...Media tidbits to make your head spin...

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Today's tidbits focus on various types of mis- and dis- information techniques being used by the press. Let's play "Spin the Public."

------------ Turns out, what they've got here is a great idea. However, why is presented as something to "prevent paranoia" with a "potent enemy" ? -----------------

http://flash.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/or_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/OREGON_NEWS/o0309_PM_OR--PortlandY2K

Portland plans to use neighborhood volunteers to fight Y2K paranoia

The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- In the City of Roses, paranoia over possible Y2K problems could have a potent new enemy -- the neighborhood volunteer.

City officials are drafting plans to organize Portland's 200,000 households into small, self-sufficient units led by neighborhood volunteers trained to inform people about the real risks of Year 2000 computer problems.

"We're taking this seriously," Mayor Vera Katz said. "The purpose is not to raise a tremendous amount of concern, but to be prepared for an emergency. It doesn't mean it's going to happen."

If approved and executed beginning this spring, the effort would be one of the nation's largest municipal Y2K preparedness plans. Other large U.S. municipalities lauded for their plans include San Diego; Montgomery County, Md.; and Boulder County, Colo.

-------------- Using Mother as an emotional deflection device in a story. I particularly enjoyed the "less stable" thing --------------

http://www.amcity.com/memphis/stories/1999/02/22/editorial2.html

The Mom Generation and Y2K

Bill Wellborn

Some people think we may have heard all we need to hear about the possible repercussions of the Year 2000 anomaly. And they may be right.

The truth is, however, that we have not begun to hear about the Y2K threat.

A recent visit by my mother made this fact extremely clear. As I prepared to send a gallon milk jug to its new home in our recycle bin, she announced that her best friend is saving empty jugs.

"Do you know why?" she asked me.

"Uh, some sort of school fund-raiser?" I ventured.

"No," she said. "Y2K."

It didn't register until she explained the jugs are being saved for water storage. And this from an intelligent, college-educated woman whom I greatly admire.

Ai-yi-yi. If she's freaking out about the Millennium Bug, what are less stable people thinking right about now? And what will they be thinking in December?

We explored the Y2K phenomenon last month in a special section that sort of poked fun at the millennium hysteria. If you didn't see it, we presented it - graphically, at least - with a National Enquirer or Weekly World News design, complete with gargantuan, exclamatory headlines and sensationalized graphics. The articles beneath these sometimes ridiculous headlines were straightforward, journalistically legitimate articles that covered a variety of Y2K issues.

We received a lot of comments about this approach to a potentially serious problem. Most were favorable. Some questioned our sanity. More than a few asked for the source of short blurbs labeled "Experts Say" that we sprinkled throughout the section, not realizing, apparently, that the information presented there was written with tongue in cheek . . .

-------------- Bad computer code does not care what someone's motivation is for fixing it. It was partly the "profit motive" that got us into this mss in the first place. I am not convinced that the "profit motive" will get us out of it -----------------------

http://www.amcity.com/sanantonio/stories/1999/02/22/editorial3.html?h=y2k

The profit motive will squash the Y2K bug

by M. Ray Perryman

It seems to be universally true that good ideas breed other good ideas. Equally true is that people striving to be the best and perform the best can actually motivate others to perform beyond artificial, preconceived, or self-imposed limits. This fact illustrates one of the finest characteristics of competition and competitive systems.

There can be no doubt that competition and our capitalist system, among other things, have provided today's Americans with the highest standard of living ever experienced in the history of the world, bar none. To date, no other system, idea, organization or machination has been as effective as competition in stimulating people to work harder. And the primary reason why competition works is profit (and the freedom to keep it).

Not so long ago, I wrote about an issue with which we all are likely to become more familiar -- known as the Y2K problem. Not to continue to beat a dead longhorn, but the Y2K problem relates to the inability of computers and other devices to differentiate between centuries when date-related fields have been truncated from four to two digits.

Here, too, the role of profit is very explanatory. Computer programmers originally truncated date fields because it was profitable. Indeed, at the time, the two-digit solution must have seemed ingenious, as it provided exactly what was needed at the time, namely, the conservation of scarce computer memory.

However, while all this may be quite interesting, the role profit will play in resolving future problems is surely more interesting. A review of Y2K-related literature immediately confirms the difficulty in accurately forecasting the extent of the problems likely to occur on Jan. 1, 2000. In fact, it's likely that no person or organization really knows what will happen to our computers when the clock strikes midnight at the end of this year.

I am certain that profits -- and people's efforts to earn them -- will play a pivotal role in whatever does occur . . .

----------- Bad computer code also does not care what people who respond to surveys think -------------

http://www.austin360.com/news/1metro/1999/02/21y2k.html

Y2K-savvy Texans aren't too worried, survey shows

Of those who say they're up on the millennialcomputer bug, most think it will be fixed in time

By Dick Stanley American-Statesman Staff

More than half of Texans consider themselves very knowledgeable about the Year 2000 computer glitch, and most of them believe it won't cause serious disruptions in their lives, according to a Texas Poll released today.

The poll found that 88 percent of the 56 percent of Texans claiming extensive knowledge of the computer problem believe they could be personally affected, but only 49 percent of them are preparing for possible disruptions by doing such things as withdrawing some cash from their bank accounts and stockpiling food and water.

That may be because 74 percent of these Texans also believe the problem, in which computers and computerized equipment might fail when the year changes from 1999 to 2000, can be resolved before it causes disruptions. . .

----------- Another report full "confident", "expect", meaningless percentages and dollar amounts, and threats to "punish" organizations that don't fix their problems -------

http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1055LBY749reulb-19990222&qt=y2k&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

Thai stock exchange to be ready for millennium

BANGKOK, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The Stock Exchange of Thailand said on Monday it was confident it would be fully millennium compliant by the middle of this year.

Exchange senior vice president Somkid Jiranuntarat said in a statement the stock exchange had spent more than 40 million baht ($1.1 million) to fix the so-called millennium, or Y2K (year 2000), bug.

``We are 85 percent ready for Y2K and we expect to be 100 percent ready by mid-year,'' said Somkid . . . . . . Somkid said the stock exchange was well aware of the problem and had started fixing the millennium bug in November 1998.

He said the stock exchange would report the names of brokers which could not solve their millennium bug problems from July 1, 1999 and might punish listed companies if they did not fix the problem in time . ..



-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), February 23, 1999

Answers

Geez, why do I feel dizzy?

..."I am certain that profits -- and people's efforts to earn them -- will play a pivotal role in whatever does occur . . ."

Yep. Y2K Compliant -- the next competitive edge.

Well if about 49% of the Texans are preparing, I find that "significant."

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 23, 1999.


All that optimism is good news for those of us who are preparing. Less competition.

I particularly like this part: "... this from an intelligent, college-educated woman whom I greatly admire. ...If she's freaking out about the Millennium Bug, what are less stable people thinking right about now? ..."

It's pretty obvious what less stable, less educated people are thinking about -- what they ALWAYS think about: sex, sports, stupid TV shows, & food.

As for December, well, just wait & see.

-- that leaves (more@for.us), February 23, 1999.


Diane, those numbers really come out to about 27%.... (would that it were 49%!!)

56% of pollees claim extensive knowledge... of those [560 ppl]: 49% [~265] are considering prep or prepping.

So thats 265 out of 1000.... which brings us to 27%, which seems to be in line with the latest polls averages.. and have you seen this article?

"California Dreaming it'll be Y2K compliant" - good one

http://www.techweek.com/articles/2-22-99/countdow.htm

thanks, p..

-- Lisa (no!@no!.no!), February 23, 1999.


I think that it is 49% of the 56% that claim extensive knowledge. (Especially since the preceding segment refers to 88% of the 56%.)

Even so, 27% is a large portion of Texans in general....

-- Tod (muhgi@yahoo.com), February 23, 1999.


Well, while I was typing so were four other people.

I'm going to try including a link though for Lisa...

California Dreaming

-- Tod (muhgi@yahoo.com), February 23, 1999.



Tanks, Todd - hey, what if Austinites (I'm one) misinterpret those percentages, too? That could be good!?!?!

-- Lisa (lisa@___.____), February 23, 1999.

And again - to remind everybody - it doesn't matter WHAT anybody thinks will happen. The utilities and sevices will either survive as-is as-now, or they will fail - if they fail, they will either fail for a short time; a series of short, irregular failures over an irregular, intermittant time; or they will fail complately for a longer time.

And it doesn't matter what people think,or how they respond to polls. The computers, chips, and processors in a manufactoring plant or petrochemical refinery will fail, or they will work perfectly. these reporters are playing the political psychobable polling stories that succeeded with Clinton's trial - prominantly discuss the conventiional wisdom as news from "experts"; take a poll of people who read that news, make the poll results the next story, then lead the public to follow the conventional wisdom expressed in the conventional wisdom while condemning any alternate views as crazies and kooks out of the mainstream.

Repeat with next story about the crazies and yahoo's, and as a balance, interview again the calm, reasoned "experts" used in the first story.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.R@csaatl.com), February 23, 1999.


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