Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 29 "July 14, 1998 - 535 days to go." WRP85 (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 Don't forget, the Y2K chat-line: http://www.ntplx.net/~rgearity any evening, 8-10PM EST. --------------------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. Washington Post Jobs. 2. Live C Code. 3. Medical Embeddeds OK 4. Obituary 5. CCCC ---- Washingmachinepost still raking it in.---------- Sunday, July 12th, the Post ran yet another Mega High Tech job tabloid, about 40 full pages of frantic calls for all kinds of geeks, codewarriors, hackers, lan-boys, and PeeCeeWeeNees. If you can slam a CD into a cupholder and click your way to glory, someone wants to pay you the bucks. I'm getting reports of clueless nubies, wet behind the ears baby-MIS types demanding and getting over $50K/year. You, with your good looks, spring in your step, and detailed knowledge of IEWL and IKJEFT01, should get twice that. Check out the Post's job ads at http://www.washingtonpost.com ---- Live C Code - Shocking! -------------------- Yes, this S/390 mainframer codes in C/C++. Here's the source to an .exe that sits on my OS/2 desktop and counts down the days and hours until the world crashes, I've stripped out the PM stuff. What's left is a DOS CPP program. I coded it using IBM CSet++ 2.1 for OS/2 Warp but most C compilers should handle this just fine. hhrdate.hpp ------------------------------- /* hhdate external areas */ EXT char hhdate[16]; /* days til midnight Dec 31, 1999 */ EXT char hhhours[16]; /* hours til midnight Dec 31, 1999 */ #define OPEN 1 #define CLOSED 5 void getclock(); hhclock.cpp ------------------------------- /* hhrdate - GNU'ed freeware program (c) 1998 HHResearch Co. */ #include <stdio.h> #define EXT extern #include "hhdate.hpp" #include "time.h" #include "string.h" #include "stdlib.h" double secs; double days; double hours; time_t now; time_t then; tm cent; int htime; /* brief time */ void getclock(){ /* date function */ long idays; long ihours; time( &now); cent. tm_sec = 59; cent. tm_min = 59; cent. tm_hour = 23; cent. tm_mday = 31; cent. tm_mon = 11; cent. tm_year = 99; cent. tm_wday = 5; cent. tm_yday =364; cent. tm_isdst = 0; then = mktime( ¢ ); secs = difftime( then, now); hours = secs/ (60*60); ihours = hours; htime = (int) secs; srand( htime ); /* don't ask what this is for */ /* another routine puts rude messages on the desktop */ days = hours/24; idays = days; sprintf(hhdate, "%d", idays); /* for OS/2 */ sprintf(hhhours, "%d", ihours); /* for OS/2 */ /* printf("%d", idays); for DOS */ /* printf("%d", ihours); for DOS */ } Any questions? ---- Medical Embeddeds OK, No Problems Here ------- <after the CBN report, I received this email from an associate out west, I've anonymized the report> I taped the episode and gave both programs to my daughter, who was over last night. She finds the topic very exciting and had bought a new book on Y2K. Can't remember who the author was, however. I gave her the taped two episodes to watch. My daughter ================== is a sonographer. She told me about her talk this week with the Siemans technician who came to do maintenance on one of their older machines -- 7 years old. She asked him if the machine was Y2K compliant. He didn't know what she was talking about and, she said, her fellow sonographers were looking at her strangely. "Will the machine work in the year 2000?" she said. He didn't know; he figured the smart guys back at headquarters were taking care of any problem. But he said he would check it out. So he set the machine to the usual few minutes before midnight and they tried it out when the time clicked over. She did a couple scans and discovered that the basic scanning mechanism worked OK. But the add-on programs that depended on the date did not work. Things like entering the date of a woman's last period to determine the probable birth date of the child (that's mostly what they use ultrasound for at her company). The programs ran and didn't crash but the answers were wrong. So the guy said something like OK that checks out OK. No problems here. The old machine cost about $20K. The company is getting a new, very fancy machine that will cost about $120K. Will it work in the year 2000? She doesn't know if she wants to ask anyone to check. But the company passed up on the really fancy machine which costs over $200K. I would imagine that the new machines are more closely tied to the date than the old basic machine. <Got it, hypesters! No problems with embedded medical devices, "the programs ran and didn't crash" No problems... oopsie "but the answers were wrong" Oh well, at least it didn't crash.> <and that "smart guys back at headquarters were taking care of any problem." sounds like "Professionals are working on it."> ---------- He died of a Broken Heart ------------ Death Notice - Washington Post Sunday, July 12, 1998 Page B7 Smith, Billy Truman On July 9, 1998 of Gambrills, MD, beloved father of Willian and Jesse Smith; dear brother of Jeral Smith. Also survived by two grandchildren. Friends may call on Wednesday, July 22, 1998 from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 pm, at the HARDESTY Funeral Home, P.A. 851 Annapolis Road. Gambrills, MD, Funeral Services will be held on Thursday, July 23, 1998 at 9 am in the Fort Myer Chapel, Interment Arlington National Cemetary ------------ Interoffice memorandum XXXXXXX Information Technology Group To: Information Systems Operation Staff From: Personnel Subj: B.T. Smith Date: July 10, 1998 I am very sorry to let you know that one of our most valued, long-term colleagues, Mr. B.T.Smith, passed away at approximately 6:30 pm last night. He was hospitalized when he died. B.T. started at XXXXXXX in 1984 and was the Team Leader for the software design and development of message identification, handling, and profiling software for the Message Resolution Process (MRP) subsystems. <some details omitted> ---------- Here're the real facts. The programmer who told me about this said, "he died of a broken heart... they didn't know what to do with him." B.T. was a proficient PL/I, C/C++, and S/390 assembly language programmer. He designed and coded large portions of a billion dollar application system. A system that is NOT Y2K compliant and is the mission critical application for two multi-national corporations. A system that is NOT being Y2K'ized because a replacement is due... any day now. The system was built in the 1980's. The replacement was supposed to go production two years ago. B.T. had specific knowledge that only a handful of people in the world had. His death will make code remediation much, much harder. I'll add B.T. to the DC Y2K obituaries the next time I update the webpage. Please, next Thursday morning lets observe a moment of quiet for B.T., a real programmer who will miss the biggest geek party ever. I'll be at Arlington National Cemetary to say goodbye to B.T. but if you can't make it, just sit quietly in your cube for a minute. ------------ CCCC ------------------ Why 500 days is important... At some point, there will not be enough time to put contingencies and bypasses into place. The problem with being efficient is that you don't have a margin for error. Computers have made us very efficient. In 535 days, this will not be true and all the wishing, cute turns of phrase, powerpoint slides, and "By Gawd, I'm in Charge and We Will make it" declarations in a "command voice" won't stop the clock or start the computers. For you bozo's who are used to 'commanding' results... I have a hint for you, the geeks have been laughing at you all along. When the systems fail, you will not be able to fix them. Fix on failure is a ride on the death train. I'm not in a panic, we'll see gradually increasing system failures from now on. We'll have a nest of problems starting this December, more in January, and the rates should be quite nice by February or March 1999. Shocking True Rumor - A large, well known services provider is quietly recruiting talent for post Y2K fix-on-failure work. This provider has come to the conclusion that they are wasting their time trying to sell their services to organizations that are still in denial and then proceed to nickel and dime them on rates. Rather than waste their time now, this provider is locking down the talent pool and when the failures begin, intends to charge a fair market value for their services... no negotiations needed. What's fair market value? How much money did you say you had. This rumor comes from the New York area. If your company isn't making the last of your Y2K fixes right now, sliding code through your Time Machine, plan to spend a significant amount per hour. The rumor didn't include rate projections but this services provider currently charges over $350/hour. Don't say I didn't warn you. Remember, I'm the clueless one who told you to start in 1997 when you could get COBOL programmers for $45,000/year and assembler experts for $60,000/year... all you wanted. Remember $30-35/hour 1099 for a COBOL contractor, $45-50/hour for assembler? I've seen contract work going at over $100/hour. cory hamasaki 535 days.