historical is because you will not allow yourself to admit that the prevailing view of 'experts' before Jan. 2000 was that significant problems -- even infrastructure problems -- were possible in localities and countries where Y2k had not been properly addressed.
You spent so much time cataloging what the fringe had to say about Y2k that you overlooked trying to change the mind of those who were most likely to be viewed as reputable sources of info and whose opinions about Y2k differed from those relatively unknown individuals on the Net such as you, Doc Paulie and Andy Ray.
Who cares what a Cynthia Beal had to say about Y2k? If you truly knew ahead of time that Y2k was going to cause as few problems as it did, then you should have been trying to debunk or at least change the minds of the Treasury and other official groups who thought problems were possible in those areas in which Y2k had not been properly addressed.
Implicit in your current message, cpr, is the idea that significant problems as a result of Y2K were never possible -- even if Y2k had not been fixed in time. However, the official message before Jan. 2000 was something different -- that infrastructure problems in the U.S. would be few because most of the U.S.'s infrastructure had already been made ready for Y2k.
I think it's the people below whose minds you should have been trying to change. Their credibility influenced public policy and spending in regards to Y2k much more than the fringers and individuals you love to quote and deride.
http://www.businesstoday.com/techpages/y2kchronic11051999.htm
U.S. Y2K adviser terms glitch chronic
Reuters
Friday, November 5, 1999
President Clinton's chief adviser on the Year 2000 technology glitch warned the nation Thursday that Jan. 1 would not mark the end of Y2K- related concerns.
At the same time, a working group led by the Treasury Department voiced concerns about the Y2K readiness of key public and private institutions and the infrastructure of many countries including China, India, Russia.
The President's Working Group on Financial Markets cited concerns about small- to medium-sized enterprises worldwide, including in the United States, and about ``the financial sector in several small European markets'' that it did not name.
``One risk is the potential for a 'domino' systemic effect brought about by significant disruptions to these groups because of the Y2K rollover,'' said the working group, which consists of the Treasury, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Many of the countries that are least prepared for the Year 2000 are important energy exporters, said the report, prepared at the request of Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Commerce Committee.
ENERGY EXPORTERS THREATENED
``Any significant disruptions from the century date changeover that impact (the energy) industry locally could have a negative impact on the U.S. and global economies,'' the report said.
It cited Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Algeria, Indonesia, Turkmenistan, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Nigeria, Angola, and Colombia as among energy exporters that ``may experience disruptions tied to Year 2000.''
John Koskinen, Clinton's Y2K czar, told Congress that one of the most troubling Y2K myths ``is the notion that January 1 is a seminal date on which everything, or nothing, Y2K-related will occur.''
In testimony to a joint hearing of House of Representatives subcommittees, Koskinen said Y2K problems ``can happen any time a computer that is not Y2K-compliant comes into contact with a Year 2000 date -- before or after January 1.''
Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 conversion, said experts would have to monitor automated systems ``well into the new year for flaws in billing and financial cycles and possible slow degradations in service.''
``So I think it is important for the public to know that January 1 is just one of the important dates in the life of the Y2K issue,'' he said.
Koskinen said basic U.S. infrastructure was ready for Jan. 1, when unprepared computers could crash if they misread the last two zeros in the date field and mistake 2000 for 1900.
U.S. PERFECTION IMPOSSIBLE
But not every system will be fixed in time, ``and no amount of testing can ensure perfection,'' he said. He noted that a few federal agencies encountered glitches -- even in systems that had been fixed and tested -- when fiscal 2000 began on Oct. 1.
``We also expect failures in sectors where large numbers of organizations were late in starting or, even more troubling, are taking a wait-and-see approach,'' Koskinen said.
In separate testimony before the House panels, J. Patrick Campbell, chief operating officer of the Nasdaq stock market, disclosed plans for a public relations blitz designed to prevent any panic sell-offs as 2000 approaches.
The securities industry is taking out ads in major daily newspapers -- including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times -- in the next few weeks to ``separate Y2K fact from fiction,'' he said.
The text of the ad call on investors to ``stay invested for the long term,'' adding: ``We believe the market will continue to reward prudent investors with the patience to stick to sound investments over time.''

-- Anonymous, February 14, 2001

-- (Re@lity.check), February 14, 2001 ?? Reality check....YOU are an asshole. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE DE- BUNKERS WERE DOING. Your ASS-umption about "significant problems" were NONSENSE because only those under the influence of the Y2k Meme and the Net Banshees of Doom were propagating such BULL SHIT. The Head of the FAA was so confident about no Y2k problems she flew a Commercial Flight during the roll over in 4 time zones from DFW to SF. I know because I was on that plane also as a demonstration that .....NOTHING WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
$50 Million in tax payer money went down the tubes for the "Command Center" that was closed and was the scene of Sam Donaldson's only significant statement to Peter Jennings on New Year's Eve and during the "rollover'........."Peter,,,we are dying here. There is nothing to report."

-- Anonymous, February 14, 2001

AND........John K.'s role in life in 1999 was to "calm the public down and counter-act the doom mongerers". PERIOD.
BUSINESS DOESN"T CARE WHAT ANY POLITICIAN HAS TO SAY. Industry survey after industry survey showed that 90% of the respondents had FEW if any concerns about Y2k.
John K. did a good job but he is a lawyer/politician. NOT....a Tech Expert. The last tech expert to "expound" before Congress was YourToast-ED in May 1999 and he withdrew from Y2k immediately after only to return to milk the issue for publicity again and again.
Even the early Doomzies like Bruce Webster OPENLY STATED THEY WERE NOT WORRIED ABOUT TECHNICAL PROBLEMS. And I heard Bruce say that at the last meeting of DFW DAMA Y2k in Oct. 1999 with a whopping 11 people in the audience. Since DAMA had the leading Data Base Admins and IT shop Bosses as members, the lack of attendence alone signified THE ISSUE HAD BEEN ADDRESSED AND WAS DEAD. Webster still beat the drum because he predicted "tough times" due to the fall out. HE WAS WRONG just as he and many others were about the "IMPACTS" of Y2k ....WHICH NEVER.......NEVER AMOUNTED TO SQUAT.
AND ........THAT....IS THE POINT. LONG BEFORE 2000, WHEN THERE WERE **FEW IF ANY** PRE-2000 PROBLEMS .....IT WAS CLEAR Y2K HAD BEEN ADDRESSED AS A TECHNICAL .......BUSINESS PROBLEM.
THE LACK OF PROBLEMS AFTER ......WERE PROOF.
AT THE BOTTOM LINE IS THE QUESTION.....***HOW DID ITALY** THE SUPPOSED FOOT DRAGGER OF EUROPE EVEN.......SURVIVE MUCH LESS CONTINUE?
ONLY THE REALIZATION THAT Y2K WAS A HYPE......EXPLAINS THAT.

-- Anonymous, February 14, 2001

Reality check....YOU are an asshole. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE DE- BUNKERS WERE DOING.
My point should have been clear, cpr. I think you spent too much time trying to change the minds of individuals buying extra canned goods and mostly ignored trying to change the minds of those in a position to affect the amount of corporate and government money spent on Y2K.
Your ASS-umption about "significant problems" were NONSENSE because only those under the influence of the Y2k Meme and the Net Banshees of Doom were propagating such BULL SHIT.
The article about the Treasury and related groups speaks for itself.
The Head of the FAA was so confident about no Y2k problems she flew a Commercial Flight during the roll over in 4 time zones from DFW to SF. I know because I was on that plane also as a demonstration that .....NOTHING WAS GOING TO HAPPEN.
The FAA did finally finish its Y2K remediation in the summer of 1999. Who knows what would have happened if the FAA had not finished that remediation before the rollover.
$50 Million in tax payer money went down the tubes for the "Command Center" that was closed and was the scene of Sam Donaldson's only significant statement to Peter Jennings on New Year's Eve and during the "rollover'........."Peter,,,we are dying here. There is nothing to report."
You're touching here on one of my original points, cpr. If you were really sure that there were going to be so few problems in Jan. 2000, then you should have been trying to talk the government out of wasting $50 million of taxpayer money. I think the "Command Center" was prudent given the uncertainty surrounding Y2k.
As you yourself have pointed out, Dallas' Y2k readiness was never stated because the City Attorney and advisors did not permit it. Apparently Dallas and other organizations thought there might still be some bugs lingering in their systems even if the systems had been fixed.
AND........John K.'s role in life in 1999 was to "calm the public down and counter-act the doom mongerers".
Yes, he did try to calm the public down about U.S. infrastructure in press releases which would be heard by much of the public as sound bites on the evening news.
PERIOD.
As you can see from the article I posted above, though, John K. and other officials continued to have other concerns among themselves about Y2k even as the progress in fixing U.S. infrastructure was increasingly encouraging.
Industry survey after industry survey showed that 90% of the respondents had FEW if any concerns about Y2k.
Large U.S. corporations had indeed made a lot of progress before the rollover. Less certain before the rollover was the status of SME's, some foreign countries, and domino effects.
Even the early Doomzies like Bruce Webster OPENLY STATED THEY WERE NOT WORRIED ABOUT TECHNICAL PROBLEMS. And I heard Bruce say that at the last meeting of DFW DAMA Y2k in Oct. 1999 with a whopping 11 people in the audience. Since DAMA had the leading Data Base Admins and IT shop Bosses as members, the lack of attendence alone signified THE ISSUE HAD BEEN ADDRESSED AND WAS DEAD.
Because U.S. infrastructure and corporate remediation looked close to being done, or because he finally decided it didn't matter if it did or didn't get done? Again, your message that infrastructure problems had never been possible apparently had not gotten through to policy makers as of Oct. 1999.
Webster still beat the drum because he predicted "tough times" due to the fall out. HE WAS WRONG just as he and many others were about the "IMPACTS" of Y2k ....WHICH NEVER.......NEVER AMOUNTED TO SQUAT.
That was one of my points, cpr. Many thought before the rollover that "tough times" were possible. You now act as if the only people who thought tough times were possible were unknown, individual citizens who posted on Internet message groups. I congratulate you for calling Y2k correctly, but it's revisionist to claim that most policy makers shared your opinion before the rollover.
AND ........THAT....IS THE POINT. LONG BEFORE 2000, WHEN THERE WERE **FEW IF ANY** PRE-2000 PROBLEMS .....IT WAS CLEAR Y2K HAD BEEN ADDRESSED AS A TECHNICAL .......BUSINESS PROBLEM.
Take a look again at what John K. said about glitches in federal agency systems when fiscal 2000 began on Oct. 1, 1999 -- even in some systems that had already been fixed and tested.
THE LACK OF PROBLEMS AFTER ......WERE PROOF.
Or possibly that much of what bad code there had been out there was spotted and corrected before the rollover. The world did spend $200 million to fix Y2k. One would think that helped cut down to a manageable level how much "fix on failure" had to be done in Jan. 2000.
AT THE BOTTOM LINE IS THE QUESTION.....***HOW DID ITALY** THE SUPPOSED FOOT DRAGGER OF EUROPE EVEN.......SURVIVE MUCH LESS CONTINUE?
I can't say how much credit for a relatively glitch-free Y2k rollover should go to Y2k having been fixed, and how much credit should go to the notion that Y2k could never have caused tough times even if we had spent nothing to fix it.
ONLY THE REALIZATION THAT Y2K WAS A HYPE......EXPLAINS THAT.
A rather thorough look at the "Italy" question can be found here. Interpret it as you will.
In my opinion, there are two big reasons why countries like Italy fared so well. One is because their systems aren't interconnected nearly as much as systems are here in the United States. Secondly, because many foreign countries rely almost exclusively on off-the- shelf software -- easily replaced in 1999 with newer, compliant software -- they didn't have to worry about remediating code in custom-written software often found in U.S. companies.
I will admit with hindsight that the threat to infrastructure was probably never as large as some thought possible. On the other hand, trying to understand how a huge number of systems and data exchange points in a just-in-time global economy interact with each other did indeed make it hard to predict whether Y2k would cause "tough times."

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

HORSE SHIT CUBED. WE'VE heard it all before. More of the "better safe than sorry". Why not add the Sacred Senate Reports? How about some "statements from Bob Bennett" (Senile Senator still looking for his "water utility that can't be fixed because of Y2k chips"....))
The few links you post are isolated examples vs. Jane Garvey's declaration in JUNE, 1999 that she would fly coast to coast because she was confident the Airlines and Airports had done their Y2k work. That was when I decided that I might join her or do a similar thing. FEW of the major agencies or ANY of the major Corps. had anything to even say about Y2k. They made their SEC statements and most of those were IGNORED BY THE ZOMBIES. The MOST HYPOCRITICAL was Roleigh Martin's OWN EMPLOYER (a 16 Billion dollar Insurance Co.) had completed it Y2k work and ONLY SPENT $78 million to do so. For Martin to not mention that but post every unverified.... "rumor" or MYTH that ever hit the net on Y2k was a disgrace. If he didn't know it, then HOW could he ever DARE.....advertize himself as a "Y2k expert on "Critical Infrastructure". IT WAS ALL BS. EARLY 1999 WAS THE TIME FOR ANYONE WITH THE LEAST BIT OF COMMON SENSE TO BEGIN TO "REVISE" THEIR Y2K THINKING. Even Bruce Webster did and immediately after his re-write of EY's re-write of Brer Duct Tape's nonsense hit the book stores. By Spring, the only thing that worried me was the extent of the Doom Zombies efforts which in retrospect even I overstated. The whole of the Y2k Zombie movement was less than 1% of the population and like the loud, noisy bullshitters they are....only seemed to be more. It was hard to tell when so many were "anon".
BY SUMMER OF 1999,,,,,,even the Gary NORTH"general discussion" forums were not about Y2k but rather about all the rest of the things such low lifes "worry about" as they wait for the end of the world as it never was. The only active y2k "things" with any numbers to speak about were Hyatt and TimeStench2000. As we all learned, both were CENSORED to pound at the "Party Line".
As for DALLAS, in Jan.1999, the oldest and most prestigious Law Firm sponsored a Y2k seminar with even one of EY's henchmen as a contributor. The businesses and banks that showed up all admitted that "we are fine but we might be worried about one or two of our suppliers or customers". The Bottom line was: Due dilligence in case of potential liability. THAT was a business/legal effort indicative of "final sweep-up" after a major project is done. City of Dallas had its project FINISHED and announced the Contingency Plans that were a re-hab of the ongoing City Emergency Contingency Plans. THAT WAS ALMOST A YEAR ahead of time. EVERYTHING had been checked. IF anything, Dallas cost itself some great PR because it could have announced that it was the Y2k Ready for the 21st Century City. As it was, we had to share that with Boston (nice enough place but too cold and too expensive). WHAT **YOU** chose to believe pre-1/1/2000 WAS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BELIEVED ABOUT Y2k .....and 90% said there would be "few problems". I have the polls to back that up with.
YOUR VIEWS of life before TEOTW.....represent the "Re-Write" needed by the Doom Zombies to JUSTIFY HYPING AND SELLING THE Y2k MYTHS. IN THE REALITY OF 2000.....they were WRONG. All the "justifications" for their "acts" DON"T ERASE THAT FACT: WRONG......WRONG......AND DOUBLE WRONG. NOT ONLY.......were their CONCLUSIONS....WRONG.....
THEIR .......HYPOTHESIS.....WERE WRONG. AND THE DE-=BUNKERS AND OTHERS SHOWED THROUGH 1999......AND THE LACK OF ANY SERIOUS PROBLEMS BEFORE 2000.......THAT THOSE.......HYPOTHESIS ABOUT IMPENDING DOOOM WERE WRONG. AND..........IDIOT BIG DOG AND HIS SLATHERING PUPPIES ***SALES PITCH***........"ITS NOT Y2K YET"""""WAS........WRONG,WRONG AND MORE WRONG.
end of that line of thought for YOU.
You present another....."LinkMeister"...... "stitching" to shore up the belief there was "something real out there" just as the efforts to find "Glitches" to prove there WAS...anything continues. But.....even 'Glitch Central' closed because it was IGNORED by people with COMMON SENSE. GICC is a JOKE. 6 people posting 10,000 /16,000 links and less than 2% even REMOTELY Y2k. (Said 2% usually from that FONT of TECHNO-SKILL: "The Paula" or her "UN-NAMED ENGINEER" OR "UN- IDENTIFIED SOURCES WELL KNOWN TO ME" BS.
y2k was a technical business problem turned into a movie by Gary North, Ed Yourdon and other people preaching to TECHNO --ILLITERATES. IN TURN those techno-illiterates with their Ph.Ds. in "human behavior" or English or Sociology........wailed and cried to their "representatives" who in turn DID WHAT POLITICIANS DO.....pander to the loudest voices. Time after time .......THE MYTHS OF THE TECH SIDE OF Y2k were EXPOSED and DE-BUNKED and still the CRAP WENT ON.
The politicians writing the last 1/2 of 1999 reports.....were POLITICIANS and WHAT BUSINESSMAN/WOMAN.......EVER BELIEVES SUCH THINGS......UNLESS...........THEY WANT TO BELIEVE????
IN THE 2 FACED HYPOCRISY OF EY AND GN AND "TIMEBOMB" HOOPLES......THEY SELECTED OUT...ONLY THOSE THINGS THAT "PROVED THEIR CASE" ......WHILE IGNORING EVERYTHING ELSE. THAT ..IS...AND WAS PROPAGANDA......

The Nat. Intelligence report and the NIST report were CYA. The multi- million times posted story to the NY Times post 1/1/2000 story is obsolete. YOU KEEP POSTING A FEW "CUT AND PASTES" like postage stamps from a collection the same way the Doomzies do.
AGAIN....THERE WAS NO CONFUSION AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF GOV. AND BUSINESS ABOUT WHAT WOULD HAPPEN. EITHER HERE OR OFF SHORE. OFFSHORE IT SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MOSTLY A NON-ISSUE. EVEN JAPAN SAILED THROUGH WITH LESS THAN 20 REPORTED INCIDENTS IN THE MOST INDUSTRIALIZED NATION IN THE ORIENT WHERE "EMBEDDED" and "interconnectedness" should have thrown far more. 20 out of multi-millions of systems and LINES OF CODE is........insignificant.
BUSINESS KNEW AND THE ONLY REMNANTS OF 1997-8 Y2K FUD IN THE TRADES.....WERE: KAPPELMAN AND YOURDON ....AND A VERY FEW VENDOR ADS. IBM and MS and Oracle and SUN and COMPUTER ASSOCIATES......had dismounted y2k as a "marketing thrust".
PERIOD again.
You stitch together the same sort of posts from "linkmeister" to justify your own position and it leave out the FACTs. After Spring, 1999 most of the Gov. efforts were CYA and the business efforts were "due dilligence" driven. EVERYONE KNEW. Except the TURDS at "center for Y2k and wasted grant money" who propagated their crap as late as 2nd wk. Dec.1999. The NIST report was written by a VENDOR and signed by NIST officials. It will go down as one of the few EVER shoddy bits of work by one of the Gov's very bests agencies. The Nat. Intelligence effort had some agendas that were not in the Y2k realm. Not the least of which was the "terrorists problems" both domestic and external. The busts in Oct.,Nov. and Dec. of assorted Yo-Yos was the culmination of a long effort to isolate them out of other more legitimate parts of the Fringe. The Danger from such groups was clear. Under the disguise of Y2k problems and prep. efforts by Gov. and Muni. the terrorists would have almost a road map of where the Cops and law enforcement agencies major efforts would be. That would leave the rest of the turf open. Working with Militia Leaders and even other extremists, the FBI and CIA were able to make it clear that any efforts to take advantage of the Y2k problems that MIGHT happen would not be tolerated. 3 groups were jailed. One at the Wash.St border was alligned to Fundi Muslim groups and/or Bin Ladin. How much of Nat.Intelligence efforts were in that direction can't be known until the release of their records and that can be decades.

-- Anonymous, February 15, 2001

Cpr, your reporting of the Y2k story is rather one-sided. The reason I say that is because you concentrate so much on how people reacted to Y2k. What you usually ignore are what could be called the "events" of Y2k -- the timeline of what was known and what wasn't known about Y2k at various dates before the rollover. In addition to events, Y2k was also about ideas such as potential domino effects and the interconnectedness of the global economy.
OK, so you don't want to talk about the official reports on Y2k before the rollover -- reports that some considered to be a more objective source of info than your impassioned rants. Instead, I invite you to add your thoughts to this excerpt from the Final Report of the President's Council on Y2K Conversion, issued after the rollover.
It has a markedly different tone from the one you use in your writing.
http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002uTs
http://www.y2k.gov/docs/LASTREP3.htm
RETROSPECTIVE ON THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM

There is general agreement that the Year 2000 rollover went more smoothly than expected. The incredible success of the transition has prompted a number of questions about the effort and the results it produced.
Was Y2K an insignificant, over-hyped problem?

In the weeks since the rollover, some have expressed doubt about the magnitude of the Y2K problem and whether or not the significant investment of time and money to avoid disruptions was necessary. However, it has been difficult to find executives who worked on Y2K in a major bank, financial institution, telephone company, electric power company or airline who believe that they did not confront -- and avoid -- a major risk of systemic failure.

One indication of the difficulty of the Y2K problem is the fact that many large, sophisticated users of information technology revealed in regular filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that they had been required to increase the funds allocated to their Y2K programs. These increases, which in some cases were in the hundreds of millions of dollars, were not for public relations purposes. Rather, they reflected the difficult effort of remediating large, complicated and often antiquated IT systems.

The Federal Government experienced a similar phenomenon. Cumulative agency estimates for the costs to solve the Y2K problem increased over four years from under $3 billion to the $8.5 billion that was actually spent. This was still significantly less than the $20 to $30 billion estimated by outsiders. But here too, the job of ensuring Y2K compliance proved to be more challenging than initially expected.

The range of actual failures during the January 1 and February 29 (Leap Day) rollovers served as a reminder of the major economic and operating disruptions that had been avoided by the development of Y2K compliant IT systems:

A classified Defense Department intelligence satellite system was totally inoperable for several hours during the rollover period. The problem originated not in the satellite itself but in the ground- based switching and software equipment used to download and process information from the satellite.

Bank credit card companies identified a Y2K-glitch involving some credit card transactions. Merchants that did not make use of free upgrades provided during 1999 for a particular software package charged customers for orders every day after a single purchase was made. The problem affected primarily smaller retailers since most major retailers use their own customized software.

A Y2K computer glitch at a Chicago-area bank temporarily interrupted electronic Medicare payments to some hospitals and other health care providers. As a work- around, Medicare contractors -- private insurance companies that process and pay Medicare claims - were forced to send diskettes containing processed claims to the bank by courier or Federal Express so that the payments could be made in a timely manner.

Florida and Kentucky unemployment insurance benefit systems encountered a Y2K glitch in an automated telephone call processing system. The Y2K glitch in customized code prevented some claimants from claiming earned income for the week ending 01/01/2000. Claimants reporting the problem had to be given an alternative means for filing their claims pursuant to State contingency plans.

Low-level Windshear Alert Systems (LLWAS) failed at New York, Tampa, Denver, Atlanta, Orlando, Chicago O'Hare and St. Louis airports during the date rollover. The systems displayed an error message. Air transportation system specialists at each site were forced to reboot LLWAS computers to clear the error. Fortunately, the weather was mild across the United States.

Seven nuclear power plant licensees reported problems with plant computer systems used for supporting physical plant access control, monitoring operating data, and calculating meteorological data. The affected systems did not have an impact on the safety of operations at the plants.

During the Leap Day rollover, several hotels reportedly were unable to issue room keys to guests because of a failure in hotel key- producing software.

The Council Chair, traveling in March, received a car rental contract that included a $10 daily charge as an underage driver since the software indicated he was born in 2039.

These and other glitches would have been more serious had they occurred in an environment in which a wide range of other Y2K problems had also surfaced. If there had been a flurry of other difficulties, some glitches would have gone undetected for a longer period of time. Glitches also could have had a multiplier effect by creating problems through interfaces to other systems or could have resulted in a gradual degradation of service. As it happened, organizations were able to focus all of their attention on the relatively few problems that did occur, which resulted in much faster restoration of normal operations.

Some of the failed expectations about more serious Y2K problems can be traced to the skepticism and disbelief with which some people greeted company and government progress reports on Y2K, believing that these institutions were inevitably covering up the possibilities of major Y2K failures. However, as the Council noted on numerous occasions, individuals in positions of responsibility who were claiming success in their Y2K efforts would be easily found after January 1, and held accountable, if subsequent system failures proved that they had misrepresented the facts. But many people continued to assume the worst would materialize even as much of the self-reporting pointed to a fairly orderly transition into the new millennium.

Why weren't there more Y2K-related problems abroad, especially in less-developed nations?

Some of those who have discounted, after the fact, the significance of the Y2K threat point to the relative lack of major disruptions abroad as evidence of how exaggerated the problem was. How did countries that appeared to have spent so little, and were thought to be relatively unprepared, emerge unscathed?

A number of factors created the mismatch between perception about the Y2K readiness of foreign countries and the actual outcome. Chief among them was the difficulty in obtaining accurate status reports internationally on a fast moving issue such as Y2K. Information three months old was out of date, and much of the international information reported was second hand and anecdotal. But, in many cases, this was the best information available until countries began to report more publicly on their Y2K work. Without more current, detailed reports, people often relied on such older information and were then surprised when it was overtaken by subsequent progress. A report about risks from April or June 1999 was assumed to still be operative in December.

A related problem was the stereotype of countries doing nothing to prepare for Y2K. While this was probably true for three- quarters of the countries in the world in early 1998, by mid-1999 virtually every country had a Y2K program in place and was devoting a high level of attention to the problem. In many cases, the fact that some countries may have spent the bulk of their funds in a concentrated effort the last six to nine months of 1999 was largely ignored. For some commentators, therefore, it has been easier to suggest that the problem was overstated rather than to consider the possibility that perceptions before the rollover were inaccurate.

Additionally, outside of the world's largest users of information technology B countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom -- the reliance upon IT drops off quickly. In many of these less IT-dependent countries, other factors also made for an easier transition into the Year 2000. Fixes in these countries were frequently more straightforward than in the United States since the technology being used was more likely to be off the shelf, and not customized. Also, unlike the United States, countries such as Spain and Italy that had moved into IT more recently were not saddled with old legacy systems that were built with antiquated, customized code by people who had long since retired.

Countries starting later also had the benefit of lessons learned by those who had been working on Y2K for several years. The sharing of technical information about problems, products, fixes and testing techniques that was encouraged by international organizations and the Council paid enormous dividends. Elevators provide a good example. In 1998, everyone was testing to see if elevator-specific systems had a Y2K problem. Once it became clear that they did not, no one else had to spend time and money pursuing the issue. Similar experiences took place in industries such as banking, finance, telecommunications, air traffic and electric power where information was being exchanged and shared globally in a way never seen before. And in many industries, large multi-national companies actually worked directly with their local counterparts and host countries to fix basic systems.

Finally, technology itself helped countries that had gotten a late start on Y2K. One the reasons those that started late spent less on their Year 2000 efforts was that the technology to fix the problem improved dramatically. By 1999, automated tools could fix millions of lines of code quickly and at a dramatically lower cost than was possible just two years earlier. This technology helped late-starting countries to fix the problem quickly - and more cheaply.

Why weren't there more problems among small businesses?

Small business was another area about which many, including the Council, had expressed concerns. While there were relatively few reports of Y2K-related failures among small businesses, for firms large and small, there is a natural inclination not to report problems that are fixed in very short time frames. This phenomenon was revealed before the rollover when surveys showed that over 70 percent of companies reported they had experienced Y2K glitches, even though the public was unaware of virtually all of them. Some said the number of failures indicated the pervasive nature of the Y2K problem. The Council believed that the experience of companies with Y2K failures before January 1, 2000 also demonstrated that most Y2K problems could be fixed without people being inconvenienced or even knowing that anything had happened.

The lack of information about how small businesses were doing was an ongoing challenge for the Council and others following Y2K. The sheer number of these companies - over 23 million - and the absence of regular reporting relationships that made it difficult to gather information on the progress of small businesses prior to January 1, also made it difficult to determine how many actually experienced Y2K difficulties after the date change.

What happened to fears of overreaction by the public?

While a very small, but visible, minority engaged in excessive stockpiling of goods in advance of the New Year, most Americans took Y2K in stride. Anxiety about the date change, which seemed to peak in 1998, declined throughout 1999 as more and more information became available about organizations that were completing their Y2K work. By the end of the year, there was very little evidence of overreaction among the general public to the potential consequences of Y2K.

The availability of information - both positive and negative -- about Y2K efforts played a major role in reversing the trend toward overreaction. The Council's position was that people are more inclined to panic when they lack information, which can lead to a general feeling that the system is out of control. But, given the facts, whatever they are, people have great common sense and will respond appropriately. Even when the information about industry and government Y2K efforts revealed that there was still substantial work left to do, people were not alarmed. Instead, they seemed reassured in the knowledge that organizations were treating the problem seriously, were working together to solve it, and would keep the public informed about their progress. Americans knew Y2K was an important problem, but they also knew that organizations were spending large amounts of time and money to minimize any difficulties that could have been created by the date change.

Was the money well spent?

In hindsight, it is always easy to see what was not a problem and say that less money could have been spent. It's a little like saying you could have saved money spent on building safer roads when fewer accidents occur. But part of the reason for the smooth transition, in the face of thoughtful analyses noting that IT projects generally finish late and over budget with remediation work creating errors as well as removing them, was that people did test, retest, and then test their systems once again. Never before had so much independent verification and validation been done for IT work -- and it showed in the positive results and the on-time performance.

Ultimately each organization had to make its own judgement about the potential implications of failures and the appropriate cost necessary to minimize such problems. Any organization that cut back on its work to save money and subsequently experienced serious system failures would have been pilloried as badly managed and foolish.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

HORSE MANURE. A bunch of cliches to back up the expenditures of billions most of which was in the guise of "y2k" but in REALITY...was a way to "upgrade" and update systems after the cutbacks of the 1985- 95 time frames. COUPLED WITH THE GROWTH OF THE NET, companies had to "do it".

IN REALITY........******NOTHING HAPPENED*****ZIPPO****ZILCH. NO MORE AND NO LESS THAN THE GLITCHES THAT HAVE BEEN GOING ON SINCE
MAN LEFT THE CAVE.

-- Anonymous, February 16, 2001

Moderation questions? read the FAQ

More drivel from Taos Toasty

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know Is On The Internet

Answers

Whatever it took

IN REALITY........******NOTHING HAPPENED*****ZIPPO****ZILCH. NO MORE AND NO LESS THAN THE GLITCHES THAT HAVE BEEN GOING ON SINCE MAN LEFT THE CAVE.

IN REALITY........**NOTHING HAPPENED*ZIPPOZILCH. NO MORE AND NO LESS THAN THE GLITCHES THAT HAVE BEEN GOING ON SINCE
MAN LEFT THE CAVE.