Ed Yourdon on Paula Gordon's latest

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A few additional thoughts about all of this...

1. Whatever Y2K stuff did, or did not, happen is pretty much behind us at this point -- i.e., up until 31 days ago, one could conceivably imagine that some last-minute Y2K remediation work was going on, in order to forestall the leap-year rollover problem that occurred on 12/31/2000. But at this point, there is nothing that any company can do to prevent problems; all they can do is run around and clean up whatever problems occurred, to the extent that they even know about such problems (e.g., some of the data corruption problems might not yet have been discovered).

2. Whatever Y2K problems did, or did not, happen will probably never be fully admitted or acknowledged, for all of the obvious reasons that people on this forum have discussed ad nauseum. If you didn't fully appreciate the stubborn determination of companies to stonewall, obfuscate, and deny the existence of problems, just take a look at the Bridgestone/Firestone/Ford problems that surfaced last summer ... and thank your lucky stars that one dogged attorney was stubborn enough to persuade a judge to make the companies divulge accident data they had been sitting on for three years. Then think about the cases where our beloved government denied, obfuscated, and stonewalled inquiries about nuclear radiation problems from the 1950s onward. Then stop and think for a moment about the 66,000 companies (a figure obtained from the Chemical Industrial Safety Board) that manufacture, treat, transport, or dispose of toxic chemicals ... and ask yourself what the odds are that (a) none of them had any Y2K embedded-system problems, and (b) the companies that did have problems disclosed the nature and severity of the problem in a forthright manner. Bottom line: it could be another 10-20 years before some dogged attorney overcomes corporate stonewalling when trying to figure out why everyone in some random little town is getting cancer, or glowing in the dark with excess radiation.

3. There's no point trying to convince or persuade anyone that we're coping with the manifestations of Y2K problems (high energy prices, excessive maintenance and breakdowns, billing problems, etc etc) if they're not already convinced. We couldn't do it before the rollover, and we certainly can't do it now.

4. Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether all of these problems are Y2K-related or not. Whatever the cause, the reality is that they exist. We don't know, for sure, whether they're going to get worse -- just as we didn't know, for sure, how serious or trivial the rollover problems were going to be in the first place. Ultimately, we're in the same situation we were in back in mid-1999: based on whatever data we have available, and based on how we choose to analyze and interpret that data, we each have to decide what kind of "insurance" actions are appropriate. Some of us will do nothing; some of us will panic and perhaps do too much; some of us will decide that our Y2K stockpile should be replenished; etc. But whatever we decide, most of us will decide to keep the decisions to ourselves...

Ed

-- (die@hard.doomer), February 01, 2001

Answers

Here we go again.

Pick a year, any year. No, on second thought, try not to pick a year when we had a major flood, hurricane, major blackout, drought, serious economic problems, major political scandal, market crash, etc. Just pick a normal year, and ignore the fact that these are in the minority.

Now, compare that year with last year. Any real differences? Well, no, not really. But wait! We had y2k happen last year, and nobody will ever admit that any given problem might have been caused by date bugs still lurking in software. Companies won't admit to y2k problems.

So the difference between last year and a normal *good* year is that in the good year, the problems that didn't happen really DID NOT happen, whereas last year the problems that didn't happen really DID happen, but they were kept a secret from us. Last year was MUCH WORSE, maybe even as bad as an ordinary normal year, but nobody was told about it!

Just remember -- just because nothing happened is NOT GOOD EVIDENCE that nothing happened. It's not good because it conflicts with our foreknowledge that bad things HAD to happen, they were unavoidable because preventing them was not possible. All trains of proper thought led to that same unavoidable conclusion.

Sigh. Yourdon and Gordon hitched their wagons to the wrong star. They blew it. Hard on the ol' career, I guess.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 01, 2001.


...or not.

LOL!

-- Buddy (buddydc@go.com), February 01, 2001.


I had to read it twice, but what Flint said.........well put Flint!!

they're coming to take me away ha ha......

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), February 01, 2001.


Yeah, but what about those exploding manhole covers? Explain them!! If they ain't Y2K I don't know what is.

-- The Engineer (spcengineer@yahoo.com), February 01, 2001.

How do WE know hes NOT telling the truth?

We are all gonna die.

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), February 02, 2001.



Flint, if I remember correctly, wasn't The Ed and Paula Show saying that on New Year's Eve, 1999, it was all "being covered up" and that what millions of people were witnessing on tee vee was all powered by generators?

I never laughed so hard in my life.....

-- why is the theme from (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), February 02, 2001.


@#$%^ fingers.....

(my "name" part was SUPPOSED to read: why is the theme from "Itchy and Scratchy" playing in my head?)

(oh nevermind. it just loses something.)

-- grumble (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), February 02, 2001.


Patricia:

Yeah, I remember that too. And for the next few days, Yourdon posted several times just begging someone, anyone, to blow the whistle or give him some juicy stories of how things were on the way down. Nobody had anything for him, so of course that was being covered up too.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder when he finally gave up on his humpty dumpty project?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), February 02, 2001.


wasn't The Ed and Paula Show saying that on New Year's Eve, 1999, it was all "being covered up" and that what millions of people were witnessing on tee vee was all powered by generators?

I remember that Patricia! It was absolutely the most ridiculous statement I had ever seen Yourdon utter. He had written that on the TB2k forum and you could practically see the blood draining out of his face as he was desperately grasping at straws while the realization of how very wrong he had been slowly sunk into his consciousness. I also remember posting a reply suggesting he open his [damn] eyes as reports of zero problems were rolling in all over the internet from people around the world. As I recall, Hoffmeister and a couple others echoed my sentiments and it came as no surprise that Yourdon made no further comment on that thread.

-- CD (costavike@hotmail.com), February 02, 2001.


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