Okay So ostensibly the power stayed up and the telephones are up at least most of the time. We lost power in several small towns and farming communities and continue to have glitches - but that's all they are.

Lost productivity - job services and water management and resources shut down for one day, state gasoline cards not accepted at local service stations. In other words lots and lots of small things.

I've heard of death by a thousand tiny paper cuts, and Infomagic's Charlotte's web, but the truth is, we seem to be managing just fine.

So what is YOUR assessment of whats down the road? Keep coping, grind to a halt, ignore the whole thing? The glitches reported here are all interesting - obviously y2k is a problem, but how bad and for how long? And will it affect our getting on with our lives? Most of us have invested a lot of time, money, interest and fear in this - now what?

Please let me know, I'm interested and confused about what it all means.

-- Laura (Zavaladad@AOL.com), January 06, 2000

Answers

I don't have a clue. Ask me again on March 1.

-- JoseMiami (caris@prodigy.net), January 06, 2000.

Laura we WERE managing"just fine" until today's big failure of the FAA on the East Coast. You'd better turn on your TV and pay attention.

-- d (dd@sover.net), January 06, 2000.

Laura, those things (Lost productivity - job services and water management and resources shut down for one day, state gasoline cards not accepted at local service stations) happen every day. I'm sure everybody here can name at least one event in the '80's or '90's where computer glitches affected their lives in some annoying/damaging way.

But it's not a Great Conspiracy. Thousands of programmers spent years rewriting, replacing, and retooling computer hardware and software to help fix the Y2K design flaw. There are some leftover glitches. There are always going to be computer glitches. Keep good hard copy files of your records and get on with your life the way you had it planned. The poor citizens of Bosnia and Chechnya (sp?) have it worse now than you may ever see in your own lifetime.

-- Simpleminded (nope@wont.never), January 06, 2000.

Laura,

It does matter. The public had a major misperception about Jan 1. Bad data is now 'percolating' through the world's computer systems. The question for me is: what is the rate of 'problem' creation? Can these 'bugs' be fixed by the 'programmers', or will there be some threshhold where the systems become overwhelmed. I have been in this business for 35 years. I don't know the answer, and I don't know anyone who knows the answer. Everything I am reading is pure speculation!

-- billy d (biilyd@home.com), January 06, 2000.

Laura, I personally think it only matters if companies are feeling kinda good only to find that their data has been corrupted past recovery. In which case, if it's a thousand or more companies, we are in trouble.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

Laura

I would like to know how all that legacy code got fixed? This is my bag. I find it hard to believe that it all got fixed or all of it dumped on a compliant computer magically with the code fixed.

I'm thrilled our infrastructure is in place. But things are happening down here at work. I'm happy that the lights are on, but we have a cost tracking system that was working fine prior to December, we're getting a large number of records being produced and it's causing systems problems. We're having to take time out to get to the bottom of it. Maybe not a y2k problem, but we do find it odd that all of the sudden it's going bonkers. I had a small y2k fix that I had to make yesterday, no big deal. Another problem was with our Groupwise email system. People are losing old email messages. We're going to install a patch. Also, some of our computers did go back to June 4, 1980 (that's what our PC people told us. I work on a larger systems). The fix was just to reset the date.

Now, nothing has been bad enough to shut us down. Let me make that point clear. However, one wonders what else is lurking. This never was a non-event for me. All of my programs would be crashing right now if I didn't fix them. It was hard work.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), January 06, 2000.

Laura (Zavaladad@AOL.com),

"Serious question -do the failures really matter?"

Donno. We'll find out. Over time. Just "observing."

Simpleminded (nope@wont.never),

Yes, we gratefully thank the thousands of programmers. Do they make mistakes? Yes. Are those "mission critical" ones? Globally? Donno.

Can the programmers fix it all before cascading data problems, etc., impact people's livelihoods?

We'll find out. Stay tuned... to your local internet access point.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000.

Do the failures matter? Well, that's certainly the key question of Y2k. They matter if there are too many to fix, in too many critical systems that might or might not have been identified. They matter if they cause too many bankruptcies or similar economic hits.

If the failure count is low, we'll be pretty much ok. If the count is high, we're facing a depression. We're not facing martial law and TEOTWAWKI because the lights stayed on, that much we know.

We'll have a better idea in March, but right now all we can do is look around, count noses, and listen for shoes to drop.

-- bw (home@puget.sound), January 06, 2000.

Larry... thanks for the update. Good luck.

As long as the infrastructure holds, we'll all muddle though... with those who "do" and those who watch, et. al.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 06, 2000.

I don't know the answer to your question - FWIW, I think it's still very early in this process. However, I do know that, at least for now, all major infrastructure (electric, telecom, banking etc.) appear to be functioning within 'normal' limits. This will make responding to any more serious problems a lot easier. From that standpoint, I am greatly encouraged.

But I continue to feel that moderate preparations, -i.e. serious preparations that are within your budget and that do not seriously impact other areas of your life are good insurance against the unknown. If everyone was prepared even to the extent recommended by the Red Cross, we would be much more fault tolerant than we are now.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), January 06, 2000.

FW little IW -- stack up all the various posts made here by everyone, consider all the other threads over the past few days, and while it's not a mug's game, ultimately the big thing is that nobody knows (granted, some extremists on both sides insist they *do* know, but I'm tired of them myself). Right now what's clear is that goofs are happening -- have they caused major noticeable pain yet? I think we can agree no (annoyance and extra work, most definitely, but nobody's confirmed dead because of it, no supply shortages are happening unquestionably because of it, etc. -- and today's FAA thing, whatever the cause, didn't leave anyone taken away in ambulances). How will it play out is the big question, and it's to that we all look. Will it multiply or is this just comparative static? *shrug* Noone can truly say yet. Play it safe, and yeah, prep up for something, just anything in general. I live in Southern California -- one word: earthquakes. Having something on hand don't hurt none.

I think what's also handy in the hothouse atmosphere of this board is to consider the outside perspective. This is anecdotal evidence, to be sure, but I run e-mail lists with hundreds of folks on them from all walks of life from all over the world -- not a peep yet from anyone about them dealing with problems, though I'm going to try and get a more formal sense of that soon. As for me and my own work, not one problem at all over the past few days (and our work grapevine is well-established enough that if there was a problem, I'd have heard about it long since!). Right now the only truly notable thing that tied up a massive amount of people in the US is today's airport deal (and as to whether it's Y2K or not? betcha we never get a straight answer either way, while tons of folks have already conclusively made up their minds without knowing anything about the problem from actually being there -- a distinct problem on this board). Stay inside this board, and everything looks really weird. Look at it from the outside, and as yet it's real quiet out there. So again, we just have to wait and watch.

-- Ned Raggett (ned@kuci.org), January 06, 2000.

Loss of productivity? Well, first of all, how much of this loss is from all of us gossipping on this board? But on the other hand, is lots of productivity all that good for the planet? I think not. Too much of what we produce is of so little real value, it just ends up as another cubic yard of garbage clogging up the landfills of the world, while producing it uses up lots of potentially valuable resources, and pollutes our environment, which is the only place most of us have left to live in.

So please, stay tuned to this forum; it keeps you out of the plastics factories.

-- jumpoff joe a.k.a. Al K. Lloyd (jumpoff@ekoweb.net), January 06, 2000.