I have given some thought to the progression of Ed Yourdon... from Time Bomb 2000 to Senate testimony to "Sayonara" to "Rodney Dangerfield" to EZ Board and Humpty Dumpty. Last year, I thought Yourdon had a clear conflict of interest. He was acting as a Y2K reporter while engaged in Y2K commerce. Otherwise, I didn't see anything overtly nefarious in his actions. The Senate testimony puzzled me. After clearly predicting significant Y2K problems, he basically just asked for "better information." The "Sayonara" was a surprise... at least to me. Yourdon left during the most critical hours of the Y2K debate. Since rollover, we've seen the Rodney Dangerfield essay, the "Humpty Dumpty" project and launching of EZBoard.

What happened? Was Yourdon a naive computer author who accidently developed a cult following? Was he a savvy businessman who spotted a book (and spinoffs) in the Y2K problem? Was he a pasty survivalist who "got it" and went... over the edge? Was he really involved with characters like North, Hyatt and Lord?

Part of understanding what happened with Y2K is understanding the role Ed Yourdon played. Honestly, I haven't decided... and I am interested in not only opinions, but facts that might shed some light on the matter.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 14, 2000

Answers

ken since it looks like we both enjoy a good mystery why don't we get together and try to solve the Yourdon and who is who on this board mysteries?

-- Laura Ladylogic (Ladylogic46@aol.com), March 14, 2000.

I'm embarrassed to ask this, as I thought I read at least most of Ed's essays/articles on Y2K, but I don't remember one that was titled "Sayonara". Can you or anyone point me to it? You seem to be saying that in this essay (or whatever it is) he pulled himself out of the Y2K debate before roll-over, and stopped searching for answers and attempt to understand what the concequences would be.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 14, 2000.

Yourdon *used* to be a very well-respected computer scientist. Some of his older (late 70s/early 80s) books are classics. At this point he found a crystal ball and wrote an infamous book called "Decline and Fall of the American Programmer", discussing how programming jobs would all be going overseas, and all US programmers would be unemployed in 1999.

Uh huh.

When that didn't pan out, he wrote a followup book called "Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer", talking about the crisis was narrowly averted, and saying how wrong he was, but *now* he's right. Really.

Yeah.

Suffice to say Ed lost a *lot* of face during that debacle (early 90s, as I recall.) He wrote another book called "Death March" (which I own) which talks about how badly projects are managed (duh!), but doesn't seem to discuss how to actually solve it. It comes across as pessimistic almost to the point of hopelessness. (Check out the Amazon.com reviews for this book. Most are one star!)

I think that is part of the reason why he fell for Y2K. It was combination of trust in his crystal ball and his pessimism. I believe at this point he fell under the influence of Mr. North, and thus came all the doom and gloom. There was no turning back. (I personally suspect Ed also realized how much money there was in preaching gloom and doom.)

-- Lurker (lurker@lurk.lurk), March 14, 2000.

For whatever reason, Ed never understood the world of difference between Y2k remediation and the botched projects he wrote about in "Death March".

Once he missed that, the rest was kind of inevitable.

-- RC (randyxpher@aol.com), March 14, 2000.

Why are you people, especially Flint and Decker, so obsessed with Ed Yourdon? Are you jealous? You pride yourselves on being such intelligent people but you seem obssessed with this one subject. According to you y2k is over so why don't you move on?

-- (tiredofstupidity@aol.com), March 14, 2000.

Ken,

Cut the guy some slack. If nothing else, he'd probably appreciate it.

OTOH, why not change handles, go to his new board and ASK him which it is. They like free debate and would be happy to answer. Please report back with your findings.

Will wait patiently for the thread to die or your return,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), March 14, 2000.

I suspect there was a progression involved, though that may be an artifact of the progression I went through. Certainly 3 years and more ago, the remediation task looked overwhelming. Yourdon's metrics (mostly from Capers Jones, but also from his own experience with large development projects), while not appropriate, were the best available. The outlook was very murky, but not positive at all.

Combine this with Yourdon being an author and entrepreneur. Y2k looked like a good horse to bet on. The problem was large, the metrics were poor, the plausible scenarios were seriious, the media showed early signs of paying attention (and creating a market in the process). So get in on the ground floor, and once the pot starts to boil, the big money will be rolling in. The bet looked like a good one.

But as 1999 progressed, things soured. Spike dates came and went uneventfully, positive reports flowed in, and (I think most important) those doing the work were calm and confident. And remember that Yourdon isn't just an outsider with a Big Name. He's spent a long career building literally thousands of contacts throughout the IT industry. His failure to recognize what was really happening is akin to a physician misdiagnosing a broken leg.

At this point (no later than when he turned this forum over to the Keystone Kops), he faced a dilemma. Clearly, his horse was out of the running in practice, if not in the minds of enough customers to make Timebomb 200 a big bestseller. I think (pure guesswork) that he adopted a mixed strategy -- to cut his losses with current and prospective consulting clients, while milking the general public for all he could get.

But his post-rollover behavior baffles me. The Humpty Dumpty project is a counsel of despair. Can his cult really represent that much of a market? Is this his best-looking option right now? Even considering that he comes across as having been completely fooled within his own area of knowledge, contacts and expertise, this is hard to believe. Very strange.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 14, 2000.

Ken -

you've asked this before and gotten about the same answers. What are you looking for? Some evil influence that corrupted an otherwise reasonable techie? What will that prove?

Predicting the future is always dicey. Yourdon happened to be wrong this time.

-- kermit (colourmegreen@hotmail.com), March 14, 2000.

"Tired", Frank and Kermit,

I for one am very interested in the question Ken raises, and avidly looking for answers. My motivation is that I spent 2 years researching Y2K, and 20 of those months I was login in Ed's forum everyday, essentially making it my main base. I want to understand Ed, his character, his background and why I fell for the FUD on his forum. I'm an RN, computer end user with a techie bent and some programming background. I thought I was smart enough to "snif" a scam and avoid it. But Ken and Flint make me think that maybe I've been taken in by a smooth talkin' con artist all these months. It's worth it for me, for my personal growth and understanding of life to look into the past and hear other's views, knowledge and opinions of the man called Ed Yourdon.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 14, 2000.

Decker, I know since your head is bigger than the entire planet it is difficult for you to imagine, but some people actually do see things differently than you do.

Catsy, you should be ashamed. Ed didn't scam anyone and you know it. The real con artists are Decker and Flint.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), March 14, 2000.

Why should Ed Yourdon (or anyone else, for that matter) need to be blamed for how Y2k did or didn't turn out. Sheesh,we are all grown- ups here and i for one have always made my own decisions based on what i felt was best. Ed Yourdon didn't write the Senater report, CIA report,IEEA report, or any of the many other reports and data that made most of us conclude that Y2k could be serious. Quite frankly, i am still at a loss to understand the lack of Y2k associated problems based on the very credible sources that rang the alarm bell.I am not a "cult follower" of Ed Yourdon or anyone else. But personally, i believe that Eds fears regarding Y2k were as sincere as mine and most other peoples on this forum. Lets quit tring to shoot the messenger and instead look within ourselves for the answers to why we believed.

-- dory (crtwheel@eburg.com), March 14, 2000.

You feared what you didn't know. He (ED) didn't know much at all about the embedded area, most people didn't especially people in the software arena.

Then you listened to people you accepted as experts in that area, even though by their backgrounds you should have known they couldn't know what they were talking about.

What ever possesed people to believe people like Paula Gorden, Bruce Beach and others who probably never had the least knowledge of embeddeds before they started spouting off about them?

In early 1999 there was a report made public that showed how the infrastructure would NOT come down. Ed and most "experts" had access to it and he knew from that that all the BS about failure of the infrastructure was not true. He did NOT come to his board and tell the people there that fact, rather he played a lot of word games and tried to dissassociate himself from his "followers". Peobably because he did not want to be turned on the way

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), March 15, 2000.

You feared what you didn't know. He (ED) didn't know much at all about the embedded area, most people didn't especially people in the software arena.

Then you listened to people you accepted as experts in that area, even though by their backgrounds you should have known they couldn't know what they were talking about.

What ever possesed people to believe people like Paula Gorden, Bruce Beach and others who probably never had the least knowledge of embeddeds before they started spouting off about them?

In early 1999 there was a report made public that showed how the infrastructure would NOT come down. Ed and most "experts" had access to it and he knew from that that all the BS about failure of the infrastructure was not true. He did NOT come to his board and tell the people there that fact, rather he played a lot of word games and tried to dissassociate himself from his "followers". Peobably because he did not want to be turned on the way Yardini and others were when they told the truth about what was going on. Besides, he could still make money from different sources as long as there were people who still believed in TEOTWAWKI.

The thing to find out is what ways did he profit from doomers? Was he involved in selling of food stuffs? What other areas could he be getting a profit from?

When that comes out then we will know why he did what he did.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), March 15, 2000.

Ken,

I believe y2k was a significant problem. I think it could have had a disastrous effect if not addressed. I also think Yourdon was only saying what he percieved to be true.

However, Yourdon, North, Milne and others seemed to have a disrespect toward the American people as a whole. The terms "sheeple, ignorant masses, the Herd" were always in evidence.

They held in contempt the very people who mitigated the y2k problem. It wasn't only the code crunchers but managers, techs, clerks, the whole workforce spent countless hours checking for problems and remediating. The "Sheeple" who were so denigrated and ridiculed were the force that broke the back of Y2K.

-- Chief (bmc@sealret.com), March 15, 2000.

Does anyopne know? Did Ed get rich off of y2k or didn't he?

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), March 15, 2000.

Decker,

Yourdon has done several survival shows in the past few years (most notably the Big One in Dallas, TX last year), hawking his books and videos, playing Important Speaker and selling stuff to the faithful.

The survivalist, general "preparedness" and militia crowds are but a tiny fraction of the population, but they're a great market. They're not large enough to attract serious competition from the Big Guys (the camping/outdoor sections at WalMart, Sams, Costco and KMart get a little money from them, but don't consider it a great boon to the bottom line) and yet, these people are willing to spend -- often serious -- money.

That's ideal for the small entrepeneur. Better yet, they Truly Believe and tend to support those vendors who seem to share their beliefs. What better market?

And have no doubt: Yourdon IS a True Believer. Don't look for complex motivations and rationales; most of it is just conservative and traditional religious beliefs catylised with a smashingly-good mid-life crisis.

Yeah, I really do believe it's that simple.

Yourdon isn't a charlatan. Most survivalist spokespersons and vendors aren't; they're True Believers. We can't really criticise them for making money off of the Faithful, either ... if we did, we'd have to condemn the clergy!

Did Yourdon get rich? Not really, depending on how you define "rich." He did make a very tidy sum off of Y2K and will continue milking that crowd as long as possible -- NOT just for money, either; his mid-life crisis wants and needs validation and companionship as much as lucre.

(So ... NOW you understand the new EZBoard forum with its stringent rules and censorship. Yourdon is very tired of being criticised. "I was just trying to help," he whines.) He's tired of being called a simple huckster or charlatan -- which, to be fair to him, he's NOT.

As proof of that, THERE WAS NO REASON FOR HIM TO LEAVE GREENSPUN'S SERVER. The original TB2000 could have continued. HE COULD COME HERE AND POST; he doesn't (at least, not openly[g]).

To those who claim that this is attacking the messenger: that's the oldest, most worn-out, most useless and meaningless dodge in the pantheon, and is FURTHER proof that he has aligned himself with a fringe element (because that's the MOST COMMON defense from fringe types). I'm past tired of it.

If someone runs into your house screaming that the Martians are coming, you have a RIGHT to examine their motivation (and medication!), background, qualifications for identifying and quantifying said threat from said Martians, etc.

All of this requires giving the messenger a serious once-over (or twice-over, even) and will be perceived as "an attack" by those who want (yes, WANT) to believe that Messenger, for whatever reason.

Jim Lord is another great example: he's a True Believer who sees no objection in making a little money off the Faithful while he gets The Message out. (Lord is leaving Y2K, but will continue to work with "perparedness" vendors; wait and see).

Chris: I think the original "Sayonara" essay has been deleted; I can't find it. But the essense of it was, Yourdon said that he was saying "Sayonara" to Y2K back in May, 1999. He claimed that he was "dropping off the radar screen."

Interestingly enough, he did a big survival show AFTER posting that essay ... and he DID eventually nullify the "sayonara" and come back to The Faithful, of course, in autumn, 1999. Balance that against what I said above about his motivation.

True Believers are complex animals. It is SO EASY to dismiss them as mere hucksters or charlatans, but if you do that, you miss the point. It's just not that simple.

-- The Random Dood (random_dood@random.net), March 15, 2000.

In early 1999 there was a report made public that showed how the infrastructure would NOT come down. Ed and most "experts" had access to it and he knew from that that all the BS about failure of the infrastructure was not true. He did NOT come to his board and tell the people there that fact, rather he played a lot of word games and tried to dissassociate himself from his "followers". Peobably because he did not want to be turned on the way Yardini and others were when they told the truth about what was going on. Besides, he could still make money from different sources as long as there were people who still believed in TEOTWAWKI.

Tell us more about this report, Cherri.

Feb. 1999 chat with Ed Yourdon

-- (Seeking@the.facts), March 15, 2000.

Ed Yourdon said in March 1999 that he was not predicting TEOTWAWKI.

http://www.albertaweb.com/year2000/docs/doc2820.html

Y2K And The Year of Living Dangerously
Refuting the Y2K "3-day snowstorm" metaphor

-- (March@of.1999), March 15, 2000.

"They like free debate (EZ Board) and would be happy to answer."

Really Frank! That's hasn't been most people's experience.

-- Jean Scott (dezane@hotmail.com), March 15, 2000.

I've already come to some internal conclusions about why folks generally took Y2k to an extreme, Ken, as well as Yourdon personally. I'm sure you've read them, so I won't repeat them here.

I think we've also addressed why folks are still interested in the phenomenon. This IS Y2k aftermath discussion, afterall. We've also addressed some reasons why Congress, et al. painted such an ugly picture regarding Y2k.

For those who consider this discussion of the messenger unnecessary, I might point out that Yourdon and several others were listed as Y2k experts on Russ Kelly's site. Experts were used by Congress, etc. to get information. The public ALSO used these experts to obtain information. If nothing else comes out of the Y2k experience, folks should at least question the definition of "expert."

Chris, I read this morning where you had made the TB2000 forum your main site for Y2k information. This was your problem, IMO. Until recently, the internet had several other fora that you could at least have reviewed to see what other folks were saying. The question was [and still is] whether you want to "fit in" with a particular group of folks on the internet or learn everything you can about the topic in question. It's difficult to hear the same one side of a situation on a daily basis without beginning to believe that this MUST be truth. We all need to be sure that we actively seek opposing opinions before we form an opinion of our own.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 15, 2000.

Random, thanks for your comments. That "Sayonara" essay is almost like a bombshell news to me.

In April of '99 until July, I took a long break away from anything related to Y2K and the internet. I felt I needed it badly to regain sanity. The disconnect between what I heard in the media, what I saw and heard around me (the masses not concerned with y2k, etc.) was so great that I thought either I was being deluded by too much internet sites and the Yourdons types, or the entire globe was at risk and they blissly were marching toward the cliff like lemmings. The disconnect became too much to bare. So, it would explain why I missed this "Sayonara" essay, and why I hadn't seen any mentions of it.

In July one day, I felt I had regained balance emotionaly on the issue of y2k. I had become....a polly. But the mind plays tricks on us at times, and the paranoid streak in me had to concider that maybe, just maybe I (and doomers on Ed's forum) had been right and was not getting the full scoop in the media. So I went back to web sites, first on Yardeni's, thinking I'd just sort of "skim the headlines" from Yardeni's countdown conferences. But I couldn't resist to peek in Ed's forum too. Well, it all went downhill for me from there. The Navy papers, Paula Gordon, the controversy with "C4I", all were addicting things to follow. I soon became a doomer again, hovering between 6-8, until it culminated to being a full 10 in December. The oil reports discussed on Ed's forum is what did it for me in December.

I know there were a LOT of people who felt as I did on Ed's forum, and I'm hoping some of them are doing what I am, looking inward. Because these people were decent people and I respected them.

I realize my big mistake now, which is so obvious in hindsight. I spent way too much time on Yourdon's forum, not balancing my "research" time enough with completely different sources. The atmosphere got to me.

The ABCNEWS interview with Yourdon, the link Seeking above gave, it's the first time I see it. Yourdon didn't post it on the forum that I remember, and I don't remember anyone mentioning (it could have been mentioned from Flint, CPR or Ken, but I could have dismissed it because of the "personal beef" I had with these people.) A quote from the interview:

Al Conger from [206.242.150.66], at 1:08pm ET Does the average person need to make special preparations for Y2K? If so, what?

Ed Yourdon at 1:10pm ET The average person needs to assess where he might be vulnerable to Y2K problems and then needs to decide whether to prepare for a disruption of a few days, a few weeks, or a few months. For most people, this would usually involve a modest amount of stockpiling for basic supplies. For example, the Red Cross recommends stockpiling a weeks' worth of food.

The bold quote seems to come right out of the mouth of Koskinen. But notice how he sneaks in the first sentence before saying that. "The average person needs to assess where he might be vulnerable to Y2K problems and then needs to decide whether to prepare for a disruption of a few days, a few weeks, or a few months." That would appeal to my doomer side, and the boldened statement would get him off the hook with the more knowledgable and sensible people.

The doomers sure didn't advertise that interview. It would have been a very difficult and controversial piece to defend on Ed's forum.

So, it seems to me he was encouraging us doomers by OMISSION, not correcting our assumptions and unfounded fears. It is clear he knew better, but chose to let us mislead ourselves. In my profession, medical field, that is deemed criminal. In Ed's profession, it should be viewed at the very least dishonest. I trusted Ed, thinking he was honest all this time. Maybe I am a complex animal, but if trusting a well known expert is my desease, then we're all in potential big trouble (ABCNEWS introduced him as "one of the world's leading authorities on software development and author of The New York Times best-seller Time Bomb 2000.")

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 15, 2000.

Anita, we posted at the same time.

"Chris, I read this morning where you had made the TB2000 forum your main site for Y2k information. This was your problem, IMO. "

Yes, I mentioned that on another thread yesterday. And as I said above, I realize now, (so clearly it's like blinding light!) my mistake.

"Until recently, the internet had several other fora that you could at least have reviewed to see what other folks were saying. The question was [and still is] whether you want to "fit in" with a particular group of folks on the internet or learn everything you can about the topic in question."

Yes, I agree that there's this "wanting to fit in" component to it, after-all I got along with and enjoyed so many people on the forum discussing so many different topics, but also there's this complex mechanism of fear feeding on itself in such a "community".

" It's difficult to hear the same one side of a situation on a daily basis without beginning to believe that this MUST be truth. We all need to be sure that we actively seek opposing opinions before we form an opinion of our own."

I hope I've had this lesson burned enough into me. This is my first such regretable experience, and it lasted for so long, took so much of my mental energy, disrupted my family life so much!

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 15, 2000.

Chris:

You make some good points. One of the things Hoffmeister kept pointing out was what Ed did NOT do or say, when he could have. This is subtle but significant -- the omissions as you say.

If you read the "I know what I know" essay, what Yourdon "knew" was that large development projects have a terrible track record historically. What he didn't choose to say was that 1) This wasn't a development project, and was a MUCH better fit if considered as lots of small projects (good record) rather than one large one; 2) That these projects were actually being handled in stride by almost everyone; and 3) Maintenance projects don't have nearly the clearcut "going live" time that development projects do. The code is already there, it works but with errors, and the errors were being removed and the code tested incrementally and successfully.

So what Yourdon gave us was half-truths. He didn't say anything false, but didn't say what was significant either. I personally find it difficult to believe that he genuinely *did not know* what was happening within his own area of great expertise. I simply can't accept that someone with 35 years of experience in his field is just as likely to be fooled as someone with none at all. So these apologias that say "Yourdon can't see the future better than anyone else" don't hold water. You're an RN, and you'd probably resent it if I implied that you didn't understand your field better than I do (and I don't know anything about it).

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 15, 2000.

"Was he really involved with characters like North, Hyatt and Lord?"

Ken, I tried starting a thread on GN and EY e-mail (my formatting wasn't to good, there are 2 links at the top of the post). Not many seemed to want to discuss it. I guess your voice holds more authority than mine! LOL!

Seriously, tying the hype back to its originators still fascinates me. I would like to know just how much was going on "behind the scenes". If the "experts" were just wrong about y2k predictions, I say so what. Let them be wrong. But if they were deliberatly misleading people for profit, that is another story.

I am suspicious of people who want to "help" by writing books, then they start websites, MLM schemes, and whatever else.

-- Super Polly (FU_Q_Y2kfreaks@hotmail.com), March 15, 2000.

I just re-read all the posts here---WOW. All of you (doomer trolls exluded) have a good take on this. Thanks for sharing with us Chris, I wonder how many other people share(d) your situation? I know gilda has said similar things on other threads.

I wonder if the TRUTH will ever really be known about the y2k "experts" who were making money by "helping" others?

-- Super Polly (FU_Q_Y2kfreaks@hotmail.com), March 15, 2000.

Thanks folks, for some excellent comments.

-- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), March 15, 2000.

Super Polly, I don't know who else appart from Gilda, Dr. Schenker and myself admitted anything so clearly. But I suspect many feel the same now and have just moved on. I don't expect "admissions" from anyone, and none should be required. I choose to share my experience publicly because 1) I don't have an ego that prevents me from doing so, 2) I hope by sharing it someone can learn something from my experience 3) last but most importantly, I need to understand, by discussing this with others, the dynamics involved that put me into this situation so that I don't repeat the same mistakes in so complex a situation in the future.

Dr. Schenker's articles are long, but a must read for anyone still on the "doomer" side of Y2K, or any "ex-doomer" wanting to understand why they were doomers.

An '11.5' Doomer looks at Y2K as of 2-1-2000

AN 11.5 DOOMER'S LOOK AT Y2K -- ROUND TWO

AN "11.5 DOOMER" LOOKS AT Y2K - ROUND THREE

Doc Schanker left us this "gift", and then moved on. I'm still here, glued to my screen, although my wash gets done everyday, and I'm not losing my hair anymore ;-) I'm back to my normal routines and life pre-1998, although much wiser, and no white elephant in my preps (I thank my polly hubby for that).

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 15, 2000.

I agree with Flint on some points. Ed was coming at this from a "death march" mentality, looking at projects as being doomed from the start. (He even mentions Y2K projects briefly in "Death March.") Unfortunately he got it wrong; maintenance projects are a completely different animal. Others (like Steven Poole) recognized this; Ed didn't, which is very bad, because he *should* have recognized this early, early on.

-- Lurker (lurker@lurk.lurk), March 15, 2000.

Mr. Decker,

   A very interesting question, for it was Mr. Yourdon's (false) assertion that Y2K would be catastrophic that lent some (perhaps the only) professional credence to the doomer side of the debate. Mr. Yourdon was, after all, once a very respected name in the IT community. (I even met him once, though I doubt he remembers it, and it was years ago.) He was a hero of sorts to programmers in "the old days."
   That is precisely one of the reasons I was shocked to see him come down on the doomer side of the debate. Surely anyone with enough talent, knowledge, and raw skill as Mr. Yourdon could see the facts in this matter - especially if I could. I was baffled by his cooperation with outright liars and his following band of bi-polar kooks. To some extent, I still am baffled by Mr. Yourdon's behaviour.
   I suppose it will all serve as a good reason to doubt those who attempt to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the future - regardles of their credentials; and that may be a good thing after all.

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), March 15, 2000.

I saw Ed Yourdon speak at George Washington University on March 25, 1999, folowed by Paula Gordon. The closest thing to selling that occurred was Cory Hamasaki giving out free copies of his latest DC Y2K Weather Report after the talks.

My impression was that Ed Yourdon was a good raconteur, but not a hard data type. He was happy to talk about what he saw going on - an embryonic populist movement out west that would receive a big boost if the federal government proved unable to handle Y2K problems. When pressed he made a prediction that something visible would occur after one of the fiscal rollover dates, but he was clearly reluctant to be making a prediction.

I got interested in Y2K in the summer of 1998 when the guy I go to for programming advice asked me if I was concerned and it turned out he was doing some stockpiling. Then there was the dramatic article in Wired magazine (an uneven source of information). In January 1999, losing the power for two days due to an ice storm turned out to be inconvenient, especially keeping the iguana warm by keeping him under my sweater. Also there was not enough light. So I bought a bunch of stuff - flashlights, the Big Berky water filter (I have lived through several incidents where we were told not to drink the public water), the Petromax, a Leatherman Wave, a lot of food. It was fun getting the product recommendations from the forum. I got vigilant about the stock market, to some benefit. I started attending a martial arts class to get more fit. I spent a lot of time reading the forum. For some time I read the Westergaard site too.

I think Yourdons writings were somewhat like that of the Utne reader pamphlet, exuberant but not convincing. The Endgame article is amusing in that his example of an unclear chess position is an easy win for white (the remediators in his analogy). I was impressed that Peter de Jager got an article in Scientific American about the Y2K bug. I think he was more influential than Yourdon. Few of my friends were concerned about Y2K. I have to wonder if I went overboard- Ive only used about a third of my stored water and my food bills will be lower for a long time.

dandelion

-- dandelion (golden@pleurisy.plant), March 16, 2000.

dandelion,

why are you using your stored water?

are you afraid of your municipal water or something? It's MARCH already! Turn on your facet like the rest of us, please.

(obviously, none of us have died yet.)

-- (TC@home.now), March 16, 2000.

Um...TC:

You would prefer that Dandelion keep the water indefinitely? IMO, stored water is pretty much like anything else we have....use it or lose it.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 16, 2000.

What do you all think about John Koskinen's comment in late January of 2000 that it would have been the end of the world as we know it had there been no one sounding the alarm two years ago?

Consider how Y2K would have unfolded and would be unfolding now if Ed Yourdon, Peter de Jager, and Ed Yardeni had said and done nothing. Would remediation and contingency planning and implementation have occurred on anywhere near the scale that they did? Indeed, would the lights be on right now?

The whole story of what happened and who did what, when and why and for what reason and out of what motivation...continues to unfold. At the same time many people seem to be ignoring or viewing with skepticism the problems that have been occurring and are occurring now, problems, curiously enough, that "experts" told us we could expect if we failed to remediate adequately.

Lots and lots of blue smoke and mirrors surround the multi-layered mysteries of Y2K. As and when the confusion surrounding Y2K clears away, perhaps more than a very few will begin to notice that impacts worthy of attention and concern have occurred and are occurring now.

If it is the case that a low impact scenario is unfolding in slow motion right now, who in the present climate will step forward to acknowledge it? Who will try to shed light on what is happening? Who will listen?

For a variety of reasons, including the efforts of thousands of people around the world, a worst case global scenario has not occurred and the worst case impacts have not occurred. This does not mean that we are home free, totally unscathed. If we are now in the midst of slow motion version of a much, much lower impact scenario, surely it would be better to acknowledge it, rather than ignore it, wouldn't it?

-- Truth Seeker (Truth Seeker@the truth shall set you free.com), March 16, 2000.

There is a big difference between pulling the fire-alarm in a crowded theater and shouting "Fire! We're all going to die!" This, in my humble opinion, is the difference between what De Jager did and what Yourdon did.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 16, 2000.

Buddy,

Ever heard the saying: "In case of fire, yell fire."

According to the note above, John Koskinen revealed in January that he thought two years ago that there was a "fire" that needed to be put out and if no action was taken that there could be a worst case scenario. He apparently decided, for whatever reasons, not to let the public in on how serious he thought the situation was and only revealed in late January of 2000, the extent of his concern two years before. If a person thinks there is a fire, if a person knows based on their ability to recognize a fire, that there is a fire, are you saying that that person should not alert others?

Or are you saying that based on view of the situation in 1998, you didn't think there was a fire?

People responded to the concerns raised by de Jager, Yourdon, and Yardeni. One reading of what has happened is that the fire was substantially squelched and that as a result there has been no worst case scenario to date. Also any such worst case scenarios tied to Y2K do not appear at all likely in the future.

Do you have any idea how many people were motivated by the likes of de Jager, Yourdon, and Yardeni to study the problem and focus attention and resources on doing what they did to address the Y2K problem? Had they said and done nothing to call attention to the problem, do you think that the results to date would have been the same?

-- abc (abc@cba.cum), March 16, 2000.

abc:

You said:

"Do you have any idea how many people were motivated by the likes of de Jager, Yourdon, and Yardeni to study the problem and focus attention and resources on doing what they did to address the Y2K problem? Had they said and done nothing to call attention to the problem, do you think that the results to date would have been the same?"

YOU tell ME! How many people were motivated by the likes of these folks? The last thing I heard from deJager was that he himself had programmed 9/9/99 "problems" into systems years ago. Some firms actually believed that and had programmers on site "babysitting" systems that didn't fail. Game scores improved dramatically.

From a technical standpoint, I might even suggest that Yourdon and Yardeni played a role in the big bucks wasted on independent verification. I suppose one could say this was beneficial..to the folks hired to do the verification. The folks who did the remediation, however, learned that the verification people were flagging errors that didn't exist and missing errors that DID exist....which the remediators found themselves through testing.

Then we have the mounds of paperwork that interfered with the actual work being done. Somebody wanted PROOF of Y2k readiness.

Regarding "Had they said and done nothing to call attention to the problem, do you think that the results to date would have been the same?"

Nope. I think things would have moved along MUCH faster if programmers and engineers hadn't been required to "overkill" in the hope of eradicating the fears promoted by these "Paul Revere" types.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 16, 2000.

abc:

Yes. It might possibly be true that deJager had some minimal impact, since he started early (1993) and focused on IT rather than the general public. It's impossible to tell.

The rest of these people spoke up AFTER remediation was well under way, and aimed their message at preparation rather than at remediation. Neither they nor their target audience had anything to do with fixing bugs, only with protecting themselves in case of serious problems.

Since there were no serious problems, we now know that these people, whatever their motivations, succeeded only in frightening the uninformed while making some good income off them in the process. We'll never know if they really knew better or not. But helpful they were emphatically NOT. To anyone.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 16, 2000.

abc,

My point was this. In case of fire, you notify the appropriate authorities and evacuate the building calmly. You don't stand up and yell, "Fire! Everybody run!"--that creates a panic. This in my estimation is what North, Yourdon, and other "doomers" were doing. Rather than working with the appropriate people to either put the fire out or keep everyone else out of the way of the firefighters, they stood there and yelled something like "We'll never make it! The firefighters won't be able to put the fire out! We're doomed!"

Another way to look at it is this. If Y2K were a war, which attitude would be better: 1. Everyone cooperate to win the war. We may have to sacrifice, but together we can win. 2. Get outta my way. I'm gonna get my stash and hunker down in comfort until this is all over.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 16, 2000.

Re: above "for the record" post of Yourdon's essay.

So many wrong assumptions, so little time to rehash the debunking of them.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 17, 2000.

Sometimes a person can be sincere but be wrong, as I believe Ed Yourdon was. On the other hand, someone can be right and act obnoxious.

Something to consider.

-- With (malice@towards.none), March 17, 2000.

Sometimes a person can be sincere but be wrong, as I believe Ed Yourdon was.

Except that Ed still does not believe he was wrong. Do you believe he is still sincere?

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), March 17, 2000.

"Sometimes a person can be sincere but be wrong, as I believe Ed Yourdon was."

Then you must also believe he's incredibly stupid because he should have known better.

Respectfully, I'm wondering; do you believe he's stupid?

-- (wh@t do.you think?), March 17, 2000.

As Yourdon has told us several times, he has 35 years of experience in this field. He sells this great expertise for a living. Yourdon's being (and *staying*) so very wrong is like a Nobel physicist not knowing that F=MA. We may not know exactly why he chose to misguide people, but we sure as hell know it wasn't out of "sincere ignorance". Give Yourdon credit for marbles, if not scruples. He ain't that dumb.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 17, 2000.

Was the government stupid, dumb or insincere for building a $50 million Y2k crisis center in the second half of 1999?

-- With (malice@towards.none), March 17, 2000.

With:

Probably none of the above. It was always impossible to guarantee no problems in theory, and though nobody was expecting anything serious in *their* operations, there WERE some "noted authorities" claiming things would be Very Bad. So the decision was made to err on the side of caution (and hedge by making the bunker suitable for multiple uses).

In retrospect, it seems fairly clear that *most* of the contingency planning was for PR purposes to counteract the doomsayers. Or don't you believe there are people who prey on ignorance?

Also (getting on soap box) the government is masterful at wasting money. After all, it's not *their* money.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 17, 2000.

Sometimes a person can be obnoxious but be sincere.

Something to consider.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 17, 2000.

In my opinion, what Ed Yourdon was saying last year -- that we were likely to face a Y2k situation somewhere in between a 'bump in the road' and 'The End Of The World As We Know It' -- was plausible considering statements being made at the time by other experts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/feb99/y2k24.htm

Link

Senate Study: Y2K Risks Are Widespread

By Stephen Barr

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 24, 1999; Page A1

A report on the Year 2000 computer problem prepared by a special Senate panel warns that a number of foreign countries and U.S. economic sectors, especially the health care industry, appear at significant risk for technological failures and business disruptions.

The report, scheduled for release this week by Sens. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) and Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), includes a letter to Senate colleagues describing the problem of computers' ability to recognize dates starting on Jan. 1, 2000, popularly known as Y2K, as a "worldwide crisis" and as "one of the most serious and potentially devastating events this nation has ever encountered."

The prospect of widespread computer glitches and lobbying by industry groups have galvanized bipartisan groups in the Senate and House to press for legislation protecting companies that fail to deliver goods and services on time because of Y2K problems.

Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) estimated yesterday there might be $1 trillion in lawsuits filed because of the glitch and urged adoption of an industry-backed House bill to allay "a great deal of fear regarding out-of-control litigation."

A draft copy of the Senate report, provided by staff aides to The Washington Post, describes in vivid detail the scope of the potential Y2K problem and the frustrations that Senate investigators encountered as they tried to gather information from industries reluctant to describe what progress they have made in fixing computer and telecommunication systems.

But the report represents the most comprehensive assessment of the Y2K problem to appear as companies and governments scramble to fix their computer systems. In addition to health care, the report portrays the oil, education, farming, food processing and construction sectors as seriously lagging on computer repairs.

Among the report's findings: More than 90 percent of doctors' offices and 50 percent of small- and medium-sized companies have not addressed the Y2K problem; telephone systems are expected to operate; and planes will not fall out of the sky. The Senate panel also worries that communities will not be able to provide "911" and other emergency services.

Even though governments and corporations have mobilized technology staffs and consultants to sift through millions of lines of software code looking for Y2K glitches, the 161-page draft also underscores how little experts know about the potential impact of the so-called millennium bug.

"The interdependent nature of technology systems makes the severity of possible disruptions difficult to predict. Adding to the confusion, there are still very few overall Year 2000 technology compliance assessments of infrastructure or industry sectors. Consequently, the fundamental questions of risk and personal preparedness cannot be answered at this time," the draft said.

Clinton administration officials have portrayed the Y2K problem as similar to a severe winter snowstorm that causes inconveniences but little lasting harm. Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan assured Americans that they can keep their money in the bank over New Year's 2000 without fear.

"There's almost no conceivable way . . . that computers will break down and records of people's savings accounts would disappear," he told the Senate Banking Committee.

Still, almost all government agencies are drawing up emergency plans, including the Fed, which plans to stockpile an extra $200 billion in cash for banks, about a third more than usual.

The Senate report, which grew out of a series of hearings last year by the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, concludes "that the biggest Y2K impact will occur internationally."

Two important trading partners, Japan and Venezuela, seem to have miscalculated the time and money needed to fix the computer glitch, according to the draft report.

Relying on surveys by consultants, the report suggests that Japan "may have underestimated the resources needed to address the problem," noting that major Japanese banks have indicated far lower repair costs than U.S. banks.

Venezuela and Saudi Arabia lag from a year to 18 months behind the United States in Y2K preparations, raising concerns about the availability of oil and other critical imports, the report said.

International ports are widely described as far behind in their Y2K efforts, prompting worries that the maritime industry will face shipping problems that could interrupt commerce, the report added.

International aviation and foreign airports also appear at risk, and "flight rationing to some areas and countries is possible," the report said.

Overall, the report said, "the least-prepared countries are those that depend heavily on foreign investment and multinational companies to supplement their economies. Panic over Y2K concerns may cause investors to withdraw financial support. Lack of confidence in a country's infrastructure could cause multinational companies to close their operations."

The Y2K problem exists in millions of lines of software code that uses two digits to represent four-digit years. Unfixed, computers will assume that dates occurring after Dec. 31 use the prefix "19," leading software programs to read "00" not as 2000 but as 1900. That defect could cause computers to crash or spew out incorrect data.

In assessing U.S. preparedness, the draft report reserved some of its strongest language for the health care industry, concluding it "is one of the worst-prepared for Y2K and carries a significant potential for harm."

The industry relies on computers for patient treatment, insurance claims and pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution. While large hospitals are pushing to fix their computers, the report described hospital management as "playing a catch-up game."

Many hospitals are relying solely on medical device manufacturers to certify products as Y2K-compliant, which the report said "could be a serious mistake."

The report cited rural and inner-city hospitals as at special risk because they do not have the staff or money to find and fix Y2K glitches.

In an effort to head off a potential avalanche of lawsuits caused by Y2K glitches, a bipartisan group of House members yesterday introduced a bill to address litigation issues. Sen. John McCain (R- Ariz.) has introduced a similar bill, and Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R- Utah) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) plan to announce their version today.

Although the House bill has the support of major business organizations, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the measure's principal author, stressed that the measure was "pro-consumer" because it will "encourage businesses to come in and fix their problems."

The Year 2000 Readiness and Responsibility Act would require plaintiffs to give notice to potential defendants about their difficulties, wait 30 days for a response and give the defendant an additional 60 days to fix a glitch before suing.

Under the bill, plaintiffs may recover actual damages, but punitive damages would be capped.

Staff writer Guy Gugliotta contributed to this report.

) Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

-- Another (opinion@for.Ken), March 18, 2000.

Do you think anyone who knew what they were doing would be relying on information from February of 1999 to be making decisions in December of 1999? February was like the era of dinosaurs in terms of what we knew in December yet Yourdon and North never changed their views on what was likely. Go to www.russkelly.com and look at thier views in the "expert" section and see if they ever used any of the information that was coming out of the testing and remediation that was being done. Also, note that Charles Rueben, who posts as CPR here, for all his bombasity, was one of the few that called it right on the money.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 18, 2000.

Mr. Cooke,

It all depends on what you mean by "got it right". It also depends on whether or not you are talking about the accuracy of predictions three months into the rollover or 13 months into the rollover. If what you mean by "got it right" is making an accurate estimate as to how things would "appear" to be turning out at the end of three months, that is one thing. (Who however, could have predicted the powering down of the infrastructure to the degree that it occurred? Who could have predicted how effective crisis management efforts would be?)

If what you mean by "getting it right" is accurately assessing what actually happened and what is actually happening, then that is another matter altogether. Few people know very much as yet about what actually happened and fewer still seem to be carefully tracking what is actually happening. For instance, what is publicly known about the 6000 incidents that were reported in the first five days to the ICC?

By the end of January of next year, the impact may well be far higher than it is now, however low some may be perceive it to be now. The scenario that may actually be unfolding right now may well be a very slowly evolving 4 or 5 on the 10 point impact scale, a scenario driven by fuel shortages and accompanied by major economic repercussions and continued higher incidence than prior years of problems in a wide range of sectors. If that scenario unfolds, then impact estimates that may "appear" to many to be on target for the first quarter may be less accurate as of the end of the second quarter and may be far less accurate a year from now.

In order to determine what constitutes getting it right, one must find out what actually happened. More will be known about that soon, because of insurance claims, law suits, first quarter reports, SEC filings, and the revealing of information about what actually happened at the time of the rollover and the revealing of information concerning what has been happening since the rollover. It turns out that the term "failure" was redefined to mean "reportable failure" and that a large number of failures occurred that never made it to the public's attention. Contingency planners and crisis managers played a far greater role than the public as yet knows. If lots of things failed that we have not been told about, that means that they will have to be fixed. While that does not constitute a major disruption, it still constitutes an impact that is going to be felt economically and which cannot help but serve as a drag on budgets.

It may be well to wait for a few months at least before trying to assess which predictions were the closest to hitting the mark. It may also we well to look again at the predictions of problems that have been occurring as predicted prior to the rollover, problems that few seem to be connecting now with Y2K.

-- abc (abc@cba.cum), March 19, 2000.

"Getting it right" in regards to Y2K is actually pretty simple as compared to the predictions of some. The lights stayed on, the society didn't collapse, and I'm not drinking dog piss out of a hubcap.

Can you show me any evidence of the "infrastructure powering down" duting the rollover? What is your link to those 6000 reports to the ICC. I'd like to see them since I've never seen ANY Y2K reports to the ICC.

Just keep moving the goalposts. Yes, we made it through the rollover but just wait unitl everyone goes back to work. OK, but just wait until the month end close. OK, but just wait until leap year. OK, but just wait for 13 months and see if there aren't some big problems that no one else will notice but I know they're there because....

At some point understandable concern crosses over to silliness and then to paranoia.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 19, 2000.

abc, What is this you say? ". (Who however, could have predicted the powering down of the infrastructure to the degree that it occurred? Who could have predicted how effective crisis management efforts would be?)

What powering down of the infrastructure? What crisis management? Can you give some indication of a crisis that needed managing?

I have heard that some industry powered down as they do over the new year period every year, and possibly there were a few extra this time around, but what degree did the infrastructure power down if at all? Do you have any information on this?

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), March 19, 2000.

This is one example of a power precaution that was taken, Malcom.

Y2K Turning From Fixes to Fallback Plans By Stephen Barr Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 5, 1999; Page A15 With the bulk of their Year 2000 computer fixes made, federal agencies are increasingly focused on developing emergency backup plans that will keep their doors open for business if they encounter any Y2K glitches that interfere with operations. The importance of contingency planning was underscored Friday, when federal systems began a new fiscal year and four agencies discovered some bugs that were fixed the same day. The National Science Foundation discovered three minor problems, including one system glitch that prevented the processing of cash advances requested by grantees. The Energy Department's procurement data system temporarily rejected about 30 of 800 transactions, primarily because of a technical error by Energy employees. The Justice Department and the Federal Aviation Administration also encountered glitches in their financial management systems. But the true test for agencies will not come until Jan. 1, when computers using two-digit dates need to correctly recognize "00" as 2000, not 1900. To handle potential computer bugs in January, most Cabinet departments and large agencies have devised what they call "Day One" strategies. At the Social Security Administration, for example, an elaborate Day One plan emphasizes quickly catching any glitches that would stop or slow monthly benefit checks to 44 million Americans. The benefit payments--33 million of which are electronic transfers to banks--are among the most politically sensitive Y2K issues at the White House and in Congress. Social Security programmers have sifted through 35 million lines of mainframe code and tested data exchanges with the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and banks. When finished, the effort will have cost the agency an estimated $50 million. Under Social Security's Day One plan, agency computers will shut down earlier than usual on Thursday, Dec. 30. Taking the systems off-line will allow officials to collect all their 1999 computer transactions from nearly 14,000 offices, including those in the distant time zones of Guam and Hawaii. During that night, Social Security computers will finish batch runs where the data entered during the day is moved into master files. With its 1999 transactions completed and files updated, Social Security offices will be ready to close on Friday, Dec. 31 to observe the New Year's holiday. Just before midnight Friday, Social Security's main data center in Baltimore will switch to generators powered by jet fuel. The agency has stockpiled sufficient jet fuel to to operate for several days. It does not expect any disruptions to the region's power grid, but as a precaution wants to guard against any electrical surges that could damage its automated equipment. "We don't know if there [are] going to be power surges. We don't know, at this point, what the public is going to do. Is everybody going to get up and turn everything on to see if it's working? We have some concerns that we could have a lot of pull on electricity, so we don't want to take any chances," Kathy Adams, the Y2K expert at Social Security, said in an interview. When the power company "lets [the agency] know everything is fine," Social Security will turn off its generators and hook back into regular power lines, Adams said. The power switching will not require the agency to turn off its computers. On Saturday morning, New Year's Day, groups of programmers will report to work throughout the day to run checks on the computer systems. Social Security's 14,000 facilities include field offices, toll-free telephone call-in centers, appeals offices, regional offices and the Baltimore headquarters. Social Security managers will report to their offices "at prearranged times with a checklist . . . and make sure the computers are working, that they can turn them on and get connections," Adams said. The managers will report their findings to regional offices, which will forward data to a command center in Baltimore, scheduled to open in late December. Perhaps more important, Social Security has selected approximately 100 sites to serve as "barometer offices." At these facilities, which include 55 offices that make disability determinations, the agency's technical staff will test software systems by conducting a series of typical transactions, such as processing applications for benefits. The Baltimore command center will monitor the processing and check to see that the systems are working properly. If glitches are found, "business resumption teams" will be dispatched to make any repairs. The teams will have Saturday night and Sunday to fix problems. On Jan. 3, Social Security will open for business. If past years are a guide, that Monday will be one of the busiest days of the year. Many Americans choose to retire and apply for Social Security benefits on the first business day of the year, and Social Security hot lines take more calls in the first week than most other weeks of the year. Social Security will also transmit benefits to about 44 million Americans that day, pumping $33 billion into the economy. "The staff is focused and working hard," Adams said. "We're ready." ) Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company

-- (just@another.archivist), March 19, 2000.

Or how about....

US Oil pipelines to be shut down

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0029rJ

-- (just@another.archivist), March 19, 2000.

Do you think anyone who knew what they were doing would be relying on information from February of 1999 to be making decisions in December of 1999? February was like the era of dinosaurs in terms of what we knew in December yet Yourdon and North never changed their views on what was likely.

Jim, there were several government reports after February of 1999, including the Senate Y2k Committee's second report in September that continued to suggest that Y2k, while not likely to be The End Of The World As We Know It, did have the potential to cause something in between a 'bump in the road' and 'TEOTWAWKI.'

And again, Ed Yourdon did make it clear in an essay on his Web site in March of 1999 that he wasn't predicting The End Of The World As We Know It as Y2k's likely outcome. Are you saying Ed Yourdon was pushing a TEOTWAWKI scenario in the Fall of 1999?

Gary North was the '10' that stayed a '10' the whole time. Ed Yourdon never was a '10' because, I suppose, he realized from the beginning that at least some Y2k work would be finished in 1998 and 1999. It has never been my impression that Ed Yourdon thought the grid would go down and stay down or that government would collapse.

Maybe Ed Yourdon thought, as I did, that a lot was going to get fixed, but at the same time that a lot of other things might not get fixed. It looked to me in the fall of 1999 that I've have electricity in January but that shortages were quite possible, especially in imported items, and many small businesses had not addressed Y2k.

-- Not sorry (for@having.prepped), March 19, 2000.

-- (html@fix.er), March 19, 2000.

Uncle Dee once said (a very long time ago) 'damn I've stumbled into an infomercial'

Instead of posting threads long enough to wipe my bum with, why not just provide links? You can 'still' get your point across and spare the rest of us the agony of ever sooo slooowwwlllyyy getting through the 'intended' long post.

Now go ahead and do the ever popular 'just dont read it' , trust me I didnt.

But once I got in here, I had to scroll ALL the way down to see anything worth reading. I've read the rest....

why not provide a link? if you dont know how, simply ask, there are enough nice folks here who will do it for you.

rant off

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), March 19, 2000.

Not sorry:

[It looked to me in the fall of 1999 that I've have electricity in January but that shortages were quite possible, especially in imported items, and many small businesses had not addressed Y2k.]

Yeah, it looked that way to me too. Turns out it wasn't even close to that way. Like you, I'm not sorry I prepared against the way it looked to me, what else should I do? The question we're addressing here is *why* it looked that way when it *wasn't* that way, right? We acted according to our best understanding of the best information we could find. Turns out that information was lousy.

So, doing our post mortems, we're trying to figure out where the bad information actually came from. And I'm not concerned here with secondary sources. The Senate didn't do any actual auditing, remediation or testing. They just held and published hearings. Newspaper and other media reports, in an effort to be "balanced", managed to find people who stressed uncertainty and doubt. But who were these people.

Essentially, there were two sources of primary information. The first were those actually engaged in the remediation and testing. Almost without exception, they reported themselves to be in good to great shape, but weren't willing to speculate about the situation others faced, for lack of direct experience. Instead, they stressed (or at least admitted) their reliance on many others over whom they had no control.

The second source consisted of pundits extrapolating (at best) from years of personal experience in the field, or from carefully constructed surveys, or from (at worst) plausible dire scenarios they knew nobody could possibly contradict from direct global experience.

On TB2K, the first source was routinely discounted 100% on the grounds that (1) They're all liars anyway; (2) They have a vested interest in misstating their compliance; (3) They suffer from "NASA syndrome" where the grunts know things are bad, but the PHM's refuse to hear it; (4) Those posting compliance statements and progress reports are known idiots and morons anyway; and (5) Any other reason to reject reports based on direct experience, however irrational.

Meanwhile, most pundits were rather dull, publishing in technical journals nobody reads, and parroting the Corporate Line that things were OK. It was the "independent, courageous free thinkers" who were willing to give us the bare truth. Often, those who pointed out that these people were making a really good living saying dire things were accused of "malicious slander" against these paragons of virtue.

I think there's no denying that these opportunists had a ripple effect through the available information. It's possible (and easy) to show that there are problems. It's not possible at all to show that there are no problems of significance. So you can talk about plausible potentials, and frame the discourse in this direction, and nobody can prove otherwise.

This means the playing field is not level. Yourdon could say he thinks all kinds of bad things will happen, and the best anyone could counter is that they consider it unlikely or unsupported by available evidence, but of course they can't be sure. A stacked deck.

So my ironic conclusion is that the TB2K doomers used the right weapon against the wrong target. There were vested interests on both sides, and the doomers discounted the *wrong side*. And while those who did this were a tiny minority, they were enough to create a market.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 19, 2000.

Not Sorry:

From www.russkelly.com/experts.html

Ed Yourdon. Ranking of problem: June 1998- 8.0. February 1999- 8.5. May 1999- 7.0 to 9.0. August 1999- 7.0 to 9.0. December 1999- 5.0 to 9.0.

With the exception lowering the bottom end of his prediction, Yourdon actually increased his worst case prediction after February of 1999. He did this in the face of all information that things were improving, not getting worse. Yourdon certainly was not in the same class as North in terms of predicting the end of the world but a 9.0 is pretty close and even a 5.0 is a pretty big bump in the road.

How was it that other experts, with access to the same information as Yourdon, lowered their expectations of problems while Yourdon continued to predict a possible 9.0? Let's not rewrite history on what Yourdon actually predicted with what we'd like to think happened.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 19, 2000.

When Ed Yourdon first gave an estimate for Y2k's effects in 1998, he almost surely was taking into account that more work would be done in late 1998 and 1999. That's why he didn't start at a '10' in 1998 even though Senator Bennett and others were saying in mid-1998 that if the rollover had happened in 1998, it would have been TEOTWAWKI.

Looking at it from this perspective, CPR's estimates to Russ Kelly raises questions. CPR in the summer of 1998 said Y2k would be an '8' but lowered that to a 0.5 by the end of 1999. That's a BIG change of opinion. Didn't CPR realize in the summer of 1998 that more Y2k work was going to be done in late 1998 and 1999? When CPR gave that estimate of '8' in 1998, was he estimating what Y2k's effects would have been if no further work had been done after that point?

I think that further work in late 1998 and 1999 had been factored into Ed Yourdon's very first estimate.

-- Still another (point@of.view), March 21, 2000.

Still Another,

Correct, Ed didn't start out as a 10 in 1998 - he started out as an 8. There's not a lot of qualitative difference there. He then popped his top estimate up to a 9 and stayed there through the rollover. CPR did what would have been expected in 1998, starting out high and lowering his estimate as more data became available. Ed never lowered his top estimate and only lowered his bottom from 7 to 5. I don't understand how this shows that any later work was calculated into his original estimate.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 21, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Although more information was available by the time of rollover, there was also a lot more information missing than people would have probably expected to be a year earlier. Much of the information that was available was conflicting or inconsistent. Many government reports were written in such a way that they could be easily interpreted as quite doomy. Thus, the range of values became less precise. If it included a "5," this is still well within the realm of possibility, considering the oil situation and the roller-coaster stock market.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), March 22, 2000.

Dancr:

Y2K impact a 5? Due to the oil situation and the stock market?? I would suggest you not confuse your overall assessment of the risk in today's world with the impact of a certain computer problem.

The Y2K bug has had no proven impact in either of the two sectors you mentioned. There are no cascading cross-defaults and there are no systemic "buffer overflow" problem in embedded systems.

The world is a scary place, and at times times it does seem to be held together by gossamer strings-BUT somehow we still get by.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), March 22, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

FutureShock: I would suggest that you not confuse "not having proof that something is Y2K related" with "having proof that something is not Y2K related." As my drivers-ed instructor used to say (30 years ago), "Even though it was the other guy who ran the red light, you're still dead." What many of us who studied the Y2K situation came to understand is that no matter what happens with the code, we live in a fragile world, and every generation eventually knows catastrophe.

We may never know what, if any, role Y2K has played in causing our gas and oil prices to shoot up. Still, I'm glad to have my solar panels and electric bicycle.

-- (addy.available@my.webpage), March 22, 2000.

No, Dancr, Y2K did not cause the oil price increases. It was the contrails. The demand for oil went up because of its use in the contrails. Demand went up, price went up. So, there ya have it.

(Hey, it's just as likely isn't it? And the tongue in my cheek is a likely cause too.)

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 22, 2000.

Correct, Ed didn't start out as a 10 in 1998 - he started out as an 8. There's not a lot of qualitative difference there. He then popped his top estimate up to a 9 and stayed there through the rollover. CPR did what would have been expected in 1998, starting out high and lowering his estimate as more data became available. Ed never lowered his top estimate and only lowered his bottom from 7 to 5. I don't understand how this shows that any later work was calculated into his original estimate.

Jim, Sen. Bennett said in the summer of 1998 that if the rollover had occurred at that time with only the amount of work that had been done to that point, that Y2k would have resulted in The End Of The World As We Know It. (I'll look up the source for that if you want me to). Ed Yourdon could have easily started out at a '10' if he had wanted to, but, in my opinion, knew that Y2k would be partially fixed in late 1998 and in 1999.

I checked the link to the Russ Kelly site, http://www.russkelly.com/experts.html, and noticed that estimates of six of the experts went up during that time period, three stayed the same, and estimates for eleven (including Ed Yourdon, 8 to an average of 7) went down.

CPR's estimate dropped the farthest of all, which is fine, but it does show that he believed that Y2k had been a serious issue that did need to be fixed, and by his final estimate we know that CPR believed Y2k had been fixed.

On the other hand, another participant in the Russ Kelly survey was Nicholas Zvegintzov, whose estimate dropped from a 1.0 to a 0.2. Zvegintzov answer implies, at least to me, that Y2k would not have been a serious issue, even if no remediation had never been done at all.

Ed Yourdon's assumption, apparently, was that a lot would get fixed and a lot wouldn't. Even in the last few months of 1999, there was plenty of news from reliable sources indicating that cities, towns, counties, small businesses, some Federal programs -- and above all, foreign countries -- were lagging behind in their Y2k efforts. Was most of it fixed in time or were strategic shutdowns in some industries like oil and workarounds able to compensate for incomplete remdiation?

I'm not so much interested in who was 'right' and who was 'wrong' about Y2k; I'm more interested in what the assumptions were behind the the various predictions we got about Y2k from business, the government and from people such as the ones who participated in the Russ Kelly survey. It seems to me that before we can decide who was 'right' and 'wrong' about Y2k, we need to know why things turned out as smoothly as they did.

Were almost all Y2k bugs found and fixed before the end of 1999, were the bugs trivial in the first place and most of the money spent to fix Y2k wasted, or was there a lot of important, unfinished Y2k work at the end of 1999 that didn't cause much problem because of contingency plans and workarounds?

-- Still another (point@of.view), March 22, 2000.

I believe the assumption that TEOTWAWKI would have occurred without remediation was based mostly on another assumption that there was a serious threat to embedded systems. In this, Senator Bennett was misinformed by a number of people as it turns out.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 22, 2000.

While Yourdon initially mentioned the possibility of cataclysm (ie. Beruit), his book detailed scenarios ranging from a "1" to a "10". When pressed, he ended up predicted a serious depression.

Unlike pea-brains like Bud-ro, Yourdon sees the current situation as a confluence of worrisome things, the Y2K problem being one of them. When and if the small inefficiencies, inaccuracies, costs, and reduced confidence in the system cause the world markets to crash, and governments to react poorly, Yourdon will end up being right.

Y2K isn't happening in a vacuum, you know.

-- (@ .), March 22, 2000.

Sure, Mr. .@.., Yourdon and others like you now see a multitude of problems leading to TEOTWAWKI because your previous predictions were greatly exaggerated. It's not just Y2K anymore, it's everything!

Y2K isn't happening in a vacuum, no, because Y2K just ain't happening.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 22, 2000.

Just@another.archivist, thank you for coming to abc's assistance and answering at least part of the questions I asked. So from your answer we can assume that the degree of infrastructure powering down was quite small, and there was little if any crisis management. This is quite logical considering that no crisis was reported anywhere.

-- Still another (point@of.view) asked "Were almost all Y2k bugs found and fixed before the end of 1999, were the bugs trivial in the first place and most of the money spent to fix Y2k wasted, or was there a lot of important, unfinished Y2k work at the end of 1999 that didn't cause much problem because of contingency plans and workarounds?"

The answer to this is quite simply YES, almost all Y2k bugs found and fixed before the end of 1999. Some bugs were trivial, but there were also some that had the potential to be serious. Naturally the more serious ones had the highest priority for remediation.

The way we approached Y2K at our power stations was to first identify all systems that used any form of CPU control whether we suspected that it was date related or not. Next it was assign a priority to the system for testing. The priority we used was to determine how critical the system is:

1. A failure would cause loss of normal operations during the CDC roll-over.

2. A failure would cause loss of normal operations sometime after the CDC rollover.

3. A failure would allow normal operations to continue, but with some loss of efficiency, or degradation of safety, or require a work around.

4. No loss of operations at all. (eg a fax machine displays the wrong date.)

The most critical ones were tested and remediated first, the least critical last. So there was still some unfinished remediation at the end of 1999, but it was the less important items rather than the most important. Therefore the money was not wasted, and not all the bugs were trivial. I believe that most enterprises would have approached the Y2K issue in a similar manner to ours and therefore had few items oustanding at the end.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), March 22, 2000.

Malcom, your answer above is, at the very best, severely US centric.

Believe me Malcom, Paraguay, Uruguay, small towns and communities everywhere in the world, Russia, Brazil, etc., etc., were not nearly as thorough as you. Many, thousands, did NOTHING.

Until we finally know the etiology and the epidemiology of Y2K we will be playing games. It can end up being a sort of West Nile IT virus, if you know what I mean.

Take care.

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), March 22, 2000.

still another:

You might check the thread "Why didn't Italy melt down" for a discussion devoted entirely to your questions. I don't mind writing a lot in response to specific questions, but I *do* mind answering those questions in detail, and seeing them appear all over again.

--:

Sounds like more revisionist history. Do you sincerely feel you need disinformation to make your point? Why do you feel it won't stand on its own merits?

First, Yourdon predicted (when pressed) a year of y2k-caused disruptions, together causing sufficient damage that it would take a decade of depression to recover from them. Your recasting of this prediction into a simple "Yourdon predicted a depression" is highly misleading.

The *reason* it's misleading (I'll assume you really don't know) is that you imply that any serious economic downturn, for any reason, anytime in the future, and Yourdon will have been right! By this logic, I could predict based on my evaluation as an engineer that the aircraft someone is boarding will crash on *this flight* and he will die. If the plane does NOT crash, but that person eventually dies anyway of some other cause, does this mean my "prediction" came true? Don't be silly.

Second, you can't really describe ANY scenario from Yourdon's book as a level one. As Yourdon himself rated on the russkelly list, his minimum 3-day-storm disruption level was a 5. It takes a LOT of breakdowns to make food, water, and power unavailable for 3 days.

Third, it's admittedly clear to all but the most determinedly bullheaded that date bugs had no measurable impacts outside the glass rooms. And I believe even the bullheaded can't help but know better, they just refuse to admit it. By any rational measure, y2k impacts were invisibly small.

But fourth, you're right that there is *always* a confluence of worrisome things, easily visible to anyone who cares to look for them. And sometimes these lead to serious situations like depressions or wars. I seriously doubt that the usual Brownian motion caused by "small inefficiencies, inaccuracies, costs" will by themselves lead to reduced confidence, since they never do and glitches happen all the time. But no, the future's not ours to see.

There are two major reasons y2k isn't happening in a vacuum. (1) y2k isn't happening; and (2) There's no vacuum. The market looks dangerously high to me, and the Presidential contenders both look like clowns to me. All too many things can go wrong all too easily. Thankfully, y2k isn't one of those, and never was.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 22, 2000.

We *are* having a "year of disruptions", albeit minor ones.

First quarter reports should tell the tale. Which way will Wall Street head?

-- (@ .), March 22, 2000.

Granted. We are having a year of minor disruptions. Just like every other year within living memory. There is no pattern, nothing systemic about the disruptions. They aren't y2k disruptions in any sense other than they are happening this year. No date bugs involved.

A lot of us are awaiting first quarter results. My employer is doing quite well. Announced results are rarely very far from what the Wall Street insiders already know. Do you expect them to be shocked?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 22, 2000.

Guys, until we know for sure what went RIGHT, this Y2K guessgame is still up for grabs.

Take care

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), March 22, 2000.

The Question of Italy: An Analysis

http://www.year2000.com/y2kitaly.html

-- (yet@another.archiver), March 23, 2000.

yet@another.archiver,

your post above confirms that IN PRACTICE we are scoring 99% but IN THEORY we are flunking, miserably.

AND, please note that as intelligent and knowledgeable as Peter De Jaeger and Flint and maybe a couple more people might be, it is only a handful that are even trying a shot at a real, solid explanation for Y2K. No Universities, no think tanks, nada... despite the fact that Y2K ate away several hundred billion dollars from worldwide IT budgets.

Take care

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), March 23, 2000.

"despite the fact that Y2K ate away several hundred billion dollars from worldwide IT budgets. "

George, I disagree. By "ate", do you mean wasted? Surely not. Remember Moore's law? Here is a snip from GN is a BFI homepage (NOT the forum).

"So if you throw away old systems, what do you get? New systems. New systems that have power increases that follow a logarithmic scale. Personal computers have doubled in power every two years. This is called Moore's law. Say you spent $100,000 on equip ment in 1988. Let's also say that you are replacing it with $100,000 of 1998 equipment. Following Moore's law, you are getting equipment that's 32 times more capable than what you previously had. "

(this is about 4/5ths of the way down the page....most people didn't bother to read that far. 'Idiot Debunker' was wise to this back in early 98!)

So what did businesses GET for their remediation money? New systems? New software?

How much is it worth to run less buggy code? Even if your old code was say, 94% reliable; wouldn't it be worth it to have code running at 99% (or higher?)

How many companies overpaid because of the "IV & V" standards that were ludicrusely(sp?) high? Where did THAT money go? Into the pockets of hypsters? They have to spend it somewhere, don't they?

What about the companies that just stepped up there replacment schedules for hardware & software? They were going to spend that money anyway, CDC just made them spend it sooner than they planned.

Watch the next few weeks for quarterly profit reports; many companies are seeing a good sized return on investment for their y2k remediation efforts.

-- (hangin@out.here), March 23, 2000.

Another useful thread in the discussion on Ed Yourdon is The power of internet rumors.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002pbo

-- (Just@helpin.out), March 24, 2000.

George, I'm not sure whether I should feel complimented or insulted when you comment that Malcom, your answer above is, at the very best, severely US centric.

You see George, I have never been to USA in my life, and so if a tiny wee country like New Zealand can remediate in a manner which would lead you believe that our methods are severely US centric, then surely much larger and wealthier countries like Paraguay, Uruguay, small towns and communities everywhere in the world, Russia, Brazil, etc., etc. would also be able to use similar methods?

Or perhaps it is that the most technically advanced countries were also the ones at greatest risk, while the less developed countries were able to wait and see what others did first, and then maybe they found that they had to do very little.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), March 24, 2000.

What George should have said was Anglo centric. It was a well- known Y2k fact that the English speaking nations and also northern Europe gave more attention and gave it sooner to Y2k than most others parts of the world.

I've always speculated that one of the reason why awareness of the need for Y2k remediation came to English speaking nations earlier was because of language. Most of the early speakers on Y2k probably spoke English as their primary language, and the news filtered to non- English speaking nations only as time went on.

Peter de Jager is Canadian. Somewhere, I have a 1997 interview de Jager had with the BBC about Y2k. Much of the world, though, did not wake up to the necessity of fixing Y2k until 1999.

-- (y2k@mateur.historian), March 24, 2000.

Ed Yourdon's Sayonara, Y2K essay.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000tJJ

-- (May@of.1999), March 24, 2000.

Hasn't anyone else noticed yet that Ed Yourdon just recently has said that he was wrong about Y2K?

In his March 18, 2000 essay 20-20 Hindsight: A Y2K Postmortem at http://www.yourdon.com/books/y2k2020/index.html Ed starts out with

I was wrong about Y2K. Not about the magnitude and pervasive nature of the problem, and not about the likely consequences if millions of computer systems and embedded chips around the world had not been repaired or replaced. But I was wrong about the likelihood that enough of the repair/remediation would be finished in order to prevent serious disruptions. Indeed, it has gradually become apparent during the first few weeks and months of 2000 that Y2K has caused a number of moderate-to-serious problems in various parts of the world -- but it has not turned out to be the crisis that some of us had anticipated.

Also, in this same essay, he explains why his previous essays (including Sayonara, Y2K) disappeared from his web site for a while, but are back now. Go see for yourself -- he has links to all of them in a table of contents at the end of the new essay!

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), March 25, 2000.

No Spam,

Ol' Ed can say whatever he wants.But I personaly will not give him so much as a hit on his site(s),CENSORING SOCIALIST PIECE OF SHIT.

Yea, he really cares about everyone soooo much.

He is just really better forgotten.

No malice toward you No Spam,just a rant.

Have a good weekend : )

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 25, 2000.

capnfun,

Okay, but let me make it clear to others that the new essay is posted at www.yourdon.com, not the pub5.ezboard.com site of the heavily moderated TimeBomb2000 forum.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), March 25, 2000.

sorry Spam, Yourdonfer is a fool. If he thinks he can get away with "I was wrong, but I really wasn't" he is even stupider than I previously imagined. And I actually never thought the man was stupid.

His latest farce is making me re-think that position.

-- Super Polly (FU_Q_Y2kfreaks@hotmail.com), March 25, 2000.

[a repost from another thread]

From some comments here, it seems some folks are implicitly claiming that their utter certainty last year (that Y2K problems would range from few to none) was based on technical expertise and thorough familiarity with all hardware and software systems worldwide and their many interdependencies. For some of these people, this claim may even be true. Good for them.

The rest of us, having no such insider knowledge, and having also no reason to believe everything posted here (or anywhere else) was factual, had to make hard decisions without such certainty. Among this group estimates varied widely both as to the level of disruption to expect and the appropriate level of preparation, taking available resources into account.

It seems churlish to dodge responsibility for one's own decisions by saying now that "the devil made me do it." Gary North didn't make me do anything. Ed Yourdon didn't make me do anything. Neither did Mark Frautschi, Rick Cowles, Paula Gordon, Sen. Bennett, or Cong. Horn.

What these people did do was to bring the possible problems to my attention. Every one of them stressed the uncertainties involved, and the need to make one's own decisions. I became aware of Gary North's extreme bias early in the game, and realized that caution was advisable.

In the end there's only one prep item that I have no use for, namely 2- 200 gallon water bags. The Berkefeld filter is in constant use. My Baygen radio came in very handy during a 3-day power outage here following a severe ice storm. We're working through the food stores, nothing there we don't normally consume.

The only person inside your head is yourself. Nobody makes your muscles move but yourself. Those who feel they've jumped through someone else's hoop should ask themselves why they did so.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 25, 2000.

-- (Re@post.er), March 25, 2000.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. THEY DID MAKE YOU "DO SOMETHING".

You became as did all others to some degree a bunch of Y2k BIGOTS unable to tolerate even the presence of anyone who dared disagree with you or the Sainted Yourdon who used censorship and P.R. cheap tricks through 1/1/2000.

BIGOTS. Think about it. What differentiates you from any others "intolerant" of other views??

Name it? What makes you different from a common hate or race or gay BIGOT?

It seems churlish to dodge responsibility for one's own decisions by saying now that "the devil made me do it." Gary North didn't make me do anything. Ed Yourdon didn't make me do anything. Neither did Mark Frautschi, Rick Cowles, Paula Gordon, Sen. Bennett, or Cong. Horn.

What these people did do was to bring the possible problems to my attention. Every one of them stressed the uncertainties involved, and the need to make one's own decisions. I became aware of Gary North's extreme bias early in the game, and realized that caution was advisable.

BULL. You saw through a prism of the filters that were used on you by the above. Even Bennett was highly influenced even though he was 2 to 4 levels removed. His aides would pick up all the doom messages and the messages did not get through until Spring, 1999 that things would be a 3 day storm or less.

Still you people would not listen. You drove away as heretics any who dared question your opinion.

By Fall, 1999 you were nothing more or less than Y2k BIGOTS refusing to listen to anyone.

Deny it all you want and pretend to yourselves that that was what happened but then go ask all the people you know that you irritated, isolated and alienated yourselves from to listen to the crap from people like "R. C. " and the rest of the Fruit Loops who kept you ever so happy feeding your Y2k BIGOTRY.

-- The Shadow (shadow@knows.com), March 25, 2000.

so, eh, come on tell us how you 'really' feel.

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), March 25, 2000.

"It seems churlish to dodge responsibility for one's own decisions by saying now that "the devil made me do it." Gary North didn't make me do anything. Ed Yourdon didn't make me do anything. Neither did Mark Frautschi, Rick Cowles, Paula Gordon, Sen. Bennett, or Cong. Horn."

Pardon me for being so thick and dumb. Pardon me for breathing, even. Afterall, all I am is a nurse who thinks she's smart. You really hit me in the gut there, Shadow. I have to re-evaluate my reason for living.

I thought all this time that looking up to well established professionals in their fields with good records, when one wasn't educated in that field, was something one was suposed to do when one was looking for answers or guidance to dilemas.

Note that I don't blame Yourdon nor you for my foolishness. But someone should be responsible for leading the foolish astray.

-- Chris (!@#$@pond.com), March 25, 2000.

Still you people would not listen. You drove away as heretics any who dared question your opinion.

By Fall, 1999 you were nothing more or less than Y2k BIGOTS refusing to listen to anyone.

You seem to be overlooking the fact, Shadow, that the original TB2000 was a Y2k preparation forum, created for those who were concerned about Y2k's possible effects.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/policy.tcl?topic=TimeBomb%202000%20% 28Y2000%29

This forum is intended for people who are concerned about the impact of the Y2000 problem on their personal lives, and who want to discuss various fallback contingency plans with other like-minded people.

It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to understand that when outsiders who did not share the concerns expressed above decided to make it their personal and daily mission to change the purpose of TB2000, that there would be a reaction from those who were concerned about Y2k. When less shrill measures failed to persuade TB2000 posters not to prepare for Y2k, the outsiders became more shrill, and those on TB2000 because it was a Y2k preparation forum reacted to that shrillness.

Calling people 'Y2k BIGOTS' because they did not share your point of view is almost a kind of bigotry itself. Reasonable men and women can disagree about politics or religion and realize that someone having a different opinion from their own does not necessarily make that someone evil.

Your underlying assumption, Shadow, seems to be that Y2k was a political issue. That's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but no matter how strongly you feel that way, it doesn't necessarily make it so. Most TB2000 posters were not militia members, sellers of survival supplies, nor racists. Most did not believe that Y2k would bring about the end of the Western Civilization as Gary North did.

There was plenty of evidence from the beginning to the end of 1999 suggesting that Y2k, while not likely to be TEOTWAWKI, could certainly be more than just a bump in the road. There were sectors of the American economy -- and foreign countries -- that still appeared to not be ready even in the fall of 1999.

You're a person of strong political opinions, Shadow, and it apparently influenced the way you look at Y2k. I would guess you were concerned about political extremists even before Y2k came along. Not willing taking into account the fact, though, that there were a large number of people on TB2000 in the middle who wanted to just follow the news and try to gauge whether three weeks or three months worth of preps was the prudent thing to do in case of problems is, in itself, a form of extremism.

And make no mistake, there was a wide variety of opinion expressed on TB2000. Gary North was not the only source of Y2k information quoted. Statements by Peter de Jager and John Koskinen were extensively posted there, too. No one can claim that they were unaware of Koskinen's 'three day winter storm' scenario and what Koskinen's reasoning was. Hoffmeister, Ken Decker, FactFinder, Flint and others gave their opinion there, too.

Y2k to me was not a political issue. It was about my family spending an extra $10 or $20 dollars a week at the grocery store for a year in case of temporary disruptions due to Y2k, domestic or foreign terrorism, last minute panic by those unprepared for Y2k, or hackers. Y2k IS over with, but I did learn just how much our society depends on just-in-time delivery and overseas supplies, and I will never go back to having just a few days worth of food or other essentials in the house.

-- Someone (in@the.middle), March 26, 2000.

Here's a key quote which explains why there was so much debate about Y2k and why there's still so much disagreement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/daily/feb99/y2k24.htm

Link

The interdependent nature of technology systems makes the severity of possible disruptions difficult to predict.

-- (y2k@history.buff), March 26, 2000.

"Most TB2000 posters were not militia members, sellers of survival supplies, nor racists. Most did not believe that Y2k would bring about the end of the Western Civilization as Gary North did. "

Bullshit to both those statements, musicmixer. Go read the archives. Go read the deleted threads forum, that is a small SMALL percentage of the nazibastards thinking on stinkbomb2000.

I am SICK of hearing this bullshit repeated over and over....the truth is....

MOST of the posters to tb2k were extremists! were not, but don't try and change history by changing the percentages.

Remember Phil Greenspun's comment? "The user community of the Y2K forum contains a remarkably high percentage of aggressive and mentally disturbed individuals."

THAT...says it all.

-- (tb2kw@s.loonyashell), April 13, 2000.

Ed is an excellent programmer. I studied a couple of his books, and I learned a lot. (Thank you, Ed.)

But Ed is not an engineer. And Ed knew very little about the power grid and power plants. Ed probably didn't spend any time on location, examining controls, etc.

Ed didn't know that it probably takes about 7 people/shift to control a computer-controlled grid, and 11 people to control the grid without computers.

Ed didn't understand.

But I don't think you can make a Federal case of it.

Note to Ed: Stick to programming. You are great at this.

-- (retard@but.happy), April 13, 2000.

damn, that should read, "...extremists! some were not....""

-- (tb2kw@s.loonyashell), April 13, 2000.

1) The numbers in ref the "fringe" at TB2K were acurately represented by Kevin Mixesmusic.

2) The quoted referent by Greenspun was to the (and I quote from personal e-mail now) "Unstable element continuously harassing the President of Harvard and the rest of the trustees. trying to get your forum closed down."

-- Third Age (historicity@the.ready), April 13, 2000.

The quoted referent by Greenspun was to the (and I quote from personal e-mail now) "Unstable element continuously harassing the President of Harvard and the rest of the trustees. trying to get your forum closed down."

Wow, amazing quote there. Guess they really must have been disturbed individuals to harass the President of Harvard, what with Greenspun being at MIT and all. LOL

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), April 13, 2000.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

historicity... yeah, right...

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), April 15, 2000.

Geeze guys, it was FUN. The preps, the boards, the books, the speculation.

I blame no one but me for buying into the game. I liked prepping. I was GOOD at it.

It was definitely a learning experience. Some of it positive: Who knew you could mount a gas turbine on our telephone pole and power 75 homes from our gas well? Some of it indirectly positive: Do NOT send $90.00 for potassium iodate to an address on the internet and expect anything to arrive.

Mr. Yourdon did not convince me of anything. Once we had postulated what might occur if the electric failed and started preparing for that, his book was useless. I intended to buy it but when I glanced through it there was nothing new.

And finally, it WAS fun. Do you remember the live webcams on the Chesapeake ? Watching the nuclear fleet? Couldn't see a damn thing-- checked frequently anyway. It was sort of like the Emperor's New Clothes-----

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.com), April 15, 2000.

For the bullshit artists who would rewrite history, a repost of Phil G's e-mail:

: Topic: An E-Mail I just received from Mr. Greenspun.

: Author: Ludi

: Posted: 12/31/99 03:33 CT

: In a bit of a temper I e-mailed Greenspun last night to express my irritation at the 11th hour yanking of the Y2K plug. He has just e-mailed back his side of the story. Make of it what you will.

: : Here Tis:

: : "Y2K is a fun paranoia but folks who use the greenspun.com seem to be unable to grasp a few simple facts:

: 0) while they were bitching and moaning, it was me who was up until 4:00 am last night reconfiguring the server to handle more load

: 1) the poor computer can't support the load, plain and simple. If I turned it back on right now (without first spending a couple of days reprogramming, adding more resources, etc.), it would just crash within a few minutes.

: 2) I'm not asking for one dime from Y2K forum users; all the donated money goes directly to SARA Sanctuary (a no-kill animal shelter in Seguin, Texas).

: 3) To make the forum sustainably fast requires about $25,000 of computer hardware, system administration, and database administration effort plus at least $2,000/month in ongoing support (e.g., to shut out robots when they crop up). The software that sits behind the Y2K forum is very similar to what a big company like ebay.com or amazon.com would run (includes an Oracle database and the whole thing is architected for good user experience rather than server efficiency). My conjecture was that the people who use the Y2K forum wouldn't be willing to donate even a tiny fraction of that to charity. To test my theory, I established a little donation program. I was surprised to see that about $2,000 was donated to SARA. This is still a tiny fraction of the total cost but I guess it is enough that I don't feel stupid for having spent so much time and personal money supporting a forum in which I have no interest.

: 4) The user community of the Y2K forum contains a remarkably high percentage of aggressive and mentally disturbed individuals. Over the past two years these people regularly send email to senior MIT administration officials complaining about their treatment from other Y2K forum users. Imagine the president of MIT getting email from someone on the Internet, complaining about Philip Greenspun. The poor guy (a) has no idea that the Y2K forum exists, (b) doesn't understand the connection between the greenspun.com service and MIT (in fact there is hardly any; the box sits inside a machine room at MIT but that's about it; MIT does not endorse or care about the service), (c) doesn't really know who I am (so he has to go look me up). The temptation at these times is simply to delete the entire forum and its 300,000 messages from the system (would take me, as server administrator, one mouse click or one Oracle statement).

: 5) The Y2K forum, unlike any other forum on greenspun.com, is a place where people use fake email addresses. This generates lots of server load (handling bounced mail), complaints from domain owners worldwide (sometimes there is a real "foo@bar.com" and they get pissed off), and complaints from the real people whose name has been forged. This generates lots of ill-will from Internet people against me.

: Bottom line is that I could pull the plug on the greenspun.com box, an experiment that was set up in 1995 to see if we could do something interesting for other Web publishers (succeeded except that the nasty users on the Y2K forum made us wish we hadn't done it). By pulling the plug on the server and throwing the old machine out, I would be able to free up time to teach an extra 100 students per year, to write a new edition of any of my books, to make an extra $50,000 per year developing software. None of you guys would give up $50,000 per year for the Y2K forum yet you have no qualms asking me to do so, even though I've no interest in the topic.

: So encourage all of your Y2K friends to keep on writing to me telling me what a bad person I am for asking you to donate $25 to an animal charity. It might tip the scales in favor of just pulling the server's power cord and moving on to something more fun..."

Note the context of this letter, who it was written to and take into account Phil's intelligent stand on y2k (no big problem).

Enough with the BS, doomers.

-- Truth Archiver (keeper@the.recordhall), April 15, 2000.

: 4) The user community of the Y2K forum contains a remarkably high percentage of aggressive and mentally disturbed individuals. Over the past two years these people regularly send email to senior MIT administration officials complaining about their treatment from other Y2K forum users.

So who were these people who were complaining, "pollys" or "doomers"?

-- (7@8.9), April 15, 2000.