'cory hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report WRP108
January 15, 1999 - 350 days to go. WRP108
kiyoinc.com Final $2.50 Cover Price.
(c) 1998, 1999 Cory Hamasaki - I grant permission to distribute and reproduce this newsletter as long as this ocument 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.
--------------------tearline -----------------
In this issue:
Preparedness
1. Dragon Ranch
2. The Baron Speaks
3. Corporate
4. Maryland
5. Timberwolf
6. Bob Dole
7. CCCC
Preparedness -- DragonRanch --
"The crew will be here at 9:00," reads the email from the Baron, "We'll make a big push tomorrow."
All morning, as we lift roughcut lumber into place for one of walls at DragonRanch, a steady steam of vans, dumptrucks, and tractor trailers roar down the gravel road. Unloading, loading, contractors meet with the Baron to plan the big jobs.
Meanwhile, we continue to work on the walls, fit lumber, trim the ends, hammer it into place with the nailgun. Racing to beat the weather, the snow, racing to beat the winter and Y2K.
The pace is frantic, pausing to reload the nailgun, reset the breaker on the generator. When the 4.4KW runs out of gas, we switch to the 3.5KW, the Baron has 3 generators. The crew, all volunteers and friends of the Baron, yell to be heard; his 2HP compressor and the Diesel engine of the John Deere 4WD downs out the cheers. Lift! Back! Who's got the nailgun?
Three generators, 170 hours on the John Deere 4WD, cost is no object, the Baron draws on his investments to fund the buildup. Workcrews racing the clock. And things go wrong.
Mike catches his hand between 2x8's, he's out of commission for an hour. Our longest drill bits barely start a pilot hole for the 8 inch long lag bolts that attach the "decorative" cap to the 6x6 pressure treated. Without a full length pilot hole, we have to hand drive the lag bolts into green pressure treated. Hand drive because the only 1/2 inch air wrench on DragonRanch is defective, seems to be set to bypass most of the air, the socket creeps around.
So three of us spend an hour hand tightening "decorative trim" to the 6x6 pressure treated. ...and we snap off two of the lag bolts, cheap steel, I break one using a craftsman 1/2 inch ratchet with a 12 inch handle. How much torque did I apply, 50 ft-lbs, 60 maybe? Cheap steel, brittle at 25 degrees F.
The work continues all day, 3:00 pm, the Baron pauses to negotiate with a contractor for "site preparation". There's only so much he can do with his John Deere, for serious grading, trenching, and land contouring, he hires men who own earth moving equipment.
At 7:00 pm, the snow starts blowing little Star of Davids. Halogen light floods the workplace; we're pulling steel tubing into place; 6x6 pressure treated, 8 inch lag bolts, and now 4 inch steel tubes. The steel drains our heat though the heavy workgloves.
8:00 pm, phase one is complete. Hey Baron, I gotta bail, still have a long drive ahead of me. I'm hurting. I limp the 1/4 mile from the forward position back to the Baron's house. A hundred yards from DragonLair, something detects my approach, the house exterior brightens to alert the master. Too far for standard motion lights, wonder how he did that?
This isn't about paranoid survivalism, the Baron's projects turn DragonRanch into an efficient working farm. He pours capital into it. I saw him write checks for seventeen grand, nine grand, it's only numbers; he has the financial reserves but not the time, the clock is running.
Everything has a purpose. Nothing is wasted. If Y2K isn't the disaster that even Ko-skin-em has started hinting at, the Baron will have a fabulous farm with modern amenities. The buildings, the fences, all add to his net worth and improve the productivity of DragonRanch.
Email -- The Baron Speaks --
"... the 'domino' analogy I was using doesn't work. It's much worse than that! It's more like a suspension 'chain' that breaks. Whatever is being suspended on both sides of the chain collapse or fall. Company A supplies company B which in turn supplies company C. Company B has y2k issues and fails (can't fulfill orders, whatever). Company A and C are both affected since one is a supplier (loses a customer) and the other is being supplied (loses products needed for business). Much worse than a 'domino' effect which typically goes one way. This is why the y2k problem is so difficult to estimate."
"I wanted to thank you guys for helping, even with the frontloader, we needed 4 people pulling at once to do the heavy work."
No problem, glad to help but I was hurting for days.
Preparedness -- corporate --
What can you do? Stop whining for one. Even if your company doesn't "get it", even if they think that holding meetings and writing a mission statement is the same as doing the work, you don't have to buy in. Set your alarm, get to work early, and fix the code. Fix the code because if you don't, no one else will.
Even if they said, don't Y2K that system because the replacement is due any day now, fix it anyway. They're burning the boats, but they're not worried, every CEO and member of the executive staff has a nice fat golden parachute in their contract. Don't think so? Ask the boys at Long Term Capital, they messed up so big that they were about to take down the world economy but hey, once they conned the government into bailing them out, they're getting fifty million bucks in bonuses. Nice fat bonuses, wads of hundred dollar bills, more money than you, me, and the Baron has ever seen (and the Baron has more than a couple grand to his name.)
But wait, there's more, just ask anyone at Long Term Capital Fund if they don't deserve it. Suuuure they do, fifty million and more, lots more, like sneaky mice, they're dinking around with the numbers, your loss is my gain, -squeeeek- -squeeeeek- nibbling at the numbers. Nothing up my sleeve.
Crank code. Keep the focus. Set up a global parameter file that contains:
system
pivotyear = 50
mode = Y1K
field
name = datebirth
pivotyear = 20
mode = Y1K
field
name = datedeath
pivotyear = 70
mode = Y1K
field
name = enroll
field
name = renew
endfield
endsystem
When they finally realize that the new system isn't going to make it and they start to panic, scream in the management meetings, that's when you flip the system mode from Y1K to Y2K. Engage.
There are two pieces to this, a general purpose parser for the parameter file. Nothing fancy, just a state engine. Then embedded in the production code, you insert your windowing logic. For maximum flexibility, set it up to window by field.
Write some subroutines (oopsie today's wimp programmers call them objects) that given a field name, returns a Y1K or Y2K and a pivot year. If you're really clever you can inline the functions (oopsie, I meant objects) as macros and it'll run like the wind.
Bind it late and pay the price in performance or bind it early and it will run like the wind. Your choice.
The second part of the design issue is where to add the '19' or '20' prefix or whether to handle it with logic. As a general rule, I use a local variable, an instantiation that persists as long as the code, and expand within the application.
This means 1) declaring a shadow variable for each date variable, 2) following all references to variables, including pointer - addr(variable), pointer arithmetic, and redefines, DSECTs/Usings, 3) switching the reference from the variable to the shadow, 4) subtracting the '19' or '20' to return the shadow variable to the variable.
I prefer not to add and subtract directly to the variable. The reason is in some IBM S/390 implementations of zoned decimal arithmetic, the field will overflow. This is not what we call "a good thing."
dcl yymmdd pic'999999' init(981231);
yymmdd = yymmdd + 19000000; /* doesn't work */
dcl xyymmdd pic'99999999' init(0);
xyymmdd = yymmdd + 19000000; /* using shadow */
In the IBM S/390 environment, pay special attention to quick and dirty programs that touch the files. Anything that runs batch TSO or Rexx is suspect but check everything for leading zero surpression.
I know I lost the management types but there were more than a few geeks out there who said, "why don't we do it like that?" There were a few who said, "we already do it better."
Some said, "That's exactly right, state engines, the design of the parameter file is a classic; but I have one quest..."
Bzzzzt sorry, it's like the email I get from non-WRP members asking questions on the WRPs or complaining that their free WRP is late. I'll get to you when I can but the members come first. For hardcore, in the code issues, my clients come first. They subsidize the WRPs and the WRPs subsidize the clients.
But I'm hurting, honest work, horsing lengths of rough cut lumber, 20 and 24 oz hammers, serious machinery at DragonRanch, cost is no object but time, time is the enemy. If we don't complete the construction, we'll be working on the "improvements" into the century flip, maybe it's OK, and maybe not.
What are the odds?
Assessment -- Maryland, compare to your state --
Yes, the denial, butt-head, idiots are still with us. They're out there, pretending that they have big-brains and they know that "everything will be fine"... fine? Fine? Why, because mommy said so?
Until Day 500, I was pushing for Triage, pick the systems that absolutely must work and just fix those. Choose carefully. Decide. Fix those. Abandon all else. Set priorities. Make hard choices, do it.
At Day 500, the time for Triage was over. Because the work hadn't been done, because the days, weeks, months, and all time previous had been wasted, there wasn't time for Triage, it was time to engineer contingencies. Radical, Alarmist, said some. "You're a liar." said the herman munster of Y2K.
Too bad. I was right and they were wrong. We have less than a year to go now. We're 4 months past Day 500 and the FAA has gone from 99% done to 95% and in December, Ko-skin-em himself said that the FAA was 90+% percent done. I'll tell you how done the FAA is, eenie meenie chili beanie, toss the dice and SHAZAM! The FAA is 40% done. What do I base 40% on? I pulled it out of my butt just like Jane Gravy-Train and Ray so-Long did.
Here's another good one. The Capitol, hometownannapolis.com, "State Edges Closer to Solution of Y2K Puzzle", December 26, 1998. Wait wait, wasn't Maryland done last year? Guess not.
In addition to the usual clueless nattering about disk storage costs, and "making progress", "We're moving very fast", and "well on their way", there is the harsh light of reality.
Surprise! Instead of "done by December 31, 1998, leaving all of 1999 for testing." the song is now, mostly done by July 1, 1999, leaving half of 1999 for testing, except for Medicaid which won't be done until September 1999, leaving almost 4 months for testing. Sounds like moving very fast? Are they well on their way? Watch-it! milne's pigs have learned to fly.
And they call *me* alarmist?
Just set the clock ahead, and fix the failures this weekend. How simple. Why doesn't Gl'assman stop pontificating in the Post, go over to Maryland, and straighten those rubes out. Y2K is just a bunch of hype.
Here's another fun quote from the Capital,
"State and federal officials have sharply disputed the gloom and doom theories but they admit there is no way they can guarantee there won't be any computer problems."
"I don't think anyone can say we won't have failures, but we hope to minimize them," Mr. Hearn said.
Hearn is the CIO for Maryland's Department of Budget and Finance.
What the h*ll does that mean? The State was supposed to be done last year, wasn't everyone gonna be done December 31, 1998? Now the deadlines have magically time-warped to July 1, 1999. The original articles about the fast-track contracts said it would be no problem-o. Didn't happen and they won't make July 1, 1999 either.
"To further minimize disruptions from computer glitches, all agencies have been ordered to come up with detailed contingency plans," Mr Hearn said.
What are these plans? Write hundreds of thousands of checks by hand? Print foodstamps using Quicken? Let the pensioneers go hungry. My Plan-C is to hide out on my pal's 100+ acre farm, live in a 12x30 foot shed with 12 other people, clenching an SP1. It's scarier when they don't come clean. My Plan-A is to stay in my city place, go to work, shop once a week at the Safeway just like I do now. If there are minor disturbances, I'll stay home, live on Dinty Moore and monitor 31/91.
Here's a project for someone, file a FOI with the state to get their detailed contingency plans. How serious are they? What does the state government really think is about to happen?
We can look back at 1997 and 1998 and can see that they haven't done the work. It's turned out to be worse that they said it would be. Schedules slipped, the work didn't get done, just like all computer projects.
With less than a year to go, the state is talking about "contingency plans". Ho-kay... what are these plans? Are they printing maps showing evacuation routes? Are they stockpiling MRE's? The Feds are printing 50 billion in cash.
Or is the plan to build a separate computer center and fast-track contracts to real experts as opposed to the same old clueless handwavers? The problem is how do you recognize real computer experts?
I know pros who don't want anything to do with Y2K now. They've watched the handwavers take the easy money, scramble the code, and now that "Times up", the pros don't want to get stuck picking up the pieces. It's one thing to earn a good rate doing a job with a chance of success but no one wants to start a job that has no hope.
Insider info - several firms have finally realized that their "magical replacement systems" will not be ready by December 1999 and have quietly started Y2K'ing their old systems.
Times up, rules changed.
True Story -- Timberwolf --
True story time boyz and grrrls. I stopped in to visit with old bud, Timberwolf, he was a snake-eater when he was younger. He asked how Y2K was going, how's business. I shrugged, "I got a lot of work but only some of it is Y2K."
"Come into my office, have a seat." I leaned back into the chair, he closed the door, lowered his voice, "We're getting worried here, some of my guys are going nuts, stockpiling food, ammo...."
I waved my hand and shrugged, "I'm not sure it will get to that but I'm advising people to plan for the worse. What are you doing?"
He leaned forward, "You know me, if it gets bad, I'll do whatever I have to, to feed my family." Not kidding, not smiling, absolutely dead serious.
He saw my shock, "I mean, if I have to take extreme measures, I will."
Calm, this is the guy who at a SO/LIC conference, pointed to one of the vendors, "him, he's a pro, doesn't look like much but he can take anyone here, those young punks in their tight black T-shirts, he can take any two of them."
Snake-eater, war paint, det cord. I'll do whatever I have to...
Every loonie, pollyanna, clueless wrong decision has boxed us in and limited our options.
Boxed us in and now a snake-eater is talking about turning preditor. Going squirrel hunting and we're the squirrels. If it gets bad, if he has to, if he has no other way. This is it, the first live preditor sighting.
True Story -- Bob Dole meets cory hamasaki --
January 14, 1999. "187 miles due south of Russell, Kansas"
"Bob, you should have your guys whup up on the 'Dems for Y2K."
BD: Is this a big problem? Aren't they making pretty good progress? (I remember the last time this happened, those James brothers really caused a bunch of trouble.)
"Not good enough, schedules are slipping and the progress is just not good enough. Have someone from your staff check into it, it's pretty technical there's lots of information around."
BD: I was reading the other day about nuclear plants... seems to be a problem there.
"Yeah, nukes but it's bigger than that. Keep an eye on Y2K." I slapped Bob on the back, probably the only time I'll talk to him. "We're all big fans of Elizabeth."
-- CCCC --
Y2K should have been the top priority for industry and government two years ago. The remediation should have been a cost is no object effort.
The pollyanna's are still with us. Doing their part to ensure disaster. Schedules that absolutely cannot slip just slipped 3 months. But it's OK because they "get it" and will send out lots of brochures. Done by March 31, 1999, leaving a full nine months for testing. The clueless and the lightweights are still running their keyboards.
A year ago, it was Triage time. What are your 20 percent most important systems? Just fix those.
At Day 500, it was time to plan the contingencies. Preposition supplies, develop alternate methods.
And now, with 350 days to go, we are out of time.
But who could have known? How could we have known that it would play out like this? How are we going to get out of this mess?
Don't be part of the problem. We're still in the last of the 7 fat years. You have time to set aside provisions. This isn't about money. There's nothing magical about beans and rice except they're cheap, store well, and provide the basic calories.
No one is going to help you but you have enough time to prepare, learn, and to be ready for whatever happens.
Some of you may decide to bail for the boonies. I'm not doing that but milne's done it, Infomagic is somewhere "out there", and the Baron is working full time from DragonRanch, telnetting into Washington DC servers.
I'm at condition-green, peace in the world, the AR-15 SP1 is concealed in the floor joists, the 120 rounds of .223 are secured in the office safe. My tiny investments are still at Fidelity Investments, Equity Income, Balanced, Intermediate Bond, whatever. I have 3 months of food, mostly rice, pasta, jars of spaghetti sauce, tuna, cheap stuff that I eat anyway. I had planned to be at 6 months now, $30 for rice will get me there, what's that; $30 is a bottle of wine at a Yuppie restaurant.
As this plays out, as events meet or fail to meet my checkpoints, If 80 percent of the Fortune 500 is not "Done by March 31, 1999 leaving most of 1999 for testing", I'll start prepositioning supplies at DragonRanch.
cory hamasaki 350 days.
This article is published as part of Cory Hamasaki's DC Y2K Weather Report and may be reproduced under the same terms and conditions. All other rights reserved to the author.
-- CCCC --
WRP -- Members Only -- Non members, please skip this section.
Except for two members, one who asked for no mailings, and recent subscribers, everyone should have their 1919 Gardening and Vegetable Storage book. If you haven't received the package yet. Please drop us an email or letter.
I believe a lot of members signed up because they wanted to help the cause. For you, I'm doing everything I can.
WRP 108 mentions a meeting with Bob Dole, former U.S. Senator, War Hero, humorist, Republican Party leader, and very likely the future FHOTUS, First Husband of the United States. Don't tell the non-members but I did speak with Bob Dole on January 14, 1999 and the topic was Y2K exactly as quoted. This was a chance meeting on the flight back from Hawaii but I knew that I had to step out of the crowd and raise this issue.
I don't believe that by talking to Bob, I have convinced him of the seriousness of this issue.
I have printed extra copies of WRP106 which I am distributing to user groups and through other channels. The idea is to get the word out. We can't do it all, no one of us has the time, connections or energy.
I spoke with a 30 person user group in Hawaii, gave them each a copy of WRP 106. Met with government officials. By subscribing, you help me to do these things.
LED Flashlight update - I met with Hank in Hawaii. Hank is a broadcast engineer and has taken the LED flashlight one step further. He took a standard PR2 flashlight bulb, broke the glass out, picked out the cement and unsoldered the base. He then built the Jumbo LED and dropping resistor into the base. After seeing what he did, I had to have one like his; it takes about 15 minutes. You then have a flashlight bulb that will work in any two cell flashlight... and will run for weeks, months if used only in the evenings.
I've received email from two members who are experimenting with LED arrays. By putting 6 or more LEDs in series they are able to run the array off 12 volt batteries. The current drain is so low that they should be able to run months off a deep cycle battery. Perhaps charging it once a month.
We've contracted for a book on sanitation, infection prevention, and sterilization for Y2K. This will be the next freebie for members.
Ad -- Jim Abel --
Checkout glitchproof.com
Fine Print -- Subscriptions --
You don't have to subscribe to the WRPs, you can keep reading the issues on the web or in Usenet or however it gets to you.
1 Year
$50/shareware memberships or
$99/print edition.
$199 corporate or government agency.
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.
Please include your name, address, phone number, and email.
Fine print -- publishing information --
As seen in
USENET:comp.software.year-2000
elmbronze.demon.co.uk
sonnet.co.uk
gonow.to
ocweb.com
vistech.net
kiyoinc.com
Don't forget, the Y2K chat-line:
ntplx.net any evening, 8-10PM EST.
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.
|
