Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 13
"March 27, 1998 - 644 days to go." WRP69
(c) 1997, 1998 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and
reproduce this newsletter as long as this entire document is reproduced in
its entirety. You may optionally quote an individual article but you should
include this header down to the tearline. I do not grant permission to a
commercial publisher to reprint this in print media.
As seen in
USENET:comp.software.year-2000
http://www.elmbronze.demon.co.uk/year2000/
http://www.kiyoinc.com/HHResCo.html
--------------------tearline -----------------------------
Please fax or email copies of this to your geek pals, especially those
idiots who keep sending you lightbulb, blonde, or Bill Gates jokes,
and urban legends like the Arizona rocket car story.
If you have a Y2K webpage, feel free to host the Weather Reports.
Don't forget- April 2, 3 1998, Geek Out.
Project Dumbass needs you.
In this issue:
1. Tidbits
2. Feds go Nuts
3. Geek Bailout
4. Venues
5. Readers Mailbox.
6. Big Money
7. CCCC
-------- Tidbits --------------------------
-------- Frank writes -----
Frank is up in New York; he has his lone ranger mask on and is shouting,
"stick em up!" His pals back at the U.S. IRS are getting the 10% increase
reported here. That's about $6,000 on a $60,000/year salary. Well deserved.
------- Ham Status --------
I've gotten good response from my Ham Radio articles. Several hams have
written that they have been worried about Y2K for a while and are preparing
their stations for emergency operation. One fellow designed and sold
thousands of tiny solid state CW transceivers. With a rig like this in his
backpack, a skilled ham can beep messages across thousands of miles.
------- Feds go Nuts ------
Here are a couple lines from the Federal Computer Week,
http://www.fcw.com, lots of govie Y2K articles.
------------- clips------------------
MARCH 16, 1998
White House mulls Year 2000 legislation
"At its current rate, DOD will complete only 36 percent of its
mission-critical systems on time. How can OMB possibly say
that DOD has 'evidence of adequate progress?' I am baffled
and disturbed by OMB's casual attitude toward DOD's Year
2000 problem," Horn said.
Speaking last week at an industry forecast conference,
outgoing acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command,
Control, Communications and Intelligence Anthony Valletta
said Horn's projection is based on a "linear" progression for
fixing the Year 2000 problem when, in fact, DOD is fixing
systems at a geometric rate.
Valletta said DOD will have 98 percent of its systems fixed by
the end of 1998, giving the agency all of 1999 to undertake
what he called the "mother of all tests."
---------- end clip -----------
The DOD is fixing systems at a geometric rate? Say What! The DOD like
everyone else dumbed-down for the last 15 years. I know some king-geeks from
the DOD and they bailed out last year. DOD staff is just like the rest of us.
I can press my ear to the ground and hear the herds galloping.
Just because someone makes up a concept, like 'geometric fixing', that doesn't
mean it's actually happening. What babble, fix the systems, stop the talk. We
got work to do.
---------------- The geek bailout ----------------------
I talk to a lot of geeks, several of them are making noises about bailing out
of the populated areas, the factors are complex. In some cases, the overall
rate spool up has allowed them to lateral from DC to Colorado, Texas, Iowa,
South Carolina, etc. Only a few years ago, they would have taken a large cut
to move, now they can do it as a lateral or in one case, an increase.
They certainly could have gotten a large increase by changing jobs in this
area but that is not what they wanted to do.
Staying the course - Some geeks are sticking with their current employer, not
because their employer is so great but because they are 'in the groove', 'used
to it here', and maybe a little afraid.
I have no trouble with that. It can be stressful to change jobs. However,
there is a huge downside, unless a company is forced to act, it will continue
to underpay. ...which is all right, I don't work for you, I've worked at low
rates and I've worked at high rates, high is better.
If a company continues to underpay, gradually the geeks slip away, a
large company can pretend that there is no problem, can allocate and
redistribute people, pay headhunters to pester people with rediculously low
dollars, hire kids who want to write video games or code cell-phone software
to modify COBOL report programs -- $27/hour, forty acres AND a MULE.
Pretend, pretend, pretend, like a rubber band stretching, stretching, until
one day, -snap-, we have 644 days left to fix the software that IS the
company and we're down 45% in staffing. Need some help? Sure... but not in
the free edition WRP.
----------- Venues ---------------
The noise level on c.s.y2k is getting higher. Between Paul and his evil twin;
DD tagging everyone with his whiz-bang slapstick, and certain parties acting
out their eating disorders, there just isn't the content that we'd like.
There is a lot of news about organizations moving from denial to
acceptance. We still get the occasional troll who in effect says,
Yessuh, I ain't never seen no cancer germ, so using my pin sized brain, I know
that cancer is just a bunch of hype. I ain't never seen no heart disease germ
neither. Sigh, there's no point in discussing y2k with them.
The flame war with the Unix Propellor-heads over tm underscore year taught me
a lot too. We've had that report of the day after 12/31/99 is 1/1/100.
Oopsie, you can't just do a quick patch and remake the system, it's burned
into ROM or the binary is out in the field in thousands of systems that we've
lost track of.
The problem with the Unix Propellor-heads isn't that they're stupid, it's that
they're pretty good at what they do but their world, the SUN development
system or whatever, is a teeny-tiny portion of the IT world. They need
to get out more, spend a couple years writing production code on a TCAM
SNA/SDLC system, do some big systems work.
The noise level is too high, several solutions have been presented. Frosty of
Frostbyte has this webpage:
http://www.frostbyte.com.au/public/year2000.html
I tried to send him email but his anti-spam got me.
Scott has his 'secret' newsgroup but he banned me from it.
We have the chatroom at:
http://www.ntplx.net/~rgearity
And I'll be putting more effort into the WRPs. Please circulate the WRPs as
widely as possible. If you have a webpage, feel free to host the WRPs.
-------------- Reader's Mailbox -----------
>
> OK you impress me with your knowledge and delight me with your phraseology
> BUT what about all those Nasdaq listed Tech companies hawking fix-it ware
> all over the place. How does that square with your Doomsday scenario if
> these guys got the techno tools to clean up this mess? Haven't they heard
> of lawsuits?
The CASE tools vary in efficacy. I haven't done a survey of them but the reports are that
there are some good ones. But they don't solve the problem, they turn a fifty million
dollar problem into a forty-five million dollar problem. Or a problem that will take
until 2003 to solve into a problem that can be solved by summer 2002.
Anyway, it's not my doomsday scenario. I think we'll have problems but it won't be the
Black Plague. Keep things in perspective, we kill 40,000 people on the highways and roads
every year.
-------------- Big Money -----------------
Speaking of the stock market, have you considered the DOW 10,000 problem? How
many systems crank the DJI? We might be adding another digit... OOPSIE!
Let's drag the SEC databases for Y2K info. What to know what's going on?
Follow the money.
Announced Y2K expenditures in Millions
Company 1997 1998 1999 Total
General Motors 40 500 540 1998 is 350-500
Citicorp 150 225 225 600 400 M LOC
Chase 250 200 M LOC
J.P. Morgan 250
Banker's Trust 230
BankAmerica 380
Nations Bank 25 120
Fleet 150
Maryland 100
Virginia 100
I'd like to build this list up to about 50 organizations.
-------------- CCCC -----------------
Geek out. I've made my plans... I'll be getting an old guy's physical. Oh
my.
I will be doing some hanging loose, decompressing, taking a break, I might
even take in an afternoon movie, Lost in Space maybe, popcorn coated with palm
oil colored by yellow #4, those chocolates shaped like little cow patties
covered with sugar dots colored by white #2, yummy, good eating.
Remember Geek Out isn't a strike, a work stoppage; it's a co-ordinated break
from the Y2K crisis. It's our chance to show our solidarity... whatever
that is. Well, it's getting away from the slave pens; why should the people
who essentially run the civilized world, who make it happen, who are the
masters of the technology, why should we spend our days in pens like veal
being fattened, like chickens in a factory while the horn-hairs, the clueless,
the pompous, think their self-grand thoughts in offices with windows on two
sides, private bathrooms, and desks the size of conference tables.
When Y2K puts the corporations down, employment hits 30 percent, and
civilization spirals down, I want you geeks to watch out for each other. None
of this baloney about management getting twice the salary of the top geek, the
big offices, bonuses, and all the treats. I want to see geek run, geek owned
organizations in which a small admin staff, a staff in cubicles reports to the
geek teams and the king-geek.
I want to see programmers (and engineers, testers, IV&V experts, technical
writers, etc.) running things, being careful with resources.
There are too many con-men (and women) out there, Travelers/Williamsons, who
prey upon the corporate and IT world. Scammers with a smooth line, a sincere
gaze, and a hand in your wallet. There is a lot of money in Y2K, it is just
now becomming available. It should all go to the people who do the work,
that's you.
I've noticed an uptick in Y2K scams. This is just the beginning. The DC Y2K
Weather Report is the voice of the programmer. It's going to get very
strange, very dangerous, companies will merge, fail, sell out. If you're
going to survive, you'll have to work geek to geek, you'll need geeks watching
your back, feeding you the straight information.
And please, if you are a corporate geek, long term in a company and a
freelance geek comes to you, please don't compare your $90K salary with his
$100/hour rate. These are not comparable and it's not your money. If the
fair market contract rate in your area is $100/hour, so be it. Pay it, don't
argue, don't quibble. Similarly, if you are a contract geek state your rate
and do the work. Y2K is not forever and at some point in the future, you will
move on.
I'm really worried about you corporate geeks. I'm concerned that some of you
are not doing your part to get the work started and the rates up where they
should be. If the work doesn't start soon, your company will fail, your stock
options, pension, and work history will be at risk. Please, start the work
now.
In either case, do the work and earn your money. We are in for the ride of
our lives.
cory hamasaki 644 days, 15,464 hours.