Big Dog:

I know I'll catch hell for this, but I'd like to make an attempt to decode the phrase "we started too late" to see what "as CLOSE to a conclusive fact as is available" really means.

1) Who is 'we'? Remediation is hardly monolithic. It is millions of independent efforts (except for interface testing). Given what eventualy turned out to be the scope of each project, indeed some organizations failed to allocate sufficient resources soon enough to 'complete' the process in time. Others started in plenty of time and are by now arbitrarily close to as compliant as actual practice permits. Many others will reach that point between now and the time that the offending (but now fixed) bugs would have struck.

2) Too late for what? Despite the positions of the extremists, y2k is not a pass/fail binary issue. It is graded on a wide curve. As one of many possible grading schemes, let me suggest this:

F: can't stay in business for more than a quarter (falls over)

D: can't stay in business for more than a year (wastes away)

C: can stay in business only by reducing/redirecting functionality significantly

B: can remain in business, but won't be profitable for at least a year

A: can remain profitable throughout the y2k experience

Let's say, kind of arbitrarily, that "started too late" means, in practice, that a business gets a grade below C. Note that this grade is empirically derived, based on performance subsequent to rollover. So it necessarily encompasses degree of remediation, nature of actual bug impacts, speed of recovery, agility of FOF, and very probably external considerations like nature of the market (demand for product), success of competitors, local infrastructure problems, etc. Note also that the luck of the draw can kill some fully compliant organizations while rescuing some real laggards. But we're ultimately concerned with life after rollover, so what's important to us us what *works*, rather than why or how.

By this time, "started too late" is beginning to take on useful meaning. We can use it to speculate as to what percentage of current GDP (or GWP?) will fall into which grade categories.

Would you say that "started too late" means, say, that enough organizations will earn failing grades to cause a 1930's style depression or worse? Or just how would you score it? Until we can do some quantification, the "started too late" phrase is simply too hazy to be considered anything like a 'fact'.

I'd really like to know.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 27, 1999

Answers

Flint,

For God's sake, what do you think you are doing? Is this some college debating assignment where you pick out some term and analyze it to death? Or are you just fiddling while Rome burns? Did you write that line for the Prez, "it depends on what the meaning of is, is"?

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), May 27, 1999.

Flint,

Can we do "the code is broken" next?

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 27, 1999.

Decker,

Yes, please. Lets. :)

-- Stephen M. Poole, CET (smpoole7@bellsouth.net), May 27, 1999.

Flint,

"We started too late" is a way of saying it's prudent to prepare for potential Y2K disruptions. You're preparing for Y2K. Obviously you think it's possible that important Y2K work may have started too late.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 27, 1999.

Hey this is fun. Lets do this one too: "The stock market is going to crash". Just what does that mean?

A. Cash out and get ready for a depression

B. Cash out and get ready for a depression

C. Cash out and get ready for a depression

D. Cash out and get ready for a depression

E. Cash out and get ready for a depression

F. Cash out and get ready for a depression

Careful...may be a trick question.

"The fate of the world economy is now totally dependent on the growth of the U.S. economy, which is dependent on the stock market, whose growth is dependent on about 50 stocks, half of which have never reported any earnings."

- former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker this week

-- a (a@a.a), May 27, 1999.

How about, my ass is itchy? Damn Flint, your better than that!

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), May 27, 1999.

Flint

Boy, are you getting hammered.

I've always been comfortable with a simple interpretation that it meant "We're not going to complete some or maybe all of the important projects by the deadline and things are really going to suck."

I know, it's not very intellectual, but it's way above discussing itchy asses.

-- Doug (douglasjohnson@prodigy.net), May 27, 1999.

Hey a:

I've been away for weeks doing excessive Y2K preps. I visited this board last night and read Paul Volker's quote, which I copied down. This morning at the factory I wrote those words on an erasable marker board adjacent to my full color poster of Barney, Baby Bop and BJ. I'm not erasing Volker's words until I witness some interesting reactions. So far a few readers seem mildly amused but not concerned. Now if the quotation had been from Allen Greenspan...

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), May 27, 1999.

OK, OK, maybe an engineering orientation is hard to adopt. When I'm developing a device, it just is *not* sufficient to say "It don't work". That level of diagnostic might be sufficient for 'a', but it's no help at all to someone trying to find out *why* it fails, and how to correct it.

Dismissing an incredibly complex, confusing, ambiguous, trillion- variable situation with a single slogan doesn't help anyone understand what we're facing, or what we might best do about it. I'll accept that most people, no matter how concerned they might be about y2k, lack whatever it takes to dig into the *real* meat of what happens in the real world, in enough detail to respond intelligently. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that for most people, it's easier to come to some fixed conviction, after which they spend their time shooting at where the target *used* to be, and attacking those who disagree.

They say a fanatic is someone who redoubles his energy once he's forgotten his objective. Is it really a dumb idea to wonder just how many started too late, and what that will mean later? Are we still concluding that anything less than 100% compliant means 100% failure? Aren't we looking at a wide spectrum of degrees of compliance? And doesn't "we started too late" or "the code is broken" direct our vision away from that spectrum and force our thoughts into patterns that militate against understanding.

Einstein said everything should be made as simple as possible, *but no simpler.* At best, Big Dog's slogans oversimplify. Drastically.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 27, 1999.

OK, I give up- how many angels CAN dance on the head of that pin???

Y2K QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS THAT MATTER:

1) What will happen? A: No one knows.

2) How bad will it be? A: No one can tell.

3) How long will it last? A: No one is sure.

-- Lee (lplapin@hotmail.com), May 27, 1999.

Flint,

You are not going to pin BD down. Oh, after "the code is broken" let's try "It's systemic."

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 27, 1999.

Flint, that was a great post. Don't worry about the flamers in here. This board definately is mucho doom driven and if you don't advocate shooting your neighbor, you are a liberal.

-- Pat (BAMECW@aol.com), May 27, 1999.

I'm not going to offer any detailed statistical analyses nor quotes from "Mythical Man Month" - both of which, as a working senior software engineer and project manager I've dealt with for the last 18 years.

Rather, a metaphor comes to mind.

Think of the movie "The Lost World" aka the sequel to Jurassic Park. In that world, Spielberg showed us there was more than one way to die.

First, it can happen in one gigantic crunch when a T-Rex gets you. OR you can get chased around by those little guys about 2 feet tall. The second way seemed to be a much worse way to go, as you had time to realize you're getting eaten - one bite-sized chunk at a time.

My wife (a project manager, financial analyst, and software engineer) calls this being "nibbled to death by ducks".

Jolly

-- Jollyprez (jolly@prez.com), May 27, 1999.

OK Flint, I give you a rational, reasoned answer.

- First of all, there is no way to gauge the amount of real progress, because of specious self-reporting, the influence of corporate and governmental politics, and lack of live testing.

- Second, there is no way to model the interconnections econometrically, because there are too many, and the status of most is unknown. It's the three-body problem, only with several hundred thousand bodies.

- Third, there is the difference between those countries that at least tried to remediate, and those that, well, "started too late". Way, way, way, way too late.

So in a nutshell, trying to compute GDP impact would be at best an exercise in futility. Your grading system looks nifty, but its useless. I can tell you though, after seriously studying the situation several hours a day for almost a year, I think the best we can hope for is a 1930's style depression, with a lot more violence.

IMHO.

-- a (a@a.a), May 27, 1999.

a:

Perhaps a 1990's style depression, with a lot more insanity.

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), May 27, 1999.

Flint .....

I'll overlook, at least to start, the irony that I'm the guy who challenged Decker on another thread that Y2K facts are almost impossible to establish. So, silly me, I suggest an "opinion" that I dared to call a nearly established fact, that the world "started too late" to fix Y2K.

Gee, I thought that was not only factual but trivial!

That is, given the total picture (number of players who must remediate, amount of remediation required, testing required, etc), it seemed to me that both rational pollys and doomers alike agree that the "world" (it is a bit hard to break that down into the 100,000 or so entities referred) should have started, say, in 1995. Or whenever, but certainly earlier (we can debate when, it's a separate question).

No, not necessarily EVERYBODY in 1995 (gosh, it's the "world", remember?) but speaking generally.

What am I missing here? What does this have to do with who ENDS UP being compliant or what percentage of compliant or ....... ?? Or with whether Y2K ends up being a bump or TEOTWAWKI or IFM?

What does it even have to do with whether everyone and their mama becomes compliant this year?

I consider it nearly self-evidently factual that it would have been better (safer, more prudent, less costly, less likely to provoke panic, bank runs, NEEDLESS preparation costs) if the world, taken as a whole, had started earlier?

Why don't we try to establish the ground rules before I answer your opening post which, to me, seems to begin after, not before consideration of the "fact" I so recklessly proposed. That might be an interesting conversation but first things first.

(As for Decker, it's nice to see that he never "attacks" or "demeans" or "undermines" or ..... he's such a niiiiiiccceee guy.)

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 27, 1999.

Warning -- The Debunkers and their Memebuster friends are massing to disinfect us memes again. No? Okay, look at this post made by a major Boonkah player this afternoon at Der Boonkah -- is it a call to arms, or what? http://www.InsideTheWeb.com/messageboard/mbs.cgi?acct=mb237006&MyNum=9 27830917&P=Yes&TL=927824470

Debunking Y2k webboard

NEW TOPIC: LETS END THE "NO BODY KNOWS" MYTH WITH "WHAT WE KNOW NOW"

Thursday, 27-May-1999 14:48:37

151.164.57.51 writes:

LETS FORGET THIS "WE DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN".

LETS ASK WHAT DO WE KNOW THAT WILL WORK.

THEN ASK: "WHAT ARE **THEY** PREPARING FOR??"

The former "Iron Triangle" of North/Yourdon/rest WILL NOT FAIL.

FACT OR FICTION??

1. POWER. They started early 1998 with the Grid will fail. Then it was one of the 3 grids will fail. Now its "isolated shortages".

QUESTION: Where??

So we know that for the vast majority: there will be POWER.

2. Telcos. Power companies and everyone depend on the Telcos which depend on Power. See one above and the statements of the Telco industry.

QUESTION: does anyone know a Telephone Company that will fail?? Answer: WHERE IS THE DATA showing ANY??

3. The BANKS. MYTH ONE: was North and Yourdon's "not enough time to fix. Well it turns out there WAS ENOUGH TIME.

So now comes Myth TWO: banks will fail because of RUNS the BAnks. BUT, the Fed is not too stupid. They now have enough cash to provide a MIN. of $7,000 per household in the US.

CASH. Which inspired one Fed Reserve official to say, "let them run on a bank we are ready for them".

In reality, The average savings per cap. in DEMAND deposits is about $600;head. With the mythical American family of 2.5 thats: $1,500. DOUBLE THAT FOR SAFETY: Say the household has $3,000 in *** demand ** accounts that must be paid on the spot. That is worst case. In reality, 1/2 of the households in the US HAVE NO SAVINGS AND LIVE WEEK TO WEEK. BUT, even at $3,0000 the FED has: $7,000/household.

SOURCE: (FOR DOOMERS): FED.RESERVE BANK (DALLAS) SPOKESPEOPLE AT A DFW/DAMA meeting.

THAT's TWICE.........worst case to fund ALL THE RUNS ON ALL THE BANKS IS IT NOT?????

So, we know the banks would be in business, charge cards work, ATMs work, Telephones will work and POWER WILL BE ON.

WHAT ARE YOU "PREPARING FOR"????????

A DOOM ZOMBIE BULL s--- STORY ON AN INTERNET FORUM???

cpr

(End quote)

-- OutingsR (us@here.yar), May 27, 1999.

OutingsR I know those look really strange, but they are called facts. They are what the real world lives by. I know it can take a few days to digest. But don't worry, even us NWO soldiers live by them.

-- Pat (BAMECW@aol.com), May 27, 1999.

Utilities- not compliant

Telcos- not compliant

Banks- not compliant

Excuse me, maybe a few banks.

These are called facts. They are what the real world lives by.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), May 27, 1999.

Cow Patty! Loyal Memebuster! Saw your Der Boonkah post about Invar today, where you said --

Another one bites the dust, Another one bites the dust

Invar has decided to no longer post over at the swamp. His post should be posted far and wide to show exactly what the Meme contagion is. . . .

(End quote)

Anotehr WHAT bites the dust? Why do you call this forum the swamp? How far is far and how wide is wide? What IS a Meme contagion? And do you know how to really and truly split an infinitive?

-- OutingsR (us@here.yar), May 27, 1999.

Flint - try this:

I will categorically state that to the best of my ability to discern (which is all the validity anyone can claim at this point) the results of y2k related effects world wide will have the potential to impact this country's economy equivalent to a 1930's depression. The critical question is that, considering how much more fragmented our society is now than it was in the 1930's, how much magnification of the social and political unrest associated with such a depression will in fact occur.

BTW, using your scale, most small and medium sized businesses which scored below an "A" would suffer serious difficulties or fail, as small and medium sized businesses generally do not have the operating capital to function for an entire year without some degree of profitability...at least not without serious cuts in manpower. It's those cuts in manpower - how many folks end up out of work, or with their hours cut back so far as to no longer be making a living wage, that lead to both decreased consumer spending (thus further weakening the economy) AND to increased civil unrest.

Now you *might* be thinking "well, they'll just borrow enough money to keep going", but stop and think for a minute. Even given the validity of the unproven theory that most financial institutions will be able to continue to function in a post y2k international environment, banks are already starting to be charry of borrowers who cannot prove themselves to be y2k compliant. After the rollover those which have now *proven* themselves to be noncompliant are going to be considered even less likely candidates for loans, as their lack of compliance will be seen as in indication of bad management.

we started too late, Flint, we started too late.

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), May 27, 1999.

Flint,

I think you bring up some valid and interesting questions. I am neither a programmer nor an engineer, but I have been researching Y2K for a couple years now. I mostly lurk on this forum, but I am not a newbie.

I would have to say that a lot depends on the specific industry when it comes down to what will happen if X% is left undone. The electric industry seems to think that they can "manual" their way around practically everything - and maybe they can. Greenspan tells us that 99% done isn't good enough for banking. What does that mean? That all banks will crap out??? I think not. But it will cause some headaches for someone.

The problem I see is that half the businesses in this country aren't doing ANYTHING. The half that are working on it will only be partially done...maybe 90% and maybe 60%, so what does that mean? Depends on the industry again. But one thing is certain. From the very beginning, The Gartner Group and others have stated that there isn't enough programmers to fix all the code. So right now we have some remediation companies sitting on their hands, and some even going out of business, because so many are doing nothing. But when everyone needs them at once, we are back to the shortage situation.

When I was in the Navy, I was a communications tech controller. If the user had a problem with a circuit, they called me. I would troubleshoot. If the problem was in-house, I would spare off the faulty equipment, get the circuit back to ops, and fill out a trouble chit on the equipment and turn it in to maintainance. They came over eventually, tested a few things, pulled out a circuit board, threw it in the trash and stuck in another one. Nobody trouble shoots down to the component level anymore...they are not WILLING nor are they ABLE I don't think...maybe some of them are. It's not worth the time and effort. We live in a throw away society. You are a rare bird in that you go a little deeper than the average bear. Most of society does not. Cheap labor and components from overseas. Think about the interconnections again. Transportation & shipping. Banking. around and round she goes. How can banks stay solvent when half the businesses in this country fail, laying off all the workers who used to pay their mortgages and car payments on time? How can the money center banks who have billions in outstanding loans to Venezuela and Brazil and so forth stay solvent when these countries collapse?

I don't think we need to get down to the component level with Y2K really...just step back and look at the aggregate picture.

Don

-- Don (dwegner@cheyenneweb.com), May 28, 1999.

pat, sorry, but the only FACTS in the repost by Outings lie in the dollars calculations because there are VERIFIABLE NUMBERS there. Now, these are not the numbers I am familiar with in that calc, but, OK, there is ONE set of facts there. The rest is just as verifiable and valid as my saying that "X will not work"

ref POWER: SHOW me that the expectation that the main grids (There are 3 in US) will be up has more validity than the suggestion that they might not be. You are the one who claimed the statement was a "FACT" now back it up with numbers.

Sorry, FACTS are number driven. Until you can give NUMBERS you (and I) are dealing in expectations, speculation and opinion.

FLINT See next post.

chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 28, 1999.

Flint, Sorry about the minor distraction.

You have some INTERESTING points here, but perhaps a new hairstyle?? OOOps!

OK

Let's start with #2 first. The grading system is, in the larger scheme, pass/fail in that either the organization (doesn't matter whether it's GM or SchoolBoy and the Murphy's hair salon, though their salon has less exposure. Let's use Company Car then.), PASSES (the definition of PASS is that they are able to conduct business in a meaningful way in 2001) or FAILS ( the definition of a FAIL is the oposite, they are NOT able to conduct bussiness IN A MEANINGFUL WAY).
B "IN A MEANINGFUL WAY" does need defining. No less than 85% of 1999 employees still employeed (perhaps not the same people but the level/number is what we're considering), no less than 50% production, in PIECES, not NEW Dollars or whatever, no less than 50% customers (again perhaps not the same entities but the level/number ) (all based on 1999). I don't have a problem if you want to quibble with the thresholds, we can always fix them.

Using YOUR scale against the cold light of reality (like the light a banker uses) C, D, and F are failing, as NONE of these companies will "merit" a loan in the near future, unless in the "subprime" debt market (alias the KISS OF DEATH in industrial financing).

Let's say, kind of arbitrarily, that "started too late" means, in practice, that a business gets a grade below C. Note that this grade is empirically derived, based on performance subsequent to rollover. So it necessarily encompasses degree of remediation, nature of actual bug impacts, speed of recovery, agility of FOF, and very probably external considerations like nature of the market (demand for product), success of competitors, local infrastructure problems, etc. Note also that the luck of the draw can kill some fully compliant organizations while rescuing some real laggards. But we're ultimately concerned with life after rollover, so what's important to us us what *works*, rather than why or how.

THis actually works reasonably well, so long as we set failure at C or below. (Yeah, it's a quibble)

In GENERAL, we could probably make a case at this point, that the term "Started too late" refers to the failure of enough businesses to severely challenge the fault tollerance (sic) of our society. That is, enough bussinesses, in enough different industries, will have not completed enough remediation, and not completed enough contingency planning, to drive at LEAST a 1930's style depression with sufficient wild cards in the infrastructure (physical and human psyche) to make preparation for something more than a 3 day inconvenience a prudent action. Chuck, a Night Driver

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), May 28, 1999.

Good question, good observation: that a company may not be "binary" (pass/fail) or (compliant/not-ready). A few good answers, others = waste of pixels.

Shouldn't the answer relate to: given that most/some/not very many companies will be fully compliant, and some/many/most companies and agencies will not be fully compliant by the start of next year, will the accumulation of all errors and failures from all sources be enough "sand" in the ball bearings of our total industrial links to cause enough long-lasting disruptions? If so, how long will those disruptions last, and how widespread will they be, and what systems will those disruptions affest?

Second, given the increasing alienation and isolation (me-me-me nature and lack of moral restrains on unsocial behavior) of modern society, is enough "common godd" left in enough people in enough places to cushion to the probable failure of some/many/most of these systems?

I concur that a "non-compliant" company or agency will have compliant systems internally, maybe even a majority of compliant systems, but will the failure(s) of the non-compliant systems be enough to get a company below a "C" grade?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 28, 1999.

Flint,

I love BD's logic. Earlier is better. In fact, we could have had remediation coders sitting right behind the original COBOL folks. (laughter)

You ask for facts and get this. Maybe we can ask our learned Y2K pessimists to bring some data to the table.

1. What percentage of U.S. businesses use computers for internal operations and consider them "mission critica" for operations?

2. How many U.S. businesses have computer systems or software that require remediation?

3. What specific commercially-developed hardware/software platforms are not currently Y2K-ready? What are they and what percentage of U.S. businesses currently use them?

4. What percentage of U.S. businesses use "custom" hardware/software?

5. How many businesses or public agencies have discontinued operation due to unresolvable internal software difficulties during the past years. Please do not include software development firms who have not been able to deliver product to market.

6. List all the software firms who have announced they will not support Y2K-ready versions of current programs. How many U.S. businesses use these programs?

7. What is the existing error rate in software code?

8. What are the results of "time machine" tests of current software systems. List as many verifiable examples as possible.

Hey, finished the bagel and time for work. I have many more questions, if you folks are interested.

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 28, 1999.

"I love BD's logic. Earlier is better. In fact, we could have had remediation coders sitting right behind the original COBOL folks. (laughter)

You ask for facts and get this. Maybe we can ask our learned Y2K pessimists to bring some data to the table."

Nice, patronizing, smooth, smearing, Decker. Nice set of packaged questions of the "have you stopped beating your wife lately," given the absence of facts and metrics in IT ANYWAY, Y2K apart. Did you get it from Dr. Paulie? Pretty pitiful attempt at EVALUATING Y2K, as any regular in IT knows from the inside-out.

BTW, you claim you're an economist. When are you going to say something beyond, "the free market fixes all?" You have yet to offer a single economic post that is remotely sophisticated.

Flint: I also found your initial post quite interesting, but still feel it has to be first things first. If you have time to reply to my first reply later today, go ahead. I'd appreciate it if you leave "defending" Decker out of it entirely: I'm not going to play word games with him on this thread.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 28, 1999.

A relevant quote from pages 79-80 of the Peter de Jager/Richard Bergeon book "Managing 00: Surviving the Year 2000 Computing Crisis":

[Capers] Jones also validates our estimation that an enterprise starting in 1997 is likely to get through only about 80 percent of its applications; if it waits until 1999, only 30 percent. And even conceding that only 30 percent of the applications may be critical to the business of the enterprise, that 30 percent is probably attached by data to another 40 percent of the other applications that won't make the transition in time. At best, the organization will be crippled; at worst, it will no longer exist.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 28, 1999.

BD,

I guess this means you will not answer the questions. No surprises there. Maybe some other IT "regular" can help? Well, the problem is finding IT professionals who share your opinion. Oh, let my caveat that... a recognized IT professional willing to provide data (not just theory) AND who is not engaged in Y2K commerce. It would be nice to have a real name... not just an anonymous Internet handle.

Let me clear something up... while trained in economics at the graduate level and having practiced applied economic and public policy analysis, I work outside the field. Thus far, Y2K does not lend itself to econometric equations or models. Of course, you do have a 1,200 post head start. Why don't you provide your technical analysis of Y2K problems from an "IT professional's" vantage point. You should be able to cut and post something from your body of work.

Or do you plan on dodging the issue for the next 217 days? I do hope you stay around after January 1st. If the sky falls and I am still alive (despite my foolish lack of preparations) I will gladly acknowledge you were right. On the other hand....

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 28, 1999.

Decker, one word: boring.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 28, 1999.

Thanks for answering. Just 217 more days and 1000 more BD posts without a straight answer.

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 28, 1999.

111 working days to go

wrong AGAIN d-d

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 28, 1999.

Ken Decker, you wrote -- "while trained in economics at the graduate level and having practiced applied economic and public policy analysis, I work outside the field."

If you're such a hot shot, no shit economist/public policy analyst, why do you work for a nonprofit "outside the field?" If you're as good as you think you are, how come you're not working IN your field for a for-profit firm???? You mean to tell me companies are not lining up to hire you???? What IS your field anyway? Conflict resolution? (laughter)

-- Private (im@work.com), May 28, 1999.

Mr. Decker,

The answer to your questions is...enough that governments and businesses and making Y2K contingency plans. I don't see why a family needs to be able to answer all of those questions in order to have the right to do their own Y2K contingency planning.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), May 28, 1999.

Private,

Human services. I decided to roll up my sleeves and implement policy on the ground level... rather than play with economic models, bore undergraduates with esoteric theories or chase the Almighty dollar. I wanted a work life congruent with my personal faith. When I'm 85 and looking back on my life... the people I helped will outweigh the money I made. At least to me, this is important.

It's my core values and and personal faith that I draw upon to deal with assholes like you.

Regards,

-- Mr. Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), May 28, 1999.

warning! a, move the minute hand to :59!

-- the (end@is.near!), May 28, 1999.

Decker -- Actually, that was one of the first posts you've ever made that I liked! We might be able to turn you into a real person and a true Yourdonite after all. Good work, Private .....

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 28, 1999.

Obviously "we started too late" isn't a fact. We won't really know until Y2k happens. Even then it depends on who is we, started too late for what, to prevent what, etc. In general, "the world" did start Y2k work late and has had to rush projects through, spends lotsa bucks, make some contingency plans.

Guess what. It's a generalization !!!!!

Hint: Debunkers think we use "we started too late" as a demogogic rallying cry and it irks them no end! So instead of just saying so, they want to pick it apart. Save yourself some aggravation and admit that yes, sometimes we do do that.

Who has time for this anyway??!!!??!!

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), May 28, 1999.

OutingsR,

Skipping 1 and 2 for now, your #3 is, I believe, incorrect. Furthermore, one must examine the actual implications of returning $7000 per household to the economy at large, apart from the currency supply issue.

The best estimates for cash-on-hand I've seen come to ~$2000 per household, assuming 100 million households. And, at that point, the banks have cashed out all their reserves plus another $150 theoretically borrowed from the Fed, which, incidentally, will needlessly increase the borrowing costs of these banks. Now, the reserve ratio is something like 4% of deposits, which implies 20:1 decrease in the capital base for every dollar withdrawn within from the banking system. $200 billion times 20 = $4 trillion decrease in banking system liquidity. I leave it to you to imagine the economic effects of this level of reverse fractionalization.

And if true, YOUR claim is even worse in that the system returning up to $7000 per household would, in theory, drain up to $14 trillion from the US economy (7,000 $/household * 100,000,000 households * 20).

THIS is why the banks are urging deposits to remain in the bank. The real problem is the insanely low reserve levels being adhered to, even now. The currency issue, per se, is secondary.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), May 28, 1999.

Excuse me for the condescending tone in that post. And my obvious impatience with both sides of these debates. I just wish that so-called anti-doomers would be straight, and say what they KNOW VERY WELL - that only a minority on this board think that Y2k will bring Apocalypse or will refuse to listen to any contrary evidence of any kind. They know that, for ****sake! They are here to straighten out some thinking they don't agree with, and are acting like it's everyone.

You do have a point, Flint, with this question. I think it's important not just to think, but to think about one's thinking, and consider all sides of a question, and I would not feel safe on a forum that had only one point of view represented. I guess you like to narrow in on the dogmatic thinking, fine if you want to. But I have been on Der Boonkah lately and we sure have a little microcosm of a war going don't we -- the world writ large. If we took all this energy and put it into our lives right now, we could drive trains with it, remediated or not!!

But about this Y2k as religion, I think this sent me over the top. Maybe for some, who knows? But many days I agonize over not knowing what to make of it all. If this is "religion," then it certainly brings no peace of mind. It makes me wish I were a fanatic; things would be a lot simpler that way.

Well, so I am exasperated. In the end I do thank those that do have time and talent to address the questions, because I don't. But why all this polarization is beyond me. Well, maybe it isn't... people have polarized since the beginning of time. Why should I think it would stop now? It's just seems extremely useless right now. We don't have all day to figure out tomorrow.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), May 28, 1999.

Debbie:

"generalizations" with agendas make me nervous, because they are created to point your thoughts in carefully predetermined directions. Other generalizations are "we drive too fast" (lower the speed limits), "guns are too dangerous" (confiscate our guns), etc. These are NOT summaries of existing conditions, these are slogans.

If you ask "how much functionality are we likely to lose", then the slogan "we started too late" answers that question by saying "too much". It's not so much a generalization as it is a policy statement.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 28, 1999.

OutingsR,

Upon review, it appears you were quoting someone named "cpr", so ignore the previous unless you actually agree with "cpr".

Also, the second paragraph should read $150 billion.

-- Nathan (nospam@all.com), May 28, 1999.

Sir Decker: You listed several appropriate questions; let me give you my best answers, +/- 3% as the survey results always seem to waffle.

1. What percentage of U.S. businesses use computers for internal operations and consider them "mission critica" for operations?

100.00

2. How many U.S. businesses have computer systems or software that require remediation?

100.00

3. What specific commercially-developed hardware/software platforms are not currently Y2K-ready? What are they and what percentage of U.S. businesses currently use them?

Most business don't know yet either. Last database group report I heard of listed some 2200-odd products that were non-compliant. Obviously, many are still in use.

4. What percentage of U.S. businesses use "custom" hardware/software?

98%

5. How many businesses or public agencies have discontinued operation due to unresolvable internal software difficulties during the past years. Please do not include software development firms who have not been able to deliver product to market.

None - their current software is running - the problem will be keeping it running.

6. List all the software firms who have announced they will not support Y2K-ready versions of current programs. How many U.S. businesses use these programs?

Only the ones no longer in business.

7. What is the existing error rate in software code?

In programs that are running successfully: 0.00

8. What are the results of "time machine" tests of current software systems. List as many verifiable examples as possible.

Nobody has dared try a "set ahead" test without first remediating their systems, thus we don't know the true failure rate, nor the effect of these failures on their systems if unremediated. However, 75% of large business CIO's recently reported they had experienced Year 2000 failures of various sorts.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), May 28, 1999.

Flint -- Did I miss it (I'm rushing) or have you not yet responded to my first post back. Heck, you did address this thread to moi. I'm sincerely interested in dialoguing with you and others but waiting ...

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), May 28, 1999.

Big Dog:

I've read your first reponse, but I'm not sure what you'd like to discuss. I'm certainly willing.

Certainly I agree that I'd feel more comfortable if the remediation efforts had started sooner (subject to constraints mentioned by a few others about code-freezing dates, new development and maintenance considerations, version control, resulting regression testing costs, etc.)

I will presume (correct me if I'm wrong) that when you talk about starting earlier, you are implying that automated tools would have been made available sooner and for more languages, that IV&V outfits would have sprung up sooner, that federal deadlines for regulated industries would have been set sooner, etc. And perhaps if we'd started even sooner than that, perhaps some federal 4-digit-year policy would have short-circuited much of the effort that was postponed. All in all, I don't see much downside to starting too soon, except that those who started soonest had the most manual effort. Pioneers get arrows in the back. Let's wait for somebody else to discover the magic bullet, you know?

I'm frustrated by my inability to draw graphs here. I see remediation progress as nonlinear, much like development. For most outfits (not counting government) I imagine there's a 'survival point' somewhere along the remediation process. I suspect (how would I know?) that that point cannot be defined during the code repair phase, and can only be established after the fact during the testing phase -- at which point you know whether you reached it our you didn't. If you're planning on 'live' testing after rollover, you'll know then (one way or another).

And every jurisdiction has its own curve, which depends on many factors (LOC, intensity of date usage, severity of bugs, how knowledgeable the remediators are of the systems they're working on, extent of documentation, availability of source, degree of system interconnections, availability of 3rd party upgrades, strategy chosen (windowing/expansion, repair/replace, build/buy, etc.), support of upper management, and many more. And of course, some problems are *much* more visible than others.

Available indications that too many organizations pressed the functional deadline too close for comfort are diminishing, but perhaps not fast enough. Which leads me to a question I've been meaning to ask you for a while. Assuming that starting dates, relative to task, would have been as ragged earlier as now:

What percent of *essential* remediation that won't be finished, would have been finished if we'd started a year earlier? Two years? Three?

Another way of looking at it is: (1) Just how much effective testing of really important systems (the grid, for example) could possibly be done (have been done?) before the actual rollover; (2) Is there some point of diminishing returns beyond which further testing isn't cost effective in the long run; (3) Given the nonlinearity of remediation, how much do you think critical failures would have been reduced if we'd started how much earlier, compared to when organizations actually have started?

I personally find it hard to believe, everything considered, that in practice, a critical mass of organizations will fall short of the minimal survival point. I think many will, but I'm expecting the Age of Inconvenience. Not the Age of Chaos.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 28, 1999.