Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Two things became abundantly clear through rollover Friday night. The government and the experts seriously misjudged the extent of embedded systems failures, and working from that we can safely conclude that no one knows what is going to happen as software corruption propogates across the planet. I find it just as likely that the government has miscalculated these effects just as badly as they did the embeds, probably more so. I also find it just as likely that they miscalculated in the opposite direction, that is they have underestimated the size and scope of the ramifications as vice versa. I think we may still have a major surprise waiting for us in the days to come, as we await the fall of the other shoe. It's sort of like a carpenter taking a measuring stroke on a nail before delivering the driving blow.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday?@y2000.com), January 02, 2000

Answers

'It's sort of like a carpenter taking a measuring stroke on a nail before delivering the driving blow.'

I love the analogy.

-- merville (merville@globalnet.co.uk), January 02, 2000.


Y2K Pro: Do you think that the fact that Latin/South American banks are about to try to go manual in the next two weeks is incorrect or irrelevant? How about Japanese banks? How aout Duetsche Bank?

Please leave your juicy money in the Dow & Nasdaq (all the more for us shorting them).

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 02, 2000.


Well put, Nikoli. Personally, I'd like to think that the actual EFFECT of Y2K problems per se were grossly overestimated on ALL counts (chips, software, etc.), and that the upcoming week will sail as smoothly as the weekend. See what Monday brings...

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), January 02, 2000.

Do you assume that all these major corporations have not fixed their systems or even attempted to fix them? What have they been doing the last 5-10 years?

And do you assume that all companies needed fixing in the first place?

Thank god the rest of the world doesn't think like the folks on this board. Else stock markets would have plummeted ages ago.

Have faith, and what the hell are going to do about bugs that show up? nothing. So stop worrying and enjoy what we got, which, last I checked, was a lot.

-- Mike (mike@noemail.net), January 02, 2000.


Mike: Do you assume all these major corporations (ncluding banks in Latin/South America, Japan, Germany) have fixed their systems? I know that the Germans weren't working on this the last 5-10 years. They finished their Euro roll-over in Dec. 1999 and then turned to Y2K. The Japanese never really did deal with it (it's impolite to make waves in Japnese corporate culture). The market should have crashed (and, in fact, did) in 1998. The glorious, CNBC driven, high tech, P/E's be damned rebound is delusional. Yes, we have a lot. Hopefully we'll 3/4 as much in March.

-- Think It (Through@Pollies.Duh), January 02, 2000.


Nikolia

We were certainly lied to about the embedded systems especially from the IEEE, MR. CEO, GAO testimonies and you name it.

The whole point is that our infrastructure for the moment in in place. It will probably remain so banning any nuclear attack of course. Let's be happy.

Being a programmer I'm still concerned about the business community. This is my bag, because I'm a business application programmer and this is where dates are heavily used. I never claimed to be an expert on embedded systems and I've always stated personally that I don't know what will happen Jan 1st. What I do know is that y2k must be fixed in business applications. They will naturally break if not fixed. I think just about everybody knows this.

I would have to agree that while we are out of the woods in the area of infrastructure damages, it's far too early to declare victory in the business community. The good news is that we do have a functioning infrastructure to deal with this problem. Will we ward off a depression? I hope so, but we may be looking at just a serious recession, or a worse case depression. The point is that we should make it. It may not be pretty, but if you have stockpiled some food you shouldn't have anything to worry about, even in a depression. Money may get short(God forbid I like to spend), but we will live on.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), January 02, 2000.


A depression in our current dependent, soft society would be TEOTWAWKI. Pollys never could grasp that. Hopefully they won't be given the example.....

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), January 02, 2000.

Will continue

Yes, nobody will argue that a serious depression isn't bad. I have to agree that we aren't out of the woods for this scenario. My personal experience tells me this (thankfully I don't have to depend on those embedded system experts). Yet, if you're prepared you have nothing to worry about even in a depression. Yes, it could still be very ugly, but the infrastruture is functioning.

The bottom line is that I think everybody is more optimistic. I think obviously some serious problems will arise, but I think we can go on and fix this problem with infrastructures in place around the world.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), January 02, 2000.


Good point Nik.

However, the embeddeds were always a mystery in spite of polly claims to the contrary. I believe the software problem is a mystery as well. Hopefully, it will turn out as uneventful as the embeddeds. You are right that as little fixing and testing was done in the software realm as in the embedded chips (See Cory's latest WRP)
One thing we do know for sure Nik, the communists are mobilizing for war. :-) Hold on to your preps.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), January 02, 2000.

You know, even I am starting to feel more optimistic... prolly da beer... My bride tells me that she doesn't want to worry with this anymore. She wants to get on with things. I have started making positive plans in the HOPE that my worrys are just that.

We do seem to have slipped past the wringer on embeddeds but I AM NOT KNOWLEDGABLE in that area and will bow to the expertise of others. I still worry about applications and the impact they will have on businesses both large and small.

Were I an investor tomorrow I would watch Gold and see how deep if drops (assuming it does as I am not knowledgable in finance either) and if it was still plunging on Wednesday, I would buy a bit because I think emotions are running so high that people will over sell their Gold and there will be a bounce at the bottom where profit can be made.

I am still convinced the market is over valued. I am also convinced that barring serious bad news tonight it will soar tomorrow. I would not buy into that because I think it will fall of by weeks end.

I also see that I ramble.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 02, 2000.



Nikoli: What type of shoe? Army boot?

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), January 02, 2000.

Black Jackboots?

-- dinosaur (dinosaur@williams-net.com), January 02, 2000.

The potential for problems caused by the Y2K rollover was real. It was not a non-existant problem. It was alway regarded by IT people as a problem that needed to be addressed. It was never regarded, by anyone I work with, as having the potential for ending the world. It was also never regarded as unfixable.

Many IT people, myself among them, have spent a few years getting ready for the rollover. The last year we tested and re-tested. Anything that was discovered was fixed and tested again.

So, the fact that there were so few problems is because of all the hard work that went into detecting and fixing them. It was never a non-problem. It was also never the end of the world.

Most of my IT collegues had to have all systems Y2K ready by Nov. 1999. I was amazed to read some of the 'Y2K Experts' insist that we could NEVER solve the problem and claimed we were lying when reports of Y2K readiness appeared.

It's understandable how people could believe it was a non-problem. The self-appointed 'Y2K Experts' were the real problem. Half and non truths were being given out as gospel. This is still happening and people are still listening. I don't know why it's so hard to believe there was a real problem and it was corrected.

-- Chris Josephson (chrisj62954@aol.com), January 02, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ