GIs,

Face it, the game is over. We just wait for the theme to unfold itself. More discussion about oil, embedded chips, this and that is simply waste of time.

I work for a Fortune 500 computer company as a hardware engineer. Our company was named y2k model early this year by its industry . Yet, this month our company installed generators and big disel tanks for each site across the country. Last week, our system adminstrators scheduled downtime to add patches to our servers. How our customers around the world going to get this patches in time I have no clue.

8 days left. Majority American and people around the world is not prepared. Forget about scale 1 - 10. Any person has brain knows the chance of non-event is .00000001. Even people get up and prepare for 3 days as ridicuously suggested by Red Cross and Government, it's better than none.

I sent a summary to all people I knew. I view that as to fullfill my obligation as a friend, as a human, I bet some will ignore and LOL, some will say Hmmm interesting, some will listen and really prepare. Most importantly some of those prepared will be saved because of this act. Even it's just one life is enough.

I enclosed my summary below for your ref. My language is not English. Pls feel free to correct, add, cut, .....

############################################################### I knew y2k is not a favored topic because most of people think they know what it is. Some even laugh at it, joke around it.

Only 8 days left before the historical event hits. It will be impossible for me a convey my thoughts and data to you in one E-mail. I'll simply list few facts and leave it to your judgement is this a non-event or a real threat, to your daily life, to the world economy.....

- y2k project scale - * US invested more than 100 billion dollars to fix the 'simple' bug. Some spent 10 year, most spent 2 - 3 years. * US alone has 1.5 trillion lines of code neends to fix * There are 30 billion embedded chip around the world

- why it won't get fixed - * Only 'mission-critical' systems are worked on. US Federal has 75% are non-critical so they'll wait till next year to fix. * Sofar 81% US big company wont' get their y2k project finished by 12/31 * 33% of US small enterprises wont' do anything and will wait and see! * most y2k claims are self reporting, means no 3rd party auditing. * very few perform end-to-end testing * Some countries simply won't have money or technology to fix. Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Italy,... are at high risk. * Lots of chip simply can't be checked, replaced. Lots of oil company has decided to take 'fix on failure' approach. * new bugs always sneak in when programmers fix codes(you know that, don't you?) * Before y2k, every test is just test.

- status - * US spent $50 millions setup a y2k control center to monitor international situation around y2k. * Lots of big companies build up their inventory and install generators and disel fuel. * crude oil price stays high and probably keep climbing up due to y2k tension. * Some US state authorities will go underground into their bunker during rollover. * Two US major oil pipelines have decided to shut down during rollover * Japan, France trains will stop during midnight. * Israel will shut down one major nuclear plant. * More and more airlines cancelled new year flights. * Many countries has declared 3 days bank holiday. * Many countries printed lots of cash in case 'bank run' occurs.

- remember - If you feel overloaded, remember this.

1. y2k will come on time and it will hit.

2. The only question is how hard it will hit? Nobody, repeat, nobody knows.

3. 1/1 - 1/3 is y2k red zone but this is not the end of story. Y2k is also chronical. Lots of failures won't come out in few weeks, few months later. - what can you do? - 8 days and you don't know when people will start to line up in bank and supermarket. Get this,

* cash * food * water * heat (if you area is freezing cold in winter)

But how much? This is a difficult one. Red Cross say 3 days, my township told me a week, some people prepared for 3 months or even a year.

- what if I am wrong? - Between feel a bit embarrassed if it turns out nothing and life threaten if something bad happens, I picked the former one.

You have brain, ask yourself what is the chance the whole world will pass y2k without major issues?

Best wishes my friends....

-- prep (prep@prep.prep), December 22, 1999

Answers

Sorry for the format. My unix box is not as user-freindly as PC.

-- prep (prep@prep.prep), December 22, 1999.

Thanks for the post Prep. Some of us are on, some of the others, well, hope there is enough to go around if they need it. Pray for the best, plan for the worst...

-- Rob (maxovrdrv51@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.

prep,

you've just about said it all. how dgi's or dwgi's can ignore the facts you've posted is beyond me. waaaayyyyyy beyond actually. but, to each his own i guess.

hold on to your hats everyone.

-- lou (lanny1@ix.netcom.com), December 22, 1999.

My wife and I sent out letters with all sorts of information to family members and friend to let them know what the possibilities were at the rollover over a year ago. Nothing dooming, just requesting them to do their own research and come to their own conclusions. Out of all of those who we sent this information to, (23) two are GI. Saw some of them over the Thanksgiving holiday, some questions of 'how's your bunker coming along? heh heh...if anything happens, we'll be right over!"

I am a newby here, been lurking mostly. Have inputted some unimportant items now and then. One thing that I have noticed here is the quality of the forum and the people in it. Rare these days.

I hope that each and everyone of you stay healthy, hug your families this Christmas and may all of your troubles be a BITR.

-- idunno (idunno@whoknows.com), December 22, 1999.

Actually I won't feel embarassed at all. That would kind of be like being embarrased to have auto or homeowners insurance.

I am very relaxed, ready and very glad I am prepared and several others I have convinced in the last 18 months or so are feeling the same way.

-- the Virginian (1@1.com), December 22, 1999.

I will feel embarrassed because of the extent of preparation I have encouraged my family to do. I am glad we are prepared, don't get me wrong but if nothing happens like so many people are saying now, then I will feel very embarrassed. Like I over reacted and got all caught up in this thing. Can anyone tell me what you know about your town, or company (without giving yourself away) to tell us what you think might happen? I sure wish people in the "know" (anyone in IT departments) would come out and tell us what they know now that we are so close to year end.

-- carolyn (carolynnicks@msn.com), December 22, 1999.

Thanks prep, Good post and as usual, good post back y'all. I must agree with all of you, should be some very unfortunate "interesting times".

I AGREE; to me, with the information available, it seems almost incredulous that there are DGI and DWGIs. Yet, I face on a daily basis, very intelligent and successful people who absolutely refuse to consinder that their comfortable lives could change. I dont mean, wealthy folks, I mean your average Joe Six-pack as they are warmly referred to in this forum. Most (OK, damn near all) of my family and friends are definitely DWGIs.

I have recognized for some time I have been fighting a multi-million dollar campaign to convince the general populace of not only our good old USA, but everyone on earth, that its NOT A PROBLEM.

They have succeeded, even today I was ridiculed publicly at work for sharing info with people I love and wanted to protect, as best I could, with such a short time remaining . My lip is zipped from this point out. Those that wanted to be saved, are making every attempt to be saved. May we all be wrong and misguided, and have the Pollys turn out to be RIGHT.

Id enjoy the laughter that follows, doubt it though. DAMN, I want to be wrong, Big Time.

-- Michael (michaelteever@buffalo.com), December 22, 1999.

Thanks for the info, Prep: I especially appreciate the effort when English isn't your first language... I am a Network Engineer, working in Sydney, Australia. I expect it to be very bad; but believe me, most I.T. types are "too busy" with other distractions to look at a big picture. If they look at anything at all they focus myoptically (obsessively) on some small, unimportant thing. And they use that nitpicking thing to "prove" that there is no problem to worry about. Yes, I might be crazy. We'll know soon enough now, won't we?

-- David Harvey (vk2dmh@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999.

carolyn: Do you like to mudwrestle?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 22, 1999.

carolyn,

In fact, it's the others who are "all caught up in this thing" called denial.

Even if nothing happens, it's you who will have at least tried to think her way through it. The others will merely have stumbled out through dumb luck.

In other words, they will not have used their minds. You will have.

-- eve (123@4567.com), December 23, 1999.

Thanks for so many warm feedbacks. I think more important is to act. Many people is just one E-mail away and they should have a chance to make their own decision.

David Harvey made a good point. Here is Silicon Valley. So you probably assume we write software and design chips will quickly GI. NOP! People is too busy with work and stock option. No time to think! Their engineering strength becomes weakness in understanding y2k crisis.

* When people think they know it, they close their minds. * 2 digits errors is way too simple for these high tech to think big. * They look at trees and can't see the forest. I assume this is David's key point. I even have friends work on y2k project but can't comprehend the implication of 'it's the system, stupid'.

Virginian, I understand your need to have some 'experts' in the field come out to tell you some 'insider info'. But sorry. No matte who he/she is, you still need to take their words with a grain of salt. I checked our company y2k coordinator, he said he'll prepare for a week but he guess next year economy should be better because people will need to buy more to replace old equip. I also checked with the person in charge of generator installation. he prepared for a week. He worries when 1/3 comes and every power get switch back on, what would the big spike do to the power plant? I pay attention only to those have the right background and follow the entire y2k issue at the macro level (for example, read this forum every morning :-)

-- prep (prep@prep.prep), December 23, 1999.