Gotta hand it to morons like flint-boy. The more news that comes in the worse it gets and flint keeps up the "ROUSING SUCCESS" happy faced spin.

South America is fried. Southeast Asia is worse. Africa? Don't make me laugh.

And flint-boy blithely glides along in his self induced stupor pronouncing the remediation a "ROUSING SUCCESS."

Let's see if flint makes a substantive reply to the eleven points made by Sr. Guedes. Not. His comments will be relegated towards grammar or spelling or personal attacks on me for having posted this information. I post 'information' and flint-boy pooh-pooh's it. Watch. Watch his comments, that is, if he deigns to answer at all. He CAN NOT substantively address the issues.

Anyone who is stupid enough, yes, just plain STUPID enough to have called this a ROUSING SUCCESS is no more than an out and out idiot. That is NOT a personal attack. Anyone who says that a human can run the mile in ten seconds is not merely 'mistaken' or 'proffering an alternative opinion' or 'begging to differ'. And anyone in contemplation of the facts who calls this a "ROSING SUCCESS" is also an idiot.

C'mon, flint, address the issues and tell us why this is a "ROUSING SUCCESS" like you claimed. Not JUST a success. But a "ROUSING" success.

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL

Paul Milne

"If you live within 5 miles of a 7-11, you're toast"

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), October 23, 1999

Answers

Hee Haw!!!!!!!!!!
PLEASE DELETE!!!

-- Come On (Delete@this.nonsense), October 23, 1999.

Good Saturday morning, Paul. Read the articles posted by Homer Beanfang, and the testimonies of programmers in the trenches. Spit more fire! It's getting worse.

Wars and revolutions are brewing.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 23, 1999.

Ooops! I neglected to post the remarks by Sr. Guedes. Here they are....> October 13th the Washington D.C. Year 2000 Group met at Fannie Mae > headquarters to hear about international readiness for the century date > change. Presenters were: Sr. Carlos Guedes, Chief Information Officer of > InfoDevBank (the Latin American arm of the World Bank), Mr. Bruce McConnell, > Chairman of the International Y2k group of the United Nations, and a > representative from the State Department. I was present for the first two > speakers , and left when the State Dept. person said they were looking > forward to the challenge of CDC. > Extreme Caution > > Sr. Guedes had presented previously at the Washington Post in December of > 1998 (you can get a tape from Cspan of the dialogue, and I am the one who > asks the last question of the meeting.)and at that time was optimistic about > the ability of Latin America to cope with the century date change problem. > As CIO of InfoDevBank Sr. Guedes has traveled extensively thoughout Latin > America and Europe. He has met at Cabinet level with many countries. His > presentation on the 13th was one of consistent bad news. His closing words > were that all should "exercise extreme caution when dealing with Latin > American partners". > > His presentation examined the current state of remediation in Latin America > but he also stated that Germany was far behind. He stated that the report on > Paraguay which appeared on the front page of the Washington Post last week > reporting serious problems in Paraguay was overly optimistic. Given that the > Washington Post report began it's report on Paraguay with a scenario of > total collapse of the electrical grid, water system, telephone network, > rioting and martial law being imposed one wonders about any optimism being > possible. (Washington Post, Sunday, October 10th, Page A01) > > Change of Stance > > In his presentation of December 1998 Sr. Guedes was quite humorous and was > well prepared with amusing anecdotes illustrating the foolishness of Y2k > alarmists. Yesterday there were no jokes but rather sarcasm mixed with > irony. He began by noting that there were only 54 working days remaining. He > said that no country would be finished. Some would be more prepared than > others but no one would be ready. He asserted that many countries are > insisting on an optimistic "We will be 100% ready" stance instead of > acknowledging that all systems would not be repaired and doing realistic > contingency planning for failures. He held up, as a positive example, > Jamaica's Prime Minister, Mr. Powell, who had candidly admitted that Jamaica > would not complete the work until 2004. He believed that the insistence on > optimism by countries would backfire when failures occurred. > > Reasons for Pessimism > > Sr. Guedes was at some pains to clarify the reality in developing countries. > He took issue with assessments which downplayed the amount of possible > damage in developing countries due to the relative scarcity of computers in > the infrastructure. His point was that while there might be fewer computers > all of them were critical. > > He noted the following problems for Latin America. > > 1. Late and misleading information from vendors. Cf. Infoliant's recent > report that the past month had seen the largest downward revision of > software readiness at a time when increased compliancy and repair was > expected. > > 2. In the mainframe world the systems were legacy systems with no > documentation. > > 3. The mainframes themselves were old hardware and the skill sets needed for > them were not available due to a "brain drain" to the United States where > the number of H1B visas had been increased to allow foreign programmers easy > entry and more salary. > > 4. In the personal computer area illegal and unregistered software was > present in 60% of government offices. Ergo no support or upgrades from > software companies. > > 5. 80% of PC's were using Windows 3.1 with a small percentage using Windows > 95. 6. The PC's themselves were not compliant with BIOS problems. He was > scathing about the dumping of non-compliant computers into developing > countries by manufacturers when they discovered their inventory was not Y2k > compliant. The number of compliant PC's discovered after a survey of 14,000 > machines was under 1%. > > 7. Some upgrades and fixes had been offered by Microsoft but the offer was > made on CD-ROM media which is not available on the obsolete PC's in Latin > America. > > 8. The suggestion that governments in Latin America should use the internet > to upgrade software and seek information ran headlong into the fact that > less than 5% of government offices have any internet access. > > 9. Lack of money. Only Mexico and Chile had budgeted for Y2k work. > > 10. Disasters and elections. Honduras has lost 30 years of public works due > to Hurricane Mitch. Ecuador lost its coastal fish farming sector to an > earthquake last year. Elections have meant the outgoing government has not > been concerned and incoming governments have no interest in the issue. > > 11. Last but not least, he drew attention to the fact that there was no word > for procrastination in Spanish. >

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), October 23, 1999.

Please delete this nonsense.

-- Come On! (Delete@this.nonsense), October 23, 1999.

another pollie interprets official dire warnings as "nonsense"

-- no hope (for@marked.pollies), October 23, 1999.

Come on! = Flint

-- a (a@a.a), October 23, 1999.

Yes please delete! Hearing facts like this is waking me from my Koskinen induced trance.

-- Help I'm being awakened (@ .), October 23, 1999.

Paul,

You expect, counter to their nature, for stupid people to be smart? No Bwaaahahaha--just a little tee hee to that.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), October 23, 1999.

Two points here:

1) Guedes' statements are bad news. No question about this, nor is there any reason to doubt them. No dispute here.

2) Though Milne very carefully (and typically) omits this, I spoke in comparative terms. Milne has maintained since the start that remediation is wasted effort that cannot possibly have any effect on the problem. I said that by comparison with that position, remediation has been a rousing success. I stand by that comparison.

In terms of solving all y2k bugs, clearly this has never been possible. I never said it was. Irf Milne ever had the misfortune to engage in an honest, moderated debate, he'd spend most of his time being corrected by the moderator.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Milne (as is the case with the rest of the pollies) is running scared. Time is quickly running out, and he knows it.

-- Waking up (no@no.no), October 23, 1999.

If this was a debate as Flint outlined, he would be easily defeated. His first statement concedes all of the facts, a rather damming position to start out with. To show how important South America is, consider that Brazil produces most of the ball bearings used in the USA. After WWII, the Air Force conducted damage surveys to find out just how effective their bombing raids were against the German war industries. Turns out that the key raid were against the ball bearing plants, but they didn't succeed in demolishing them. The Germans quickly relocated them underground in caves. Had the Allies been able to destroy these plants, the German war machine would have literally come grinding to a halt. Flint's second point of debate, that he was always thinking in terms of "comparative terms", really is at the heart of the polly/doomer differences. The "doomer" position, "Milne has maintained since the start that remediation is wasted effort that cannot possibily have any effect on the problem." reflects their insight that ALL mission critical systems must be repaired in time. To succeed in having 50%, 75%, or more is irrevelent. A 100% success rate is required, anything less won't work. This is the key. To cheer on efforts that ffall short as "a rousing sucess" is to fail to grasp the dynamics of the systemics involved. The German Panzer needed those replacement bearings, and there was no substitute. y2k repairs were simply started too late, and the scale of the countless projects too great to have any hope of success. Efforts should have been focused on post-crash repairs, contingency plans for re-establishing miminium production of critical items. (Boug

-- Sure M. Worried (SureMWorried@about.Y2K.coming), October 23, 1999.

Sure:

Some false assumptions undermine your arguments.

First, why do you think that although the Germans could quickly rebuild underground ball bearing plants, during war and while being bombed, somehow means the Brazilians can't, even under much less trying circumstances? So you really consider Brazilians that much less competent than Germans? Remember that the German supply lines for the raw materials were also being thoroughly disrupted. They did it anyway. Does this suggest anything at all to you about our capacity to adapt and recover even under stress? I've seen nothing to suggest that Brazilians are inherently dumber than Germans, have you?

Second, you write: "A 100% success rate is required, anything less won't work." Yet this position is debunked by normal everyday experience! Not to mention it contradicts your first point, since the Germans were operating under circumstances nowhere close to "100% success" in their efforts, and yet their efforts succeeded! By your own example, it's possible to operate functionally at a great deal less than optimal conditions.

So rather than chanting the 100% mantra you yourself have demonstrated to be false, why not concern yourself with just how much disruption might really be required? That's the critical question.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Flint, you sure work hard, trying to paint a "happy face" on Y2K. God bless you!!!

-- Ohio Bob (ohiobob@buckeyestate.com), October 23, 1999.

If I recall, the Germans lost the war regardless, and got assistance through the Marshall Plan to help them get back on their feet. Granted, some countries will fare better than others, but will the countries that fare reasonably have the means to assist those who do not?

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), October 23, 1999.

Tim:

Good point. As I recall, the war effort was a substantial drain on the US economy, yet we were able to support the Marshall Plan. And certainly there will be strong motivation to fix problems experienced by both foreign suppliers and customers. We're pretty good at finding the resources when we're that motivated.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Paul..... "The world's coming to an end."

Flint..... "Good point, that means that we can rise from the ashes and start a better one."

Flint, can you not see how your creditability has been shredded? No one pays much attention to your bleating any more.

Goodbye

-- hasta (lavist@baby.flint), October 23, 1999.

"I recognize that insufficient progress has been made" - Flint the confused pollyanna

-- a (a@a.a), October 23, 1999.

I think, maybe, that I have recently come to understand Flint's Y2K position better than I used to. It was not easy to grasp, given his quirky and needlessly verbose way of expressing himself.

In a nutshell, what Flint likes to point out to everyone is that there are no FORGONE CONCLUSIONS on any of this stuff. It's a long way from South America to Smalltown, USA, and the fact that the former may indeed be a total mystery regarding what is going to happen next year does not mean that you can, FOR SURE, state what is going to happen to the latter. Because, quite frankly, it is BECAUSE that the effect of Y2K is at this point a big, unknown entity.

Obviously, to me at least, the prudent thing to do is to plan for the worst case cause-effect scenario. Flint tends to try to prepare for a more optimistic "likely" scenario, though it escapes me how he arrives at what it will be.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), October 23, 1999.

KOS:

Not quite. I prefer to prepare for a much worse scenario than I consider most likely. I arrive at my "most likely" case by reading and guessing, just like everyone else. And because it's a guess, I consider it prudent to guard against worse.

'a':

Do you know how to do *anything* besides mock people? I can't even guess what context that quote was incorrectly taken out of. That is, if it's a quote. You've put words I never said into my mouth too often to rely on that.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Flint, you failed to grasp the point about the German WWII ball bearing story, but to be charitable I didn't include all of the details. The German minister for Industry revealed to the Allis that had they succeeded in destroying those plants, the war was over. There was nothing the Germans could have had quickly enough to prevent a complete and total collapse of their war effort. The Allis did not have a strategy of attacking key compondents of the German war machine; rather it was bomb everything and wear them down. It was just sheer dumb luck that the ball bearing plants weren't seriously damaged and thereby allowed the Germans to relocate. I did not intend to say that the Brazilians are less capable then the Germans, but to illustrate how important often overlooked compondents are to the global economy. "Mission critical" means just that, if it is missing, or broken then it effects the entire downstream production effort. If GM depends on JIT delivery of steering wheels for its assembly line and that supplier goes down, then it's toast. The real question is how fast a substitute source or repair of the original supplier can be effected. In the meantime, production, income, and jobs are lost. You have only to consider the effects of a labor strike to prove this point.

-- Sure M. Worried (SureMWorried@about.Y2K.coming), October 23, 1999.

Sure:

I agree with you as far as you go. While it's true that "The real question is how fast a substitute source or repair of the original supplier can be effected", there's more to it. What I'm trying to do is avoid binary thinking -- that the problem affects all ball bearing plants or none of them. That the ball bearing plants are either perfect or stopped, nothing in between. That if they are stopped, then those who need those bearings are stopped, without alternatives. That if there are no alternatives, that situation will continue indefinitely. Etc.

I wouldn't be surprised by a temporary shortage (and price rise) of certain types of imports, for varying lengths of time. Indeed, I'd be very surprised if this *didn't* happen. But the "automatic toast" argument is not persuasive (an understatement!). It's a long way from saying anything can go wrong, to believing that everything will go wrong. At least for most people.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

It is too late to remediate..flint can only save the whales. http://www.fazed.net/humor/images/whale.jpg

-- don (don@aol.com), October 23, 1999.

JIT
No one, I repeat no one, in the polly camp has yet to answer this issue.

Enough said. John

-- John Galt (jgaltfla@hotmail.com), October 23, 1999.

"Flint, can you not see how your creditability has been shredded? No one pays much attention to your bleating any more. "

I can imagine that Tinfoils do not pay attention to Flint, because he does not subscribe to their religion of death. Intelligent, objective people on the other hand are still all ears...

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), October 23, 1999.

Mission Critical means that if this system fails - the enterprise is LOST. Example, of the 601 Mission Critical systems aboard the Challenger, the Solid Rocket Booster O-Rings were 1 that failed.

Did it matter that the other 600 worked perfectly?

Companys have cut back on the number of mission critical systems they say they have, and others openly admit they will not fix all of them. By obvious, simple logic - that COMPANY will FAIL. Your idea, that in the middle of thousands of failing enterprises, a company can move its operation, or "sidestep" the problem that shut it down in the first place, is utterly laughable. To do that, would require that they planned ahead, had the capital, could get supplies, had access to working contruction crews, etc. etc.

If they are smart enough to have worked all that out - don't you think they would have just fixed their Y2K problem in the first place.

Flint, if a shotgun was pointed at your head 1 foot away and someone pulled the trigger, you would argue that the bullet might not blow your brains out, wouldn't you.

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), October 23, 1999.

Gregg:

Your logic is indeed obvious and simple. But reality doesn't quite work that way. In the (perhaps vain) hope that there is a cure to binary thinking, I'll respond to your points.

[Companys have cut back on the number of mission critical systems they say they have,]

Well, if you want to consider the government to be 'companies', this is true. But this may be an artifact of different reporting requirements between public and private sector. The definition of a "system" is problematical, as you illustrate. Was the shuttle O-ring a "system", or was that just a part failure?

[and others openly admit they will not fix all of them.]

Oh-oh, I can see what's coming here. We have some hardcore either/or thinking happening. Things are either fixed or they are broken. They are either all fixed, or not. They are either critical, or they are noncritical. Now, just as a mental exercise, imagine you were in charge of defining all the systems at your company, and ranking them in order of importance, from 1 to N. Do you suppose you could draw a line somewhere on this list, clearly and unambiguously dividing the 'critical' systems from the 'trivial' systems? If so, you'd be the only one to think so.

NOW, recognizing (1)varying degrees of importance, (2) the fact that you can probably not scrub ALL y2k bugs out of ANY system; and (3) You lack the time and resources to even try to do this -- how do you allocate your resources so as to keep your company from suffering the most serious problems? Most likely, you'd devote fewer resources per system as you went down your list. The ones at the top will by now be damn well tested and operational. The ones in the middle will be back in service and at least working normally, though testing may not have been so rigorous. And the ones at the bottom you've blown off -- one bug in system #1 is worse than system N not working whatsoever.

[By obvious, simple logic - that COMPANY will FAIL.]

Here, you are confusing computer failure with business failure. Surely you don't believe that ANY system anywhere has NEVER crashed, gone down for a while, or screwed up royally at one time or another? It takes quite a few of these, all at once, lasting quite a while, to kill the business. As you're no doubt aware, our record isn't all that great on big important systems. Yet the number of companies that have failed due entirely to computer problems is tiny. Unless the computer problems are truly horrible, most companies have enough fat to live off while they get those problems solved.

[Your idea, that in the middle of thousands of failing enterprises,]

We should examine this assumption a bit. *I* never said everyone would be in the middle of thousands of failing enterprises. This is your own extrapolation from your own false equating of computer with business failures. Correct your assumption and your failing enterprises vanish. You will see.

[a company can move its operation, or "sidestep" the problem that shut it down in the first place, is utterly laughable.]

I didn't say anything about companies moving their operations. As for sidestepping, this is limited at best. Yes, we'll find workarounds and kludges, but mostly we've fixed what's wrong (in the US, anyway), and we'll continue fixing what we missed or didn't get to. Businesses don't shut down due to computer failures anymore than Andy shuts down when he runs out of beer. Both are annoyed and uncomfortable to be sure, but not shut down.

[To do that, would require that they planned ahead,]

All businesses plan ahead. Today most are preparing y2k contingency plans. So this part is taken care of.

[had the capital, could get supplies, had access to working contruction crews, etc. etc.]

Where will their current capital go? Are you now assuming a banking system shutdown as well? If so, you're part of a by now really diehard minority, since this requires that you reject all evidence, in favor of a position maintained mostly by the wishful thinking of gold merchants (who plan to bank their profits!)

You also assume the unavailability of ALL supplies and construction crews. NOT the normal condition of shortages, higher prices, longer waiting periods, etc. Flat, complete unavailability. Won't happen.

[If they are smart enough to have worked all that out]

They are, and they have.

[ - don't you think they would have just fixed their Y2K problem in the first place.]

Well, I already covered this. They *are* fixing their problems, most important ones first (and in many cases now finished). Where do you *think* those hundreds of billions went anyway?

Mind you, I'm not saying there will be no problems. There will be lots of problems. There have already been problems. A lot of that money was spent without improving productivity at all, merely to tread water. I expect enough screwups, delays, shortages, and downtime to have an economic impact, and probably raise national stress levels (check medical statistics in a year, should be interesting).

But your simplistic assumptions have the economy turning off like someone threw the Big Doomer Lightswitch. Reality doesn't work that way. Sorry.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Paul Milne. It is very rude of you, not to mention egocentric, to accuse someone of being an idiot because he has a different interpretation of facts than you do.

Also, being fluent in Spanish, I can tell you that you are wrong. The Spanish word for procrastinate is "procrastinar".

"Debes buscar esta palabra cuando estes terminado en procrastinar"

Al

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), October 23, 1999.

Flint, you make very credible points, as usual. Could you please tell me how much impact you expect from the US's interconnectivity with the rest of the world, considering your statement " Yes, we'll find workarounds and kludges, but mostly we've fixed what's wrong (in the US, anyway)"

Are problems in other parts of the world the reason you expect that "There will be lots of problems"? Or is this facet of the y2k scenario in addition to the "lots of problems"?

This is a serious question, Flint.

I'll take my answer off the air...

Al

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), October 23, 1999.

Al:

Lacking any precise way to predict the future, I lump global problems all together in the "lots of problems" category.

S. Guedes' remarks are very informative to me. I'm of course aware that we in the US have many overseas trading partners. But in reality, we need to deal with the readiness and difficulties of those partners one by one, case by case. That's a lot of cases, no two alike. Some of our foreign partners are partially or fully owned (and managed) by multinational corporations. For some items, maybe most, we have alternative suppliers. The degree (and exact item) with which we need to deal with foreign governments varies, again no two alike. Efforts to get breakdowns back up and limping should be cooperative in many cases.

In my mind, the phrase "South America is toast" lacks enough context to have real meaning. In practice, millions of people will be playing millions of balls where they lie, in millions of different lies. The Big Picture is an epiphenomenon, an emergent "executive summary" composed of countless little pictures. I don't believe anyone anywhere has enough detail about enough of those little pictures to do more than sense trends and make educated guesses. And that effort is severely hampered by our tendence to make things black and white, oversimplify our assumptions, and derive our evidence backwards from our conclusions.

I believe our global systems are more loosely coupled, robust and redundant than many on this forum. But as I wrote here long ago, the only thing that will surprise me about what's coming is if I'm not surprised!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 23, 1999.

Found this on csy2k:

McConnell Testimony

Mr. McConnell repeated his testimony given earlier yesterday to the Senate Special Committee. Some excerpts from that testimony follow while the full testimony can be found at:
http://www.iy2kcc.org/Testimony/19991013.htm#fn1

A picture is emerging of a failure scenario that is more complex than single, localized outages. What is likely in countries with numerous Y2K failures is a growing slowdown in commerce as capacity is reduced by a confluence of degraded infrastructure performance and shaky consumer confidence. To the extent that the slowdown is substantial, either in terms of the infrastructures affected or its duration, the performance of marginal businesses and economies will suffer, and so will the portfolios of their stakeholders. While the magnitude of the effects of these various interactions is inherently unpredictable, planners must be ready for both broader and longer disruptions in daily life. Performance degradation, potentially exacerbated by non-Y2K factors, may cascade from one infrastructure to another.

Fewer than 80 days remain to make and to test preparations for the date change. Certainly, the analyzing, fixing, and testing of systems must continue, work that will eventually need to be done in any case. And, where contingency and continuity planning is not already priority one, it must become so. But an impact that is chronic -- broad and long -- rather than acute, requires a special emphasis in making preparations. Below are additional actions that the IY2KCC believes are needed.

The first two recommendations require governmental action, and include a brief description of current IY2KCC activities to promote such action.

1. To promote public confidence, governments and private organizations should clearly and openly tell their constituents what to expect in terms of how well critical infrastructures will function, including expected service levels for the date change period.

They should also generally describe their contingency plans. To further promote transparency, the IY2KCC will update its public assessment of national government information dissemination efforts in mid-October and mid-November, giving special emphasis to contingency planning.

2. Governments and private organizations should avoid overreacting to the inevitable continuing uncertainty about other countries' readiness, and, instead, make plans to share event information and where necessary to provide assistance in restoring service in critical infrastructures beyond their own boundaries. The IY2KCC will work to establish an international framework for the response to serious Y2K failures. This mechanism will rely first on mutual-aid networks of infrastructure operators and equipment suppliers to promote market-based responses to service outages. This work is being coordinated in particular with the governments of the G-8 nations.

3. Infrastructure operators should be ready to interrupt the propagation of failure from one infrastructure to another by sharing information and by selective, temporary isolation of disrupted areas.

4. Critical service providers should have additional customer service and management staff on hand during and after the date change.

5. Y2K crisis management centers should plan to operate for weeks, not days.

6. Public affairs organizations should explicitly prepare for a wide variety of event scenarios.

Conclusions

1. Sr. Guedes and Mr. McConnell agree about the reality of failures with Sr. Guedes view having more acute factors at rollover. Neither is the bearer of good news, and one must , I think, give more credence to Sr. Guedes based upon his much longer involvement in the issue in the wider arena.

2. The likelihood of governments adopting transparency concerning Y2k information and contingency plans is extremely remote.

3. The public stance that the duration of the event requires planning for weeks of crisis management makes preparation important. We are begining to stop speaking about a three day storm.

4. Our global inter-dependencies ensure that no country will be exempt from issues arising from the century date change.
----------------------------------------------------------

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 24, 1999.

Again from DRACON on csy2k:

Much of the discussion within this forum and others has centered on the fairly narrow topic of verifiable evidence. For me the significance of the comments by Sr. Guedes at the meeting on the 13th is the following.

1. Change of position from optimist to realist or pessimist.

a. One has to realise that Sr. Guedes has spent the past year, since his presentation at the Washington Post forum sponsored by GWU, preparing and delivering seminars on Y2K to Latin America. He was part of two presentations to Brazil, one in Rio, one in Brasilia, he had three other meetings with representatives from most of the Latin American and Carribean nations. He has been on the road and in direct talks with the people who are at ground zero in their respective countries. Unlike us who sit and mine the Net, he has been present and active in Latin America and the Caribbean.

b. Changes of position do not come easily at the higher levels of organizations. There is a cost to a shift in position in that one can be asked "Why didn't you see this before?" , or blamed for not having spoken sooner, or marginalized . Position shifts can be personally costly and everyone knows this and usually avoids having a position at all. It is much safer to be a part of concensus. It is the D.C. version of those days when one couldn't go wrong buying IBM. You can't go too far wrong being part of the balanced view, and you can lose your head if it is the only thing visible.

2. The Washington world speaks in whispers and has an intense dislike of unambiguous statements. Washington especially dislikes anything which might have repercussions down the road. Diplomacy requires carefully nuanced and balanced statements which can be all things to all men. Progress is incremental rather than dramatic and no one appreciates surprizes. For these reasons Sr. Guedes statement that Germany is far behind is startling. Remember it was only a few weeks ago that an announcement of one day that certain named countries were at risk was reversed in the following week to a more bland and less controversial view. Naming names is not the thing to do and yet it was done here by Sr. Guedes. That was startling.

3. No immediate disagreement.

Rebuttal is an art in D.C. No one at higher levels is unskilled in the use of a polite rejoinder to statements which do not reflect the current 'view'. Sr. Guedes was followed by Bruce McConnell. As has happened in the past I was fully prepared for an immediate response to Sr. Guedes comments. We have seen the responses previously, "You are working using old information", "There are some issues but nothing like the severity of events that have been described by the previous speaker." Mr. McConnell made no reference to Sr. Guedes comments that I can recall but rather delivered the same message he had delivered to the Senate and let Sr. Guedes' statements stand unchallenged. Significant.

Cheers, AGF
----------------------------------------------------------------

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), October 24, 1999.

Flint, the quote is what you said VERBATIM. Its interesting to see you make statements that are in complete agreement with the doomer camp and then claim to have been taken out of context each time someone brings them up. Here a good example:

Flint's quote (on the Visa is toast banking thread I believe):

"I know its the wrong thing to do for the system, but my money is coming out of the bank."

Flint's translation:

"Well, gee, I don't really have any money, so yeah, its out of the bank."

In other words, he went apeshit and spent the wad paying off his house, buying a years worth of every supply and food imaginable. He's probably put a good bit in precious metal also, including blue steel and lead. And now he's so enamored with the progress of the banking system, he does all of his dealings in cash.

As I have said many many times before, Flint is a hypocrite. His lifestyle is more stringent than most of the pessimists on this forum.

-- a (a@a.a), October 24, 1999.

'a':

Do you think if you call me enough names, your opinion will somehow become right? Or does that only work in combination with crossposting Milne's rants as well?

Not only do I not mind anyone noticing that my expectations change daily, I'd be suspicious of anyone whose opinion did *not* change given the contradictory nature of so much of our information.

When the data are confusing, then I'm confused. If you consider it *less* hypocritical to hew to an unchanging opinion no matter what you read, then I can't agree with you.

I laid out my position in great detail on one long thread recently. If you read it, your accusations might hold more water. If you read it for *content* rather than simply for ammunition, I guarantee you'd learn something. If you *thought* about the content, you'd learn a LOT. Try it sometime.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 24, 1999.

Flint:

We've never met, but I'm assuming that an "insurance-oriented" person like yourself visits the dentist twice/year. I bring this up only because I find it strange that some think so much about what COULD happen and totally ignore what IS happening...even when what IS happening is happening before their very own eyes. That was actually a lie. I brought it up because I think teeth are a VERY IMPORTANT part of our person and don't personally understand why some folks can be so MACHO about other things and such WIMPS when it comes to dental visits.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.com), October 24, 1999.

Flint- Let's take a minute to define what Mission Critical means. I understand it to mean that if that system fails, the enterprise, business, is lost. You seem to believe that a company can have a mission critical failure, and sort of just muddle on through with things. Yes, there are problems now and there always are "problems", but not a Mission Critical failure, or else the company having the problem would be gone. You say these companies have been smart enought to fix things? Then why are there expected problems???????????

If a company is unable to deliver or provide it's product or service, therefore has no revenue, what will it pay people to fix its systems with? Who would work for an outfit that has gone down???????

Again, the problems that have surfaced so far, have been during 1999. Computers all recognize 1999 as a valid date. For the world to work as it does now, all systems everywhere have to work as they do now - in 2000. As Cory pointed out, after New Years, there's no going back to the old systems, like the FAA has, (and probably others as well.)

You seem to think that a Mission Critcal system is not really CRITICAL. Forget identifying what one is - if a company has defined what it believes to be a Mission Critical system for itself, it probably is. You also seem to believe that if computers fail, they can manually work around it. Do you know what the GDP was in 1965, before computers? Do you seriously belive that the workforce of today can trasition to "manual mode"? Again, there is far too much hardware and software to fix in time for 2000. If it's so easy to manually overide, and we are so robustly vibrant, why spend any money on a silly computer problem?

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), October 24, 1999.