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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (7897)	8/9/1999 2:26:00 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

Karen, Reference: Templates. Remember that templates work both ways. If a regulating agency creates a template that hits the major points and diminishes a company's "wiggle room" in discussing the actual status, that can be a positive. While I don't claim knowledge of the pros and cons or NERC's verbage in formulating questions, I can state that with respect to foreign nations discussing their Y2K vulnerabilities that it was crucial to insure that all of the nations were on the same "sheet of music" with respect to information sharing. This permits each nation to understand better how their neighbors have assessed and analyzed their systems vulnerabilities, while helping to prevent cleverly worded legalese from dominating there statements (which would render them only so much rhetoric). Do you have a link to the NERC template that was used? I would like to compare it to one that an associate of mine contributed to on the international level. Regards, Ron

To: Lane3 who wrote (7897)	8/9/1999 2:36:00 PM
From: bearcub	Respond to of 9818

karen, while you make your point well in this post, may i suggest a couple of points you overlooked? first of all y2knewswire is a combination service: free access and subscriber access. i am NOT a subscriber. i figured anything someone wants to charge me for y2k information isn't worth my funding as the internet will get ahold of most of it and fling it far and wide for free, even if it is only sepearated in dissemination time by a few hours. my point: as a freeloader to their occasional alerts, i recognize the references in all 3 of your posted, 'shakey reporting' examples as referring to thoroughly documented previous articles. so i concur, newswire is to be faulted as per your examples for using an ineffective form of 'insider/subscriber shorthand,' which carried to the 3 extremes as you pointed out it is indeed lacking in supportive credibility. no where said glaring assumption more apparent than to newcomers to the 'y2k newswire alert.' let illustrate: the 50% story that you mentioned is insider speak reference to the well publicized Bell South study of their vendors, who lied to them about being compliant, and yet when Bell South went to do site checks or paid for independent verification of y2k compliancy of said vendors, discovered and MADE PUBLIC THEIR FINDINGS, that over 50% of their vendors had lied to them. while significant that Bell South's name was attached to said 50% falsification report simply due to their household word recognition, that particular report has been extrapolated to mean EVERYONE, i.e., every 'technology guy' is being lied to at least 50% of the time. that, of course is false. it could be higher (grin) it would be akin to taking the widely publicized UK electric utility failure affecting 25% of meter users in the affected group and extrapolating that ConEdison has a 25% failure rate that they Don't know about yet, because they are also a utility. there are similar historical 'insider/subscriber speak' references in your other two examples. the NERC story is another historical reference to a series of articles they did when they discovered the boilerplate of which you speak as being industry standard. the redefining of complaint to just "mission critical compliant" is a little tougher to nail down a specific previous story there, because that redefinition process in order to issue more glowing reports of 'yeah, we're almost done' is so widely documented inside and outside every industry you can think of, it is hard for me to even provide the 'index case' to use Center for Disease Control 'speak'. obviously what is mission critical is to a small lumbermill for example would be sawing device, that isn't embedded chip dependent. however to make the stretch that a mission critical definition to the irs is a sawing device is an absurd stretch. however, it IS my observation that many companies, which have been odiously plastered on this si thread in particular, consider mission critical to be the billing department first and making sure their product or service can still contribute to GNP/GDP is way down the line somewhere because compliancy there would cause 're-tooling' minimally, which is expensive. so, as my kids used to say, the emPHASis has been on the wrong syLLABle in darn near every industry that has swung into microcosmic view for review by us lowly consumers, end users. one terrific illustration after another of this emPHASis problem shows up, time and time again, and gets documented by the likes of the rarebirds, the kens, the c.k.houstons, the john hunts, etc., ad nauseum on these and other threads. the above is shared in support of fuller referencing to be sure, but do yourself a service and don't turn all conclusions by other speakers off without at least asking for the source of their summations, by the time you join the cocktail chatter. deal? no one will put you down for asking the source. but just because every 'y2k newswire' story doesn't give a complete click through url to each previous documented out the yingyang story doesn't mean it deserves to be chucked as having no probative value. it simply could be that they are understaffed and overwhelmed by the enormity of the story they are 're'breaking that the temptation to use 'insider/subscriber speak' is their poor substitute for what you would like to see, hear, read.

To: Lane3 who wrote (7897)	8/9/1999 2:57:00 PM
From: bearcub	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

karen, i didn't realize i was in edit when i re-wrote and documented better my previous reply to you. would you do me the courtesy of reading THIS one carefully where i feel like i better addressed your legitimate concerns. karen, while you make your point well in this post, may i broaden your awareness just a tad. i concur, y2k newswire is to be faulted as per your examples for using an ineffective form of 'insider/subscriber shorthand,' which carried to the 3 extremes as you pointed out it is indeed lacking in supportive credibility. no where is said glaring assumption of prior knowledge gap more apparent than to newcomers to the 'y2k newswire alert.' first of all y2knewswire is a combination service: free access and subscriber access. i am NOT a subscriber. i figure anything someone wants to charge me for y2k information isn't worth my funding as the internet will get ahold of most of it and fling it far and wide for free, even if it is only sepearated in time of dissemination by a few hours. my point: as a freeloader to their occasional alerts, i recognize the adamic references in all 3 of your posted, 'shakey summation/conclusion' examples as referring to thoroughly documented previous articles. articles that not only appeared on y2k newswire but from other credible reporting wire services, both here and abroad. let me illustrate: the 50% story that you mentioned is insider speak reference to the well publicized Bell South study of their vendors, who lied to BS about being compliant. yet when Bell South went to do site checks or paid for independent verification of y2k compliancy of said vendors considered critical to Bell South continuing to provide communications services and products, BS discovered and BS MADE PUBLIC THEIR FINDINGS, that over 50% of their vendors had lied to them. while significant that Bell South's name was attached to said 50% falsification report simply due to their household word recognition, that particular report has been extrapolated to mean EVERYONE, i.e., every 'technology guy' is being lied to at least 50% of the time. that, of course is false. it could be higher (grin) it would be akin to taking the widely publicized UK electric utility failure affecting 25% of meter users in the affected group and extrapolating that ConEdison has a 25% failure rate that they DON'T know about yet, because they are also a utility. there are similar historical 'insider/subscriber speak' references in your other two examples. the NERC story is another historical reference to a series of articles they did when they discovered the boilerplate of which you speak as being industry standard. as a consumer, i'm not comforted by the existence of boiler plate. for example: if i live in a hydro-electric power generating district (which i do NOT), i wouldn't want nuclear electric utility industry boilerplate to be issued to describe the readiness of MY hydropower generating electricity source simply because it saves time and money simply because we are both 'electric utilities.' the redefining of complaint to just "mission critical compliant" is a little tougher to nail down a specific previous story there, because that redefinition process in order to issue more glowing reports of 'yeah, we're almost done' is so widely documented inside and outside every industry you can think of, it is hard for me to even provide the 'index case' to use Center for Disease Control 'speak'. obviously what is mission critical is to a small lumbermill for example would be sawing device, that isn't embedded chip dependent. however to make the stretch that a mission critical definition to the irs is a sawing device is an absurd stretch. however, it IS my observation that many companies, which have been odiously plastered on this si thread in particular, consider mission critical to be the billing department first instead of making sure their product or service can still contribute to GNP/GDP, thereby pushing product manufacture compliance way down the line somewhere. it boils down to allocation of fund generated by the ongoing business: because compliancy there would cause 're-tooling' minimally, which is expensive. the stories of 'labelling' as customary expense account entries, to the appropriate 'expense account' have instead been re-labelled and stuck into capital accounts, thereby 'dressing up the bottom line' in order to appease/placate/obfuscate shareholders AND regulators, frankly. we can thank the 'account standards' industry for being 'label' creative. such laboring over definition of expense versus capitalizing every nuance of upgrading or compliancy be it in home office or on the assembly line, has effectively obfuscated quarterly earnings in such a way that it would make the off balance sheet account in other industries which are 'standard practice even in governmental accounting in this particular instance, amateurish by glaring side by side comparisons. so, as my kids used to say, the emPHASis has been on the wrong syLLABle in darn near every industry that has been made to face the enormous dollar expenditures to 'fix y2k' that has swung into microcosmic view for review by us lowly consumers, end users. one terrific illustration after another of this emPHASis problem shows up, time and time again, and gets documented by the likes of the rarebirds, the kens, the c.k.houstons, the john hunts, etc., ad nauseum on this thread in particular. the above explanation, however inadequate, is my shared atempt in support of fuller referencing to be sure. but do yourself a service and don't turn off all conclusions by other speakers without at least asking for the source of their summations, by the time you join the cocktail chatter. deal? no one will put you down for asking the source. if they do, then seek your index sourcing elsewhere. it is time consuming but a valuable exercise in wheat and chaff winnowing.