Was in the stater bros today and was talking to the checker and she told me that there new computer cash register would lock her out if the power failed and they would not be able to conduct business. It is like this in most fortune 5000 companies. No manual workarounds are allowed for. To much trust in the machines,no trust in the people. the computers in stator bros give pictures of the cash change that is supposed to be rendered , I guess they dont exepect there checkers to be able to make change by them selves if the computers go down, how pathetic. Our society doesnt allow for operations under blackout conditions. This is what is going to come back to bite us. Y2k will just expose our ignorance and arogance in placing to much blind faith in machines with no manual no power back-up procedures built in to it's operations. We always expect electic to be there, always expect phones to be there, always expect the water and toilets to work. what happens when they stop and stop for a while. We havent built this into our modern cities. Y2k is just making us realize that we have been building our society for to long on a faulty architecture.

If not y2k some other disaster would expose our city daddies failure to plan for unexpected longer term utility failures. Maybe next time cities will be built with resilence in mind toward food, water, electic,phone and fuel utility failures. People first over trying to squeeze the last dollar out of a piece of over crowded real estate. It takes vision to plan resilance in a community. I hope y2k will be a wake up call to stop building communities to the same stupid cookie cutter program we have been allowing for the last few years. Dense packed housing that doesnt allow for the what if's to happen. It's our communities own fault letting corrupt officals plan our cities with corporate backing and no resilence built into the plan. Stackem and rackem folks.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation . com), August 24, 1999

Answers

Mike

I also respect the problem potential of earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and asteroid hits.....but I don't spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about them. All that does is turn your hair gray and raise your blood pressure. Doesn't change anything else.

I used to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about Y2k. Then when I saw that fixes were being implemented in good order, I started spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about irresponsible Doomers spreading FUD. (Recent events with Jim Lord and the so-called secret Navy documents are a prime example.)

But I'm not spending an inordinate amount of time worrying about any of that stuff these days. Why bother -- most people who are Y2k aware already have their minds made up, and only time & events will force them to adopt other views.

-- Chicken Little (Panic@forthebirds.net), August 24, 1999.

wow, so you have evidence CL that the fixes are being made in "good order"? gee, good for you--wish i felt so confident. i am involved in a gov't survey of manufacturers in a particular industry (which i shall not name) and we are having an incredibly difficult time getting any kind of response to our questions with regards to y2k compliance. they don't want to answer. so i guess if we use the same kind of logic the NAVY used--we can ASSUME that they are NON COMPLIANT...ooops...i mean COMPLIANT.......or was that I should assume they are NON COMPLIANT. i forget. the rules keep changing every day.

-- tt (cuddluppy@whoareyoureally.comt), August 24, 1999.

If you worry excessively (beyond the point that any amount of preparation can remedy) about something that seems inevitable and it happens, you've wasted your time.

If you worry excessively (beyond the point that any amount of preparation can remedy) about something that seems inevitable and it doesn't happen, you've wasted your time.

-- Klar (klarbrunn@lycos.com), August 24, 1999.

Mike,

If there's one phrase I look for, when this or that utility or company releases it's compliance statement, it's "manual back-up". The one thing that would turn me polly (or at least less doomer), is hearing that in all critical services, there was just a simple button to push or valve to turn, to correct any misguided computer command. Regretably, you rarely hear it, and the few times you do, they're usually being a bit vague about it.

Gotta think long term - that's the biggest lesson I see, in this whole mess.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 24, 1999.

>> wow, so you have evidence CL that the fixes are being made in "good order"? <<

Testimony is considered evidence. A very large number of Y2K compliance statements have been issued and they say, essentially, that the fixes are being made in good order. That is evidence, of a kind. If you think that being "under oath" in a courtroom is required before you believe testimony, just consider that any statements you make to the police don't have to be under oath to be admissable evidence.

You're making the mistake of thinking that you must find a piece of evidence persuasive before you consider it to be evidence at all. But for any complex situation there are gaps in the evidence that must be filled in with speculation and contradictory evidence that must either be reconciled or submerged and ignored. We all are just doing our best to sift and evaluate the evidence that comes before us on Y2K. No doubt some here dismiss Y2K compliance statements as PR fluff and spin. Chicken Little apparently attaches more weight to them than that, that's all.

There are seldom easy answers. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, "the demand for certainty far exceeds the supply."

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), August 24, 1999.