Galaxy IV
On Thu, 21 May 1998 03:48:33, "D. Scott Secor - Millennial Infarction Mitigator" <y2k@uswest.net.NO$PAM> wrote:
> Jim B wrote in message <3562D3E8.89402C6C@ix.netcom.com>...
> >
> >D. Scott Secor - Millennial Infarction Mitigator wrote:
> >
> >> How many of you own operational pagers? Not so fast everybody.
> >>
> >> Galaxy IV (a telecommunications satellite) lost its earth synch tonight,
> >> knocking millions of pagers out of commission (PageNet and others) -- as
> >> well as Public Radio and several other stations. It shall be interesting
> to
> >> see how fast the signals can be re-routed to other satellites. This may
> >> prove to be an invaluable exercise if the GPS rollover (19990822) causes
> >> problems, and of course "other" event horizons.
> >>
> >> Ciao,
> >>
> >> Scott Secor
> >
> > Now I know why NPR went out at around 4:10 pm Central Daylight Savings
> Time
> >yesterday.
>
>
> UPDATE: It was worse than first expected. Some stock and commodity trading
> quote systems have been put out of commission as well. Turns out that 90%
> of all pagers (according to one source anyway) have been affected ... so
> gang activity will suffer and illicit drug trade is likely to be hit hard.
> ;-)
>
> Ciao,
>
>
> Scott Secor
ABC reported that thousands of companies are scrambling for alternate
communications service providers, NPR moved some of their programming across the
internet, a transplant candidate was staying close to his phone, doctors and
nurses were staying in hospitals, fire departments were handing out
cellphones... some gas pumps failed, one airline cancelled a hundred flights
because they couldn't get the weather reports, all sorts of service outages and
work-arounds... that's the good news.
But the fact that this is a single point of failure, procedure, software,
hardware, micrometeor strike, whatever and reached so far through society...
well, where are the denial-heads now? Remember what I said, tm_year and SVC11
will each kill at least 100 people and cause a half billion dollar loss.
Single point of failure. Insignificant outage. Y2K will take out much, much
more.
Computers and software are not like other machinery. "Software doesn't rust."
It's so reliable that it tricks us into greater and greater dependencies. It
works perfectly, cheaply, so let's get rid of the smelly, dirty programmers and
save even more money. Between 1980 and perhaps last year, greedy senior
executives pumped up their balance sheets by outsourcing, right sizing, canning
the butts of useless programmers, deferring essential maintenance.
Unlike a motor, software doesn't break if you don't change the oil for 15 years.
Now, with 589 days to go, civilization must rebuild all its motors and there
aren't enough people who know how to do it.
Please, denial heads, stop trying to think this one out. Or if you feel you
must be a butt-head, ask for proof that the comm satellite failed yesterday,
demand a URL that proves to your satisfaction that there was a beeper outage,
ask for the names of companies that scrambled for alternative communications.
..and whatever you do, don't fall for the hype that if a small part of one
obscure satellite fails, that gas doesn't come out of pumps, airplanes don't
fly... after all, your big brain tells you that this can't happen.
cory hamasaki 589 days...
___
Subject:
Re: New pre-Y2K test
Date:
21 May 1998 13:26:20 GMT
From:
kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net (cory hamasaki)
Organization:
IBM.NET
Newsgroups:
comp.software.year-2000
References:
1 , 2 , 3 |
