My neighbor is a retired CHP officer. Two weeks ago, he got a ticket in the mail for $350. The ticket said that he was parked in a "Handicapped" space in San Mateo, CA. He was never in San Mateo, and the ticket was for a vehicle that is no where near what he drives. He went down to the CHP office to ask the captain if he could help him get the problem straightened out. The captain laughed about it and said, "you haven't seen anything yet, wait until 1/1/2000 rolls over! We're having all kinds of computer problems right now!" "The State installed digital cameras at toll booths and they aren't oeprating properly, and the computers are having a hard time matching up vehicles with licenses."

I had to laugh at his disgust because he was the same neighbor telling me almost 2 years ago that his son was a computer expert and all is well, no problems whatsoever.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), November 04, 1999

Answers

Great anecdote, Bardou! Thanks. ROFLMAO.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 04, 1999.

The "little inconveniences" of computers reminds me of a story that's been mentioned here before. E.M. Forster's The Machine Stops, written 1909. Short story online in its entirety here:

http://www.plexus.org/forster.html

The Machine Stops

A quick and worthwhile read.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 04, 1999.

for lack of a couple keystrokes the link devoured the thread....sorry....closed the tag.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 04, 1999.

"you haven't seen anything yet, wait until 1/1/2000 rolls over! We're having all kinds of computer problems right now!"

...none of which may have anything to do with Y2K.
For ex., Pac Bell had frame relay problems that slowed down traffic for the whole workday yesterday, 11/4. Slow logins may look like "a computer problem" when they're actually a network problem.

 
"The State installed digital cameras at toll booths and they aren't oeprating properly, and the computers are having a hard time matching up vehicles with licenses."

...and of course, nothing alluded to here is administered by CHP.

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), November 04, 1999.

Whups - "yesterday" above means Wed. Nov. 3.

(Just as well - I had meant to add a line about how wonderful The Machine Stops is...)

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), November 04, 1999.

Just read the whole story. It's not bad at all. It reminds me of "Anthem" by Ayn Rand.

www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), November 04, 1999.

Grrr, that PacBell frame relay kept me from doing business in the SF Bay Area yesterday. Way beyond not being able to log in.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), November 04, 1999.

Then my network guys weren't making it up after all ? :}

But of course, I forgot it was affecting others. Sorta self-centered... The point I was out to make was "the computer" and "the network" aren't the same thing - though to an end user, this is not too relevant.

-- Grrr (grrr@grrr.net), November 04, 1999.

Does my heart good when some gubmint a*hole gets his. The best one I heard recently was a New York plainclothes cop got his ass beat up by a bunch of uniformed cops. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH

-- A (A@AisA.com), November 04, 1999.

If you read the story I referenced above,...you will see that all that matters is the user, Grrrr,...Y2K or no Y2K.

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 04, 1999.

Donna,

Read "The Machine Stops". Amen.

-- Tess (preparingfortheworst@prayingforthebest.com), November 04, 1999.

Excellent reading. Thank you.

-- good writing (that@was.great), November 05, 1999.

---yep, i love it when one of those mindless robot tools of the elite gets nailed with a little karma. kal kops are some of the worse, but then again, can't think of too many areas were they aren't bad.....

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), November 05, 1999.