We have never had an event with the scope of y2k.Many experts say that statistically, at least 15% of all remediated code will be wrong due to errors caused by 'fixing' it. Add in Solar flares, human error, the huge amount of inter-connected layered tele-communications and millions of complex interfaces. What you may get is something totally out of left field! These y2k problems may create an unknown that doesn't fit any scenario that has been mentioned to date. I fear that cumulative errors will cause distortions to the infrastructure that are impossible to predict...QUANTITY X

-- Kelly Meek (romper1@aol.com), June 26, 1999

Answers

When a butterfly beats it wings in Beijing,a ripple can be felt in New York. Uintended consequences. Type 1 and Type 2 errors. Chaos Theory. Life in interesting times

-- Ruth the Moab (aapm@aapainmanage.or), June 27, 1999.

Kelly,

"impossible to predict" Ok I will give you that one. Looking at history and your list above, can we at least start with an 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10?

-- BiGG (supersite@acronet.net), June 27, 1999.

What type of freaky things will the machines do? And in how many weird ways will humanimals take advantage to act out?

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 27, 1999.

One quote comes to mind that may fit the immediate future all too well.

"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity". 'Robert Heinlien'

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), June 27, 1999.

biGG..Not trying to be evasive,but 'QUANTITY X'can be from 1 to 10.I must tell you though, every now and then I get this feeling that our many tiered house of cards is ready to tumble! Society, it seems to me is just now peeking over the edge of our complex bridge... Is there a perverse force exponentially growing there?

-- kelly m (romper1@aol.com), June 27, 1999.

Bridge to the 21st Century -- swarming with Trolls.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 27, 1999.

Ruth... I really liked your butterfly answer... Lets hope this butterfly isn't a bat out of hell.

-- kellym (romper1@aol.com), June 27, 1999.

Kelly,

I believe that estimate is low. Working on y2k remediation projects for the past year I have found that many venders are dishing us crap on a silver platter known as a "Year 2000 Compliance Statement". My primary responsibily has been to identify "non-compliant" software and hardware (workstations, stand-alones and servers) and find suitable replacements for them. Many times the so-called "compliant" sw/hw turnes out to be NOT compliant. I would estimaite 10% of the total falls into this slot. Add on topp of this the "embedded chips" which I currently have no direct responsibility for and I would think the percentages sky-rocket. We can only hope that enough IS/IT/Technicians/Engineers stay at their posts come D-day.

For all, I understand the impulse to take care of "me and mine" but consider this, in our system of devided "services" the loss any one "service" will negativly affect the rest. If the engineers at your local power co. decide to folow the "me first" path you are sunk just as surely as the Bismark or Titanic. Plan for the worst but make the concious discision to due right by your fellow man. That means self- sacrifice. Stand by your posts as well as you are able, your ancestors would have done no less.

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 27, 1999.

Well said Mike. But I think that in the cold light of day ( If we do have grid failure) many cold,scared, employees will opt for protecting their families and assets. In a matter of a few days of no communication and difficulties in restarting the grid, rumors and logic will cause the majority of employees to head for the hills.After that, forget fairness,reasonablness. Paranoia will prevail. If the grid stays up I believe we will avoid this gloomy prediction.

-- kellym (romper1@aol.com), June 27, 1999.

I agree with Kelly,

It all hinges on The Grid, without it we are doomed. If it stays down for a significant length of time, say 4-8 weeks, our chances of getting it back decrease exponentially as attrition takes it's toll on the power grid employees. Think about what I mean by attrition. It won't be pretty.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 27, 1999.

Kelly, Andy,

Yes the power grid is the key to avoiding a 5 plus. As has been said if we hit that slippery slope of a 4 or so it will snowball (sorry for the lack of elegent termanelogy) rapidley and TEOTWAWKI would likley be the result. Shit I hope not.

Right now I would even hug al-d.

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 27, 1999.

Mike, like you, I intend to be at my post... the grid will be fucked up, but it will be fixed, come hell or high water.... look at Belgrade, we bombed the shit out of their grid, but they kept fumbling through...

The grid will be the priority, and once its back up and STABLE, the work for us begins... I plan on being assholes and elbows for several years to come... and no net terms either... IOU's won't be putting food on the table, and I see a LOT of bankruptcies next couple of years..

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), June 27, 1999.

Kudos Carl!

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 27, 1999.

Midwest Mike, After reading your ghastly spelling, please don't tell me you actualy work on the computers. No offense intended. It just doesn't seem to add up.

-- Something Smells Fishy (real@fishy.here), June 27, 1999.

I ran Mike's above post through my grammar and spell checker. Here is the edited version:

Kelly, I believe that estimate is low. Working on y2k remediation projects for the past year I have found that many venders are dishing us crap on a silver platter known as a "Year 2000 Compliance Statement". My primary responsibly has been to identify "non-compliant" software and hardware (workstations, stand-alones and servers) and find suitable replacements for them. Many times the so-called "compliant" sw/hw turns out to be NOT compliant. I would estimate 10% of the total falls into this slot. Add on top of this the "embedded chips" which I currently have no direct responsibility for and I would think the percentages skyrocket. We can only hope that enough IS/IT/Technicians/Engineers stay at their posts come D-day. For all, I understand the impulse to take care of "me and mine" but consider this, in our system of divided "services" the loss any one "service" will negatively affect the rest. If the engineers at your local power co. decide to follow the "me first" path you are sunk just as surely as the Bismark or Titanic. Plan for the worst but make the conscious decision to due right by your fellow man. That means self- sacrifice. Stand by your posts as well as you are able, your ancestors would have done no less.

-- GeeGee (GeeGee@madtown.com), June 27, 1999.

Are you satisfied now FISHY?????????????????????????

-- GeeGee (GeeGee@madtown.com), June 27, 1999.

Gee Gee did you fill out Midwest Mike's application for him when he applied for this job? Or did his employer also suffer from a lack of spelling skills?

-- Something Smell Fishy (Just@doesn't.addup), June 27, 1999.

Not yet Gee Gee.

{Plan for the worst but make the conscious decision to *due* right by your fellow man.}

That would be DO right.

-- Poor Speller Myself (not@this.time), June 27, 1999.

Mike:

I've seen the same -- "compliant" upgrades still have problems. Most likely, the vendor's goal was to get the upgrade out fast, rather than perfect. However, these upgrades are at least a big improvement over what we had before. They still have bugs, but nowhere near so serious. Do you find this as well?

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

Flint commented:

"I've seen the same -- "compliant" upgrades still have problems. Most likely, the vendor's goal was to get the upgrade out fast, rather than perfect. "

Flint, we are about to see the most massive upgrade in the history of hardware and software and guess what it will be far from perfect. Now you can Yada on for a bit longer but your Yada days are indeed numbered.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 27, 1999.

Ray:

OK, what is *your* experience with upgrades, personally. Do you have any, or are you simply speaking ex cathedra?

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

I'll be the only one doing that ex-cathredra thing around here

-- The Pope (not@the.pope), June 27, 1999.

Thanks Fishy, I'll try to take a summer course. It's sad to say but IT/IS is full of folks like me, can't spell, can't type, etc...

Yes Flint, these upgrades and patches have made a significant difference. Just wish we had started a few years earlier.

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 27, 1999.

Fishy = Gayla Dunbar. She's the only one who whines about typos.

-- Sherlock (I-knowWho@sheIS.com), June 27, 1999.

Not true Sherlock, plus, Gayla has proven herself to be un-failingly polite, to the point of sickeningly polite actually.

I vote no, that's not her.

-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 27, 1999.

Gee Fishy, Why not listen to what the guy has to say? We all have our strong points, if your's is spelling that's great. Spelling and grammer do not equal IQ. I'm here to enjoy the message from the great minds that post.

-- BiGG (supersite@acronet.net), June 27, 1999.

Flint commented:

"OK, what is *your* experience with upgrades, personally. Do you have any, or are you simply speaking ex cathedra? "

Flint, you love to get OFF the subject quickly don't you. Your example attempting to lead one to believe that some comapnies software upgrade can somehow be compared to the cahnges required by y2k is typical of most of your MISLEADING statements.

When I was in the business I would try to isolate any LARGE changes I was involved in. I found that the more changes incorporated in a job the bigger the chance of spending much more time debugging a core dump.

Your Sometimes Pal, Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 27, 1999.

Ray:

The subject here is upgrades. Specifically, how compliant are they and how much do they improve things with regard to y2k.

Mike said that upgrades aren't fully compliant. I agreed, and pointed out that they were a *big* improvement. I asked Mike if he found this as well, and he agreed he did.

If you want to change the subject and talk about scope of changes being made during remediation, OK. But recognize that this is a different subject. And you're quite right, if you graph debugging effort against changes made, you find that the debugging effort goes up much faster than the linear change count. Whenever possible, it's best to make and test one change at a time.

By implication, this means that the vendors of upgrades and patches have expended a great deal of debugging effort to get as close as they did. Which doesn't change the degree of improvement these upgrades and patches represent, which is considerable.

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

Re: Spelling errors. FWIW Two of the worst spellers I know are an attorney/friend, and doctor/cousin....both talented (successful) in their fields. I know you can study the "rules", but good/poor spelling almost seems to be a genetic trait, whose propensity either direction is not indicative of intellegence.

We all know that people survived without the Grid for centuries, and could again. "And in how many weird ways will humanimals take advantage to act out?"

Since so many have grown accustomed to dependency on the Grid and its inherent lifetstyle, and most are also gullible enough to trust and depend on "the Government" and its lackey "the media", their reaction to disruption, deprivation and change beyond a "three day" scenario is likely to be severely unpleasant. I agree with Ashton & Leska on this particularly.

-- Mumsie (Lotsakids@home.com), June 27, 1999.

Flint my friend, I find myself on your side here (where is that lightning bolt?) Oh, ho, I need to get some sleep. Flint my email address is true, drop me a line. Will-continue, I'm still waiting for an answer on the barn thing.

zzzzzzzzzzz...................

-- Mike_ (midwestmike_@hotmail.com), June 28, 1999.

Sorry, -- Sherlock (I-knowWho@sheIS.com) but you lose. If I had posted as "Something Smells Fishy" I wouldn't have written this:

"actualy work on the computers." Spelling is actually not that hard if you're willing to work on it. BTW, when is the last time you heard me whining about spelling?

-- Gayla Dunbar (privacy@please.com), June 28, 1999.

Mike...posted my answer on the other thread, much to consider, will honestly give it some thought, could always use an additional strong back, extra hands and another trigger finger. Like where your head's at and don't give a f-bleep- about spelling. We ain't looking for another Decker my friend!!!! (that nutso Irishman in Braveheart comes to MY mind, hohohohahaha) Some essay types are in for a very rude awakening!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 28, 1999.

To Midwestern Mike:

I can't say as I agree with the "standing by your post" idea; I too am a Y2K desktop remediation team leader, and I gotta tell ya, my FIRST and ONLY priority will be my (hopefully pregnant by then) wife, my house, and keeping us warm, dry, and fed in the wonderful upstate NY temperatures of January. I respect your devotion to the job, but no job is more important than family, at least not in my estimation.

To Flint: You've certainly got stamina, dude. You've been slam-dunked, bashed labeled a "polly" even though you're preparing wisely for contingency, and otherwise crapped upon....in other words, a voice of reason in the piranha pool that this forum can often be. My hats off to you.

To Will Continue: You're still loony!!

-- Larry Goldberg (ljgoldberg@worldnet.att.net), June 28, 1999.

Thanks Larry. Say....if *you* were the one giving birth, would you want to be doing it at this point in Y2K history? You've just stated you don't intend to stick by your post, right? Is the little woman in on this plan with full understanding of what may lie ahead? Just curious. It's no walk through the park under 'normal' conditions, for many women.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 29, 1999.

To Will:

Yes, my wife and I have discussed the ramifications of being pregnant at that time, and have made a joint decision to proceed with the proceedings, as they say....We will speak with a midwife, in case our doctor and/or his facility is utterly unavailable during the rollover (which we don't believe will be the case). Yes, I will absolutely not choose to be at work if a crisis puts my family at risk; I don't know how anyone can think otherwise to be honest with you. I guess I just don't foresee this event as being the life-changing (or ending?), society-purifying thing that you do. I do Y2K work (on PCs), so I am definitely not a polly, or whatever you want to call me...anyhow. By the way, my e-mail address listed is actually not a fake one, so I would welcome e-mails from you or anyone else. I always enjoy another point of view.

-- Larry Goldberg (ljgoldberg@worldnet.att.net), June 29, 1999.

Has it occurred to anyone that this is an amazingly long thread in reply to an initial posting so completely devoid of anything even close to concrete. Lets take it line by line.

{We have never had an event with the scope of y2k.}

Its impossible to agree or disagree with this statement, because Y2k has not yet happened in its entirety (not till 1/1/00 anyway, and probably long after that) and therefore its "scope" is unknown. How can you compare an unknown quantity with postulated historical precedents?

{Many experts say that statistically, at least 15% of all remediated code will be wrong due to errors caused by 'fixing' it.}

#1. Which experts, how many, who, where, links, show me ? #2. Statistically ? Oh, you mean "something we made up to "prove" whatever we wanted it to "prove"". I get it now. #3. Statistics show that 93.65% of all statistics are made up off the top of someones head.

{Add in Solar flares, human error, the huge amount of inter-connected layered tele-communications and millions of complex interfaces.}

You forgot Nostradamus, Comet Lee (and maybe even Hale-Bopp again, as some believe its still around), Murphy's law, bad luck, juju, and the evil-eye.

{What you may get is something totally out of left field!}

You may indeed. You may also get a whole lot of nothing special. You may get a headache thinking about it.

{These y2k problems may create an unknown that doesn't fit any scenario that has been mentioned to date.}

#1. They may create an unknown ? Im trying to unravel this statement, and it seems to pan out as "I have no idea".

#2. "These Y2K problems" (which, where, when, links, show me).

{I fear that cumulative errors will cause distortions to the infrastructure that are impossible to predict...QUANTITY X }

You fear, thats for sure. Whether or not there is any real basis for that fear does not negate it. But fear can be rational or irrational. You have to decide whether your fears about Y2K are rational based on the FACTS (not opinions, rumors, suppositions, postulations, positions, spin, agendas, etc etc etc).

Lets just summarise thus . . "I fear lots of things, especially things I dont understand. I dont understand Y2K, and when placed alongside my other fears, its all getting a bit too much for me".

No offence intended kelly, but why didnt you just say that in the first place ?

-- You'll call me a troll, but I'm really (just@naturally.analytical), July 01, 1999.