Restarting everything...

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If things should be incredibly better than we suspect, how long would it take to restart everything that is being shut down for the rollover? What will this "minimal" impact be? Consider:

How long will it take to re-establish airline routes, train patterns, truck hauls, etc. that are being shut down?

How long will take to restart the Israeli nuclear reactor? All of the chemical plants that are being shut down for rollover?

How much economic productivity will be lost through the shutdown?

My answers tell me that this shutdown pattern tends to preclude it being a mere bump in the road!

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 13, 1999

Answers

Mad Monk -

But shutting tings down, or putting them into neutral, is a heck of a lot safer than just running straight through.

Have you ever heard a two-stroke engine seize for lack of oil? Not a nice noise. Yet, if you run it little, let it cool off, run it a little, let it cool off... eventually you can get home.

Turning things off makes a LOT of sense as far as I'm concerned.

-- David Eddy (deddy@davideddy.com), December 13, 1999.


This is like a bad dream.

This is like adding fuel to the fire. Now there will be even more confusion as problems show up after the shutdown. Will they be related to Y2K or to the shutdown?

I understand the safety concerns like for the trains but really the same safety problems will be there and the restart risks inserting new problems.

We are doomed I tell ye....doomed.

-- LM (latemarch@usa.net), December 13, 1999.


I definitely understand the idea behind shutting down...problems can be taken care of in manageable chunks without ruining everything. But, if there are substantial problems, remediation will be done over a longer period of time. And of course, as was mentioned above, shutdowns have their own dangers...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 13, 1999.

My Dear Mr. Monk,

Sir, apparently you did not read "Another engineer's" posting about the embeds. I made a 1000 mile trip to talk FTF with my old project engineer to see if "Another" was correct about there being a"class" chip which is date sensitive and which will run through the roll over with no trouble...there is. And it WILL only have trouble with the 2000 date when it is taken off line, then going back on line. Re-boots it's self.And THEN IT ENCOUNTERS THE DATE 2000! THEN It goes out! my friend. Throw her away my friend and hollar for a replacement! Only you'll have to re-engineer the chip, for it is no longer being made. Remember the"18 weeks to 18 months" Thingy? You cannot (to paraphrase "Another") get a really tiny chisel and hammer and etch another chip...That takes time and the Tools to do it! Ever go to Intel and look at the Tools that they make chips with?

Now!!! We are going to have millions, hundreds of millions of chips suddenly faced with re-booting cold in the 2000 date!

Can you say HEART ATTACK??? We might have been able to FOF with a time frame of several months of the micro chips crapping out on us.. But All At Once!!! Look out infomagic, you stopped way to soon in heading back into the hills! I'm going in just a tad deeper, and you are in my way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shaky (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), December 14, 1999.


Shakey, nice post. I like the chatter with infomagic. Do you have a link to your predictions?

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 14, 1999.


My Dear Mr Hokie

Sir I do not believe that I have made predictions on any of my posts sir. But thank you for inquiring.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), December 14, 1999.


well i say if something is broke turn it off, but it better be fixed before You turn it on again. These people think they will fix it in 8 hrs. when they have had years. I am an idiot but even I know better than that.

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), December 14, 1999.

Hey Mad One,

Are you the same Mad Monk who used to post over on the SI Y2K Investing Forum 3-4 years ago? How do you feel about living through it. Isn't it interesting watching the little Y2K technology houses get hit? What do you think is next?

Answers to your questions. Basically it all depends on interdependencies. Scott McNally (Sun) basically said his asian suppliers are going down hard. Oil shortages and grid problems could each triple time of repair.

"How long will it take to re-establish airline routes, train patterns, truck hauls, etc. that are being shut down?"

Oil is the driver here. Other than that.

Air (national) probably 3 weeks because of ATC and airports. Train contingency plans will have trains running inside a week, but much less efficiently. Trains probably won't be back to normal for a year. Given the other two hosed, I think trucking could be given national priority for fuel - probably super-normal for a year.

"How long will take to restart the Israeli nuclear reactor? All of the chemical plants that are being shut down for rollover?"

Don't know the details of the Isreali Nuke problem, so can't say. They are pretty technologically sophisticated, so they may be being prudent in a way noone else is. If so, among the "fallout" of other accidents may be a public reaction which prevents restart.

Some chemical will be back on line in a week. Others will go boom when they try to restart.

"How much economic productivity will be lost through the shutdown?"

Pretty sad isn't it, especially since there was time to fix it if the CEOs/CIOs/CFOs believed and funded when they were first warned, instead of waiting till last year.

-- ng (cantprovideemail@none.com), December 14, 1999.


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