From:

Link

GENERAL MOTORS CONDUCTS SUCCESSFUL YEAR 2000 TEST AT TRUCK ASSEMBLY PLANT

DETROIT -- General Motors has completed an extensive Year 2000 test on a truck assembly plant in Arlington, TX, simultaneously running most of the systems and components within the plant with the date moved ahead to the Year 2000.

Called a dynamic production test at GM, the operation tested manufacturing and information systems during an 8-hour shift -- while producing 244 vehicles. GM called the test a success with no Year 2000 related-problems with any systems.

GM is in the phase of its Year 2000 program where it is testing systems together in logical units, or clusters, such as an assembly plant. In Arlington, for example, GM tested a total of 79 systems together as well as the plant computing and communications infrastructure. Manufacturing control systems tested included robots, programmable logic controllers, panel displays and personal computers. Information systems included software that provides information related to tasks like scheduling, material flow and quality control.

The company has successfully conducted similar tests at car assembly plants at Lake Orion, MI, and Ste. Therese in Canada.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), April 16, 1999

Answers

Hoff, I'm sure Andy, INVARiably STUPID, Ray and others will not appreciate this. Prepare to be attacked...

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 16, 1999.

Hoff

It was GM who ran a Y2K test some time ago and shut down a plant of theirs. That article got me worried because it showed the potential of the embedded system problem. I see they heeded the warning. So one more thing get's fixed. Good. I hope we will have fixed enough by New Years to avoid any real unpleasentness.

Caution requires that I don't depend on it, however.

Thanks for the info

eyes_open

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), April 16, 1999.

Good news, hope the tests keep succeeding for them.

This phase, the one they doing here:

"GM is in the phase of its Year 2000 program where it is testing systems together in logical units, or clusters, such as an assembly plant. In Arlington, for example, GM tested a total of 79 systems together as well as the plant computing and communications infrastructure. Manufacturing control systems tested included robots, programmable logic controllers, panel displays and personal computers. Information systems included software that provides information related to tasks like scheduling, material flow and quality control."

That group of tests is "the integrated test" series (all the way back to the top-level device (the computer for the robot device, in this case) of checks that has to be done to know each process in each plant will work.

Those companies - AND THIS IS THE FIRST ONE PUBLICIZED - who aren't doing this level of testing are at risk of their process failing.

Now, I won't say every process that is not tested to this level will fail. That's wrong, a few/some/many/most (take your pick), will continue to perform correctly. Others will "almost" work. And, a few that are tested to this level may still fail.

But I'd go with GM on this issue - in a manufactoring or distribution center - if it uses electricity and sends a signal to anything else, or receives a signal from anything else - you'd better test it to this level.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 16, 1999.

Thats good news. Lets hope they can get their act together. As an aside, their corporate systems are the definition of spaghetti code. How is EDS doing on that end? I haven't heard anything since GM anteed up the bonus ($75 million?) if they get it done.

-- RD. ->H (drherr@erols.com), April 16, 1999.

Oh - with respect to the FAA (as it relates here to GM).

Sir's Hoffmeister, Herbert, etc. Note the clear, "non-hyped" wording and tone of this press release. They show that the tests has been done elsewhere on other shifts, show the number of cars actually produced, show the other plants where fixes have been done, indicate that work is still needed, and make no "brilliant claims" of "This proves we will be successful next year."

Note that equal "fixes" and tests are still required in many other plants and production stations in many other facilities before they are done - on the manufactoruring side, at least. That leaves suppliers, admin, purchasing, corporate, transportation, sellers, .....they still have a lot of work to do.

I used an analogy (while discussing the FAA's single flight at a single radar in a single control station at its most modern facility) there to say - "It's like being told to book a flight on 100 aircraft next January when Boeing finished the stress test on wing of the first jet."

This level of testing is like seeing the flight test of the third assembled aircraft. Now, you know they can fly. They (GM) just have to do the "grunt work" of building the rest of the fleet.

The FAA still has to "make the rest of the FIRST airplane."

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 16, 1999.

Maybe, Robert, but I don't think the FAA test was as limited as you suggest.

From FAA

The test involved:

7 Air traffic control (ATC) systems at the Denver International Airport tower, the Denver TRACON, the Colorado Springs TRACON, the Grand Junction tower, and the Longmont, Colo., en route center. Systems at each of those facilities are used throughout the country, and cover all phases of flight from takeoffs to landings. This was a test of the nation's ATC system.

7 Systems used in all aspects of flight, including those for processing radar, weather and flight plan data.

7 The plotting of the movement of one flight in particular, United Airlines Flight 2778, which landed at Denver during the test. Data on Flight 2778 from live and test systems at the Denver TRACON and the en route center at Longmont are identical.

7 The processing of 453 flight plans by the en route center at Longmont.

7 The tracking of 51 aircraft by the Denver TRACON during the duration of the test. (Note: For safety purposes, all FAA air traffic tests are conducted at night, during periods of light traffic. Light traffic volume does not impact the validity of these tests.)

7 A total of 108 FAA employees, 73 from Airways Facilities and 35 from Air Traffic.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), April 16, 1999.

if i had to pick one industry after the financial sector who i would guess is in pretty good shape for y2k, it would be the auto industry. for one thing, they have the aiag going. for another, they have taken *extensive* actions on their supply chains, to the point on going international & basically forcing people to go free workshops on y2k. etc. i have not particularly worried about the auto sector for a while, and i've known from inside gm for about a year that they were realy busting their behinds on y2k (the same was true of the travel reservation sector, incidentally- they had done a lot of work and *tons* of testing long before their first key date popped up).

unfortunately, the rest of the manufacturing sector is not in as good of shape as the auto sector.

the point here is that stories like this, while nice, don't really mean y2k isn't a problem, particularly an economic problem (which is where the key difficulties have always been, imho). the question is not what *will* get done- we all know a lot will- it's what *won't* get done, on a worldwide scale.

-- Drew Parkhill/CBN News (y2k@cbn.org), April 16, 1999.

More fluff Hoff. when will you ever learn.

What about the 100,000 suppliers that GM interfaces with?

Read and digest the following nuggets.

General Motors has 2 billion lines of code. It has 100,000 suppliers. It has budgeted less than $600 million to fix this.

Its manufacturing system is dependent on embedded chips.

This is from FORTUNE (April 27, 1998).

"Unfounded gloom and doom? Not if you listen to Ralph J. Szygenda, chief information officer at General Motors, whose staff is now feverishly correcting what he calls "catastrophic problems" in every GM plant. In March the automaker disclosed that it expects to spend $400 million to $550 million to fix year 2000 problems in factories as well as engineering labs and offices. . . .

So for a long time manufacturing companies snoozed, including GM. When he arrived at the automotive giant a year and a half ago to take over the CIO job, recalls Ralph Szygenda, he was amazed "that most people assumed that the factory floor didn't have year 2000 problems." Szygenda, with experience in manufacturing at Texas Instruments, didn't settle for assumptions. He shook GM out of its slumber by turning to outside companies such as Deloitte & Touche and Raytheon Engineers & Constructors, specialists in solving the problem, which sent in 91 experts to assess the automaker's situation. Supplemented by squads of GM technicians and programmers, these experts fanned out through GM's 117 facilities in 35 countries. What they found shocked even the factory-wise Szygenda.

"At each one of our factories there are catastrophic problems," says the blunt-talking executive. "Amazingly enough, machines on the factory floor are far more sensitive to incorrect dates than we ever anticipated. When we tested robotic devices for transition into the year 2000, for example, they just froze and stopped operating."

Szygenda quickly placed manufacturing facilities at the top of the list of the three "most dangerous" year 2000 areas at GM, followed by the company's supply base and the portion of businesswide software systems that supports production controls and logistic processes. Now, says Szygenda, "we're working feverishly and fast" to get the problem under control. All by itself, GM has two billion lines of software to check. The company is also retiring 1,700 obsolete computer systems.

Attacking the year 2000 problem has exposed another major area of vulnerability for GM: its 100,000 suppliers worldwide. Will all be compliant? Modern manufacturing's mastery of just-in-time parts delivery and business-to-business electronic commerce has created a beast that can bite it. Szygenda knows all too well how, on occasion, labor strife or a problem at a key supplier has shut down GM plants. "Just-in-time delivery has streamlined our supply chain to make it highly sensitive to any interruption," he says. "Production could literally stop at our plants if suppliers' computer systems are not year 2000 compliant.

He sketches the grim possibilities: "Let's say that a key sole-source supplier of brake valves shuts down as a result of a year 2000 problem. As a result, on day two, two plants that produce master brake cylinders and clutch master cylinders have to stop production because they don't have those valves. On day three, as motor vehicle assembly plants begin to run out of parts, production falls to about one-third of usual volume. By day four, all assembly plants shut down. And with no orders coming in because of the shutdown, hundreds of plants supplying parts to the assembly lines also shut down, from major engine plants to mom-and-pop subcontractors. That's the worst- case scenario--and yet it's a very real threat."

Surveying its suppliers last year, GM found plenty of cause for concern. The survey showed that awareness of the year 2000 threat was low among U.S. suppliers and even lower among those in Europe. One key global supplier didn't even know a problem existed.

Link: http://www.pathfinder.com/fortune/1998/980427/imt.html

More Hoff.

Read and digest.

GM has 100,000 suppliers. As to how many of these are critical, I wonder if GM knows. This is sure: some that are critical to GM are also critical to other auto manufacturers.

Are they all compliant? Wrong question. Is any of them compliant? Can GM find out for sure, i.e., prior to 2000?

The problem is this: the assembly line, a just-in-time invention. It always was. What is different today is that the assembly line has become the model for the entire production and distribution system. Ever since the introduction of the IBM 360, the manufacturing strategy has been the reduction of costs by the reduction of inventories. There are few inventories today. The production- distribution system is one vast complex of assembly lines. It takes computers to coordinate it.

If 5% or 10% of GM's critical suppliers go bankrupt in 2000 -- a very conservative estimate -- then GM will go bankrupt in 2000. That will bankrupt most of GM's major suppliers. That, in turn, will bankrupt all those auto manufacturers that rely on the cross-over suppliers.

It's a gigantic domino.

A comment on a bulletin board by one critic of this scenario is indicative of the degree of y2k-denial among y2k discussants.

"The GM shutdown this year (1998) due to a 57-day strike at two suppliers led to 200,000 workers being laid off, while GM lost nearly $3B. But note: GM didn't go out of business. Actually, in my opinion Infomagic has the percentages reversed: small businesses are far more likely to close than large businesses because they are more vulnerable to shutdowns in cash flow, supplies, and services."

First, GM was negotiating with a known institution: the United Auto Workers. Specifically, it was negotiating with employees at two plants: parts producers.

Second, GM lost $3 billion, and would have gone bankrupt if there had been no settlement.

Third, the union was technically able to settle. That is, GM's bottleneck problem was solvable by spending more money.

Here is the inescapble fact: You can't negotiate with a dead computer.

But y2k experts just don't understand the systemic nature of the problem [are you listening Hoff?]. They assume that there is a substitute for a dead computer or a dead supplier and its dead computer. The free market economics textbooks have taught them that at some price, there is a substitute. But there is no substitute at any price for all producers when all suppliers are trying to solve the same technical problem at the same time with the same limited supply of programmers. The economic system cannot be saved by having individual buyers bid up the price of these scarce resources. It's an allocation problem. High bids win. Problem: low bids lose. The system loses because noncompliant computers are at the heart of most transactions. This is what makes y2k unique in human history. This is why the analysts, especially economists [Hello - paging Mr. Decker!], do not understand it.

Link: http://www.egroups.com/list/roleigh_for_web/85.html

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

Good news. Thanks for the post.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), April 16, 1999.

Face it, Andy, your shtick is getting old.

Not even giving Gary credit now when reposting his stuff?

The point of posting this article is that GM is now to the point of performing integrated testing of remediated systems at its production plants. To avoid just the type of catastrophic failures your dated posts predict.

We can probably go rounds about how GM is addressing its suppliers, as well. Didn't Gary himself post something about how aggressive GM was dealing with them? Maybe I'll have a look to confirm.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), April 16, 1999.

To Y2K Pro....

If 99% of over 5000 GM suppliers are compliant, THEY STILL CANNOT PRODUCE CARS!!!! DUH!!!!! DOUBLE DUH!!!!

-- smitty (smitty@sandiego.com), April 16, 1999.

I do not dispute that GM is getting, and has been getting, aggressive with their 100,000 suppliers.

And I'm sure that, in turn, those 100,000 suppliers are each getting aggressive with their [insert number here] host of sub-suppliers.

Yes, such a _dynamic_ word, aggressive, rolls off the tongue wonderfully.

Perhaps if we get all get "aggressive" enough we can cure the problem.

Fluff.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

Hi Drew -

The story here _is_ the massive effort and focus needed by the auto industry to investigate, remediate, check and demand the supply chain investigate itself, check its distributors (some still kicking and complaining), spend the money needed to do the job right, etc.

They did (are doing) everything they can think of - they're apparently doing it right, they started early, and still aren't close to finishing at all their plants, all their suppliers, and all through their systems.

It's relative success of the auto industry after all their efforts, and the lack of effort I see in many thousand other companies and industries, that indicates to me that there will be vrey many problems discovered next year.

IF GM had found no problems, IF they could have run their processes successfully without remediation, repair, and prior testing, IF GM had found they didn't need to bully their suppliers in compliance, THEN I would feel a little more confident about the "rest" of manufactoring industries. IF GM found that it DID NOT HAVE to run integrated tests this way, I would feel more confident.

The best news of all?

I really wish GM had said "It was a waste of time and money. We didn't find any problems. Sorry. "

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 16, 1999.

Yeah way to go big boy!

-- Confused (VeryMuch@this.Y2K), April 16, 1999.

More BS Andy. When will you ever learn.

This is from FORTUNE (April 27, 1998).

A year old? That's the best you can do? And isn't FORTUNE part of the mainstream media that is in cahoots with the government as part of the massive Y2K disinformation campaign? How can you beleiev what they printed? Or is pessimistic Y2K news laways believable, even from the mainstream media you ordinarily despise?

As far as suppliers go, why not read what GM is doing on their own Y2K page. A few excerpts:

"Additionally, GM has initiated its own review of suppliers considered to be critical to GM's operations, including more than 2,400 on-site assessments to date. These assessment efforts have been substantially completed with respect to the critical supplier sites. Based on its assessment activity to date, GM believes that a substantial majority of its suppliers are making acceptable progress toward Year 2000 readiness."

"In view of the foregoing, GM does not currently anticipate that it will experience a significant disruption of its business as a result of the Year 2000 issue."

If you are going to quote sources, its usually good to quote the latest ones! I could probably find lots of old magazine articles talking about flying cars in the year 2000 if you like.

If 5% or 10% of GM's critical suppliers go bankrupt in 2000 -- a very conservative estimate -- then GM will go bankrupt in 2000. That will bankrupt most of GM's major suppliers. That, in turn, will bankrupt all those auto manufacturers that rely on the cross-over suppliers.

It's a gigantic domino.

More like a house of cards. The bottom card (i.e. 5-10% of GM's suppliers will go bankrupt) gets pulled out and the rest of your argument collapses. Why is that a "very conservative estimate"? According to who? What leads to the conclusion that GM will thus go bankrupt?

Second, GM lost $3 billion, and would have gone bankrupt if there had been no settlement.

According to who? Had they not settled, they would have shifted production to other plants permanently and gone on. And the strike only affected pickup trucks, so even if they decided to dump that part of their business completely (not likely) they sue as hell would not have gone bankrupt. They were in a no lose situation -- GM has a hell of a lot more money than the two union locals that were on strike.

And everyone recognizes that you can't wait until 1/1/00 to deal with this -- that is why some much work has been going on and continuing to go on.

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), April 16, 1999.

Well this really is good news considering where GMC was last year. Now the $64,000 question is do they have the time and manpower to duplicate this at all of their plants? Time will tell.

Andy - Can't you come up with a clipping more recent? Harold McMillian said, "In politics a week is a very long time". In Y2k a year is even longer.

Before everybody starts putting GMC in their 401k I'ld just like to point out that Hong Kong, Japan, and other unremediated places in the far east have a TON of electronic money (let's see, if each electron weighs...). In the current world financial system it doesn't take much money to upset the apple cart as evidenced by Long Term Capital Management (whose name diffenately gets the misnomer of the centruy award). Now GMFC is a big player, but it can't swim against the market for long, and auto sales depend on financing for the most part. Ie. this is a big step in the right direction just as running that one turbine independant of the grid was, but we're still not out of the woods yet.

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), April 16, 1999.

RMS,

you wouldn't, by any chance, be an economist would you?

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

No, are you? You seem to think you are because you make a lot of strong statements about bankrupt companies and global economic crises. Or do you just blindly regurgitate what economic experts like EY and GN spew?

RMS

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), April 16, 1999.

RMS,

Maroon - "The system loses because noncompliant computers are at the heart of most transactions. This is what makes y2k unique in human history. This is why the analysts, especially economists [Hello - paging Mr. Decker!], do not understand it."

Economist - get it? Duh.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

No shit, Sherlock. I can read. I was merely questioning why you, given your disdain for 'economists', feel so qualified to postulate economic theories?

-- RMS (rms_200@hotmail.com), April 16, 1999.

Ken,

"Andy - Can't you come up with a clipping more recent? Harold McMillian said, "In politics a week is a very long time". In Y2k a year is even longer."

Sure I can Ken. The point is that the clipping is STILL TOTALLY RELEVANT.

GM is swimming against the tide. 10 out of 10 for effort.

"Aggression" with suppliers does, and will not cut it.

Less than 150 working days to go.

Game's up.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

RMS,

OK - you got it :)

Disdain is right, up their with "consultants" in my book.

The only major economist who has come close to grasping reality is Yardeni - A for effort, but even HE is in CYA mode.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

Hoff, I'm sure Andy, INVARiably STUPID, Ray and others will not appreciate this. Prepare to be attacked...

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 16, 1999.

Predictable behaviour from Andy (Gary)North

-- Tired (of@andy's.lies), April 16, 1999.

robert,

i don't know how close gm is to finishing- ie, not close or close. i'm simply saying that of all the key industry/sectors, autos would be up there on my list of those that have less to worry about- not that they have nothing to worry about. other industries/sectors- yes, problems.

incidentally, although gm has 100,000 suppliers, i think i read somewhere that only 40,000 of those are considered actually critical. i realize "only" is a relative term, but better 40,000 than 100,000.

-- Drew Parkhill/CBN News (y2k@cbn.org), April 16, 1999.

Less us applaud progress - because any bit helps.

But let us remember - that fact that GM successfully finished this one test at these specific sites does not indicate the whole plant is ready, nor does it inidicate that all of its other plants are complate, nor does it indicate that the entire company is complete.

My point was that all THREE conclusions are exactly what the FAA claimed - implicitly in their press release and explicitly in their follow-on questions. And the national press merrily, merrily, merrily repeated their exaggerations.

And the other government spokemen immediately repeated it "as proof" that Y2K (overall) will not be a problem.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 16, 1999.

Good news!

At least GM is openly illustrating what theyre doing about a potentially critical problem.

Wish all corporations and organizations would be so forth coming.

Comments for the manufacturing Y2K Hall of Fame ...

"Just-in-time delivery has streamlined our supply chain to make it highly sensitive to any interruption," ... "Production could literally stop at our plants if suppliers' computer systems are not year 2000 compliant. "

Or ...

"GM believes that a substantial majority of its suppliers are making acceptable progress toward Year 2000 readiness." ...

Wow. Does that inspire confidence.

... "GM does not currently anticipate that it will experience a significant disruption of its business as a result of the Year 2000 issue." ...

Oh. Does that statement mean GM can change their problem assessment ... up or down ... at a later date? Yes, it does. Stay tuned, for changes.

Got competitive advantages? Or muddle power?

Diane

(P.S. Y2K aint sorta fixed, until its mostly fixed)

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 16, 1999.

It's funny when people like Andy consistently attack any good news. Their ignorance and stupidity really shine through. He seems to post everywhere on this forum and rarely says anything intelligent. He's like that obnoxious uncle that you hate to see at family reunions. Eventually, everyone in the family finally gets tired of him, and waves off his idiotic ravings with a simple "That's just Andy."

Andy, when you were a kid, did you wear a hockey helmet to school?

-- Andy's a cretin (stupidis@stupiddoes.com), April 16, 1999.

--this is good news as it relates to a subystem of some importance related to one part of the gm hegemony. What remains to be seen though, in the overall scheme of things, if stories like this can be replicated in every single industry every single day between now and roll over date. There have been some to be sure--and there's also been an undeniable forward date change for a lot of industries to be "fixed" or "ready" or "in testing" or "on track" or any of the other corporate or governmental buzzwords being used. Contrary to a lot of "experts" opinions on the severity or time needed or amount of money to be spent, those predictions from 6 months ago, to a year ago, to two years ago, have all been proven wrong, by their very own admissions. "Critical" systems are no longer critical. Lines of code needing rememdiation has risen. Money amounts projected to be needed has risen. Time needed for fixing and testing has risen. Software and hardware reported as fixed has been proven to be still flawed by outside auditors. Both government "experts" and corporate pr spokespeople have been caught flat out no bones about it lying. And the big magilla is that IT'S THE BIG MAGILLA. No industry, service, government, or citizen really exists in any sort of vacuum--it(the system as a whole) has to be working approximately as well as it is now, with isolated problems, or you'll have a system wide crash. You can "fix" and "remediate" and "test" a system like gm's in the above article--but only as long as everything else is intact. That fix wouldn't have happened unless the workers working there for who knows how long had "normal" lives with food, order, harmony and electricity at home, gas to get to work, etc, etc,etc. NONE, ZERO of the heroic fixing going on right now is being done in a collapsed environment. My point is that unless just a huge, overwhelming amount of everything is finished, done, complete, ready to rock on dec 31st- that these sort of "fixes" will most likely be impossible because of outside factors totally unrelated to the immediate matter at hand. Jan1st--xyz company has their generator cookin, they got juice, their water tanks are full, their security guards are at the gates, the convoyed in workers hard at work--a framis valve is found to be needed- -it just has to be replaced for-whatever-problem-can't get a framis valve shipped in--that particular framis valve is now needed by 10,000 other factories, and there was 15 left in stock, and surprise, it's the same type that failed. Now magnify that all over the sector of everything--anything you care to name. You can't just stop by looking at the little details, at least not the average joe who's not really actively fixing anything. Yes, I think it's nice that the "fixers" are there, and are trying their best, but I am forced to go on society's track record with technology--it has never been on time or as advertised. Never. Sure, we get lots of nifty things and gadgets that work, and all of them break, and they never quite do exactly as advertised--ESPECIALLY in the puter sector. If it did work that way, patches would be unnecessary and never heard of. Hardware wouldn't need to be replaced. This isn't a gloomer outlook, it's just reality. Even technology 100 years old-automobiles-break constantly, and nowadays there's no such thing as a general mechanic--you need to be highly specialized to even work on sub systems of particular models. We have a nation of specialists now, not generalists. People are able to "fix" what their speciality is, but throw in half a dozen completely unexpected snafus outside their area of expertise, and they are lost. And take away several layers of "normal" civilization, and that's it, "fixes" won't even be attempted anymore. They'll go home, or try to, or something. But the "whatever" will sit there, broken. Will folks give up? No, I don't think so--but I do think their priorities will change pretty darn quickly. This is the phenomena known as "getting it". You can do it now, later on in the year, or wait until rollover. And it has to be done on an individual, corporate, and governmental level, too. Personally, I think that remediation should just completyely cease right now, and the nation go into a full scale pre-emergency continuuation of society planning mode, something that will INSURE that the basics of water-food-shelter-security is there for everyone on or around that date. Now, if and when that was in place, folks could go back to fixing things that may or may not break. As it stands now, the average citizen is in the hands and care of technologists who in NO way shape or form can guarantee those basic necessities--we have to depend on them being almost 100% correct in their already proven wrong to this point "predictions". Sorry, I don't get the warm fuzzies from folks who have already shown by their actions that underestimating and obfuscation are their stock in trade, mostly for cya purposes. Simple law of averages would indicate that there just HAS to be some industry or sustem or someplace that just knows they aren't even going to be close--they know it's just hopeless. Well???? I'm waiting??? Where is it? Thing is, they won't tell, they'll lie, their employees won't tell except at possible loss of their jobs, so we, as non-fixing citizens are supposed to swallow everything as the 'truth". Sorry, lie to me enough, I'm going to assume that it's all a lie. Well, I don't swallow the party line,and millions more have come to the same conclusion--I don't trust the "fixers" or the gov or the lobbying groups to tell the truth now, and I never will in the future. Sorry, they are liars and opportunists, and procrastinators, and greedy little profits at any cost this quarter little men and women, who would imperil a nation to protect their miserable beemers and egos now. Phooie. They don't have any guts or integrity now, they certainly won't have any glory or respect later, and they are not getting any of my beans and rice, that's for sure. We'll see--I'm still watching for those thousands of daily news conferences outling a "success" story like this one little gm "success" story--I'm not an IT professional, and y2k is just one of my interests, but I have a grasp of the numerical difference between some dozens of "cool-it appears to work" and millions and billions of "we expect to be on track by jun 98, whoops dec 98, whoops, march 99, whoops june 99, etc" stories.

-- zog (zog@avana.net), April 16, 1999.

It was said of Napoleon that he got so good at lying, you couldn't even depend on the opposite of what he said.

zog presents a conundrum -- if nobody can be trusted, we can't have any idea what's happening at all, one way or another. While this brand of navel-gazing solipsism may be a fun barroom exercise, the effort of deriving the truth remains maddeningly difficult, for those still searching. Fortunately for most of us, we found the answer almost before our search started. Like everything we read elsewhere, what we write is justification, not investigation. Easier that way.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 16, 1999.

Flint ...

"Like everything we read elsewhere, what we write is justification, not investigation. Easier that way."

Gosh, why don't you show us "how" to investigate properly, Flint?

Do teach us "your way."

Or are you willing to conceed that what most the newsmedia writes and what most, not all, the corporation's & government's release, is "justification" too?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 17, 1999.

A moron above blathered

"It's funny when people like Andy consistently attack any good news."

No it's not funny pal. I will not attack GENUINE good news. I WILL take issue with FLUFF PR HACK HANDOUTS designed to make sound bites on CNN of the likes of the FAA "sucessful" test, all is well with aviation, GM "successful" test in a truck factory, all is well with ALL OF GM's FACTORIES by default, all is therefore well with the automotive sector spiel....

MORONS like you can't see the difference.

MORONS like you swallow these "good news" fluff pieces hook line and sinker.

I'll give you some good news.

United Airlines successfully made bookings from agents using APOLLO into y2k. THAT is excellent news, it proves that it can be done.

It DOES NOT prove that United's systems will work seamlessly in 2000 but it is GENUINE good news.

See the difference MORON?

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 17, 1999.