Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 25
"June 16, 1998 - 563 days to go." WRP81
(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. Feds on Track for Y2K!
2. Oops, maybe not.
3. Farm Fun
4. Ships
5. WDC Y2K
6. CCCC
Be still my heart, PC Week Reports great news!
Here's a virtual Xerox of their copyrighted article, full attributions,
of course.
----- Great News! Feds on Track with Y2K --------
Publication: PC Week
Date: June 1, 1998
Title: Feds on Track with Y2K
Subtitle: Dept. of Defense, Federal Aviation Administration IS Planning
Text: Officials from the Department of Defense and Federal Aviation
Administration recently told an audience of year 2000 specialists that
they're confident their agencies' computer systems will be ready for the
new century without additional funding or outside help.
William Curtis, a newly appointed Defense Department year 2000 special
assistant and Mary Powers-King, the FAA's Y2K Program Office deputy
director, were part of a session hosted by Federal Sources Inc., a
market research company in McLean, Va. Curtis says the Defense
Department is poised to have its 2,800 mission-critical systems upgraded
by December. Curtis' goal is to allow all of 1999 for mission and
function testing.
According to Powers-King, the FAA will complete its renovation by June,
its testing by March 1999 and its implementation by June 1999. To
conduct this work, the FAA is already using its own employees and
contractors with the agency. Both officials are working with independent
auditors to ensure that the work is accurate.
-------- End Great News! -------
.. you know what's coming... ...I'm not going to disappoint you...
Let's abbreviate "Feds on Track with Y2K" as FOTY. When ever you see
FOTY, insert the above article.
A couple weeks after the PC Week Article, the Washington Post ran this
informative piece. As usual, I invoke the fair use doctrine in passing
this virtual Xerox around so that we can comment on current events.
------ Not So Great News! --------------
Pentagon Faulted on Year 2000 Reports
Investigators Find Unreliable Accounting of Computer
System Compliance
By Stephen Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 12, 1998; Page A25
When it comes to computers and the Year 2000 glitch, the Pentagon's
compliance checklist doesn't always produce compliance.
An investigation by the Defense Department's inspector general
found that computer system managers turned in reports listing critical
technology systems as ready to accurately process and calculate dates
in the next century even though the systems had not received such
certification.
<The Defense Department... where did I see that name before? Oh yeah,
FOTY>
The prospect of incorrect information in the Year 2000, or Y2K,
progress reports has raised concerns about the integrity of the process
used by top Pentagon and White House officials to track computer
repairs and to make contingency plans for any possible technology
crisis on Jan. 1, 2000.
"Senior DOD management cannot afford to make Y2K program
decisions based on highly inaccurate information," the office of the
inspector general concluded in its report on the matter. "If DOD does
not take the action that it needs to obtain accurate information as to the
status of its Y2K efforts, we believe that serious Y2K failures may
occur in DOD mission-critical information technology systems."
<FOTY, "The systems will fail" -cory "clueless" hamasaki >
Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Calif.) raised the report at a House
subcommittee hearing Wednesday on Year 2000 computer repairs. "I
thought we were past the days of the Vietnam body count," Horn said
as he inquired about Pentagon plans for "improved honesty of
compliance."
<FOTY, "Steve, they're lying" -paul "the gardener" milne>
William A. Curtis, a retired Army combat officer recruited by the
Pentagon 60 days ago to shape up its Year 2000 computer repair
program, did not dispute the findings.
"We have got to have the most accurate data . . . and not be shooting
the messenger," Curtis told Horn.
<FOTY, "...2,800 systems ... upgraded by December." General William
"Don't shoot, I surrender." Curtis>
Curtis and Sally Brown, a Defense official involved in Y2K
compliance efforts, said they did not believe system managers were
trying to intentionally mislead superiors on Y2K progress.
<FOTY, Mention the FAA, Sally, "Nothing in my right hand." The Amazing
Randi>
The Year 2000 problem stems from the use in many computers of a
two-digit dating system that assumes that "1" and "9" are the first two
digits of the year. Without specialized reprogramming, the systems
will recognize "00" not as 2000 but 1900, which could cause
computers to shut down or malfunction.
Overall, the Pentagon is running at least four months behind schedule
on its timetable for Year 2000 computer fixes and estimates that it will
spend about $1.9 billion on the problem. The department has about
25,000 computer systems, with about 2,800 designated as "mission
critical."
<FOTY, "get a horse." Frank Ney>
They include command and control, satellite, inventory management,
transportation management, medical and equipment, and pay and
personnel systems.
<FOTY, "Professionals are working on it." Don Scott>
At the Defense Department, Year 2000 policies say that computer
users cannot assume a system will successfully operate in the next
century until it has been certified by a system manager. A computer
system is not certified until the system manager signs a Y2K
compliance checklist, the inspector general's report said.
<FOTY>
But when the office of the inspector general sampled 430 computer
systems that the Pentagon had reported as Year 2000 compliant in
November 1997, it found that defense officials could not provide
documents to show they had followed proper procedures. Using a
statistical model, the office concluded "that between 265 and 338
systems were not certified," although the systems had been reported
to senior management as certified.
<FOTY, Why don't you denial-butt-heads march down to the Pentagon and
straighten out the office of the inspector general. You know there's no
problem and even if there were, professionals are working on it.>
In addition, investigators found that "the existence of a completed and
signed Y2K compliance checklist did not always mean that the system
was Y2K compliant."
<FOTY>
They did not identify the systems by name or function, but the
computers were reportedly being used by large Defense agencies,
such as the Army, the Air Force, the Finance and Accounting Service,
the Special Weapons Agency and the Defense Logistics Agency.
<FOTY, it's a bunch of hysterical hype. Everything's fixed, the
mothership has already beamed the secret message to us, FOTY.>
The report, issued last month, underscores the problems federal
agencies face as they try to define such terms as "Y2K compliant" and
"Y2K ready."
The Agriculture Department, for example, recently reported 15
systems as compliant, even though they were only in developmental
stages, said Joel C. Willemssen of the General Accounting Office.
<FOTY, a natural mistake.>
In the Pentagon's case, the report from the office of the inspector
general said the department's Year 2000 management plan did not
clearly describe the certification process or the specific requirements
for systems managers.
"The word certified had so many different kinds of meanings that it
had lost all its meaning," Brown said yesterday.
<FOTY, yeah, semantics are so confuuuusing. Does the system work? How
hard is this.>
A new management plan will be published within the next few days
to clarify procedures and expectations, Curtis said. Some Defense
agencies also have decided that it is no longer appropriate for only
one person to sign off on a certification and now require senior
managers to participate in the decision, he added.
<FOTY, You horn-hairs! I'll come down with a Shmuel and a couple other
tuff-boys and read you the riot act.>
To help accelerate its repair effort, Curtis said, the Pentagon plans to
set up a High Risk Systems Board to oversee each computer system in
Y2K jeopardy and will form a 250-person evaluation force to
independently validate the fixes and testing for the Pentagon's most
important systems.
<FOTY, Let's see, we have 250 unemployed secretaries and middle
managers, SHAZAM! They are now independent validators.>
¸ Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
-----------------------------------
C.s.y2k has a number of subscribers with unusual reading comprehension
skills and personalities. Yes, I'm referring to little things like
confusing my comment that a specific Y2K software bug would kill at
least a hundred people with kill "millions". Hey, hundreds, millions,
bazillions, what's the diff.
Then there's a bunch who want to play USENET games. They pipe up, you
swat 'em down and instead of quietly slinking away, they declare,
oh, they were trolling for a swatting. Ah, it feels so good, spank
me some more. Bzzzzt, not even a nice try. If I want to wrestle with
a Tar Baby, we've got DD and Shmuel, we don't need wannabe's. C.s.y2k
already has the World Class players.
We've seen DD and Shmuel get into it, and, let me tell you, it's like,
wow, a battle of the titans.
So where is this going..., well, my comment above about General William
"Don't Shoot, I surrender" Curtis. For the humor disadvantaged and
those with reading comprehension problems, it does not refer to the
man's military record, to his service to the country.
General Curtis was sandbagged. They wanted a respectable person to take
the heat and he's the throw-away. They dragged out a combat veteran,
made him the stuckee, put a bunch of inaccurate and untrue
statements in his hand, and fed him to the sharks. In his first 60
days, he's giving "FOTY" speeches and a couple weeks after that, the
Inspector General is rippin' him a new one and Congress is hammering
him with "Vietnam era body counts."
Shame, shame on them for tricking the general like that. Shame on
HHS for stealing money allocated for saving the children of the street
to pay clueless beltway bandits for unqualified consultants. Shame on
the denial-heads, every day that we delay starting the work on triage
kills more people. And shame on the rest of us for not doing everything
we can to work on the bypasses, heavy duty triage, for being afraid to
tell others about the risks.
..shame on us for not stepping in to back milne when he takes the heat
and says things that we suspect might be true but are afraid to
face. Y2K is our bete noire, it might be the end of our comfortable
urban life, our fat, bubble inflated mutual funds... like the Trusts of
the 1920's. Nothing is holding up the price of Intel. Microsoft will
not double its market. Intel has to sell $500 microprocessors and
Microsoft ever more copies of Office, my primary machine uses a $59
IBM/Cyrix P200+ and my wordprocessor is Wordperfect 6.0 DOS.
So what do we do? What are your projects? This isn't about money, this
is about a series of decisions to prepare for the worse while hoping and
working for the best.
Frank and I are cheerfully working away, cranking code for hire and
taking in every cent we can. I know other geeks who are doing the same.
In our down-time, we can make our preparations.
Here are a few things that I've learned.
Basic grains, wheat, corn, rice etc. are cheap. They're priced
such that you can feed a person for pennies per meal. There is a
subculture that deals in these basics, Check out Southern States, the
farm products company.
For two months and 10 days, I have been eating away at a 20 lb bag of
rice, well, let me tell you, I'm sick of rice. The bag cost $7.99 at a
Korean supermarket. I've been eating other things but every day, I
cooked and ate a cup of rice, I've had it with steak and mushrooms,
with a can of tomato sauce, with fried zuchinni, scrambled eggs,
canned corned beef, steamed greens and onion grass from my yard, tofu
fried with hot sesame oil, boiled carrots, wrapped in seaweed as u-na-gi
sushi, as a stir fry with bacon and onions, chili with beans, buttered
corn... and other even stranger combinations.
The point of the experiment was to discover how much rice would
keep one adult fed for a year, assuming a nominal amount of other
food sources. I peg it at 120 lbs, or $50.00 for a year's supply.
Last week, I bought a lb of hard red winter wheat. I boiled it for five
minutes, drained the water, sprinkled sugar on it and had it as a "hot
cereal". It wasn't bad. Isn't this where the idea of cereal came
from? Maybe with some cinnimon or honey?
I've been using a quart of cooking oil for the last two months. I got
it at the same time as the rice. I estimate that a gallon of cooking
oil per person can be stretched to last a year.
---------- Farm Fun -----------------
Regular readers of the DC WRPs and c.s.y2k know that I don't expect the
cities to burn and don't believe that crazed muties will swarm into my
suburban neighborhood, to loot and pillage the plump geek, who though
armed with a fine assault rifle and 100 rounds of .223, is a soft
target... yeah, let's not bother with the grocery store, let's pick on
the guy with the 30 round mag in the AR-15. ...we'll rush the house when
we hear him pull the charging handle and the bolt slams that first
Remington soft nose into the chamber. I mean, like, how many of us
could he take out, 5, 8?
Makes as much sense as the "Death Wish" moo vees that we love so
much. ...the prototypical subway scene, the doors bang open and three
skinny gang members, tattoos, unkempt, 12 teeth between the 3 of
them, survey the car. Two Hasidic Jews are tossing diamonds to each
other, a tanned, over-ripe swimsuit model dressed in an orange thong
bikini and matching stilleto heels, inhales deeply, arches her back, and
adjusts the straps on her top, a small elderly woman is counting hundred
dollar bills into a paper bag... "Let's pick on the guy with the
shoulders and the scars on his face."
But if they SCRAM the Calvert Clifts nuclear plant, and the coal
shipments are interrupted, and the welfare, section 8, and AFDC payments
aren't made... what then. What if the Galaxy IV problem is the first of
the skinny cattle eating the fat cows?
What if the Rawles-milne-ney scenario comes to pass, (I deny, I refuse
to consider the possiblity that paul milne has underestimated the
problem.) what then. We have 565 days to stock and fortify the farm.
The shed is up, there's over a thousand dollars of materials in it. If
Y2K is a fizzle, if the pollyannas are right (they're not, they're not
even close.) then the farm has a terrific storage building.
So far, everything we've done has been a no cost or nominal cost item.
It's been sweat equity, experiments, learning. When we've spent
some money, it's been for items that we needed anyway or will use
eventually.
Most of our efforts have been scrounging, recycling, reusing. I've
collected 20 2 liter plastic bottles. I have a line on a source of mud
buckets (from a sheetrock contractor) and quart size plastic bags.
------------ More on Ships ----------------
Here's a quote on ships, "..merchant ships have cut back on crews to
such a extent that in the event of massive systems failure no backup
would be available." The word isn't coming out where the public can see
it. Or this quote from Malcom Gosling, Head of Electrical Services at
Royal Dutch's Shell Trading and Shipping Company, "Shell has tested
systems on Very Large Crude Carriers, and found failures in seven areas
including radar system mapping, ballast monitoring, and ships
performance monitoring."
Spin away Pollyannas but please don't flame me, flame the Head of
Electrical Services at Royal Dutch's Shell Trading and Shipping Company,
call him clueless and tell him how big your brain is.
"Christopher Lewis of Hutchinson Ports (UK) Ltd pointed out that
millennium-related problems could arise in many types of equipment used
in the business of shipping and cargo handling, including cranes, paging
and radio systems."
"Manual backup was not now available because of the highly computerised
nature of modern ships. Hiring extra crew was a possibility over the
transition period."
"'We don't have the people to handle a major systems failure anymore.
Maybe we should make sure crews can still handle the sextant and Morse
code,' Gosling said."
Oh, and wasn't someone going to put a positive spin on Trains and
Railinc?
-------- WDC Y2K - Y2K Chatline --------------
I plan to hit WDC Y2K early and hopefully will have handouts for
c.s.y2ker's who want them.
Don't forget, the Y2K chat-line: http://www.ntplx.net/~rgearity
any evening, 8-10PM EST. Lots of hot Y2K talk with c.s.y2k regulars.
I've picked up a lot of good info and early warning news on the
chat-line.
------------- CCCC --------------------
We've had a few downers in c.s.y2k recently. I'd like to leave you
with a song that I picked up from www.lyrics.ch:
The Rose
by: Amanda McBroom
Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower, and you its only seed.
It's the heart, afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance.
It's the dream, afraid of waking, that never takes a chance.
It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dyin', that never learns to live.
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love,
in the spring becomes The Rose.
Y2K is not doom mongering; the denial-heads are afraid of dying, so they
are passing on their chance to learn to live.
But c.s.y2k is weary, tired, progress has been slow, the loonie denial
is still rampant; I can read the exhaustion in the postings. Wackiness
like the PC Week FOTY article doesn't help.
The last verse reminds me that we can take strength from each other and
the accomplishments, the progress that has been reported.
cory hamasaki 563 days.