Am I an idiot, or are things getting clearer??????

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OK dear readers, listen up. This is my last post and I am back to strictly lurker status. I will be pulling a Yourdon, so don't panic babies.

I am fat and happy. I have spent thousands. I work in IT. I am smart. I am starting to get a sense of how things will be. I can make out, on the horizon, the shifting patterns of the future. Hence my post.

There will be computers that fail. Big time. There will be embedded chip issues. Big time. But, there will be some systems that work. Guaranteed, there will be thousands (millions??) of people standing around in January, cold, but if they get power, they have servers, PCs,databases, etc. all untouched by the Millenium bug. So, am I an idiot or is there maybe some hope, albeit small, that we just might, if the grid doesnt stay down too long, maybe be able to build upon all those distributed systems and client server networks?? I must know. What is the future of IT? I must know.

OK pilgrims, I must go. So much to do, so little time. I am spending every dollar on anything and everything. I have my golden parachute, so what the hell? Want a new H&K .45 or Armalite with Trijicon optics? Why not!

Rotsa Ruck.

Semper Fidelis, Richard, USMC

-- Richard, USMC (rkb65@hotmail.com), July 08, 1999

Answers

Things are not getting clearer, other than to concede that many systems will fail.

Sure, there's hope. If there wasn't hope, I'd probably make no preparations at all. I don't think I would last long in an Infomagic scenario anyway.

But we won't know what will happen until it happens. There is no precedent. We can't possibly grasp all the interactions world-wide that could be affected. Nobody knows. Nobody will know the state of remediations on December 31. Nobody really knows what the imbedded chip systems will do.

Nobody really knows what the public reaction between now and next February will be. We are possibly headed into the most widely predicted period of uncertainty in world history. We'll just have to wait and see. We won't have to wait long.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), July 08, 1999.


YOUR AN IDIOT!

-- Pickle (123@456.com), July 08, 1999.

It is clearer to me that the chance of there not being a depression next year is virtually zero. Not much beyond that that looks clear to me.

-- Gus (y2kk@usa.net), July 08, 1999.

I think that there is potential for lots of 'bugs' and anomalies. The problem is, that as a software engineer, my whole career has been one long series of bugs :-) I've gotten prepared, but I'm starting to think that things are going to be better than the gloom I hear on the boards. IT will be fine. IT guys like me will get paid bucks for fixing all this crap. We'll outsource work to foreign countries, and some stuff will just stay broke. Will this cause armageddon? No way.

Go look on the hiway, do you see three types of cars, or about 500. Each has a different electrical system and embedded components (newer cars). Look at tractors, semis, building controls.. same thing. The chance that all of them, or even a significant amount of them will fail at once is unlikely, I believe.

Ed Yourdon himself predicted a year of glitches, or more, and then a recession. That is not the same thing as chaos.

Bryce, (no I'm not a da** pollyana.. I'm just starting to read this differently)..

-- Bryce (bryce@seanet.com), July 08, 1999.


Bryce said:

"...I'm starting to think that things are going to be better than the gloom I hear on the boards. IT will be fine. ...I'm just starting to read this differently."

Pray tell, sir, exactly what has caused you to alter your thinking?

This is a sincere inquiry; I am most anxious to know.

Thanks

-- Yan (no@no.no), July 09, 1999.



Richard,

The whole Y2K situation is still about as clear as mud, to me. And about as complex as birthing a new galaxy.

Being prepared for anything, then remaining flexible enough to change, on a dime, seems wise.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999.


Yan,

Hello. As I've said, I generally believe in preparedness. The reason that my outlook is brightening is that several 1999 Y2K dates have come and gone with no major disruptions. For my state, Fiscal Year 2000 has already started, I have heard of no disruptions whatsoever. All I've heard after reading about Y2K daily is a bunch of run of the mill bug reports. As I've said in other posts, with a population of 270M people and thousands of systems, this will always be a daily occurance.

On message boards I see everything from locust invasions, to NRC problems (boy that's new..) to bad harvests blamed on Y2K.

It's not my intent to cause someone to not become prepared.. I think natural disasters etc are likely. My power goes out 5 days a year without Y2K! In my view, though, if I can't observe any problems during the Y2K predictor dates, then I don't believe the problems on Jan 1 will be that severe.

I'm not a troll.. or someone that is trying to evoke an emotional response. As I've stated, I've spent bucks preparing for Y2K myself, and I've read Yourdon's book, etc.. but my viewpoint is changing.

Bryce

-- Bryce (bryce@seanet.com), July 09, 1999.


Things will be crystal clear if the power stays up.

"Power is power."

It's that "grid" thing, guys.

If we have electricity, we shall survive.

-- it's (the@grid.folks), July 09, 1999.


Tsk, tsk, Pickle -

The contraction (shortening of a word) of you are is you're, not YOUR. If you must insult the man at least spare him your poor grammar.

-- Mori-Nu (silkenet@yahoo.com), July 09, 1999.


Ed Yourdon himself predicted a year of glitches, or more, and then a recession. That is not the same thing as chaos.

That's not what he predicted.

The words he used were "disruptions" (not "glitches", or more) and "depression" (not "recession").

My Y2K Outlook: A Year of Disruptions, a Decade of Depression

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), July 09, 1999.



Richard, you note that your state has passed the 7.1.99 date without disruption. Are you sure, or are state officials just not publicizing the problems? Last night (thursday) in Maine the local news carried a long story about the Maine Department of Labor's entire computer system crashing and holding up the distribution of unemployment checks for the state's jobless. No mention of y2k, of course, but this is the first time such a thing has happened. Department workers are coming in at 5 a.m. and working strsaight through the day to get everythng processed and the checks out the door, but it still looks like some people won't be paid until sometime next week. Anyone else have similar stories?

-- Cash (cash@andcarry.com), July 09, 1999.

I'll repeat what's stated above -- It's all about power, & juice. With enough of those, we can weather anything. It won't be fun but we'll manager.

W/o power, or w/o the juice to make our toys work, we're all toast.

-- it really (is@about.power), July 09, 1999.


pssstt! Don't forget oil.

If the grids stay up, but the oil doesn't flow, we're still in a heap of trouble.

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), July 09, 1999.


die ann, you're good girl and resourceful too. never thought it was possible to "be prepared for anything" but obviously, i was wrong.

-- corrine l (corrine@iwaynet.net), July 09, 1999.

Richard

No one knows.

If I was a betting man I would say smart money is with the pollys. But since the stakes are so high, I'm not taking that bet. Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), July 09, 1999.



Mori-Nu:

Would that be "grammar" or "syntax"? Not sure, but think it's the latter...

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 09, 1999.


Dennis,

If you insist, it's punctuation (generally a subset of grammar). Syntax is the way the words are arranged in a sentence.

-- Gypsy (GypsiGold@aol.com), July 09, 1999.


The only thing that is clear to me is that we all are just observers in this mess. There is nothing we can do about it except to be prepared with essentials, hope for the best, and be ready to survive whatever comes of all this. The only other thing we can do is to try to help others to be ready also, which will make survival easier for everyone.

-- winna (??@??.com), July 09, 1999.

And back to Richard's question . . .

Hang in there Richard. If you have IT skills, you'll have more jobs than you can handle now and in the foreseeable future. In IT, bugs = work. The likely economic downtown will add many to the unemployment roles, but those in the IT field will probably be impacted the least. Stay mobile and you'll have a variety of opportunities to choose from.

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), July 09, 1999.


It's clear to me that things are getting worse. 3 weeks without power is an awful long time for the young and the sick.

-- -- (Tic@toc.boom), July 09, 1999.

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