Michael:

OK, I have a couple of comments in reply to you. The other thread was becoming unmanageable.

1) You are certainly free to question the character of anyone you wish, and if you arrive at negative conclusions, this is your evaluation. However, I notice that you focus your evaluations on the only four posters here who were willing to swim against the current over some period of time while enduring constant attacks. I don't think you can deny that the four of us were, on the whole, more polite and more analytical than those heaping abuse on us. Certainly we called people far fewer names. And I firmly believe we tried to support our positions with some care.

As for those who repeatedly called us assholes, morons, idiots, shills, evil agents of TPTB, etc. and repeatedly demanded that we shut up and go away, I notice that the idea of evaluating *their* character never seems to cross your mind! This curious focus, in my opinion, tends to undermine your righteousness somewhat.

2) As for gloating, while of course this is a matter of interpretation, it's also hard to avoid. What can we possibly say? Do you think we are saints, that we don't resent the treatment we suffered all that time? Our own motivations were consistently and viciously misrepresented, yet now we are not permitted to question the motivations of those who cashed in on the fear and very likely knew better? Why not? If the opinion leaders of the Fear Brigade expected Big Problems in all sincerity, wouldn't you expect them to admit they missed the boat (like Gary North did?). And if they give every indication of trying to rewrite history to avoid admitting error (as Yourdon seems to be doing), don't you think this might be interpreted as casting doubt on their character or on their previous sincerity?

I admire Yourdon, but hero worship doesn't prevent me from observing what I consider questionable behavior and instead redirect me to attack the character of those asking what I consider entirely reasonable questions. And while I always thought (and wrote) that North was a charlatan, that doesn't prevent me from expressing my admiration for North's character in how he has handled his surprise at the amazing lack of impacts. Neither Yourdon nor North has done us any favors, but only North admits it. And this is the fault of neither Hoff nor Decker, much as you detest them for questioning your hero.

3) By this time, some people on this forum have recognized the false alarm and wandered off, some continue in what I consider their erroneous ways, looking desperately for any sign of impending doom, and some are sincerely wondering just how they could have been so badly fooled.

Since I spent countless hours over the last year and more trying to demonstrate and illustrate the techniques being used to build as systematic and extreme a bias as possible, I had hoped that those now willing to actually listen might hear what I've been saying over and over for so long. Maybe some have listened. Venting your spleen against those who tried so hard to provide a different (and ultimately much more accurate) perspective should be beneath you.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000

Answers

I think you should write a letter to Rodney Dangerfield.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), January 10, 2000.

Flint-

How does this address the issue of whether Decker "intentionally deceived" us concerning his military career?

-- Inquiring mind (wants@to.know), January 10, 2000.

What does it matter?

-- H.H. (dontscrewme_2000@yahoo.com), January 10, 2000.

Flint;

Thank you for a well thought out and courteous post.

You are correct in your statement that I focused upon people who swam against the current and I will agree that for the most part those folks were as courteous to others as others were to them. I can't apologize for those who have insulted you, except where I was one of those. I am sure that I was at one point or another. I shall try to maintain civil discourse with you in the future.

As for my righteousness... "There is none righteous, no not one." I believe that with all my being. I believe that we all make mistakes. I believe that we all offend one another. I believe that we all deceive ourselves in one way or another on a daily basis. I am not righteous.

Gloating is very difficult to avoid. See above. Then if you look around I am sure you will find atleast one instance where I did it. I knew I was doing it, and quite sadly it gave me pleasure. I am sorry. I am sorry I hurt Ken's feelings. I did try to reason with him. I felt he was being unreasonable or perhaps he was in denial of the motivation for that post. I was offended by the tactics he used in his defense so I went about picking them apart. I did not give it my very best effort but I took enough time to get the logic down, with perhaps a few holes and typos. Ditto in toto for Hoffman.

Flint; If you wish to ask Ed a sincere and honest question, it would surprise me if he would not answer it. If on the other hand you posed a question which was really intended to be a statement, it would surprise me if he were to answer it. What would be the point?

Also, I have not been here as long as MOST of the people who are still here but I have never seen Mr. Yourdon insult you or anyone else in this forum. He has therefore earned the right to be defended by anyone who is willing.

As to my personal dealings with others who insult you or another on this board, there is no doubt that my personal opinion influences my judgement BUT I do from time to time tell people civility is important. I am as guilty of supporting people who are snide and insulting as you, or Ken, or Hoffman. I try to watch that though because it is both unfair and poor tactics. When someone points out that I am doing that, I quickly recant. If you look thru the threads you will actually find me occasionally agreeing with pollys and standing against uncivil behavior on both sides. I don't do that out of friendship. I am not 'friends' with anyone here. We are all just fingers typing on keyboards somewhere in the cloud. We have ideas, exchange ideas, and hopefully grow thereby.

It seems that you have once again lost the fundamental flaw to which I pointed in Hoff's and Deckers posts. They were NOT questioning. They were gloating. They were seeking to humiliate and humble another human being. I gave back what they gave in the first place. I stooped to their level. I am sorry that that troubles you. I am equally sorry that you appear to not see that as clearly as so many others have.

As to venting my spleen, were I merely venting my spleen, you would be correct. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. If one uses a tactic, is it not fair to use that tactic in return. Now there is a difference between fair and righteous... perhaps you see it now. You have certainly had an opportunity to view the example.

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 10, 2000.

You have been calling doomers stupid, ineducable, loons and a variety of other names repeatedly for many months. Who started it? Them? You? Both? Who cares?

Whether your perspective is more accurate remains to be seen. Whether you were smarter at the time based on the information available is totally questionable.

The main deal here is you have long accused many here including Yourdon of using "techniques ... to build as systematic and extreme a bias as possible." This is as direct and outrageous a charge as anything cpr has ever said. Worse in many ways. Now we can watch you weasel out of this for a thread or two.

You despise and put down most of the regulars here across thousands of posts. They treat you with undeserved decency most of the time.

You are greatly in need of an independent life. You think you are indispensable to this forum. What a laugh.

-- Reality Check (Wake@up.flint), January 10, 2000.

I have monitored this forum for at least a year, and have made a few observations. There seemed to be quite a bit of hostility towards Ed Yourdon and his supporters from a few participants, primarily the four mentioned. To me, Ed always appeared to be a true gentleman and I felt that the hostility towards him was not deserved. Obviously, that created a general feeling of hostility toward those who were attacking Ed.

Also, it seems to me that those few people were always trying to change the purpose of the forum. They wanted it to be a debating forum on whether or not Y2K was a serious matter. That was not the purpose of the forum, and I don't think Ed should permit himself to be drawn into a debate. He has posted his views many times and everyone knows what they are. If his views have changed as more information becomes available, there is nothing wrong with that. He should not attempt to defend every statement he has ever made.

When an internet forum is permitted to turn into a debating forum, it usually becomes useless in a fairly short time, unless it is heavily moderated. Just look at what has happened to usenet. All of the active unmoderated forums on controversial subjects have become almost completely useless.

I also think that if people like Flint, Decker, etc. would have presented their ideas in a more diplomatic manner, many forum participants would have taken them more seriously.

-- Dave (dannco@hotmail.com), January 10, 2000.

Dave -- You are so right.

A number of trolls (who simply wanted to destroy the forum, posing, BTW, as DOOMERS as well as pollys) and the ones you mentioned wanted to hijack the forum. In Flint's case, I think he didn't realize he was doing this but thought it instead to be his duty to deprogram us.

To be sure, it's the Internet. It's hard to stop and the moderators, for a long time, decided to do nothing. After all, many others were titillated by the game and WANTED to debate endlessly.

The reason the prep forum was split off was because of the noise level that was created by Flint and, then, Decker (PLUS trolls).

As for Ed, he has been attacked and vilified for many months. He admitted he was wrong about early dates, but that wasn't the pound of flesh that these people wanted/want.

Since this is his career and world (ie, IT), of course, he will write one/many essays about Y2K impacts when he thinks he has something meaningful to say -- whether that is January, February, May or September.

It isn't going to be on Flint's timetable. If Flint is healthy enough to leave the forum and get on with his life, we'll email him when they appear so he can comment.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 10, 2000.

I could be characterized as a "doomer" simply because my husband and I did prepare moderately. Our thinking was that we were faced with an unprecedented, global event, of which the outcome was unpredictable. Added to the anxiety was the behavior of government entities worldwide. Finally, my husband is an IT professional (has been for years), currently working at a county hospital. Occassionally during this past year, the head of his department would be on television declaring her confidence in Y2K preparations. This was not true. She and the rest of the department were frantic, anxiety-ridden, and to some extent, scared silly. Not one among the group, from Systems Analysts to Systems Operators, could predict with absolute certainty the actual outcome of the rollover event or the success of their preparations, mainly because the hospital did not nor does not exist in a vacuum, much of its success during and subsequent to rollover depends on relationships to other entities, from power to phone, from vendor to contractor, etc. Consequently, my husband and I bought #10 cans of vegetable protein. We didn't move, nor did we buy a gun. And, glad to have our extra food. Like many others, we are turning our attention to the principle of self-reliance. We have a new attitude that feels good, an attitude of independance that we didn't have before. Glad to have it, too.

At the moment and in the context of this thread, I submit that Ed Yourdon was correct, in that all the potential glitches he described have happened, in fact. Globally, we have had power outages (various); stock market crashes (Pakistan); nuclear troubles (various); banking snafus; bank runs (Austrailia and Hong Kong prior to rollover); air traffic control problems; and a US satelite ground station went "dark" for a few hours. These incidents, however, being isolated and fixable, have not led to chaos. Since no one on earth could gather the necessary information about remediation and testing that did or did not occur in each and every company, corporation, government, hospital, utility, etc., it is obviously impossible for a single soul to have predicted the actual outcome of rollover.

In addition, since we, collectively, are not acting as a "fly on the wall" in each and every company, etc., we are still faced with an unpredictable situation. Mainstream media reports that 90% of Y2K glitches will occur after the first one or two weeks of rollover. At what point, if ever, do these glitches result in a critical mass, so to speak, at which time the work load becomes overwhelming to ITs, thereby having to allow the consequences to surface publicly? Then what? How does the public react, especially since people have been led to believe that everything's golden and rosy? Afterall, that's what experts on TV say.

In short, it was foolish to suggest that anyone could have predicted the actual outcome of rollover and the subsequent first weeks, because of the absence of information regarding what was really going on behind closed doors and the vast inter-connectedness of not only computer systems, but also our global village. It is also foolish to suggest that the final outcome of Y2K is predictable even now, as we are due to experience 90% of glitches within the upcoming months. (In order to understand this, pollys, you must think in terms of global relationships. It's not just about you and your sphere of influence, you know).

Glad to have power, water, phone, internet AND my #10 cans of vegetable protein.

-- Aunt PittyPat (PPAT@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.

Flint, Decker's thread was entitled, "Ed Yourdon... how about some straight talk?" That title connotes that Ed has never talked straight. It comes from the same place as, "How often do you beat your wife?" It's insulting and Decker attacked Ed's integrity with that heading, never mind the post. When he was challenged, Decker wrapped himself in the flag in an attempt to prove his own integrity. When asked about inconsistencies in statements about his Navy service, Decker did not clear them up, choosing to say goodbye instead.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), January 10, 2000.

Reality Check:

You need to contemplate your own handle a bit. Consider:

1) There have been several long threads, and thousands of posts, according Yourdon paeans of praise, thanks, and admiration. Yet Yourdon influenced many people into doing the unnecessary. I'm not saying the changes in lifestyle and budget Yourdon influenced were harmful, but I AM saying that Yourdon influenced people to spend their time and money in ways they otherwise would not have done, in expectation of something that did not happen.

2) There have been tens of thousands of posts on this forum attacking Koskinen, and I never saw a single word in Koskinen's defense, not even from me. Yet it's quite likely that Koskinen's efforts prevented unnecessary and disruptive behavior, and his description of what actually happened proved amazingly accurate.

In a nutshell, Koskinen was right and was vilified, while Yourdon was wrong and gets worshipped. And YOU claim that an accusation of bias is "outrageous"? THINK about it!

As an exercise, I suggest you search the TB2K archives for the word "spin", and do a count of the number of times this description was applied to what actually turned out to be reality. And then do a search for the word "truth" and count the number of times this description was applied to what turned out to be hilariously incorrect. If you are capable of doing a reality check, this will really open your eyes.

I need to weasel out of nothing. I am only pointing out the reality, if you have the nerve to check it. I cannot do your thinking for you. The question is whether you can either. I stand by all I wrote.

As for respect, I can look back and count on one thumb the poster who did nothing to gain my respect. I feely concede I was willing to roll up my sleeves and wade into the melee. I think I supported my viewpoint pretty well, and kept my language reasonably decent. I think you are taking exception to my opinions much more than to my presentations, all the more galling because my opinions have been largely ratified. But that's your problem, not mine. Live with it.

--------

Now I see Dave and Big Dog rewriting history to claim that the purpose of this forum was always to take the "fact" of coming catastrophe for granted, and focus on how to deal with it. Sadly, they were derailed by a couple of evil posters who had the temerity to doubt the underlying assumptions -- all of which have turned out to be quite spectacularly false!

So the "2+2=22 Society" was disrupted by trolls who could actually add 2 and 2, and is now devolving into the "Sore Losers Society". Wonderful. As Dave says, it was never the purpose of this forum to *find* the boat, instead this forum was created to deliberately *miss* the boat. And you wonder why some of us laugh at you? I guess trying to deconstruct the ferocious spin that informed this forum must not be ethical. The ethical thing to do is to *encourage* error, not correct it. Right.

Enjoy your 8.5, BD. You've earned it.

P.S.: I don't believe I've ever called anyone a troll.

---------

Aunt PittyPat:

I agree with most of what you say. There were simply too many unknowns to make more than a ballpark estimate, and even that was a fairly large ballpark. I freely confess that (up until now, anyway) my own predictions were off the mark on the pessimistic side.

According to Gartner and others, 50-60% of the problems were expected after rollover (not counting embeddeds), not 90%. But the important point is exactly the interrelationships you mention. I believe y2k bugs are currently striking in the millions. And I believe that glitch rates over and above normal rates are due to y2k regardless of how many times the "not y2k related" mantra gets chanted. But as we've all noticed, the *impacts* have been trivial. It turns out in practice that most y2k bugs are quickly found and easily repaired. Our systems turn out to be far more resiliant than pessimists had given them credit for. Glitches have been a way of life for a long time, and globally we show no signs of being swamped.

---------

Old Git:

You seem unduly concerned with Decker. Why? While I don't believe Decker led anyone astray, I consider him irrelevant. It often seems to me that you fall into that group of people who have felt that the best way to support their opinions was by doing everything possible to discredit those whose opinions differed. You've consistently argued along the lines of "since XXX is a jerk, MY opinion must be correct." Analysis of avaiable information seems a foreign idea to you. As opposed to Dave and Big Dog, who recognize that salient evidence exists, but the purpose of this forum was to ignore it!

As for Yourdon, I repeat that from my perspective, Gary North has put him to shame.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Flint -- when a "doomer" speaks about an "optimist" in the way you just did about me, systematically misreading, misinterpreting and mis-taking my post, it's considered reprehensible. But when you do it, it's considered "fair", "only what can be expected since doomers are ineducable" or ... what? AS IF I have ever assumed catastrophe ...

Answering this is truly a waste of energy. "Have I stopped beating my wife"? Don't think I'll bother with that one, Flint.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 10, 2000.

Flint, you said: "There have been several long threads, and thousands of posts, according Yourdon paeans of praise, thanks, and admiration. Yet Yourdon influenced many people into doing the unnecessary."

Flint, the man repeatedly said to "form your own opinion". He gave his best guess as to what would happen, as well as possibilities in either extreme.

Apparently, you think he is supposed to be all-knowing, like God Almighty. And then you accuse *us* of treating him as a god?

Furthermore little man, you and your supporters had better hope to hell the accumulating system and data failures are not enough to collapse the economy and send us into a depression. Because in that event, Yourdon will be correct in his prediction and you will look like the belligerent fool most believe you to be anyway.

-- Impartial Observer (@ .), January 10, 2000.

Big Dog:

Here is the essence of Dave's point, with which you wholeheartedly agree (you said "you are so right"):

"They wanted it to be a debating forum on whether or not Y2K was a serious matter. That was not the purpose of the forum"

Now, a reasonable person would conclude that if the purpose of the forum was NOT to determine if y2k was serious or not, then evaluating the potential seriousness was beside the point. No?

Well, if assessing what y2k might bring us is beside the point, just what IS the point? You imply that the purpose was to encourage and discuss preparations. But doesn't this imply that we already know what we're preparing for and why we're preparing? If there is legitimate doubt about both the need for, and the type of, preparations in the first place (as events have MOST emphatically shown there was), why should such doubt be disallowed as inappropriate?

You remind me of that old joke that "you start coding, and I'll go upstairs and see what they want." You seem to have things backwards.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Right, Flint, this was not meant to be a debating forum on the question, "Is Y2K a SERIOUS matter?"

Duh.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), January 10, 2000.

Big Dog:

Then in all honesty I don't understand. Are you seriously proposing that the purpose of this forum was to take what turned out to be a resounding falsehood for granted and go from there? If so, I suggest you are being silly.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Flint, you have the temerity to say that I'M "unduly concerned with Decker"? YOU are the one who started this special thread mainly to chastize Michael for pointing out that Decker was wearing no clothes. As usual, you have descended into absurdity, Flint. I wash my hands of you.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), January 10, 2000.

Those of us who are techs: programmers, systems analysts, business/data analysts see Flint (nice as he is) as the penultimate pointy-haired dude.

Ride the fence for two years, then start swatting when the wave says 'appropriate' to do so. Our fault for not keeping him closer.

If Flint had any experience with accounting software and support (actual, not theoretical), he'd be not nearly so glib.

Nonetheless, I respect him for his tenacity and mighty fine spellin'.

For us application/systems people: we know it ain't over yet.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 10, 2000.

Old Git:

I believe you are hoist by your own petard. Try rereading my post to start this thread. First, I chastised Michael for applying what I considered a double standard. THEN I contrasted North with Yourdon, to Yourdon's detriment. THEN I spoke of the effort necessary to work toward a balanced perspective.

I didn't even *mention* Decker. YOU did. You are so obsessed with him that you read about him in a post that neither mentioned nor addressed him. And for this you find ME at fault? My statement not only stands, it stands ratified!

lisa:

No, I'm not an accountant and never claimed to be. Are accountants particularly noted for their breadth of vision? News to me.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Flint-

Your response was reasoned and thoughtful, but I don't agree with your point about our systems being more resilient than pessimists believe. That idea may have been true before Y2K. Now, systems contain an "x" factor, or rather a "Y2K" factor, unprecedented in scope and existing within an undefined parameter. So, Flint, it's a matter of gambling. It's your faith in our systems vs. my instinct for human nature and behavior. To me, the situation remains unpredictable for at least the next several months.

Aunt Pitty will now borrow Scarlett's line: "Afterall, tomorrow's another day."

-- Aunt PittyPat (PPAT@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.

Aunt PittiPat:

Your use of the word "faith" in this context is illustrative. Debugging systems is part of my job, and has been for a long time. The "bug-curve" always starts out high, and descends steeply but increasingly slowly. Eventually, it reaches a point of very low bug incidence and stays there. This, in all my experience, is a half-life curve -- you find half the bugs the first N days, and half of what's remaining in the next N days, etc.

I'd dearly love to be able to quantify this curve, both in turns of initial bug incidence and to determine the half life. Early returns suggest that about a million bugs showed up and were fixed in the first 3 days, and half a million in the next 3, and a quarter of a million the next three. Of course, we heard about very few of these. Indeed, probably people outside the IT glass room heard of fewer than half.

In the process, the really damaging bugs tend to show up first. Not always, of course, that's just a tendency. But if y2k bugs are being squashed with about a 3-day halflife, this is a good thing. And that's the way it works in real life. We'll probably never get them all, but I'd estimate that by about a month from now at the very latest date bugs will constitute less than of all bugs that show up in production software, and stay that way forever.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Old Git: I see that Flint has now taken up the task of attacking you on behalf of Decker; who was a poor, incompetent twit with little imagination,a lack of character, with intellectual abilities lacking, with hatefulness and arrogance to the depth of the ocean, but with empathy to the depth of a saucer.....let us pray, verily; that Flint will depart and join Decker....who supposedly has posted his last post in this forum. Dear God in Heaven; let it be true.

-- LongTimeLurker (LongTimeLurker@lurk.com), January 10, 2000.

LTL:

Careful there! Old Git was just claiming on another thread that it was the *pollies* who were guilty of the mindless attacks. In your lefthanded support of her, you are making her look even dumber. Are you sure this is what you want?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Long Time Lurker,

Amen!

-- Another (Long@Time.Lurker), January 10, 2000.

We could all solve this right now with a huge group-hug for Flint.

We all love him, appreciate him and wish to send him on his way, free from we irrascible doomers.

(((((((((((((Flint, we love you.......)))))))))))))))))

Really do.

Now, do you intend to eviscerate the actual failings as you so faithfully did the speculative failure reporting?

Pick one.

If you intend to stick around the forum in order to track the failures, good.

If you intend to forget Y2K alltogether, take your last shots on this thread, get your revenge and be the hell gone with.

What you gonna do?

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 10, 2000.

Flint:

Old Git could not be made to look dumb. She has class, wit, imagination and personality beyond what you could ever wish for in your dreams. To know this, you only need to review the posts for the past 2 years....then compare them with the mindless, hateful, condescending, arrogant, snide, callous posts that Decker has generated. If you really admire that little town manager, then join him in oblivion. His personality is not welcome here.

-- LongTimeLurker (LongTimeLurker@lurk.com), January 10, 2000.

As usual, you have descended into absurdity, Old Git. I wash my hands of you.

You are a mean, ugly & evil hag.

-- (OG@hater.net), January 10, 2000.

Flint-

"...use of the word "faith" is illustrative"? What are you talking about?

Your information about debugging programs and the fact that you do it for a living is an interesting aside, but my interest is not what is done in certain companies (corporations, governments, etc.) by certain individual IT professionals. My concern centers on the concepts of connectivity and relationships as it applies to not only computer systems, but also the inter-relationships that exist among every facet of our modern society: telecommunications relating to just-in-time business practices; utility reliability related to health care; fuel supply and military preparedness; not to mention the transfer of monies from Bank of England to Chase Manhattan, New York; and the inter-connectivity within the system of food supply, which is now an international enterprise. And then, one has to consider the relationships that all of the above and countless others have with each other, as they are all cross-connected in some indistinct fashion.

Consider, as well, that modern systems of this nature are inherently fragile, because each component (or interaction) is dependant on countless others and each component operates within a specific and constrained time frame. Consider that all ITs in all the world may or may not have your level of professionalism. Consider that it's human nature to present the most positive spin to management. Consider that we, Americans, are, by and large, self-indulgent, demanding, and have been thoroughly seduced by instant gratification. You see, Flint, you are the one with faith, meaning confidence, in all these inter-connected systems in all the world, despite the fact that they are contaminated now by an unprecedented and unknown factor.

Finally, a question: how many bugs does it take to contaminate data?

-- Aunt PittyPat (PPAT@webtv.net), January 10, 2000.

lisa:

[If you intend to stick around the forum in order to track the failures, good.]

No, lisa, I intend to stick around to track the *news*! NOT just the failures. This selective focus is what led you to miss the boat so badly in the first place. Can't you even see it yet?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

See, Flint what black souls are (perhaps unknowingly to you) try to use you, and your manipulate the regulars' impression of your presence here.

Declare something.

Either renounce the ... [and I think 'demons' is appropriate here] , or leave, as one of three troll lightning rods: Decker, Hoff and you.

Pick one.

I'd rather you stay, but not with the troll baggage: you're their last foothold: you are their poltergeist.

On what? Discovery. They didn't want us pontificating, and they sure don't want us analyzing real failures. That only YOURDONITES seem to be reporting, along with Hyatt and CSY2K.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 10, 2000.

Old Git....pay no attention to those barbarians!!

((((((((((OldGit)))))))))))

You are loved and appreciated here. That "OG@hater.net" is probably just Decker or Flint....so don't pay no nevermind to their crap. They are both not worthy of your attention.

-- AnotherLurker (AnotherLurker@lurk.com), January 10, 2000.

OG@hater.net = Decker :)

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), January 10, 2000.

lisa:

I agree the three of us attracted trolls. Our presence probably did serve to enlighten some people to the troll thought process purely from their reaction to us, above and beyond what they wrote.

And I'm still interested in what's happening. I agree a LOT of date bugs are being called "not y2k problems" and I laugh. We can all afford to laugh at this so long as the impacts on our daily lives remains zero.

But I also think some other events are important. The seamless operation of the banking system, the lack of any supply chain JIT failures, Gary North conceding gracefully, Y2kNewsWire folding its tent and heading for the next marketing venture. These are all good indications of what's happening. Even the highly limited, sporadic, and temporary glitches (mostly y2k in my opinion) that aren't causing any systemic grief. The picture is becoming clearer -- very very thankfully, y2k was a bust. I admit I'm stunned by this; I expected much worse.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2000.

Right.

Here's to (((((((((((((Old Git, my spook buddy)))))))))))

My girl....my girl.. my girl, talkin' bout My Girl....My Girl!!

She's the real thing.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 10, 2000.

Yo,, buddy Flint, I'm jumping up and down with joy (and consumer lust) that we're spared from the spectre of your take from last January.

The big guys that have (relatively) bit the IT dust (***mostly SAP shops, ouch***) didn't go down overnight.

All we can hope, for those against the wall now (and not conspicuous, for obvious reasons) is that they can pull it together ASAP.

You know that most of us want clean, safe, pleasant passage for the rollover.

But we do intend to monitor failures, as, again, there are many chapters left to be writ.

(((Love Flint)))(((You need to conjure 'a'))))

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), January 10, 2000.

Man, I expected way worse.

I am so idiotically elated that I'm fixin to test drive an antique Mustang tomorrow - I want to go back to consumerism, right here, right now.

It's just too early... I've mentioned before, business borrows off A/R and inventory, and we've not seen any January balance statements.

In the meantime...... let's try to shake the 'you were WRONG!! rollover sentiment'...I admit that I allowed the infrastructure availability at midnight 'polly' me out. Transient, but hopefully real.

More to cover... "Don't move along, there IS something to see, here!"...

Need the finest minds we can conjure for analysis, minus the right/wrong dichotomy.

Peace. And Fantastic BBQ.

-- lisa (lisa@spammin.da_thread_here), January 10, 2000.