Here's an intersting Y2K web site - actually, one of the few that's still up although it looks like it was abandoned shortly after the rollover.

http://www.churchlink.com.au/churchlink/y2k/scenario1.htm

It has descriptions of a 4.0, 6.0, and 10.0 scenario for Y2K. They were written by a David Collins, who describes himself as a cross cultural minister in Australia.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 20, 2000

Answers

Fascinating. And to give him credit, he got it right: *if* the basic premise behind the Y2K disaster scenarios was correct, we *should* have started seeing major disruptions in early 1999. By April of 1999, they would have been impossible to hide.

What bothers me is that a lot of IT Doom types -- from Yourdon down to Hamasaki -- clearly believed that things would get bad long before January 1st, 2000. When things DIDN'T go sour in 1999, why didn't they back off of their predictions? Right up to the very end, Yourdie was saying, "I know what I know."

That link was interesting for another reason: it illustrated the religious aspect as Y2k, which can't be overlooked. A lot of people tied millennial and End Times prophecy in with the thing; this guy did it better than most. Give credit where due.

He can't be completely blamed for being wrong, either, anymore than can Karen Anderson and a lot of other sincere (but sincerely misguided) people. He was listening to the wrong sources. He bought into the IT Doom belief that computers are absolutely essential and can't be worked around when they fail. He also bought into the flawed Compliance Percentages game, where things either Work Perfectly or Don't Work At All (when, in real life, there's a whole lot of gray area there; computer systems fail all the time).

Finally, did you notice that his "least-case" scenario was considerably worse than what actually happened? His approach reminded me of the old sales technique: you show a client three different choices (cheap, middling, and expensive) and then ask, "WHICH do you want?" (not, "do you want to buy in the first place?").

Fascinating. Thanks for the link. I might have to save those pages before he DOES decide to nuke 'em. {g}

-- Me (me@thisplace.net), March 20, 2000.

It's entirely possible that Y2K looks like increasingly higher fuel prices along with continuing shortages (fuel oil this 'past' Winter, quite likely--gas this Summer, possibly fuel oil again 'next' Winter). Whether or not any of this is actually CAUSED by Y2K problems in the oil patch is no concern to this non-polly, non- doomer. It's just damned interesting that they are conterminous with YEAR 2000.

There are also continuing concerns about "Bubble.Com" & interest rates. All those greenbacks that GreasePan released into the system for the Y2K "non-event" have to be sucked out somehow. We may get an unpleasant announcement from the Fed this week about rates.

It's also interesting to speculate on what use they'll put that 50 million dollar Y2K "command center/bunker" to. Think of that while you're writing that check to the IRS in mid April. Wonder what everyone had in mind while they were busy spending all those billions to make Y2K a relative non-event?

What's really scary is to re-read Infomagic's pronoucement in very late Dec, 1999. His comments about oil are still right on the money. His concerns about gold, the tulip-mania, the dollar, yen & euro are all still completely valid. His only real error was about the actual direct and more-or-less immediate fallout from the date rollover. I'm still wondering just how in heck those countries that did virtually NOTHING to prepare for Y2K get off without a problem??? Or did they???

-- EnquiringMinds (NeedTo@Know.com), March 20, 2000.

Enquiring:

How appropriate that you chose the National Enquirer's tag line to sign your post. Actually Italy (and all those other unprepared countries) has completely stopped functioning, all the nuclear reactors have melted down and all the inhabitants are all dead. Those shipments of Ferraris and Armani suits are actually being assembled at an NWO internment camp in the middle of Texas.

-- abc (123@456.789), March 20, 2000.

Enquiring,

It is not true that a lot of countries did nothing. It may have seemed that way at first, but that is not the whole story. The full story has yet to come out. For instance, Rosanne Hynes of DOD has shed some light on what happened in countries in which DOD has a presence. From account I have heard to date, the impact of her efforts were extraordinary. See http://www.cgsr.llnl.gov/Y2KPres/DefenseHynes/index.html. This presentation was a part of a Conference on Y2K sponsored by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in late January of this year.

Also see Rajiv Chandrasekaran's January 31, 2000 article in the Washington Post and comments concerning that article. These were on a thread on Time Bomb 2000 (classic). Sorry I do not have the URL at hand. The following are excerpts from a posting on TB 2000 in which I discussed the article and issues that it raised:

"This report by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a very interesting one and adds to our understanding of why some countries seemed to fare so much better than had been predicted. The report did not, however, address some other key related issues. The report did not indicate the major difficulties that remain in assessing many other aspects of what happened domestically as well as globally. It also failed to acknowledge the difficulties in assessing what is happening now.

I will try to describe some of these other "pieces of the puzzle" briefly here and later in public meetings as well as in material to be posted soon on my website at http://www.gwu.edu/~y2k/keypeople/gordon In the meantime, here are some of the key issues:

I. The Public is Still in the Dark Concerning What Happened and What is Happening.

On the one hand, only a fraction of the problems that occurred and that are occurring have been either widely reported or received more than cursory attention in the media. This has left most people who tend not to be following developments on the web with the impression that there were and are far fewer failures than is case.

II. Initiatives that Decreased Actual Failure Rates Abroad.

And on the other hand, there were actions taken behind the scenes that helped minimize infrastructure disruptions. These were actions beyond the kinds of actions noted in the Post article. (I have discussed the "powering down" of the infrastructure in my January 17 "Comments and Impact Ratings" piece in the "Comments" section at my GW website and will not include it again here.) Some of the actions that are noted below in Item II are continuing.

I. The Public is Still in the Dark Concerning What Happened and What is Happening

A few of the reasons that the public does not know about the majority of the failures that occurred and are occurring are as follows:

A) The term "failure" has often been redefined. Do you remember the African nation in the first few days after the rollover that revealed that they had had a failure, but they had not reported it as a failure because they implemented their contingency plan immediately. This, it turns out, was not an isolated incident of unreported failures.

Many of those reporting tended to redefine the word "failure" to mean "reportable failure". Failures were not necessarily reported if contingency plans were implemented. Implementation of contingency plans could include:

~ taking a system offline and/or shutting the system, the plant, utility, or the pipeline, etc., down, and

~ going to manual, and/or

~ implementing some other "work around".

Such "failures" were not technically considered to be "failures" and were not reported or not reported fully. When and as the list of failures in the U.S., as well as failures around the globe becomes widely known, many people may well be quite surprised to find how many incidents were kept and are being kept from them.

According to one authoritative source, there were over 6000 reports to the Information Coordination Center in the first five days of the New Year alone. This probably represents a tenth or less of the failures that actually occurred and a far smaller fraction of the number of problems that have become evident after the first five days of the New Year and that still appear to be on the rise in early February.

B. Getting the true story out can be risky. Those who know what has occurred or is occurring in a company, plant, a government organization, etc., etc, may be find themselves in one of two positions:

~ keeping that information internal to the organization or

~ disclosing that information internally and/or externally.

Internal disclosure (if the problems are not known by upper management) can result in the "messenger" being "shot". Anyone who has been the bearer of bad news in an organization, may be all to familiar with this kind of reaction. Of course, it does not apply to all organizations. Some organizational cultures encourage open communication and the sharing of bad news. When the stakes get very high, however, that too can change. The stakes can involve a company's bottom line, the CEO's or the company's future, the company's reputation, questions of liability, insurance and reinsurance issues, and accountability and liability on the part of directors and officers. The stakes can also involve a country's reputation and even, the economic stability of a nation.

External disclosure can result in all kinds of other problems that "whistleblowers" can have. I will be touching on these matters in new Parts of my White Paper which will be posted in the next few weeks (at the same website noted above).

There are few companies that disclosed in their SEC filings prior to January 1, 2000 serious Y2K and embedded systems remediation problems. It will be interesting to see what the next SEC filings reveal.

Other clues concerning what is really happening can be found in the law suits being filed, the insurance claims being filed, and the claims being filed with reinsurers. For a long list of references concerning sites that are reporting problems (including TB 2000) and providing information concerning law suits and insurance claims, see my January 17, 2000 "Comments and Impact Ratings" piece. It can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~y2k/keypeople/gordon Click on "Comments, Essays, & Op-Ed Pieces".

II. Initiatives that Decreased Actual Failure Rates Abroad

There were behind-the-scenes efforts that apparently only a few knew about and only a relatively few know about now.

~ As the Post article points out, countries like Jamaica, along with many other countries, started late, but benefitted by the lessons learned and the resources that were available to them.

~ In addition, multinational companies that had a definite vested interest in making sure that the infrastructure continued to function in the countries where they had a presence, made major contributions to remediation efforts of those countries.

~ Perhaps, of most critical importance, however, may be role played by the U.S. Department of Defense in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State. DOD and the State Department apparently played a major behind-the-scenes role in doing what needed to be done to help ensure that the infrastructure continued to function in a whole host of nations. They served as catalysts along with multinational corporations and other public and private sector interests in helping to ensure that remediation challenges were addressed.

So, we have a situation where on the one hand, the results were and are far worse than we have been led to believe and on the other hand there were some behind-the-scenes efforts that help explain the "apparent" results.

This leaves us with a kind of parallel universe of plausible explanations and assessments. The challenge is to try to sort out the apparent from the actual.

Many who frequent TB 2000, the Grassroot Information Coordination Center site, the Humpty Dumpty Y2K site and other public and private sector sites, have obviously been trying to do that. In my efforts, I have come to a preliminary conclusion that, irony of ironies, the U.S. is still among the most vulnerable country in the world when it comes to Y2K and embedded systems problems. This includes the problems that have already been experienced, the problems that are being experienced now, and the problems that will become evident over the coming year. Of course, the most obvious reason for this vulnerability is that the U.S. has the most technology. The U.S. had the most to remediate. Another is, that with some major exceptions (including apparently to date the work done on the electric power grid), there were not the same kind of proactive, crisis-oriented efforts going on here as there evidently were elsewhere in the world. Specifically, it appears that there is a continuing vulnerability in some of the highest hazard sectors in the U.S., along with a significant portion of local and county governments, and small and medium-sized businesses, along with others that I will mention shortly.

While U.S. public and private sector interests were working to minimize possible infrastructure disruptions in many parts of the world, a significant percentage of some major sectors in the U.S. were either not remediated or not fully remediated. These sectors included significant percentages of the following:

~ local and county jurisdictions

~ small and medium sized businesses

~ small and medium sized chemical plants

It was public knowledge prior to the New Year that there were refineries and oil and gas pipeline companies in the U.S. that were not going to be able to remediate fully or were not planning to remediate fully. Some major producers of oil around the world also decided to fix on failure and did not remediate fully.

It is therefore not surprising that there has been an unprecedented surge in the number of problems being experienced by refineries. There has been an unprecedented surge in the number of pipeline ruptures, pipelines of all kinds. There has been an unprecedented surge in the number of explosions involving natural gas, methane, and propane worldwide since the beginning of January. According to a researcher who has done a report on this topic, this latter fact can be confirmed by checking OSHA reports, the UN's version of OSHA, Product Safety Lists, and other publicly available sources. There have been an unsettlingly high number of plane and train crashes and problems here and abroad, sometimes with the same systems being at fault or suspected of being at fault.

According to public statements made in December of 1999, the Information Coordination Center (ICC) collected baseline data that would make comparisons easy between the incidence of such problems after 1/1/2000 and comparable period in prior years. I have not heard any mention of this baseline data since that December briefing. I hope that this data will be made available soon, along with the thousands of incident reports that have been accumulated by the ICC.

The ICC apparently is not making the connection between any of the refinery, pipeline, plane, train, nuclear power plant problems, etc., on the one hand and Y2K and embedded systems-related problems on the other hand. If they are, such connections have not been made apparent to the media and the public.

In order to find reports on problems in each sector, one has to know where to look. (See the list of references in the "Comments and Impact Ratings" piece that I mentioned above.)...."

[Paula Gordon 2/3/2000]

(end of quoted material)

Putting together the pieces of the puzzle is time consuming. A lot of progress has been made in doing just that. Few people seem interested in finding out what happened and what is happening. Fewer still know about the information that is already publicly available. The importance of much of the information that is available has yet to be acknowledged. In time, I think that there is a good chance that it will be.

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), March 20, 2000.

Me:

As you may recall from Yourdon's "flying pigs" essay (I think) where he said that as of April 1, 1999 all doubt would end, he was careful to write that those critical spike dates would be an excellent barometer of what was likely to happen later. And in this he was precisely correct. Nothing happened on those dates, and nothing happened later.

What's odd is that when nothing happened on the spike dates, Yourdon decided they *weren't* good indicators after all! But he (of course) never came out and said explicitly that he'd been wrong about the indicators. He didn't even express surprise. It was a pure case of Doomer Selective Amnesia Syndrome. I think this was a watershed event -- when the facts on the ground failed to suit Yourdon's purposes, you find that the facts failed to enter into his essays ever again!

Anyway, it was significant for me, since I took Yourdon at face value. Nothing happened, good barometer.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 20, 2000.

The quote(s) in question:

"On January 1, 1999 they will experience many more, and it will be much more difficult to sweep them under the rug. On April 1, 1999 we will all watch anxiously as the governments of Japan and Canada, as well as the state of New York, begin their 1999-2000 fiscal year; at that moment, the speculation about Y2K will end, and we will have tangible evidence of whether governmental computer systems work or not."-- Ed Yourdon

... I believe we'll start seeing [disruptions] by this summer, and I believe they'll continue for at least a year. As many people are now aware, 46 states (along with Australia and New Zealand) will begin their 1999-2000 fiscal year on July 1, 1999; New York (and Canada) will already have gone through their Y2K fiscal rollover on April 1, and the remaining three states begin their new fiscal year on August 1, September 1, and October 1. We also have the GPS rollover problem to look forward to on August 22nd, as well as the Federal government's new fiscal year on October 1st.

There is, of course, some finite probability that all of these rollover events will occur without any problems; but there's also a finite probability that pigs will learn to fly.

Ed Flying Pig Yourdon

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), March 20, 2000.

Flint,

"Nothing happened"? Others would say that quite a lot happened. 6000 reports were received by the ICC in the first five days alone is not an indication that "nothing happened". It is probably safe to say that that 6000 number was the tip of the iceberg since many companies and businesses doubtlessly thought twice before they decided to risk leaving a paper trail. After all, these are problems that could either be the basis of litigation or the basis for an insurance claim. They are problems that could have other repercussions as well.

Might it be better for you to say (speaking for yourself): "I am not aware of anything significant happening. And I have no way of knowing if the problems that were reported (and that still are being reported) are definitely Y2K-related." That is much different than saying "Nothing happened."

If you were to say "I am not aware of anything significant happening. And I have no way of knowing if the problems that were reported (and that still are being reported) are definitely Y2K-related" then several questions should follow:

What is meant by the word "significant"? and

How do you prove that a problem was Y2K-related?

One response to the first question is that "significance" is in the value system of the beholder.

The second question can be answered with a question: If a problem was anticipated in systems that were not remediated, shouldn't that be considered as a possible indication of what the cause might have been?

-- a......a (a......a@questions.cum), March 20, 2000.

abc-ROTFLMAO-that was a good post!

Paula-I am curious about this statement and unfortunately I am too stressed today(I am about to take a walk) to figure out if the following is what you said or somebody else:

"It is therefore not surprising that there has been an unprecedented surge in the number of problems being experienced by refineries. There has been an unprecedented surge in the number of pipeline ruptures, pipelines of all kinds. There has been an unprecedented surge in the number of explosions involving natural gas, methane, and propane worldwide since the beginning of January"

Later it is mentioned that the ICC has baseline data, and the writer hoped that it would be made available soon. WELL-I look at the quote and then wonder how such a bold, sweeping statement could be made without an exhausting review of data from the past-and it is very dangerous and highly unreliable, to base such a conclusion as that quoted, from material published in one report:

"According to a researcher who has done a report on this topic, this latter fact can be confirmed by checking OSHA reports, the UN's version of OSHA, Product Safety Lists, and other publicly available sources".

Who is the researcher. Link to the report with footnotes? This is another one of those-"hey, it's there, you gotta believe me, civilization is still going to end, you just wait", ad infinitum, ad naseum. Even if we increase that 6,000 number, which refers to incidents right after the rollover, tenfold, it still pales in comparison to the almost incalculable number of processes and transactions which take place in the world every second.

It is now almost three months-there are no shortages in the grocery store, the bank has not made a single mistake, life is just as I knew it before the rollover. Gasoline futures are going down today-If there were any anticipation of a gas shortage or systemic refinery problems, surelt those future would not be sinking.

It is over. OVER.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.com), March 20, 2000.

Paula Gordon,

Perhaps it is time for you return to your area of expertise, which I believe was social and organizational theory. How you made a quantum leap from that arena to embedded systems is something that I truly don't understand, and why some people take you to be an expert in the field baffles me even further.

Your panels seem to be occupied by those with like-minded thinking. I believe on your last one you had someone from the WorldNetDaily as your moderator. I am sure that there are those at Weekly World News that can serve the same purpose for you in the future.

You have maintained visibility through these silly panel discussions and have done your best to keep your name in the public eye (I sincerely hope that your panel discussions are not funded by taxpayer dollars. I would hate to think that a portion of my paycheck actually supports a fraud such as yourself). Still, you have provided no substantive evidence of Y2K failures or impact. I don't doubt that there have been Y2K failures in embedded systems. However, it hasn't turned out in the manner that you and others said (and in the case of Gary North, hoped) it would.

Your credibility regarding Y2K is shot. Quit while your behind, before your credibility in the Social/Organizational arena is shot as well.

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), March 20, 2000.

CJS:

I can't BELIEVE that you would address Ms. Gordon in such a way. You SHOULD HAVE SAID "Quit while you're behind."

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 20, 2000.

Anita,

That should be Dr. Gordon. Otherwise, LOL!

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 20, 2000.

Paula Gordon wrote: "According to one authoritative source, there were over 6000 reports to the Information Coordination Center in the first five days of the New Year alone."

What authoritative source? What were these 6000 reports? Where can I find this data?

I've seen this figure repeated over and over with no backup whatsoever. If you're going to write it, tell us the facts.

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), March 20, 2000.

Buddy:

I reserve the Dr. qualifier for those in the medical field. As far as I'm concerned, folks who have doctorates in fields outside medicine are simply folks who went to school longer than others and came up with a dissertation. Ms. Gordon is QUITE capable of providing a dissertation on ANY subject, I'm sure.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), March 20, 2000.

Anita, Buddy

Oops. Okay.

Commissioner Gordon, quit while you are behind.

Is that better?

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), March 20, 2000.

If there were 6000 reports, obviously they weren't the kind that affected the over-all population in a significant way. The NG vehicles didn't roll, there were no lines at gas stations, or runs on grocery stores--come on now--for the most part your average citizen was not bothered in the least.

LOL at "quit while your behind." Yes we all know the difference betweent your and you're, but it's tacky to call attention to grammar. Quit yer fussin'.

Why do IT professionals keep hanging on to the obvious: It was nothing but a BITR. Ms. Gordon is a nice lady I'm sure, but she was wrong. Admit it and get over it. I knew I was wrong at about 12:05 AM New Years Eve, and I don't have a doctorate degree either. I admit I was wrong, and I'm working on the getting over it part.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 20, 2000.

Hello?

Former "Doomer" here, Y2K is over, Y2K was hype, a lot of good folks were snookered into Y2K by folks who should have known better. I have lights, I have water, I eat out at least once a week, plenty of food on the shelves at my local Publix market, bidness is booming, Y2K is over....

Y2K is over....

Y2K is over....

Roger Wilco, over and out.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), March 20, 2000.

well, well, well dressed bag lady shows her cyber-face!

I think that mis....er....Komish Gordon is either much more ignorant than people are giving her credit for, or much MUCH, smarter. Maybe she has discovered a way to continue the milking of the cash-cow known as "why two kay"? If so, I applaud her. The same way I applaud Yourdon and North for taking the suckers to the cleaners.

Long Live Capitalism!

-- IgnoranceIsBliss (and@PG.isblissful!), March 20, 2000.

I believe we are seeing in action some of the principles you learn when you get a Ph.D. in organization:

1) Above all else, never admit error. You can fool some of the people all of the time. If your errors can be made to look plausible enough, this can be enough people to build a career on. Some people cannot see even clear and obvious error, so don't admit you made one. Pretend those who point out errors don't exist (don't invite them to seminars or allow them to contribute to a forum).

2) Publicity of any kind is better than none at all. As P.T.Barnum said, "I don't care what you say about me so long as you spell my name right." For better or worse, people remember that you're "somebody important" far longer than they remember *why* you're important.

3) The government *wants* to spend our money, needing only a flimsy excuse, and for the money to be spent in the district of someone powerful. Anything that can be billed as being for public safety is a good excuse. *Actual* safety is not relevant.

4) Passive voice is your friend. "It has been determined that" or "X is under investigation" makes it sound like you're actually *doing* something without the inconvenient possibility of verification. Saying "it was public knowledge" is especially good.

5) Organizing seminars looks good on your resume. Also, quoting what you said at a seminar ("it was pointed out that...") adds real weight to an otherwise generic opinion. And best to populate your panel only with those who made the same error you did. Then you can say "It was agreed by all panel members..." to make your mistakes look correct.

6) Remember, as lawyers are fond of saying, for $500 a day you can find a *qualified* expert to testify to *anything*. Whole careers can be built on smoke and mirrors. Appearance trumps substance every time.

Paula Gordon is someone who knows her business and conducts it well. Those who don't understand her business will never understand how she manages to ride so far on such an obviously dead horse.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 20, 2000.

Nah, let's play with the 6,000 number, unsubstantiated though it may be.

Last time I checked any substantive figgers (MIT has a GREAT database for this sort of stuff), there were approximately 300 million computer systems in use worldwide. So, do the math:

6000 / 300,000,000 * 100 = .002%.

Wow, that's a STAGGERING number. I won't even ask how severe each of these "incidents" was; that would spoil the fun (even though the probability approaches unity that they were worked around, since most of us never even noticed).

Now: let's go wiff Gordon and assume that it follows the "iceberg" theory; there are actually ten times as many failures as are being reported. Follow along closely, now!

.002% * 10 = .02%

Yup. We all died on January 1st. It's official.

(I know, I know; if I were to point out that about TEN TIMES THAT MANY systems fail on a daily basis, anyway -- and have been doing so for years -- due to other sorts of bugs, hard drive failures, stupid employees smishing the wrong buttons and spilling coffee into equipment, etc., etc., etc., it would take the fun out of it, so I won't.)

-- Me (me@thisplace.net), March 20, 2000.

Gilda,

Was it even a speck of sand in the road?

As in regards to why-too-kay and it's (?)aftermath, I can't believe I ever thought about listening to a smarter group of totaly useless stupid people.

Live and learn:Why-Too-Gullible.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 20, 2000.

Nothing happened from my perspective... yeah right...

Let's see.. for the most part, power stayed on, a few regional burps, but getting warnings that things are going to hell in a hurry, due to our failure to "plan"... this summer when demand goes up, supply goes down... looks to be fun...

Gas up to $2 a gallon, going nowhere but higher, looks to me like rationing this summer...

Plans falling from the sky? Right out my backdoor off Pt. Mugu... couldn't take the kid to the beach for weeks worried what we would find besides sea shells...

Few thousand people shit their pants on the north side of town when the dam break alert siren went off early in the morning due to a "malfunction"...

Have been playing hell filling customer orders due to unexplained Intel problems supplying product... JIT inventory hiccups, not to mention increased prices as fuel shortages drive up cost of doing business..

Couldn't run an invoice on 2/29.. our y2k compliant system didn't recognize it as a valid date, but we got over it...

E-commerce boards I rely on have been up and down from the first of the year, not to mention gov EDI systems can't seem to post the correct due date for bids 75% of the time...

I could go on, but why bother... we hit a 4-5, depending on where you sit, and are stumbling and bumbling towards a 6 or 7 at least....

Nothing happened? Bullshit...

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), March 21, 2000.

Carl:

Did you read the 4.0 scenario at the website posted in the original message? Do you actually believe that we are at a 4 or 5 now? Or do you have different understanding of what a 4 or 5 means?

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

capnfun, You're right. I did get carried away with that BITR line. What a crock!! Yes, a grain of sand, but a very small grain.

Carl, I understand you' seei things differently, due to your own computer and cyber problems. I admit this influenced me too. In l998 I was having so much trouble with my personal computer, I was absolutely furious. I HATED COMPUTERS and everyone connected to them. I'd go get a cup of coffee and everything had changed on my text; margins moved, line spacing changed, it crashed continually. But I was told it was because I was new to computers (1997) and once I "learned how to use it," I'd have no problem. Bull Shit!

Finally, in early 1999, I had a wild-eyed, cussing, ranting, stomping snot-slinging fit and called the company and raised unholy hell. They had me take it to a computer problem guru in the city 90 miles away. We left it in intensive care for a month. Frankly it was a piece of crap! They replaced the motherboard and the hardrive and redid what was a bad machine to begin with.

This convinced me that computers were all tainted goods, and I had no faith in any of them. Once burned, twice shy! Therefore, I listened to the IT professionals, just like a moron at a revival. WRONG, and made my decision that we were in for a hell of a ride. BAD WRONG. It was the luck of the draw.

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), March 21, 2000.

Gilda,

It wasn't "the IT professionals" you were listening to, there was no doom message coming from the IT community.

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), March 21, 2000.

Carl said:,p. "for the most part, power stayed on, a few regional burps"

There were NO interruptions of power that were Y2K related anywhere. The power stayed on. Period.

but getting warnings that things are going to hell in a hurry, due to our failure to "plan"... this summer when demand goes up, supply goes down... looks to be fun...

What does this have to do with Y2K? Please provide one sliver of fact that suggets that the organizational morass that the hydro industry finds itself in, is any way related to Y2K computer malfunctions.

Gas up to $2 a gallon, going nowhere but higher, looks to me like rationing this summer...

Oil prices are falling. There is every indication that the mideast supply will increase - rationing is unlikely. How is any of this related to Y2K?

Planes falling from the sky? Right out my backdoor off Pt. Mugu... couldn't take the kid to the beach for weeks worried what we would find besides sea shells...

Are you suggesting that this or any crash has anything to do with Y2K? Please cite your sources - and no - Hawk is not a source...

Few thousand people shit their pants on the north side of town when the dam break alert siren went off early in the morning due to a "malfunction"...

There were no malfunctions of electronic equipment before the date change? Please cite your source that indicated a Y2K malfunction in this instance.

Have been playing hell filling customer orders due to unexplained Intel problems supplying product... JIT inventory hiccups, not to mention increased prices as fuel shortages drive up cost of doing business..

Please cite your source that indicated a Y2K malfunction.

Couldn't run an invoice on 2/29.. our y2k compliant system didn't recognize it as a valid date, but we got over it...

Everyone got over it Carl. That is why Y2K was such a non-event.

E-commerce boards I rely on have been up and down from the first of the year, not to mention gov EDI systems can't seem to post the correct due date for bids 75% of the time...

Please cite your source that indicated a Y2K malfunction.

I could go on, but why bother... we hit a 4-5, depending on where you sit, and are stumbling and bumbling towards a 6 or 7 at least....

The world around us is unfolding as it always has Carl, the good, the bad and the otherwise. In the absence of any data that suggests that Y2K failures are a catalyst for change, why is your position so intractable? Why do you think that there is not ONE reputable journalist who is still following this story?

Nothing happened? Bullshit...

*Big Sigh*

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.

Dammit Pro,

You stole my thunder in responding to Carl, who is probably curled up in a corner of his basement, sweating profusely and incessantly chain smoking while waiting for the end of the world.

That, or it is a troll post, offered up to elicit a reaction. Nobody can really be that stupid, can they?

-- CJS (cjs@noemail.com), March 21, 2000.

Folks,

I'm going through a moral dilema here. In the one hand, I don't want to "out" anyone with IP's and troll names. On the other, I'm watching people assuming names such as Paula Gordon, and their email address.

If this is the real Paula Gordon, she is trolling on this thread. If this is not the real Paula Gordon, someone else here is trolling.

Paula Gordon should email me. freespeech_y2k@yahoo.com

-- Old TB2K Forum Regular (freespeech@yahoo.com), March 21, 2000.

I don't think making people use their "real" handles is a censorship issue, OTFR.

People shouldn't be allowed to immitate!

Imitation only confuses people, hinders understanding, and does nothing to further the truth.

Off with their heads!

~*~

-- Laura (Ladylogic@...), March 21, 2000.

My old buddy Anita:

A little brush-up on academic history.

I reserve the Dr. qualifier for those in the medical field. As far as I'm concerned, folks who have doctorates in fields outside medicine are simply folks who went to school longer than others and came up with a dissertation. Ms. Gordon is QUITE capable of providing a dissertation on ANY subject, I'm sure.

Actually, you have it backwards. The MD is a professional training degree. At most universities they don't even go through graduation with their academic colleagues. The PhD is the older degree and represents study and original thought, rather than training. Both degree tracks are necessary; just different.

Best wishes

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), March 21, 2000.

OTFR,

Immitation in this case is not flattery, it is in fact FRAUD.

Do what you must,as this is not censorship it is justice served.

BTW,I think you are doing one hell of a job!!!

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 21, 2000.

CJS, please don't be mean to Carl. He probably does look at the world pessimistically. Remember the old "half full, half empty" addage?

We need to feel sorry for him, and help him, by listening to his concerns and telling where his thinking errors occur.

Come on, now. I know you're not a cruel man. Let's give him a break, Ok?

I think it's nice that a doomer is willing to be here and share his philosophies. Obviously, there's enough non doomers here to discuss his concerns with him!

~*~

-- Laura (Ladylogic@...), March 21, 2000.

Laura,

If I'm not mistaken,I think there are quite a few Doomers of varying degrees hangin' out here or should I say those less optimistic.Carl is just A whole lot less optimistic in the aftermath of y2k than the majority that have seen y2k for what it really is/was, NOTTA.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), March 21, 2000.

Regarding the Paula Gordon issue, I only see one post listed as being hers and most of it was quoted material from the real Paula Gordon anyway. Usually, Imposter Trolls tend to behave in an absurd and uncharacteristic manner so as to humiliate the intended victim. This allows for a maximum "explosive" effect of flaming and ridicule. It doesn't really make sense to assume an identity and then behave the exact same way as the poster normally would. That would simply create more debate as opposed to the disruption desired by the trolls.

I wouldn't sweat the Paula Gordon poster. If it's really her, great. If it's not, whoever the mystery poster is has added a different view to the debate.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), March 21, 2000.

capn,

I'd like to posit a theory. I think people are doomers in proportion to what their vulnerability level is. For instance, if you're only one paycheck away from the street, you're probably afraid of a lot of things.

I also think if you're livelihood is dependant on a certain object or philosophy you are a doomer in proportion to that.

For example, I think that people who flys a lot, or has to fly for a living, worries about airplanes. That seems normal to me, however, trying to tie every problem they have into Y2k seems a little silly.

I also think people who work with computers for a living have anxiety in proportion to their vulnerability with those.

The same goes for people in the auto biz, the hospital biz, or whatever.

People worry about things that are important to them, that's normal to some extent, but to worry about multiple things is not, it just sucks the life out of the poor folks who do. These people need our help, not scorn or humiliation.

However, this is just one of my many theories, I don't claim to know much for certain.

Seeyalatergottagonowbye.

~*~

-- Laura (Ladylogic@...), March 21, 2000.

Typical crap responses....

Y2K WAS a nonevent, for those who don't deal with IT other than cruising porn boards and posting inflamatory crap on an anonymous board, because in real life they'd get there asses kicked, or else be too cowardly to open there mouths in the first place.

Many examples of glitches have been posted, many actual failures and glitches have been either covered up where possible, or downplayed as other problems... take some time to read glitch central, if you want examples...

I've personaly seen enough, and am still having to find workarounds to problems that still haven't been fully resolved (everything fixed in 3 days? My ass, it's almost April and I personally know of .com, .mil & .gov that are still struggling.

So spout your polly shit, and personal attacks, it destroyed the old TB2000, along with Yourdon's ego, and it'll probably destroy this place as well...

LL & Y2KPro, as you'll probably be the last to leave, turn off the lights on your way out.

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), March 21, 2000.

Carl:

Don't know where you work or what you do. I don't deal with "frames". Just Win, Mac and Unix. Sysman and I had this discussion. As I reported here in Dec [or sometime I don't remember], I had looked at the reported problems and decided that they wouldn't affect my operation. I upgraded to Win 98 v2 on the appropriate machines and did very little to Mac and Unix.As I reported here on 1 Jan 00, they all worked. As I didn't report here, our links to "frames" also worked. I haven't seen any problems. The definition of a problem for me is that I see its effects.

Best wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), March 21, 2000.

Carl,

Clearly, nothing I ever say to you will ever make any difference. That's Ok. However, I hope you know in your heart I never meant you or any doomer any ill-will.

~*~

-- Laura (Ladylogic@...), March 21, 2000.

Poor ol' Carl. You ask him point by point questions about logic and he gets all huffy. Don't worry fella, the world will end one day - you'll get yer wish...

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), March 21, 2000.

Carl,

Typical crap reponses to your typical crap unsubtantiated allegations.

I missed hearing about the "regional burps" of power that we're Y2K related. Evidence? How are these different from standard power disruptions that occur around the world on a day-to-day basis?

Checked oil prices lately, Carl? Even if they were still going up, that would not prove a damn thing about Y2K in and of itself.

Plane crashes? Point Mugu? How was this accident related to Y2K problems? If this is the case, shouldn't we have seen several to many more major air disasters by this time?

One of our companies is in the chemical industry, Carl. If you remember, the chemical industry was supposed to be one of those that was the least prepared. So far, I have seen no disruption in incoming or outgoing product, no quality problems, no customer inventory system problems, shipping difficulties nothing. The only thing different that I have seen is three record months revenue-wise and we are on our way to a fourth. Our competition seems to be doing well also, in the Y2K at-risk chemical business.

Fortunately for folks like you, their was an airline disaster, and the price of oil was increasing, which gave you something to grasp onto that justifies your doomer thinking. If the stock market were plunging, you would have shown that as evidence of Y2K disruption as well, even though you have nothing to back it up.

Carl, you should wish that you were a coward and didn't post on these boards. That way, you would save yourself from sounding like such an ass.

I think Paula Gordon may need another panelist. You'd probably fit the bill well.

-- CJS (cjs@noemailaddress.com), March 21, 2000.

Carl:

You and your critics seem to be talking at cross purposes here. I detect a failure to communicate.

Near as I can tell, almost everything you say is correct. There are many glitches. Glitch central is full of them, and they're real -- nobody is making them up. And I agree that for every reported glitch, there are probably millions that aren't reported. I agree that IT departments are doing everything possible to cover them up. They're doing patches and workarounds. Some are struggling.

I further agree that many of these are y2k bugs. Nobody claimed that we fixed them all, or even came close. They'll keep cropping up for years to come.

But I see no reason for anyone to claim that a y2k bug is really some other kind of glitch. Errors are errors. Few if any of the Glitch Central problems are related to y2k in any way, but this ONLY indicates that as a class, y2k bugs aren't that virulent. Glitches of any kind are a pain, they inconvenience people and reduce productivity, Date bugs just add their weight to the mix. So far, it takes some real imagination to associate y2k to nearly any reportable glitch. But hey, we can assume they are ALL disguised y2k glitches, why not?

What your critics are pointing out is that, taken all together, these glitches *from whatever causes* aren't reducing our overall quality of life to below what it was a year ago (or two, or three, or five). Macro indicators show no disturbing decline in anything -- the stock market, employment, GDP, power outages, profits, you name it. If anything, the economy is *too* healthy and the FED is trying to cut back on the throttle.

In light of this, it's pretty natural for people to wonder at your motivation for pointing to every one of life's normal misfortunes and saying "look, look, there's another one!" without ever stepping back to notice that neither the number nor the severity of these misfortunes is in any way abnormal. WHY work so very hard to convince yourself that a perfectly normal glitch rate is the road to calamity, especially in the context of overall prosperity?

Instead, I suggest you enjoy prosperity while it lasts, because it never lasts forever.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), March 21, 2000.

Flint,

Agreed....Nothing good lasts forever....

I for one have never been so 'blessed' money wise.

Grew up on west side with my mom, welfare children, barely enuf to eat at times.

Have had more now than ever.

----consumer, who is undeserving but ALWAYS willing to share.

-- consumer (shh@aol.com), March 22, 2000.

I recieved an email from Paula Gordon herself and could verify that it is indeed her posting on this thread.

I apologize for any confusions this may have caused.

OTFR

-- Old TB2K Forum Regular (freespeech@yahoo.com), March 22, 2000.

OTFR,

Don't sweat it. Moderating a forum is never easy. :)

What probably happened was, Gordon wrote that on someone else's account (or perhaps a computer at work), but gave her personal email address. Happens all the time.

I have several accounts with different ISPs, some for work, some for play. I'm likely to switch as the whim hits (for example, if I'm having trouble logging on with my current provider, I may switch for a few weeks).

I'm glad to see your reasoned and balanced approach. The sysops at TB2000 used to drive me crazy trying to play Sherlock Holmes with IP addresses. They could NOT get it through their heads that you *cannot* positively identify a poster by IP address.

(Shoot, you can't even get a good idea. All an IP reveals is which access node the poster happened to be logged into when he/she decided to post a message here. Sometimes the path will get routed through really odd places, too; you can't even determine the city with any guaranteed accuracy.)

-- Me (me@thisplace.net), March 22, 2000.

It's been awhile since I've cruised back here and I find it amusing that people are still arguing about the same stuff. To put it mildly, I suppose I was taken in by some of the more dire predictions about y2k. I couldn't have been more wrong. Although I always held out that the we could end up with a BITR, on more than a few nights the fear of Worse kept me up into the wee hours.

Lingering questions remain, however. I haven't had time to look into them deeply enough, but hey, that's what forums are for (a great substitute for having to spend one's own energy thinking).

1) I heard many rumors of brief, sporatic outages over the date change, some occuring suspiciously close to midnight 00. Real y2k stuff?

2) Although this news about oil shortages and price hikes can be explained solely by OPEC (deliberate) production cuts, is it possible that some of these production cuts ARENT deliberate and actually ways of covering up y2k disasters at pipelines, shipping, and refinery nodes of production?

3) What about the public panic issue? Was the terrorist/New Year's Eve link merely a ploy to encourage people to stay at home and away from crowds to safeguard against y2k riots?

Hey maybe I'm still a little paranoid. It is certainly easier than having to expend mental energy and actually do bona fide thinking.

gotta go now caballeros

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), March 24, 2000.

coprolith,

I think there was a combination of things going on with #3. The publicity ploy was used, but there were concerns and serious preparation for riots.

Interesting times, huh.

Good to see you back.

-- flora (***@__._), March 24, 2000.