Since you seem so to have a different definition than the rest of us perhaps you would care to elucidate.

It was my understanding in school that if I failed a class I would have to start all over. It was my understanding in the business world that if a company failed it was defunct. Perhaps I am wrong. Please explain.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), October 13, 1999

Answers

According to the syllabus, the Church Of Pollyology's School of Higher Understanding, will offer Failure 101 sometime next year, probably after February 1, 1900.

Excuse me that was supposed to be February 1, 20000.

Oh, never mind.

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 13, 1999.

Failure to the "pratical" mind is when something breaks or ceases to function. All else is speculation.

A student could have F's & D's in school, but if he/she blackmails or has sex with the pricipal and then gets a passing grade, then he/she has not failed.

Like lying, in todays world, failure is only failure when you get caught.

As far as Y2K, unless the public knows about the failure, it has not happened.

Like the tree falling in the forest, does anyone hear it? Only the creative do.

-- dw (y2k@outhere.com), October 13, 1999.

If you plan to fail and then do so, have you succeeded, or failed?

-- Jay Urban (jurban@berenyi.com), October 13, 1999.

R:

Despite the catcalls around here, you ask an excellent question, and deserve the best answer I can provide. Followed (of course) by more catcalls.

If you take a test and get a question wrong, you failed to answer that question correctly. That's a level of failure. Almost nobody gets every question right on every test.

If you get too many questions wrong, you fail the test. This is the next higher level of failure, but doesn't necessarily mean you fail the course.

If you fail too many tests, you fail the course. This is the next level up, but doesn't necessarily mean you flunked out of school. Many (perhaps most?) graduates failed at least one course.

And finally, if you fail too many courses, you flunk out. You've failed at your attempt to become educated.

A whole lot of the confusion here arises from equating failing a single question on a test with flunking out of school! After all, failure=failure, right? When IT people talk about critical system failures, they're talking at the level of getting questions wrong. They correct their answers and carry on. Those who graduate with a B average likely got a *whole lot* of individual questions wrong during their educational careers. Did they "fail"?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 13, 1999.

A student gets a C on a test. He has failed to answer several questions correctly, but he has passed the test.

Snatch the pebble from my hand...

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), October 13, 1999.

Flint,

So if a critical system fails and the greater system proceeds then either a)it never really failed or b)it was never really critical. Right?

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), October 13, 1999.

Main Entry: crit7i7cal

Pronunciation: 'kri-ti-k&l

Function: adjective

Date: 1547

1 a : of, relating to, or being a turning point or specially important juncture : as (1) : relating to or being the stage of a disease at which an abrupt change for better or worse may be expected; also : being or relating to an illness or condition involving danger of death (2) : relating to or being a state in which or a measurement or point at which some quality, property, or phenomenon suffers a definite change b : CRUCIAL, DECISIVE c : INDISPENSABLE, VITAL d : being in or approaching a state of crisis

2 a : inclined to criticize severely and unfavorably b : consisting of or involving criticism ; also : of or relating to the judgment of critics c : exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation d : including variant readings and scholarly emendations

3 : characterized by risk or uncertainty

4 a : of sufficient size to sustain a chain reaction -- used of a mass of fissionable material b : sustaining a chain reaction -- used of a nuclear reactor

- crit7i7cal7i7ty /"kri-t&-'ka-l&-tE/ noun

- crit7i7cal7ly /'kri-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb

- crit7i7cal7ness /-k&l-n&s/ noun

synonyms CRITICAL, HYPERCRITICAL, FAULTFINDING, CAPTIOUS, CARPING, CENSORIOUS mean inclined to look for and point out faults and defects. CRITICAL may also imply an effort to see a thing clearly and truly in order to judge it fairly . HYPERCRITICAL suggests a tendency to judge by unreasonably strict standards . FAULTFINDING implies a querulous or exacting temperament . CAPTIOUS suggests a readiness to detect trivial faults or raise objections on trivial grounds . CARPING implies an ill-natured or perverse picking of flaws . CENSORIOUS implies a disposition to be severely critical and condemnatory . synonym see in addition ACUTE

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), October 13, 1999.

Main Entry: sys7tem

Pronunciation: 'sis-t&m

Function: noun

Etymology: Late Latin systemat-, systema, from Greek systEmat-, systEma, from synistanai to combine, from syn- + histanai to cause to stand -- more at STAND

Date: 1603

1 : a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole : as a (1) : a group of interacting bodies under the influence of related forces 2) : an assemblage of substances that is in or tends to equilibrium b (1) : a group of body organs that together perform one or more vital functions (2) : the body considered as a functional unit c : a group of related natural objects or forces d : a group of devices or artificial objects or an organization forming a network especially for distributing something or serving a common purpose e : a major division of rocks usually larger than a series and including all formed during a period or era f : a form of social, economic, or political organization or practice

2 : an organized set of doctrines, ideas, or principles usually intended to explain the arrangement or working of a systematic whole

3 a : an organized or established procedure b : a manner of classifying, symbolizing, or schematizing

4 : harmonious arrangement or pattern : ORDER

5 : an organized society or social situation regarded as stultifying : ESTABLISHMENT 2 -- usually used with the synonym see METHOD

- sys7tem7less /-l&s/ adjective

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), October 13, 1999.

Main Entry: 1fail

Pronunciation: 'fA(&)l

Function: verb

Etymology: Middle English failen, from Old French faillir, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin fallire, alteration of Latin fallere to deceive, disappoint

Date: 13th century

intransitive senses

1 a : to lose strength : WEAKEN b : to fade or die away c : to stop functioning

2 a : to fall short b : to be or become absent or inadequate c : to be unsuccessful (as in passing an examination) d : to become bankrupt or insolvent transitive senses

1 a : to disappoint the expectations or trust of b : to miss performing an expected service or function for

2 : to be deficient in : LACK

3 : to leave undone : NEGLECT

4 a : to be unsuccessful in passing (as a test) b : to grade (as a student) as not passing

- fail7ing7ly /'fA-li[ng]-lE/ adverb

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), October 13, 1999.

Flint,

If (as you profess)critical systems are not really critical and if failures are not really failures then why are these terms used at all?

Why not just use much less loaded words to avoid misinformation and panic. Why not just use words like "important" and "breakdown." Why don't agencies involved in remediation say they will fix their important systems on breakdown instead of saying they will fix their critical systems on failure?

I'm so confused!!!!

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), October 13, 1999.

In a machine shop there are four levels of failure: 1) the part gets screwed up the first time around, but the machinist can re-work the part and save it--make it within specs. 2) the part comes out a little out of specs, and customer might or might not except the thing--depending on how desperate they are for it. 3) the part is pretty screwed up, but can be half *ss fixed with shimming, plugs, welding, or bushings--the customer might except this if their really desperate for the thing. 4) the part gets completely screwed up, and the material is scrap--total loss.

-- Ocotillo (peeling@out.===), October 13, 1999.

R:

I never said critical systems weren't critical or failures weren't failures. I said that failures happen at different levels. Did you not read a single word I wrote? Was it not clear that you could have successively more significant failures and still get by?

Try to reflect on the fact that most organizations have critical systems, and that NONE of these systems is perfect -- all suffer failures on a fairly steady basis. Does that really mean there's no such thing as a "critical" system? The health of the organization as a whole is compromised only when too many critical systems suffer too much loss of functionality for too long a period of time. There is a lot of slop in there, it's not a lightswitch. We are in a constant state of FOF, it's normal, even in the best organizations.

Your protestations of confusion don't impress me. It's like you're saying "But I'm soooo confused. You claim a penny isn't the same as a million dollars. But isn't money=money, and therefore they're the same thing? Oh, this is soooo hard." BS, sorry.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 13, 1999.

I think when we talk about Y2K problems of more than bump in the road, we expect failures like this:

* No water comes out of the faucet when I turn it on - or the water that comes out is not safe to drink.

* No electricity is coming down the lines to me - or it's so erratic as to be unusable.

* When I go to the store, either it's closed or there's nothing there to buy.

* When I go to the bank, they have no money to give me and no record of my accounts.

Now, those up there are what I would call failures of the systems I depend on to go about my normal routine.

However, these things are not failures:

* The water company tells me that the water will be off for a day or two while they fix something and I should fill some jugs.

* The power company tells me that the power will be off from midnight to 6 AM so they can fix a potential or actual problem.

* I go to the store and find Hillbilly bread, but not 7 grain whole seed bread. I find whole milk but not skim milk. I find plenty of beef but no chicken or fish.

* I go to the bank and they hand-write a receipt instead of having it print out.

Any of these things may be caused by Y2K problems in computer systems, but the overall system of our lives is pretty fault-tolerant, because it's a distributed system. Hillbilly bread is there, even if Golden Grain is not. An overall system failure takes a much more cataclysmic event than a fault here and there.

Doomers may point to a hundred different failures (or keep recycling the same old tired stories about a sewage spill in L.A. that happened six months ago) and still not find a general system failure that is significant enough to be noticed by the population at large.

JZ

-- Jeff Zurschmeide (zursch@cyberhighway.net), October 13, 1999.

Consult your Tarot cards and you will find the meaning of the word "fail."

-- WELL DUH!! (wellDUH!!@WELLDUH@.xcom), October 13, 1999.