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

To: flatsville who wrote (5356)	4/8/1999 1:34:00 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 9818

Flatsville, Could you please post links to the articles as well?? Nice find though and interesting statistical information. Too bad they didn't try to quantify whether any of the defective chips they discovered would have shut the systems down completely or consisted of an insurmountable problem they couldn't resolve. However, Sydney's efforts will now provide an invaluable resource for other communities that may be running behind. But as a contingency plan, if your water goes bad, filter it and add a capful of chlorine bleach per gallon. Regards, Ron

To: flatsville who wrote (5356)	4/8/1999 7:13:00 AM
From: flatsville	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9818

Ron-- For Sydney: www2.idg.com.au For Chicago: chicagotribune.com

To: flatsville who wrote (5356)	4/11/1999 12:46:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Respond to of 9818

FOOD SUPPLY AND THE MILLENNIUM BUG (April 1999) EXCERPTS - Worth reading in entirity In the case of the Department of Agriculture there were 1,239 systems considered mission critical in August 1997 and these had dropped to 353. This enabled the USDA to say it had gone from 10% compliant to 65% compliant. (Later in this text studies of the USDA are quoted which argue that the US public have no serious worries in respect of their food supply. When civil servants become cavalier with statistics, ever, individuals become sceptical about them ... Shipping also supplies oil and other products used directly and indirectly (e.g. as fertilisers and pesticides) for the farming industry - e.g. diesel for mechanised sewing and harvesting. The issue here is crucial for the longer term production of food ... The American Petroleum Institute claims that the embedded chip problem is not a problem on the magnitude that was at first thought. The same point is made in the IEA report which quotes the Oil and Gas Journal of February 15th 1999 to this effect. The author of the IEA report points out however that "looking for a few non compliant systems represents basically the same managerial challenge as looking for a large number, with similar resource implications." It cites Ascent Logic Corporation, a risk management technology company in San Jose California, which has inspected y2k chips on the sea floor that control well heads for several companies. "Most of those chips will shut down on January 1st 2000," says Ascent president Larry McArthur, "The question now is, is there enough diving capacity and time remaining to get a significant portion of these replaced?" A check for compliance for a single micro-chip on the sea bed costs $80,000 ... To repeat the question of oil supply is quite crucial to long run food production. International agri-business is highly energy intensive. Estimates are that the energy used in producing, processing and transporting supermarket food to your mouth are 16 times what you get in calories when you digest it. An oil crisis could put the price of food up considerably ... I do not deny that the crisis of adjustment in farming under the worse case scenarios might not be severe. When a market is crippled firms can go out of business and therefore out of production. However, given an adequate emergency policy response by the public authorities there is unlikely to be a crisis so severe that there is not an aggregate availability of things to eat, at least in this country (the UK) ... IN CONCLUSION To summarise: The End of the World as We Know it seems unlikely. The available information will not support the view that the supply of food will come to a catastrophic sudden halt. Most large organisations and companies are doing something about the Millennium Bug and a lot will be ready. *However a sceptical view must recognise that deadlines will slip, that problems will be missed and new problems perhaps in some cases created...* Perhaps like with the USDA some problems will cease to be considered "mission critical" but still be there....Working across the whole spectrum of the food supply sector there is likely to be some effects that could keep rolling for months. If the problems were severe then food prices will rise in the absence of government emergency measures - particularly if there is an energy and oil crisis. Few of these things would reveal themselves on a Doomsday on January 1st 2000 but they might occur in a very difficult year following it. They might occur alongside other problems like delays in the benefit system and perhaps growing unemployment. For the majority of the population [in U.K.] the problems are likely to be manageable but there are still some possibly severe scenarios in which government would need to intervene to stabilise the food situation. This might involve using emergency powers, if a substantial portion of the population were not coping well, perhaps to impose rationing of food and oil for fairness and priority uses as well as making subsidies to keep food prices in the range of hard up people. If the problems were severe it would make sense to join and support community gardening groups and to build up some moderate food stocks - but many months supplies seems uncalled for..... Brian Davey 8th April 1999 Ecoworks(Nottingham) Ltd Nottingham, NG3 4NB, United Kingdom. cairns.net.au Obviously a British perspective. But pretty objective and well-researched. Definitely worth reading in entirity. Cheryl

To: flatsville who wrote (5356)	4/11/1999 1:22:00 AM
From: C.K. Houston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

COLORADO ISSUES FOOD STAMPS BY ACCIDENT The state welfare agency issued almost $1 million in March food stamp benefits to unqualified residents. It's the first time anything like this has happened, but the problem has been corrected, Department of Human Services spokesman Dwight Eisnach said Friday. The department will now ask as many as 5,800 low-income people to repay the state. "We realize these are low-income families," Eisnach said. "It may be difficult." The error occurred in late February as the state agency was updating its databases and preparing computers for Y2K, Eisnach said. insidedenver.com REMEMBER THIS IS NEW JERSEY??????? NJ SEEKS TO RECOVER FROM Y2K GLITCH TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - A Y2K computer glitch gave New Jersey welfare recipients millions of dollars in food assistance nearly two weeks early. It's the so-called millennium bug's most widespread effect on the public so far, one expert said ... The error ''made the benefits available as of APRIL 1, 1990, instead of APRIL 1, 1999,'' making next month's benefits available immediately, Rogan said. dailynews.yahoo.com. html?s=v/ap/19990323/tc/y2k_benefits_glitch_2.html (Have to cut & paste FULL link - can't go direct) THEN THE NEXT DAY ... March 24 RENTON, N.J. (AP) - A computer glitch that caused $23 million in food stamps to be given out prematurely in New Jersey was not connected to Y2K millennium bug problems as first suspected, computer experts say. [Attributed to human error.] Cheryl P.S. So far, it looks like Y2K's benefiting food stamp recipients.