More Mega Quotes IV!

"[O]ne of the large [DC-]area banks has evidently scrambled their master file. The problem started in January 1999 and every month, the clowns are making it worse. I tried to analyze the problem from the symptoms; it looks like a database integrity problem. They are completely out of control, wacked beyond reality and, get this, if you call them about it, they think everything is fine.... Based on this, I suggest that people 1) review and double-check all banking records, 2) withdraw at least one month's spending money to include money for gas, food, small purchases. Don't worry about bills that you pay by check. It's the ATM, debit card, and credit card purchases you need to cover." - Cory Hamasaki

[The following were made late last year,1998]

Whenever someone brings up the possibility of our entire computer- based economy collapsing because of this year 2000 thing, it just makes me laugh.... All Congress needs to do is instead of calling the year 2000 the year 2000, call it 1950. That way, we have another 50 years to solve the problem.... I know there are a lot of ivory-headed liberal scholars out there who might not like this idea, but sometimes even scientists just have to listen to the voice of common sense. - Dan Quayle [former U.S. Vice-President, June 17, 1998. comment: He's kidding, right? Uh.... sorry, no, he was serious. I wonder how much hair a white male has to lose to qualify as "ivory-headed"?]

And the one frustrating thing about the Committee that I chair is that as we probe in all of these areas.... we still don't know. People lie to us. Or they refuse to talk to us.... Your alternative is panic. For example, my daughter who listens to me far more now than she did when she was a teenager, has decided that she's going to fill her garage with food on the assumption that there won't be any food on the shelves of the supermarket as a result of the year 2000. And then she turns to me and says Dad, why don't you do that? I say well, you know, that really wouldn't send too good a signal if the Chairman of the Senate Committee was filling his garage with dried food. - Robert Bennett (R-UT) [Chairman, Special Committee on Year 2000 Technology Problem, October 6, 1998]

I think the financial system is probably in the strongest position of any in the country. The bank federal regulators have been working for over two years with every bank in the United States and the last surveys they've done in their examinations show that only one or two percent have any significant delays in their progress at all. Similarly, the SEC and the Securities Industry Association have been working very closely with their members so that I think there is no basis at this time for having any major concern about either the banks or financial institutions. - John Koskinen

The Bozo Effect is a well-understood phenomenon. The project is in crisis; management is screaming in terror; confusion reigns and code is spattered into production. It's Bozo the software quality assurance clown! True Story: October 4, 1998. Annandale, Virginia. A geek pal is thinking about donuts and 7-11 coffee, checks his wallet, awww, no bucks... but wait, here's a Chevy Chase FSB Visa debit card, expiration date November 1998 ..and there's a nice blue Chevy Chase ATM. ENTER PIN... **** ...RE-ENTER PIN... **** ...YOUR CARD HAS EXPIRED. PLEASE CONTACT YOUR BRANCH. WE ARE HOLDING YOUR CARD FOR YOUR PROTECTION. Hey! What the F. Where's my card? October 5, 1998. A neighborhood branch of Chevy Chase FSB. Say, yesterday, an ATM ate my ..... Yessir, we know, we had computer problems all weekend. Please fill out this form and we'll get you a new card right away. (End True Story) No problems, banks "get it". Banks are ahead of other industries? What kind of baloney is that? They're slamming code into production before it's tested, and it's clearly date-processing code. This is a major screw up.... He told me, shit Cory, I should have known something was wrong when it asked me for my PIN twice. - Cory Hamasaki

My wife's mother is head assistant to Y2K project director for a fairly large regional bank. She says they're making good progress, but even she can't find out "true" information. Recently, all the top brass meetings began to be held behind closed doors, and even she is not allowed in. That can't be great news. - Greg Sugg

I am a mortgage counselor for a major bank here in the Midwest. That means if you have been more than 16 days late on a house payment, you have probably heard from me! For the last 6 months I have been receiving some rather unusual interoffice emails through our company's intranet. They say we have our Y2k problem solved and have instructed us to tell our customers that the problem is fixed and business will carry on as usual. However, since they have "solved" this problem several strange things have been happening. For example, our computer is now showing several thousand loans as matured because they were originated in the year 1900 or matured in the year 1900. They show up in my files as in default. Our computer system is also losing payments. When a payment is being electronically processed, the computer sometimes places it in all kinds of strange suspense accounts. We thought we had that one fixed until yesterday when we discovered the computer had just created some new suspense accounts to stash your cash! - anonymous [at his/her request]

Called some local [New Zealand] banks about their Y2K progress. Asked the following questions. (I didn't ask the officials, I talked to the people at the desks, tellers and personal bankers.) How long was it since you got an internal memo about Y2K? When do you expect to get the next one? Had any training on the new software? Got your new computer system yet? When do you expect your bank to finish the testing program? Got these replies - Bank 1: new software/no new hardware yet. Still testing but major transition to new software done. Monthly staff updates. Bank 2: new hardware and software installed, finishing early testing, monthly staff updates. Bank 3: no new anything as yet but implementation 'real soon now', no recent info. Y2K project started in 1997. Bank 4: no new anything yet. Merger caused headaches.. no recent info. Y2K project started in 1997.... My summary: progress is being made but is very uneven. - Bob Barbour

We don't trust the governments. We think that they are too late. They are not pro-active. I see no action from Brussels. I'm fearful that we will not be ready in time; there will be delays and detours. Planes will stay on the ground and this means capital will not be generating money. Within half a year, some airlines will be facing bankruptcy. - Max Rens [KLM head of information]

I was called to go in to another company's client today to look around for Year 2000 problems. The details of the client: The client supplies produce to over 400 (they're growers and brokers too) grocery store customers. Although most of their customers are small grocery stores, a couple are really large.... Most of their larger customers modem in their orders every morning directly to this supplier's computer. They never talk unless there is a problem. Obviously, these guys aren't the grocery stores' only suppliers of produce; but from the volume they move, if they went down it would be felt fairly hard. They're rack up quite a few millions per year in sales. Here's the glitch. This whole organization is run by just two computers. And both these computers are old, full of dirt (literally), 486's with 16 meg of memory running Win 95. Backup consists of a $200 tape drive. Nobody there can do more than enter orders, invoices, or cut checks. It seems that their largest customer actually set up the order system because I can guarantee you these people didn't. When we checked out what they had, we found the 486's to be non-compliant. Not a hard call.... We informed the owners that they would need to at least replace the two units. I also told them they should consider setting up at least a backup system that could mirror the first. His reply, "Send me some prices, but I doubt if I'm going to buy any new computers. These are only a few years old." After explaining to him of the potential problems they might encounter, he informed me that he thought this Year 2000 "stuff" was just a bunch of folks running a con.... I'm amazed at... the attitudes of people that will refuse to spend a few thousand dollars to support a multi-million-dollar business.... I'm running across many businesses with small, custom-built packages that are critical. And in most cases, these old packages aren't going to make it in 2000. - Greg Sugg

This clearly is a serious problem that everybody should be treating as such, but on the other hand, there's no indication yet that there are going to be basic failures of the infrastructure in the United States and therefore I think that there is no basis for people disrupting their lives at this time to be prepared for that. - John Koskinen

The "party line" of the [electric power] industry remains: Everything's OK, this isn't a big deal, we'll get it fixed. However, anyone in the industry who understands the total scope of the problem, and who will speak off the record, is scared to death. Why? Do they know something that the rest of the world does not? ....The perception of security can be as basic as having the ability to turn on the lights with the flip of a switch as you come through the front door of your home. In the absence of that feeling of security, social order breaks down in a hurry when the lights go out, the beer gets warm, and people get cold. Whether it's deserved or not, electric utility companies have an unspoken and unbreakable contract with society to keep the power flowing. - Rick Cowles

Many reporters fail to discern that Y2K progress is usually self-reported and reflects an optimism not warranted by the facts.... From most of the reports I've read - and I review some fifty a day - reporters seem content to accept the statements of government officials, public utilities, and big business without further inquiry.... No follow-up questions. No contradictory evidence. And none of the usual skepticism. Instead, like a deer caught in the proverbial headlights, they offer a blank stare and record the statements as if they were scientific fact. By the time this information makes its way to the public, the Pollyanic view that there is nothing to worry about is reinforced. Thus, consumers are not being motivated to take the steps necessary to protect themselves or their loved ones. Worse, they are being lulled into a false sense of security, believing that someone else is taking care of the problem for them. Meanwhile, the days continue to slip by and the deadline looms. - Michael S. Hyatt

A great deal of progress has been made during the past year in the U.S. and in several parts of world. IT organizations in the U.S. have increased their spending for Year 2000 projects an average of 6 times over what was spent during 1997. Year 2000 is now prioritized at the top, or number 2 (following Enterprise Resource Planning system projects - to replace Legacy systems) by most U.S. companies. Large companies in the U.S. have made the most significant progress, and many of them will complete most of their compliance efforts by 2000. Even smaller companies in the U.S. have made significant progress in the past year, in several industries. Even with all of this progress, there are still very serious risks for the U.S. and throughout the world. The gap is widening even more, between companies and governments farthest ahead and the ones farthest behind, since the laggards are moving much more slowly toward compliance. In the U.S., industry segments such as healthcare, education, agriculture, construction, food processing, governments, and companies under 500 employees are lagging way behind in compliance efforts. Many of these will simply not finish critical systems by 2000. U.S. investors are provided very optimistic , often inaccurate, disclosures from publicly traded companies (to the U.S. SEC), and therefore accurate investment risk assessment data is not often available. This is likely to affect our U.S. market and several other economic factors as we get closer to 2000. - Lou Marcoccio [Research Director, Gartner Group, testimony to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, October 7th, 1998. The complete report - must reading! - is at http://gartner11.gartnerweb.com/public/static/aboutgg/pressrel/testimony1098.html]

Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and College Retirement Equities Fund (hereinafter "TIAA-CREF") represent and warrant that their systems will, under normal use and service, record, store, process, and present calendar dates falling on or after January 1, 2000, in the same manner, and with the same functionality, data integrity, and performance, as TIAA-CREF's systems record, store, process, and present calendar dates on or before December 31, 1999. This Warranty is expressly limited to TIAA-CREF's processing of data for participating institutions' employee benefit plans serviced by TIAA-CREF. This Warranty is made solely for the benefit of TIAA-CREF participating institutions; it does not apply to vendors, service providers, financial institutions or any other third parties or to any matters beyond TIAA-CREF's reasonable control. TIAA-CREF has taken steps to ensure that all of TIAA-CREF's mainframe, midrange and personal computer systems as well as their external and internal interfaces, equipment, and forms, are Year 2000 compliant. TIAA-CREF represents and warrants that the arrival of the new millennium will not cause any loss of benefits to TIAA-CREF participants or beneficiaries. [Nick's comment: Good news for those of us in the TIAA-CREF 403(b) program. Note, however, that you must exercise caution in that the values of the various CREF portfolios are NOT guaranteed against losses due to Y2K]

With all the information available on global meltdown and y2k, anyone who still has a significant sum of money in the market is either stupid or has balls the size of Mt. Everest. - anonymous Internet post

If you are a senior manger, throw a dinner/party at a nice restaurant with free booze. Invite only grunts doing the actual coding and absolutely NO SUPERVISORS. After dinner, circulate and ask simple questions,"strictly between you and me what do you think of XXX Y2k status." You will find out more in one evening than in a month of meetings. Do NOT betray any confidences and start berating your supervisors. Just readjust your resources and priorities. Been there, done that! - R. D. Herring

The academics, the real computer science, PhD-holding, dept-chair, paper-writing, patches on the sleeves, academics have missed the entire Y2K issue. Y2K has a decidedly, proletariat, sweaty, grime under the fingernails, working-class programmer sense to it and no self-respecting academic would stoop to doing real work... I mean, REALLY, we're above such things. So except for that silver bullet that came out of Cornell (or was it Yale) a year an a half ago, the academics have been very quiet about Y2K. They've missed it completely... well, I'm sure that when the press comes to call, they'll be happy to run their mouths... they are quick studies, after all. Click up a few web sites and they'll be regurgitating six-month-old stuff from [the Internet newsgroup] c.s.y2k. ... but saying it so sincerely that you'd almost believe they thought it up themselves... and at the same time, running down the doomsters and net loonies. - Cory Hamasaki

You're a Y2K nut-case... ah, I mean, well-read on Y2K issues and you're following the late-breaking events... that's you... right? So, what's the point of National Y2K Week? ... or whatever it's called. Do you know? I don't. And what are the Y2K activities? Did you have a Y2K songfest? ...do you even know Barbara Knox's Y2K song? Did you sew a block for the Y2K quilt, hold a candlelighting ceremony (to show that you're ready for "lights-out")?... I helped a nice lady at one of my clients put up smiley-face balloons and paper ribbon for the Y2K Week display in their lobby. She gave me a copy of a Y2K coloring book she got from somewhere... Did National Y2K Week achieve its goals? Were there any official activities? - Cory Hamasaki

At the end of July, Alexander Krupnov (chief of the State Communication Committee of the Russian Federation) finally confessed that Y2K is a real problem for our country. He estimated that the cost of fixing the Millennium Bug in Russia would be $500 million. But he went on to say that not a single government ruble will be spent on Y2K, because the budget is empty. - Nick Poluektov [manager at Avgur, a Moscow based computer firm whose focus is the assessment of technological accidents]

Russia have said they haven't got enough money to fix the problem, so they're going to deal with it as it arrives. Well, Chernobyl comes to mind. - Karl Feilder [Y2K adviser to the British and South African governments]

Here we are, just a little more than 14 months from perhaps the biggest predictable calamity in human history - a disaster with ominous civil liberties implications, and the ACLU is nowhere in sight. The New York Times devotes more resources to covering so-called "hate crimes" than to researching what could be one of the biggest stories ever. We are on the brink of martial law and America still isn't certain whether it should dump a known felon, liar, power abuser and sociopath at the helm of the nation's executive branch, where he would become, on Jan. 1, 2000, a de facto dictator. Beam me up! - Joseph Farah, Editor of World Net Daily

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