It's amazing to me the amount of what I call Star Trek Syndrome that I see in articles about failures and remediation efforts. As you know on Star Trek when Captain Picard wants something done he flips his hand and says "Make it so!" in an authoritative voice. And of course, it is as good as done.

It seems that the approach of many of those in authority (politicians, CEOs, military officers, etc.) as regards to getting ready for Y2K is the same. Make it so, and it is as good as done. In fact, after saying those magic words, it is often reported in the press release AS BEING DONE. Sorry, but this isn't the 25th century (it isn't even the 21st century - yet) and fixing problems like Y2K that are designed into complex computer systems is not accomplished by usttering the incantation "Make it so".

Of course, the same group has an additional incantation that is almost as popular called "It can't be so". This is often used in reference when things fail unexpectedly. I saw a lot of use of these magic words when Chicago had it's power outage and MCI it's data transmission problems. In fact, scanning the news for usage of these and similar phrases will give you an exact reading on just who is clueless about the problem. And if that clueless person has the power to affect your life in some way, watch out come 12/31/1999.

-- Kevin Lemke (klemke@undalumni.org), August 24, 1999

Answers

Where is Spock when we need him!

-- Captain (Kirk@Enterprise.C), August 24, 1999.

What was that stardate again, Jim?

-- lakjdfg (asdfkj@adfj.adf), August 24, 1999.

Difference is: Picard listens closely to his staff (that's what those Ready Room sessions are all about) and makes sure that the plan may be extremely challenging, but still doable, before he issues the directive. His is the final word, but he trusts and relies on his staff.

A better image for me has always been Pharoah Ramses (Yul Brynner) in The Ten Commandments. The man is absolutely unable to face reality and assumes that everything will be accomplished just by his saying, "So let it be written. So let it be done." His people are dying around him, and he still won't admit that he's up against something that won't bow to his will. Bad things result.

Picard's a leader. Pharoah's a dictator.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 24, 1999.

Spock hell, where is Mr. Scott??? He could fix Y2K... (grin)

"I canna hold 'er together much longer sir..." - Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott

Scotty is my hero... the ultimate technician.

scratchin'...

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), August 24, 1999.

Speaking of leaders, I always held Ross Perot in high regard until his advice to set all sysdates back to 1972 as the Y2K fix.

I always appreciated Liz Dole as a leader until she took the see-no- evil approach to Y2K.

What confounds me is that the spectres of bank runs and asset sell- offs aren't going away in January. They'll be a possibility (actually more probable, what with visible failures) for another 18 months.

Might TPTB be somehow assuming they need only keep the cat in the bag until January?

TPTB won't be able to suppress reports of failures after the 1st, as, they will, indeed, be LOCAL, right?

Will they continue to ignore all the Y2K-in' around them, even as it's happening....?... which gives me reason to predict that our "leaders" today who are most Y2K-vociferous will win all of the elections for the next 10 years, if Y2K is anything > 2.

So far, we only have ~four major players that will be able to point to activism: Bennett, Dodd, Horn, Morella. Clinton, via Koskinen, has dug his grave, and Gore won't touch it with a 10-foot spotted owl. Bush has three months to mumble the dreaded acronym or he won't have any credibility if TSHTF.

At the state level, only Ventura seems to really stand out. Again, if it's > 2, he's got the state at his command for many years....

Am I missing any executive or legislative branch doomers, at both the state and national level?

Sorry to ramble, just thinking about leadership aloud....

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 24, 1999.

Send down a search party to the planet Earth to scan for signs of intelligent life... none detected yet.

P.S. see old thread for Star Trek spoof (link anyone?)

Captain Janeway

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@aloha.net), August 24, 1999.

Captain Kirk putting together an away team, "Spock, Bones and Two Who Want To Die, following me to the transporter room." Can we guess who the Two Who Want To Die are?

-- CD (CDOKeefe@aol.com), August 24, 1999.

LOL at the though of a Star Trek Y2K spoof--Star Trek Y-Mega-K, with Klinton and Ko-skin'em as the evil Romulans, DeJager as the human traitor, Dr. Gary North as a holo-deck expert system, Jessie The Body Ventura as the Star Fleet Captain, Cory Hamasaki as the ship's science officer, Info-magic as the ship's engineer, Gillian Anderson as the ship's medical officer--burrrrr--...

Plot Premise: the Federation starship Monica and the Romulan warbird Three Day Storm are badly damaged in combat, and thrown forward in time to the year 999,999 by a blackhole or something; crew's efforts to stave off assaults by Klinton and Ko-skin'em in the Three Day Storm, and sail the Monica to a terrestrial type planet and bug out before the ship's computer systems fail in the year 1,000,000 roll- over.

Excuse my black humor--it's been a hard day.

-- CS Man (csm@smoke.com), August 25, 1999.

Klinton reminds me of Scotty...Thrusting through space, stroking his dilithium crystals, constantly aware of the rising hull temperature, anticipating an explosion because his photon torpedoes are unstable...Damn, sorry about that stain, Miss Lewinsky, I guess I couldn't control my protein torpedoes!

-- sam (sam67@home.com), August 25, 1999.