Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report V2, # 41
"October 12, 1998 - 451 days to go." WRP97
Draft $2.50 Cover Price.
(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 or provide a link to the
header. 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.sonnet.co.uk/muse/dcwrp.html
http://GONOW.TO/Y2KFACTS
http://www.ocweb.com/y2k/weather.htm
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, please host the Weather Reports.
Did you miss Geek Out?
Project Dumbass needs you.
In this issue:
1. Get the word out.
2. Concrete
3. Timing
4. America's Euro
5. Subscriptions
6. SVC-11
7. Koskinen calls Jo Anne a Witch
8. CCCC
Volunteers --------- getting the word out --------
Several people have written in appreciation for the WRPs and have
offered to help by linking their pages to my site, hosting the WRPs, or
have submitted Y2K information for the WRPs.
Like everyone else, I'm trying to make sense of this mess and the
WRPs are my way of sharing my confusion with you... because I am
clueless. I have never seen anything like this before, I don't know
what's going to happen. I do know that we need to do something... and
soon, yesterday.
Help get the word out on Y2K. If you don't already do it, email copies
to your friends. Down load and print copies and give them out,
post copies by the Xerox machine. If you have a webpage, add the WRPs to
your page and build a link to my page at:
http://www.kiyoinc.com/HHResCo.html
..and drop me an email so I'll know to link back to you.
In addition to the WRPs, add some personal commentary on Y2K to your
page. Tell the world what you think, how you are confronting and
resolving Y2K. If you think the problem is overstated, say that.
At the end of October, I'd like all the WRP host and link sites to look
around the ring and pick the best, most informative site. Take a vote
and I'll send a prize to the best site, I don't know what but it will be
unique... uh, make it odd.
Preparation ------- Concrete Fun -----------
Spoke to the Baron yesterday. He's ordered a load of 4x4 and 6x6
pressure treated timbers, concrete, and a cement mixer. Did I mention
that he has a posthole digger attachment for the Jolly Green Giant, his
4WD air conditioned John Deere Werke tractor? He also has a backhoe and
a frontloader for it.
DragonRanch has maybe 2 more months of good weather, October,
November, and part of December. Winter comes early, December 21 is one
month into winter around here.
Here's the plan. Run a stringline, mark off equal distances on the
stringline. Spray paint a mark on the ground. Dump a timber near each
mark. Take down the string. Drill a 3 foot deep hole in each
paintmark. Shovel the dirt clear of the hole.
Using a 20 lb sledge, drive a 1 foot, pointed section of 2x4 into the
ground about 5-6 feet from the hole. If the ground is hard or rocky,
use a metal peg with predrilled holes.
Pour some gravel and dry premixed concrete into each hole. Tip a timber
in. Rerun the string line. Two idiots horse the timber upright.
With the sledge as a brace, use a 20-26 oz hammer to attach an 8 foot
length of 2x4 to the peg.
One idiot holds the timber up, aligned with a level and the mark on the
string. Do not let the timber touch the string or the postline will
bow. The other idiot attaches the 2x4 to the timber 1/2 of the way up.
Brace each timber with at least 2 struts. 4 is better.
Fill the hole with dry premixed concrete. Tamp the concrete with the
mushroom end of a breaker bar as you pour the mix in. Allow 1 week
before taking down the struts.
Alternate method.
For maximum strength, pour green concrete sloooow-ly into the hole, do
not let the concrete stream hit the timber, direct the stream against
the side of the hole. Allow two days before taking down the struts.
Make a jig that marks the top level of the timbers. Trim off the top of
each timber using a chainsaw. paint the top of the timber with tar.
When playing with pressure treated, wear gloves and eye protection, do
not inhale the sawdust. Construction zone rules of engagement apply,
hardhats and foot protection.
As for what the Baron is building... don't ask. It's Y2K and reveals
the workings of his mind. You can use these directions to build a
decorative fence, a secure perimeter, support walls for a storage
building for machinery.
Preparations ---- Timing -------------
The code remediation is supposed to be done by December 1998, leaving
all of 1999 for testing. December 1998 and January 1999 are major
tripwires. If these dates are missed and instead of celebrations we
start seeing unusual system instabilities, that's what we call... a
clue.
Sure, a few problems always occur but when was the last time you saw an
SNA timeout at an ATM? Last week we had multiple reports of ATM
problems, one included the message that a Nov 1998 card had expired in
Oct 1998.
You should be at the 4-6 month-ready level by December 1998, ready as
you can be for the unknown. If we see intermittent panic, you'll
be able to ride it out.
My drop-dead day for finishing preparations is spring 1999. The federal
government will be done, including all testing by March 1999, Al Gore
said so. If they don't make March 1999, I want to be ready, for....
whatever...
Others have detailed the extent of their preparations, my goal is to be
able to survive... not live in comfort. If I come through this, losing
30 lbs, dirty, tired, but with my inner circle alive and well, I win. If
I'm cold in the winter and hot in the summer and I have enough food for
each day, some gruel and dried fruit for breakfast, a spoon of peanut
butter on a chunk of coarse whole wheat bread for lunch, so the F what.
If dinner is a 6 oz can of tuna on noodles split 4 ways, with a handful
of onion grass or dandelion greens from the lawn, that's fine with me.
I've eaten worse... and paid big bucks for it too.
This isn't about spending a lot of money. This is about taking some
measures now. I don't need a 5 KW diesel generator. I'll have a
flashlight that runs for months on 2 alkaline D-cells, a fireplace that
I can feed wood to. A solar oven that will cook stews and bread on clear
summer days.
Analysis --------- America's Euro ----------
This email came in from a long time reader of the WRPs. I've anonymized
it slightly.
----- Start email --------
As an aside, I recently started a contract at the local(XXXXX) power
company. They've outsourced their Y2K work to India - XXX I believe.
Anyway, the project I'm on is not Y2K related. It is for deregulation.
The break up of the power company monopolies. I'm not comfortable with
this at all. There seems to be an unmovable deadline of having their
power available to start-up companies on Jan.1.1999. We had a project
meeting today and were told to go on a death march. Six ten-hour days a
week until we are back on schedule (which probably won't be long before
Jan.1 anyway).
Sheesh, now I don't know what to do. I thinking I'll tell my manager
that I can give 45-50 hours/week on site and will work the remainder
from home. Otherwise I'm outta there. 60 hours a week. No way. I
don't need the money and there's other contracts around here. I passed
up one that would have paid $8/hour more to get in at the power company.
I've been trying to get in there since 1996, but the timing was never
there. I finally get in, and BOOM! Deathmarch.
In 50hrs/week I can do a lot of work. BTW, it is mainframe work
(COBOL, CICS, DB2) and I really utilize REXX to the max. Edit macros,
execs to list copybooks, dclgens, datasets, and/or jcl members without
leaving the edit session. Execs to create test gdg bases for unit
testing. When I show them to other programmers, they ooh and ahh. It's
great. Instant guru status.
I can pump out code faster than most everyone in the shops. High
quality stuff. I love the big iron. And at (under 40) yrs old, I'm
always one of the younger ones on the team. The adminbabes are always
glad to have someone closer to their age nearby. I can also help them
with their PC stuff, showing them keyboard shortcuts in their Word
documents. They love the Ctrl-Ins, Shift-Del and Shift-Ins for copy/cut
and paste. So it's not all bad I guess.
Anyway, I'm also not keen on working overtime, getting paid straight
time while the consulting company I'm with gets time and a half. I
can't stand the pimps as it is. I like putting in 40/week, get my tasks
done, go home and have a life. Enjoy the XXXXXXX area. Play some
tennis, golf, ride the bike. 60 hours/week means sleep, work, repeat.
Been there, done that, with XXX - XXXXXX branch. Fun for a while, it
wears on you.
I look forward to the day when I can go independent. It's a matter of
building up enough contacts in the right places, so I can bypass the
pimp shops. Two managers I had previously worked for and considered
good leads recently retired, so that hurt. That's the problem with
mainframe shops. Most everyone is old. And when the managers are
young, they are PHMs and it's all I can do to remain professional. I
could never have a beer with them.
Yep. I got PCOM/2 all set up and have used it in the past. Very nice.
Of course, the network people only provide dialup instructions for
Windows, but I can usually get it to work with OS/2.
OK. Rate = $45/hour W2. No benefits. Consulting Company = XXX.
They have the worst benefits for hourly contractors. The reason I went
with them is because they are the "contractor clearinghouse" for the
power company. All openings for contractors go through them. It's
mighty close to antitrust in my book. Anyway, the contract I passed up
was at XXXXXXXX. It would have paid $53/hour W2. XXX is billing the
client 65-70/hour (haven't got the actual number yet). The market rate
for COBOLers here is 40-55 W2. So I'm on the low end but like I said, I
really wanted to work at the power company. Looks like it was a mistake
now. Oh well, live and learn. I'm contracting around so I can
hopefully find a shop that has its act together (or close to it). Then,
if things dry up I'll know where I'd most like to go full-time.
----- End email--------
Here's a geek who wants to help solve the Y2K problem, was willing to
take less money to help the cause, but what is he working on? America's
Euro., a nonsensical rediculous amount of fiddling. He's fixing something
that isn't broken. Sure, competition is good but COME ON, pay
attention people. We don't need natural gas or electric deregulation
right now.
..and he's mad because they want to put him on a deathmarch, 60
hours/week at $45/hour = $135,000/year. This is W2 but unbenefitted...
and in a traditionally low cost of living part of the country.
Here's an email from another reader:
-----Start email--------
I've been to an office building of one of the major utilities back east.
On one floor were the offices of about five of the "minor" utilities.
None of the five had any generation *or* distrubution equipment. I
believe that most of them had fewer than five employees, all of them
office workers, and no equipment other than the office stuff on
people's desks. They weren't really utilities at all, just collection
agencies for the bigger one. Presumably set up that way for tax
purposes.
-----End email---------
Let's put it together, our first reader, a geek who wanted to help with
the Y2K problem with power got sidetracked to an "im-po-tant" project,
Utility Billing deregulation.... and they're throwing $135,000 at him,
"pull the oars, Geek."
Another reader finds five FAKE utilities, set up for billing or maybe so
someone's retarded brother-in-law can cash in on FREE money.
What the F is going on? I've been getting "sign up for XYZ power or ABC
gas, the same as before but send your check to someone else, letters"
in the mail. This is America's Euro. Why now? Anyone thinking out
there?
Does it make sense to pay idiots to shuffle paper and call it
competition while geeks are diverted off Y2K programming and utilities
rightsize linemen and others who do the real work?
Skip Over -------- Subscriptions ----------
Don't read.
OK, I got the subscriptions set up with the people at Kiyo. We had a
couple calls come in early, before the staff was trained. If you were
in the first group, you should mail your check in now.
$50 for a shareware subscription, kinda like being a PBS member. Keep
picking up the copy on the newsgroup or the web.
For $99. We'll mail a printed version of the newsletter twice a month.
The font and margins will be small to save trees.
Mail a check or your credit card information to:
Kiyo Design, Inc
11 Annapolis St.
Annapolis, MD 21401
or you can fax your credit card information to:
Fax (410) 280-2793
We take Visa, MC, or AmEx.
For either shareware electronic subscriptions or printed subscriptions,
include your mailing address and email address.
Later this year, we'll send all members, both shareware and printed
edition, some special items that we won't be putting on the web. This
will be information on programming, the DC area, Y2K, food storage, the
flashlight construction project, etc. I have 40 pages of material now
and will be adding to the collection. Some of this is very unusual...
very unusual. This package will be "members only."
Start reading again.
Enterprise --------- SVC-11 --------------
Remember the brou-ha-ha, I caused last year about SVC-11? Well the gang
over in comp.lang.asm370 is getting around to it now.
-A-----------
I'm looking for a document, newsgroup, or web-site discussing OS/390 issues
with Y2K compliance, preferably from a systems programmer's point of view
(is CVTDATE going to be p'0101001' on January 1, 2000?).
I've looked at comp.software.year-2000 and it appears to have been taken
over by folks on their way to other heavenly bodies.
-B-----------
The TIME macro will return X'0100001F' in the appropriate register.
(I forget which one)
while we're on this subject, a friend of mine has suggested a method of
tracking (locating) potentially ofending programs by trapping SVC 11 (?)
and writing info from the JSCB to a log file for subsequent analysis.
Has anyone else considered doing somthing like this?
(Is this a potential marketing bonanza?)
-C-----------
Well, CVTDATE will be X'01000001F' on January 1, 2000.
Our Y2K test LPAR will turn over Tuesday morning -- I will check it out
then, if I remember.
The three VTOC date fields will be 0XL3(0),AL1(100),AL2(1) for Jan 1,
2000.
-D-----------
http://www.ibm.com/IBM/year2000/ might have some useful pointers.
-E-------------------
The problem is that you will only catch a very few of the programs using date
information by intercepting SVC 11. Many (if not most) assembler programs
are going to use the STCK instruction.
-F-----------
and those that don't are likely to get the date from CVTDATE to avoid
the SVC overhead.
-G-----------
What overhead? Do you think that grabbing CVTDATE and applying time
zone adjustments and all of that crap is LESS overhead (not to mention
cumbersome and confusing) than just using the TIME macro?
That is utter bullsh*t! For *what* will the TOD clock information be used?
Maybe trace information? Anyone who graps the clock with a STCK for anything
but absolute LOGICAL (as opposed to algebraic) sequencing purposes is nuts.
Just my opinion of course. Not those of my employer coz I'm unemployed! Ha!
But if I was employed, I wouldn't care anyway!!!
-------------
So with 445 days to go, the bit-heads on c.l.asm370 have discovered,
Oops! SVC-11 is changing, we gotta do something about this, I'm scared,
but maybe I can make a buck...
What fun Y2K is, say something with 800 days to go and you're a
clueless idiot. Raise the same issue when we're out of time and
hey, SURPRISE!, this is worthy of discussion.... all I can say is, wait
until next year when c.l.asm370 is begging for reprints of "How to Raise
Chickens"
Humor ---- Koskinen Calls Jo Anne a Witch ------
Here are some Koskinen comments that circulated on the WDC Y2K listserv.
His comments are in response to questions on early failures.
"We won't know for sure, obviously, until the date arrives.
However, we do know that some systems such as unemployment
insurance, calculate benefits by looking forward a year, so their
witching hour is the first week of January, 1999. At this time,
several states are at risk of not being able to meet that date."
"I think you're likely to see more early 1999 failures in
private sector systems (ordering hotel reservations, renewing
insurance policies etc.) and these should help increase awareness of
the importance of the problem and its possible impacts."
Clueless---------------CCCC ---------------
I try to hit the chat line a couple times a week. Sometimes its a
little hard to get in but BarbK passed me a tip; you can run the JAVA
applet directly by running it on the command line. In OS/2, you just
run:
applet http://www.ntplx.net/~rgearity/chat.html
and -BOOM- you're in the chatroom without the horrid Netscape overhead.
445 days to go. The mess is getting worse, geeks are diverted to
working on deregulation. A local TV station took a multi-hour outage
when they began their switch to digital/HDTV.
Pay attention people. Y2K is the priority. We don't need the Euro,
utility deregulation, HDTV, or any of these distractions. We need fixed
software. (Yes, in 3-6 months, you'll see the popular press discussing
utility deregulation as one of the causes of missing Y2K deadlines. You
read it in c.s.y2k and the DC Y2K WRPs first.)
I've started looking into software solutions, maybe there are a few
things we can still do. I hope so. There's so much that needs to be
done.
I don't see enough of the work getting done to feel reassured. Sorry, I
wish I could be more optimistic about the state of the large
enterprises.
The Government was supposed to have their mission critical systems
fixed but not tested by September 1998. They didn't, not even
close.
I got the recap of the Shock Trauma "Golden Hour" and several other
pieces in the works... Also -bks- may be visiting Washington DC, we
have the big WDC Y2K meeting, lots happening; stay tuned, join the DC
Y2K Weather Report as a paid member as we follow the collapse of
civilization.
cory hamasaki 445 days 10,681 hours.