TO ALL;

There has been a lot of discussion as to why the big "test" of the Electrical Utilities was scheadualed for today. The thought just ran through my mind, If I wanted to draw as much attention to a "drill" that I knew I was going to pass then when would I scheadual it? Why on a date that was already going to get a lot of media hype!

If the outcome of the NERC test is a slam dunk this will get the maximum SPIN effect to quite the heard. And if there is anything that America seems to excel at in todays world it is in the art of SPIN CONTROL. If they though that there was even a slight chance of failure they would not have picked this date. (It would have been done on a Sat nite at midnite!)

I know this sounds cynical, so what are your comments?

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999

Answers

Rush Limbaugh just stated (9:08am Pacific) that "if the 9/9/99 problem is the forerunner to Y2K, then we have nothing to worry about. I haven't heard of one problem related to 9/9/99."

20 million+ people listen. Who knows how many believe hang on what he says. But, I tend to agree that picking 9/9/99 to run the NERC test is no coincidence. And, pollies like Limbaugh don't help.

And, I actually like Rush. :)

Now, when was my tee time?

-- Pastor Chris (chris@lifetel.com), September 09, 1999.

I agree helium,

There was a TON of hype about the 9/9/99 thing on CNBC today and over the last few days about what a problem it could be and how it would be a precursor for what might come next year.

Yet I know that the consensus among those in the IT field (even the doomers), and those on this forum was that "the nines thing" would be a non-event.

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), September 09, 1999.

Maybe? ... MAYBE!??

Of course they knew exactly what they were doing. They all knew that the likelihood of a 9999 event was slim to none, and that they could use the media to portray this as similar to what will happen for Y2K.

What a joke! Anyone who can't see the difference is deluding themselves.

On top of that, businesses in particular found this an ideal day to run their new Y2K software fixes because if anything did crash they would say: "well that was caused by the 9999 and you won't have to worry about that for another 100 years - go back to work".

Still, even if some office bookkeeping systems, etc. passed their "tests" the most devastating aspect of Y2K still remains largely unchallenged - VERY FEW ORGANIZATIONS ARE CONFRONTING THE ISSUE OF EMBEDDED SYSTEMS, AND THEY ARE CERTAINLY NOT TESTING THEM. The real test is Jan. 1 because they think it is better to "fix on failure".

-- @ (@@@.@), September 09, 1999.

I first heard about this "programming" method from Eddie Yourgod. In all my years of programming, not once did this eof thing come up. First you complain that the media isn't paying attention, now you say they are paying too much attention; make up your mind.

Since Eddie made such a big deal about this date, the gov and corporate america decided to use it not to test the equipment but more to test the contingency planning. Don't worry we won't blame you if things run smoothly. We knew that they would anyway. And we didn't plan to throw this smoothly running event back into your face (you already have too much egg on it anyway). You guys are getting way too paranoid.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 09, 1999.

And Maria ... you are getting way too stupid.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 09, 1999.