http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/tmc.htm

post rollover comments

Good reading for anyone who hasn't.

(If you were a "doomer" of any kind last year, and were so offended by the "meme" premise that you would not read this article....try now. It will clear up in your own mind what happened to you, why you got "sucked in" by the slick willys)

-- (madness@avoided.good), April 03, 2000

Answers

Great article. For those who have not read it, definately do so now.

Thanks for posting it.

-- FutureShock (gray@matter.think), April 03, 2000.

Once again cpr shows his ability to transform himself into any identity he chooses.

This time, it's -- (madness@avoided.good)

When will we see a statue erected in your honor in Dallas? Anytime soon?

-- cpr (is@apompous.ass), April 04, 2000.

Y2k was something that had to be fixed, and it had a set deadline. It was hard to warn the business community to fix Y2k without individual citizens becoming aware of the deadline as well. Given that we have a lawsuit-happy society, businesses were relectant to discuss their Y2k progress in detail.

Shifting gears from waking the world up to the deadline to asking its citizens to forget about Y2k was bound to be more difficult than first imagined, especially when some Y2k repairs continued well into 1999.

Y2k was a lot more than an urban legend.

-- (Set@fixed.deadline), April 04, 2000.

What about the business' that didn't do ANYTHING, the COUNTRIES that didn't do anything?

I think the lynch article is meant to address the hype of y2k fears, rather than the genuine business work needed.

-- for slick willies, (y2k@big.bust), April 05, 2000.

An excerpt from the final report of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion.

http://www.y2k.gov/docs/LASTREP3.htm

Since no one knew with certainty the true extent of the problem or had any experience in dealing with anything like it, initial cost estimates for Y2K-related repairs varied widely. The range was illustrated by a frequently cited estimate of $300 to $600 billion for the worldwide cost. Many predicted that the final price tag for the United States Government alone would top $30 billion. Given the relatively unknown size of the task and the ballooning cost estimates, it is easy to understand why many serious people in the mid- and late-1990s who had looked at the situation maintained there was no way the work could be finished in time.

Several obstacles appeared to support the view of those who said it was too late to avoid disaster. There was the natural tendency to procrastinate. In the mid-1990s, with several years until the millennium and the possibility that someone would invent a "magic bullet," some were comfortable putting the work off into the future. There was also the perception that Y2K was solely an information technology issue, not a core management problem. As a result, in many organizations, Y2K was just another project battling for scarce financial and management resources on the IT side of the ledger.

In the private sector, information bottlenecks were widespread. Anti- trust issues and a natural tendency to compete for advantage made working together on Y2K difficult, if not inconceivable, for many companies. Moreover, the threat of lawsuits had companies worried that they would be held liable for anything they said about the Y2K compliance of products or devices they used, or their test processes and results. Legal considerations also prevented companies from saying anything about their own readiness for the date change. Thus, their business partners -- as well as the general public -- assumed the worst.

When the Council began its work in early 1998, the Federal Government was struggling to fix its systems. The consensus among many was that the Government wouldn't make it. In particular, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Health Care Financing Administration, and the Defense Department had an extraordinary amount of work to do in a relatively short period of time. Some people were predicting that government agency failures alone would send the U.S. economy into a deep recession.

Internationally, much of the world seemed to be paying little attention to making sure that information systems would be ready for the date change. A 1998 World Bank study found that three-fourths of the world's countries lacked even basic plans for addressing the Y2K problem. In some cases, countries were aware of Y2K but lacked the resources and technical expertise to deal with it. Furthermore, information sharing among nations was limited, hampering the efforts of those who might have benefited from a neighbor's advice on remediating systems.

In short, when the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion was created in early 1998, the Y2K problem looked too mammoth, too complicated, and too interconnected to be solvable.

-- (y2k@news.hound), April 05, 2000.

"the Y2K problem looked too mammoth, too complicated, and too interconnected to be solvable. "

typical politician diatribe, written by politicians for politicians...jez another excuse to spend unneccissarily.

Our .gov at work!

-- (polly@polly.tician), April 05, 2000.

Also see the thread "Final Report of the President's Council on Y2K Conversion."

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

-- (y2k@news.hound), April 06, 2000.