A gentleman by the name of Sunil Madhok had contributed an article to Westergaard's site, detailing some of the problems with embedded systems in the United Arab Emirates.

This article occasioned a reply by Adachi Susumu, on June 16, 1998 This reply is a letter, found at:

http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Special/Opinion/Readers/asumu9824.htm

Mr. Susumu spent several years in Saudia Arabia and UAE, dealing with the sales and installation of water desalination plants. Think you have water storage problems?

I call your attention to this because many of our recent forum readers probably haven't been exposed to it.

Several quotes are provided below. The article is recommended reading.

"This lengthy letter is intended to remind my friends who are living in the oil producing countries on the Arabian Gulf of the fact that your life depends wholly on fresh water generated from the seawater desalination (or desalting) plants. In view of the Year 2000 Problems, desalination plants seem to be vulnerable to the Y2K threat because of their heavy reliance on computer and embedded systems. Once these plants malfunction, the effect is fatal or apocalyptic. It also means that all the people in the world whose life depends on the oil from the Gulf countries are being threatened by the functionality of the desalination plants there beyond Year 2000.

".....Upon the request of the oil producing countries where the labor force was very scarce, the remote and automatic control systems, especially for MSF plants, were introduced as early as the beginning of the 1980s. In the mid-1980s, one push-button start/stop and one-dial distillate control systems were developed for MSF plants. As you can guess, the stable operation of those huge plants is very delicate. At every stage of process, you have to monitor and control temperature, pressure, flow volume, liquid level, impurity, composition and so on. For this purpose, there are many sensors and embedded systems planted all around the plant and the site. Now it is generally considered that a certain percentage of embedded systems (5-10% ?) could have "date" programs which will collapse on Jan. 1, 2000. Regardless of this assumption, there is "periodical" processing and report functions attached to many embedded systems, which can cripple the entire plant if they malfunction. Manual backup is prepared of course, but it does not cover embedded systems' failures. The same thing can be said about RO plants."

rocky

-- rocky (rknolls@hotmail.com), October 24, 1998

Answers

Holy Moly if the whole world were the third world, and if the word IF were about a hundred times larger than it is, and if the sky were really falling, (which it isn't).....there would certainly be big probs in many countries. And there will be big probs. But not like you people describe. I'm getting sick to puking of hearing about the end of the world. It just flat ain't gonna be that way....big problems yeah. Billions starving? Grow up!

-- John Howard (pcdir@prodigy.net), October 25, 1998.

I for one appreciate ALL information I recieve on this forum. I also am very aware of the time and effort it takes to find the different documents and bring them to our attention. So before I say anything else let me say Thank you very much Rocky, there are alot of people that genuinely appreciate the information you bring to us. Now John, despite your views on Y2K surely you are intelligent enough to realize that a forum such as this is going to produce many ideas and conclusions that you will not agree with. Tolerance and respect for others with different perspectives, not just on this forum but in everyday life, is the only way we are going to be able to live together .If you get frustrated by the things you read on this forum then dont read it but being RUDE should never be an option.

-- Cecilia (BigDog001@aol.com), October 25, 1998.

Did you read the article, John?

If so, why do you discredit it? Can you provide any evidence to discredit the writer of the letter. I also read is bio on the Westergaard site. He seems to have a lot of experience in this area. Do you have any experience in desalination plants in Saudia Arabia, sir?

I found the letter well written and enough to provide a lot of food for thought. I didn't find John's attempt to discredit the post either well wrtten or providing food for thought.

-- DeAlton Lewis (delewis@inetone.net), October 25, 1998.

"OY, Sol, vat does you? Ya, Ya, I know the Nazis are unfriendly, but to pack up and leave Germany! Vat are you, crazy?"

-John Howardstein

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), October 25, 1998.

John, you need to get out more. You sound like a whiny kid.

-- Believer (OYe@littlefaith.com), October 25, 1998.

This piece came out about two weeks after I began my y2k research and it had a tremendous impact on me. It was the one that really made me see the horrendous global nature of the problem. It underscored for me the meaning of the interconnections of systems and the vulnerability of the supply chain. It prompted me to mull over the socio-political dangers inherent in the problem. It assaulted my mind and broke my heart, and cemented my resolution to be a part of the solution, in whatever way I could, however small my efforts might seem.

Thanks for posting it, Rocky. I hope it does for a few other folks what it did for me.

Faith

-- Faith Weaver (faith-weaver@usa.net), October 25, 1998.

I've always maintained that my neighbor is anybody who lives on this planet, and it sounds like my neighbor in the middle east needs some information and assistance. How can we get them information and the remediation they need?

-- Karen Cook (browsercat@hotmail.com), October 25, 1998.

I wonder... if the systems, information and market, crash hard worldwide and disruption and upheaval result, will the average person in Milan, Buenos Aires, or Taipei blame America? Will they think the world market crash and Y2K were the result of a conspiricy to topple their economies in order to gain more power? Or will they think that we just don't really know what we're doing?

I don't think I'd want to be out strolling in the streets of Riyadh in my American tourist clothes come January 2000...

it must be all the background microwave radiation...try lining your hat with aluminum foil.

-- Max Dixon (Ogden, Utah USA) (Max.Dixon@gte.net), October 26, 1998.