Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 24
          "June 8, 1998 -  571 days to go."  WRP80
                         
    (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.

Did you miss Geek Out?
Project Dumbass needs you.

In this issue:

1.  Storm Warning for Banks!
2.  Siemen's Central Office Switch
3.  Washinton Post Ads 
4.  Date Problem Killed Billionaire?
5.  CCCC

------------- Storm Warning for Banks!  -----------

From the Financial Times.
Title:  IBM runs into difficulties over CoreBank system 
Date:   May 25,1998

Text:  International Business Machines, the largest supplier of IT
services to the banking industry, has run into difficulties over the
developement of CoreBank, the system it has been marketing as a basic
computer platform for retail banks.

CoreBank was originally developed by a consortium of Danish savings
banks and developed by IBM as an international banking system.  IBM has
sold the system to banks in the UK, France, and Sweden, but has
encountered problems in adapting the software.  In the UK, Halifax chose
CoreBank 18 months ago as its principal retail banking platform, in
hopes that the system which can handle dates after the Year 2000, would
solve its millenium bomb problems.  However, senior Halifax executives
said the system has proved unable to handle features of the UK banking
market such as mortgage interest relief at source, and was a long way
from being ready to implement.  "Basically, IBM over-promised," a senior
Halifax executive said.  Svenska Handelsbanken of Sweden also signed up
for CoreBank.

Several other UK banks have also spent millions of pounds trying to
implement CoreBank in their own systems although they have not been
publicly announced as clients. 
--------------- end clip -------------------

OK, you euro-trash geeks, practice saying "Stick em up!"  -sniff-
-sniff- I smell liquidated damages.

Denial heads, please don't bicker with me, take it up with the Financial
Times.

But it gets better.....

Here are a few tastey quotes from a June 4, 1998, SIEMENS press
release...  this one is so HOT, it's not on the web yet:

------------ Begin quotes -----------------------

Siemens Announces New Release for EWSD Central Office Switch; Latest
Release of World's Leading Switch Features Improvements, Including "Y2K"
Solution.
 
June 4, 1998, Release 16.0 of Siemen's Telecom Networks' EWSD Switching
System, available during the first quarter of 1999, will feature a
variety of new features, operational efficiencies and cost savings for
local and long distance carriers and advanced intelligent network (AIN)
service providers.

The EWSD switch is the world market leader in digital switching systems,
with more than 160 million ports installed.

...

The EWSD Release 16.0 feature package includes:

Architectural Features - Software Modifications have been made to adapt
the EWSD switch to be millennium-ready for the Year 2000 and beyond.

...

http://www.stn.siemens.com 
----------- End Quotes -------------------------- 

Hey, where are the guys who said, no, no Y2K problems in phone switches.
The GOOD NEWS is that Siemens has announced a Y2K ready switch.  The bad
news is that Release 16.0 will be ready in 1Q 1999... real soon now.

Hopefully the full text will show up on their web site.  I'm too busy to
type the whole thing.

----------- Washington Post Ads!  -----------------

Please check out http://www.washingtonpost.com, last Sunday was yet
another mega job issue.  There were over 40 pages of -halp- -halp- we're
sorry we rightsized you, ads for geeks, code crankers, COBOL heads, and 
other assorted techno-nerds.  If you're too cheap to spring for the 
printed paper, the Post keeps the job ads in a searchable database.  Get
some fat ones and post them on the lunchroom wall when no one is 
looking,  put a 'buck' slip on a pack and send them around the office, 
really give your boss a sore tummy.

------------ Date problem killed Billionaire? -----

The decade discussion a few weeks ago triggered a couple synapses.  Long
time readers of the WRP's will recall my chance meeting with a local
assembler gear head.  He told me that Maxwell Online, the information
services company of Billionaire Robert Maxwell used 1 digit years in its
databases.  He worked there and said that the 1989-1990 rollover was a
catastrophy.  Here's the history:

1980            Maxwell Global Publishing Empire in expansion
1985-1989       Maxwell Communication Corporation PLC backs Maxwell
                Online Development
1990 January 1, Maxwell Online 1 digit year failure.
1990-1991       Robert Maxwell loots Maxwell firms to shore up empire.
1991 November 5 Robert Maxwell jumps from his yacht.

Coincidence?  Maybe.  Causal relationship?  I don't know...  the
assembler gear head laughed when he told me about Mr.  Maxwell taking a
swim with the sharks.

Will we see it happen again?

Yep, keep sharp implements away from the horn-hairs. Don't give them Dr.
Kevorkian's phone number.  I expect that whoever makes the Y2K movie 
will include the above story, it's too good a telling.

Remember my stories about management screaming in terror?
------------ CCCC -----------------

Is everyone exploring http://www.ship2000.com?  I looked through it a
bit more.  When you're a Lloyd's name and personally responsible for
paying off a shipping loss, you get a little worried about things like
GPS failures, boiler control systems causing explosions, things like
that.

We've got a mess on our hands.  I don't know how this story will play
out, I have some guesses, nothing concrete.  I am certain that the large
enterprise systems cannot be fixed in the time left.  This is my area of
expertise.  I'm not guessing about this or basing my statement on
something I read in a pop-biz magazine or a software engineering
journal.  I build complex systems for a living.  I've done this for
almost thirty years and have focused on technology and technical
management.

I know that the remediation work is going badly, I'm wired into the DC
area superprogrammer grapevine; in the loop in a big way.  The systems
will unravel.  What happens after that?  I don't know, the laws of
physics roll up into little balls of gravition...  Sometimes I think I 
could get 10 or 20 of the top DC area gear heads and we'd fix one 
government agency or a local corporation... then I think, nah... they're
so smart, let em go down, what have they done for me.  I have a couple
loyal clients that took care of me during the hard years, I'll take care
of them now.  One client paid well three years ago,  I'll take care of 
their needs now.

Lets have more community efforts.  Please hit these two web pages...

http://skymind.org/y2k.

http://millennia-bcs.com.

Get the community moving, storing up food, fuel, etc.  ...and think
renewable, low cost, enough for a quality life, not so much that we
plunder the planet.  Please, please start doing something now, don't 
wait until 1999.  

Here's a little project, sometimes you'll see a street light still on 
during the day, other times, a light will be out at night.  I've even 
seen street lights blinking on and off.  Note down where these lights 
are and call them in to the local power company...  at least around 
here, the power company takes care of the street lighting.

I have another reach-the-press project in the works.  We'll see if
anything comes of it.

This Thursday, Ed Yardeni comes to WDC Y2K.  I'll be there early to hit 
the food, last time I was late and DD got more food than I did. This
won't happen again.  Any c.s.y2k'ers attending, I'd like to meet you,
talk to you, but please, don't get between me and the buffet, stay 
to one side, especially if they have the sesame steak or the shrimp 
tray. 

Don't forget, the Y2K chat-line:  http://www.ntplx.net/~rgearity
any evening, 8-10PM EST.  Lots of hot Y2K talk.  I drop in from time to 
time and pick up the wildest stories, we got some survivalist 
nut-cases, some big iron bigots, some pee cee wee nees, and others who 
are concerned about Y2K in a big way.

Don't let the horn-hairs or butt heads get to you.  Don't make a pest of
yourself by boring everyone until they roll their eyes.  The best
tactic is to tell them that you're concerned about Y2K, give them a 
basic 5 minute summary, show them the Time, U.S. News and World Report, 
or Newsweek, tell them that the best assessements are that there will be
serious problems in the infrastructure and you're making preparations to
protect yourself and your family...  and let them go their own way.

If they want to know what you're doing, they'll ask.

cory hamasaki  571 days.