http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/log/ has an interesting discussion.

Joe Nickell wrote a piece in Wired magazine about y2k. " For those absent in byline, I'm being bombarded with vitriolic and often bizarre email about my story last week, "Y2K: The Missionary Position." I'd be interested to know what folks think of the criticisms at... http://www.wired.com/news/news/wiredview/story/15875.html One person who wrote directly to me accused me of blaming Christians for the Y2K problems."

Millennium pundit vs. Wired Hell hath no fury like a Y2K doomsayer scorned -- or so Wired News discovered when a story it recently ran, "Y2K: The Missionary Position," provoked the wrath of Gary North, the vociferous millennium bug expert-cum-Christian economist. The story, by Joe Nickell, delineated concerns within some Christian organizations that scare-mongering about the year 2000 problem was running rampant in some conservative Christian groups. Although the story didn't mention North, he immediately posted a long response on his own site calling it "smear journalism." The response included both a link to Wired News and "substantial" excerpts of the story, according to Wired. Wired Digital's lawyers, in turn, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that North immediately remove the text because "it is a violation of federal copyright law ... to quote substantially all of an article." Now North is crying foul, suggesting that his First Amendment rights are being quashed as part of a liberal political agenda. Responds Wired Digital spokesperson Andrew De Vries, "There was nothing ideological about it at all. He's posting a substantial piece of a copyrighted article without permission." North has removed most of the Wired text from his site, but he sounds like he's sure he'll have the last laugh. As he puts it on his site, "I believe that Wired and the liberal world view that sustains it have only 15 months to go. Y2K will serve as my response." -- Janelle Brown SALON | Oct. 29, 1998

" We had our first domestic Y2K problem yesterday when the no-longer- maunfactured but dependable budget program on my wife's aging Mac refused to take a "00" entry for a magazine subscription. We all get to watch now month by month as the thin chrome plating falls off the infotech God. *8-/" - Bruce Sterling And from Bruce: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 28 Oct 1998 04:17:45 GMT From: Blake Leverett Subject: Real Life Y2K failure Here is a real-world example of a Y2K failure. A buddy of mine (call him "Jim") is the network administrator at a small (8 Mill/yr sales) company. I can't say the company name, so if you are going to whine about how I am making this up, don't bother reading on. But I am familiar enough with the situation (I know some other people there) to know that he is not making this up. It is a manufacturing company. "Jim" warned the company management over a year ago that the company's software would self-destruct in October of 1998 because of the year 2000 bug. It looks out 15 months into the future and although the software is configurable, it can't be configured to look ahead for a shorter time period. The software is an old DOS package, and it's not Y2K compliant. It runs everything from manufacturing documentation to accounting, payroll and accounts payable included. The company management dragged its feet until March. Finally, after "Jim" threatened to quit, they decided to shell out the $100K or so it cost for new software. Months of work followed by both the software vendor and "Jim" to make the switchover happen. Well, here it is the end of October, and the new system isn't up yet. They started too late, so the old software is still running, and is peeking over the Y2K boundary. There have been problems. The database files get scrambled on a daily basis. "Jim" has to edit these files manually with a hex editor to fix them. The headers get screwed up, and he uses a hex editor to side-by-side compare the old (good) file with the new (screwed) file. Then he guesses what to edit to make it limp along for another 4 hours. Sometimes the files can't be repaired, and the lost data must be re-entered from paper copies (if any exist). The real kicker came the other day when they ran Accounts Payable. They are a wee bit behind on their AP, so they paid out partial payments to many of their vendors. A total of $150K worth of checks was printed, and promptly mailed. Shortly thereafter, the system crashed yet again. The record of the latest checks was lost. Since a large number of vendors were paid, they now have no idea of what they owe to any vendor. It effectively destroyed all records of their AP. Y2K is serious. This little manufacturer is wasting lots of time fighting Y2K problems (100 man-hours this month so far), and is losing money from lost information. And they are in good shape - my friend "Jim" saw this coming and insisted that the problem be fixed at great expense to the company. He is a big asset to the company, so they listened when he threatened to quit. If he were mediocre, they probably would have called his bluff. They will be ready (supposedly) on November 1st. But there are THOUSANDS of similar small companies that haven't shelled out big bucks for a fix. They will start seeing problems soon. And the problems will get worse and worse as more routines look past 1/1/00. Although this company is experiencing lots of computer problems, the customers have yet to find out. The customers can only interact with the company via telephone with the sales or service departments (or www), so internal problems are easily concealed. But their efficiency and effectiveness has been reduced significantly. And it has cost them dearly both to fix the problem and to not have it fixed in time. I hope this provides a small example of what Y2K can do. Computers are boring and unimportant devices - until they quit working. There are very few companies that can survive for long without their data. Blake Leverett -------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- the moderated mailing list of politics and technology To subscribe: send a message to majordomo@vorlon.mit.edu with this text: subscribe politech More information is at http://www.well.com/~declan/politech/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------

so, is the Spring here Y2K compliant? (I know we're Y2037 compliant...hehe)

Nope, gotta install a new motherboard before y2k. A straight Pentium motherboard should work.

The State Department has issued an announcement about possible malfunctions of computer systems outside the United States as of Jan. 1, 2000. Financial services, including automated teller machines, credit cards, and banking transfers, may be affected, along with transportation, medical facilities and communications. The department said it would publish details as they become available and by Oct. 1, the consular information sheet on each country would note what was known about that country's preparations. These may be seen on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov/

woo woo!

so, are you compliant, Stace? (or just pliant?...)

Or pliable?

umm.... sometimes, often and it depends

depends on how and where you're nudged, right?

For information about the City of Austin's Y2K plans see http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/y2k/default.htm

and from their link page... The Year 2000 Information Center, considered by many to be the premier source for information on this subject, is a homepage on the Internet devoted to creating awareness of the Year 2000 problem. It can be found at: http://www.year2000.com/ The Year 2000 Information Center was created by Peter De Jager, a leader in Year 2000 awareness. . President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, http://www.y2k.gov/ provides information on the council's efforts and has an interesting section named "Recent Rumors" under What's New. Time Bomb 2000: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You! written by one of the world's leading authorities on software development, Edward Yourdon, together with his daughter, financial analyst, Jennifer Yourdon, is now a New York Times Business Best Seller. For information on this book go to http://www.year2000.com/products/NFy2kbooks.html. The Tenagra Corporation and Amazon.com Books have joined forces to highlight a number of Year 2000 books on this site. President Clinton's Speech on Y2K President Clinton delivered his first major remarks on Y2K, July 14 before the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/html/19980714-5571.html Key point: "Because the difficulty is as far flung as the billions of microchips that run everything from farm equipment to VCRs, this is not a challenge that is susceptible to a single government program or an easy fix." Responding to the Y2K Challenge: A Primer for Local Government Officials on the Year 2000 Problem available at http://pti.nw.dc.us/y2k/docs/y2kwpap.htm Authored by Public Technology, Inc., this article provides insight into some of the issues facing local governments and the Year 2000 issues. Public Technology, Inc., is the non-profit technology research, development, and commercialization organization of the National League of Cities (NLC), the National Association of Counties (NACo), and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). PTI�s mission is to advance the development and use of technology in local and state government. Texas Department of Information Resources Year 2000 Project Office available at http://www.dir.state.tx.us/y2k/project/itn.htm This website offers information on state-level Year 2000 programs and progress reports on various state agencies. United States Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/index.html

http://www.know-2000.com/ But the explanation, which is particulary good, about the three specific problems with pc hardware is here: http://www.freey2kdownload.com/overview1.htm

http://y2k.state.fl.us/

So much for Y2K... Is everyone as tired of sardines as I am?! (No...we really did not do that!)

"What'll I do with all the ammo?" must be THE big topic on some cocktail parties.

Does anyone besides me think it was a not-to-clever ploy to feather nests and pad bank accounts? Gadzooks! Ammo?! Lamp oil, but no ammo that I know about!

Well, all those survivalists, wait what happens when all their wares hit the market... What would a garage sale look like? I mean, they were prepared for everything ("They won't get the tv, and they won't touch the Camaro..."), so they must have stocked at least a dozen rounds per neighbour. All this stuff was very expensive, and I believe many people who are not extremely rich have serious amounts of capital bound in these items. Now, if they want to pay the post-Y2K mortgage, or the next rate for the car, or whatever, something's gotta go, no?

I have once read a comment by an arms dealer, who supplies warring parties large scale, that arms never go away. One side looses - the winner keeps their own stuff, plus reaps the losers gear. To finance reconstruction, they sell arms surplusses of. These end at another point of conflict with a fighting party, who'll win or loose. Thus, guns and cannons and all kind of gear circulates around, all the time, all around the world. That stuff doesn't *vanish*. It gets stocked up, until it's used, and after use, it's sold or restocked until the next time. Does anybody have a statistic on how many more firearms and ammo were sold in 1999 than in other years? Worldwide? In the US?

I would also be most interested in knowing that statistic about personal firearms sales pre-Y2K. I shall hunt for that. By now, it is well known that war is profitable. It pulled us out of the Great Depression and numerous other depressions. It stabilizes population overgrowth and makes pukas in the ground which hide undetonated ordnance for decades. War is arguably a Good Thing...but not by anyone who is sane! I am still put off by my son's lovely and excellently made Krupps coffee maker...!

As for the survivalists, they are sure the end of the world is upon us in any case and are paranoid about just about everyone and everything. Listen to Art Bell on the Internet if you cannot get it locally on your radio. They will never part with their underground bunkers and tunnels, nor their ammo and guns, nor their very expensive survival food and fuel. Their children are held in a state of seige all of the time and are home-schooled. What does this say about the generation of children of these people coming into adulthood? Frightning!

Marcia, that's not Krupp's, that's Krups. Different company. You can drink that coffee with a untroubled mind... Unless, that is, Krups is owned by an evil company... But then, everybody owns everybody elses stock these days, I guess. Nobody is innocent anymore.

This is true. Thanks for the clarification. I should have realized it! I have ITT stock which has been into just about everything for good and evil over the years. It is my little way of staying in the game for world domination, of course... *laugh* You are right, the loss of innocence is universal.

Yeah, Universal, too, I guess. The biggest joke was this dutch pacifist band in the eighties who were signed to EMI, and Thorne-EMI was big into what professional bullshitters call defense industry.

Offense Industry?! Ah yes...they have all of the money, don't they?! Spin doctors are everywhere and can make that silk purse out of a sow's ear without as much as a snip or a needle. Everything is euphemisms nowadays lest we really find out what they are doing in all actuality!

NEW BUG WARNING - FOR FEBRUARY 29 Businesses are being warned to watch out for new computer software problems - hard on the heels of the Millennium Bug. On February 29 some computer operating systems could go haywire as they fail to recognise that 2000 is a leap year. Leap years come every four years except at the turn of each century. But every 400 years the rule does not apply, which makes this year a leap year after all and tacks an extra day on to February.