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HEAT
You should have an alternate method of heating at least one room in
your house that does not depend on electricity. If you had been planning
to buy a wood stove or gas log insert for your fireplace, you have already
contracted with a licensed installation person to install the stove or
gas safely before the end of the year.
Y2K is just an excuse to complete sensible
home improvements that have been put off for a "rainy day." These
improvements will pay for themselves with lower heating costs in the long
run.
TRANSPORTATION
You should keep your gas tank at least half full- in other words, don't
wait till it is on 1/4 tank to go to the gas station. You should
have charged cell phones in each of your vehicles, but should not talk
on them while driving unless you have a "hands free" adapter kit.
You have not booked any travel plans that span across the Y2K boundary.
And on New Years Eve, you should be planning to stay home with family and
friends for a sensible Y2K party
that does not involve driving.
Y2K Call Centers will probably be swamped next week
http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/29/call.center.y2k.idg/index.html
Y2K is *NOT * a "One Night" event...
http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/29/y2k.forecast.idg/index.html
Security concerns threaten to upstage Y2K Events...
http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/29/new.years.fears.01/index.html
Are you working New Year's Eve or New Year's Day? Email me!
My last RANT of the millennium?
The work schedule this week is very odd- many people, including the US federal government, have been given Friday 12-31-99 off as the official holiday; but the banks and post office will be open, as far as I know- but maybe I am wrong. Many people are being asked to come into work on Friday night or Saturday morning, so that may curtail some party plans.
I heard on the radio that Friday is going to be treated like a holiday
by the DC metro, so trains won't even start running until 8 AM.
For the people who don't have the day off, I guess they will be driving
if they have to be at work before 9 AM.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/feed/a45160-1999dec29.htm
... at the same time, some street closings have already taken effect in DC today so some parking lots are not accessible. Workers at the big hotels and restaurants downtown are not happy because they will have to make alternate plans to arrive at work in time for the 7 AM shift. [All we will need is one jack-knifed tractor trailer on I-270 or one bomb scare on one of the bridges across the Potomac to make Friday a complete BUST. But hopefully that will NOT happen!]
Like I said, most of the inconveniences, outages, and snafus related to Y2K will be the result of human error or extraordinary steps taken to prepare/defend against Y2K, rather than any glitches related to an actual invalid date/time calculation. In the category of "human intervention" you may also include "hacker attacks," whether benign or malicious.
Since Friday is a federal holiday, most computers in the government will be shut off early on Thursday 12-30-99. We have been instructed that our entire network will be shut down Thursday at 6 PM EST and that we should have our computers turned OFF and actually UNPLUGGED before then.
Already this week, many state and local agencies have begun disconnecting their LANs and Intranets from the "open" internet. Email is only available for internal use, if at all. I have already started getting a bunch of non-delivery notices for emails being sent to people on servers in other states. Most of these servers will be off-line until January 3, 2000 and will be reconnected to the internet some time after that. That means that just about any email addressed to someone at any government agency in the next five calendar days will probably generate one or more non-delivery notices. Will the emails and the notices start to back up mail server queues? We shall see.
Banks and gas stations will probably be open Friday, but the "Holiday Weekend" really starts Thursday night. So if you plan to fill your gas tank, as you SHOULD before any long weekend- you should do that TODAY or Thursday. I guess Bill Richardson was right after all when he told people not to fill their tanks on Friday- you should do it on Thursday instead. When you go to the bank (on Thursday again, which is "virtual Friday" for most people's work week) to take out your extra holiday weekend cash, don't be surprised if the teller asks you some additional questions about why you are withdrawing your cash.
Some TV program notes:
Last night ABC Nightline started a two-night retrospective of the year's
top news stories as reported on Nightline. Tonight will be part II
which should cover the period July-December. That will be the far
more interesting episode IMHO- JFK, Dennis, Floyd, Turkey, Greece, Taiwan,
the severe weather, natural disasters, and bizarre accidents. Part
one included the Clinton Impeachment, Kosovo, and Columbine- which
are considered the three biggest news stories of the year.
ABC 2000, CNN Millennium, and NBC/MSNBC Y2K Coverage
all start 4:30 AM EST 12-31-99... so "Y2K" really does come early FRIDAY
MORNING for the rest of the world, and throughout the day. By midnight
our time, most of the celebrations in most of the world will be winding
down. In the western hemisphere, we are the LAST people to see the
arrival of Y2K or the new millennium of whatever you want to call it.
And that reminds me... about the term Y2K... it is really just an acronym for the phrase "Year 2000" but I hear it used, overused, and mis-used so many time by anchormen/women on the news. I would just like to grab one of those stuffed-shirt talking-heads by the collar and SHAKE them until the cotton came out of their ears!
One incident in particular bothered me last night- watching MSNBC News
with Brian Williams- the business news reporter is an attractive enough
woman, and she can read a teleprompter well, but I wonder if she has a
MBA in addition to a degree in communications? I know most people
with 'business degrees' are technologically challenged anyway so I shouldn't
expect too much. But one thing she said annoyed me... she said "we
are coming to the end of Y2K" implying that once we get through the Y2K
weekend the "Y2K problem" will be behind us and businesses will no longer
have anything to worry about. What most people don't realize is...
Jan 1 2000 is not the "end" of the "Y2K problem" it is the BEGINNING!
At 12:05 AM, when nothing bad happens, most people are going to stop holding
their breath and say "Whew! I'm glad that's over!" but in fact, the
period of vulnerability to the actual "Y2K bug" will only be five minutes
old.
http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/28/y2k.beyond.jan1.ap/index.html
So... just to clarify... I know I am being nit-picky here but... I have to say it... Y2K *BEGINS* on January 1, 2000. It doesn't END on that day. Y2K means "year 2000." And the "millennium" ENDS when the year 2000 ENDS. So this weekend is NOT the "millennium" at all! The news people and lay people have it all back-asssward.
To be fair- the "Y2K boundary" that takes place at 0 Hrs GMT 01-01-00 is the really significant deadline/milepost, much moreso than the millennium of the Gregorian calendar on 01-01-01 which is an arbitrary arcane quirk concocted by some malificient monk in the fifth century. Astronomical clocks, star charts, and GPS positioning systems will all be reset to coincide with 'Epoch 2000.0' - which in the scientific age is a much more significant event.
Chris M in DC
I told you it wouldn't be the last web site update. Current news buzz is that people are taking Y2K terrorism threats very seriously, even though the four people detained at the Canadian border this week had no terrorist ties.
News:
Seattle decides to scale back MM/Y2K Eve Festivities: CNN
Is Mayor Paul Schell on the way out? Maybe the WTO riots have
him spooked. I agree that there is a very credible risk in having
50,000 people gathered outside the Space Needle. Maybe he doesn't
want to risk the bad PR that would result if there were any public injuries.
Or if Seattle police "crowd control" tactics get out of hand again.
Weird Weather:
Storms in western Europe blamed for more deaths: CNN
The Seine flooded in Paris and parts of the roof of Notre Dame cathedral
were blown off!
Two million people without power- and it's not even Y2K yet.
Floods in Nigeria leave 25,000 homeless: CNN
Have you noticed that all the big weather stories this year have been
called the 'worst of the century' or at least the worst in 50 years!?
That includes the flooding in North Carolina that resulted from Hurricanes
Dennis
and Floyd.
Here is a list of the biggest weather stories of the century from DisasterRelief.org. The New England Blizzard of 1978 made the list- that was a significant one for me, since the entire state of Massachusetts was shut down for an entire week during my senior year in high school. There is more to that story, but you will have to email me to find out!
Have you noticed how everything lately is the "last one of the millennium?" While leaving the house this morning, I realized that this week would see the last trash pickup of the millennium. Sometime today I will have to pick up my last dry cleaning of the millennium. This may be the last web page update of the millennium. Don't bet on it.
Or have you noticed how on the news everything is "Y2K compliant?" The term "Y2K" is being used much more widely than in reference to a computer date glitch. On CNN today, they said "Stay tuned for the Y2K compliant weather forecast." Most of the references to Y2K are tongue in cheek, except when they are referring to their own 100 hours of Millennium 2000 coverage that starts 4:30 AM EST Friday morning.
Last week at Price Club I had purchased a 10 pack of 8 hour VHS cassettes- that only gives me 80 hours, so I guess I will have to decide which 20 hours of CNN coverage to drop from my taping schedule. Actually, I plan to record 24 hours each on two VCRs! One tape will be almost exclusively CNN, while the other may alternate between ABC & NBC.
At lunchtime today I went to Price Club again to buy D-batteries, coffee, and mixed nuts. Another guy in line had one of those flat-bed carts filled up with cases of bottled water and Campbell's Chunky Soup. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, he had a really determined look on his face, and he got kind of nervous when he noticed me looking closely at what he had on his cart. I assume he has already stocked up on ammo as well.
Merry Christmas!
All my other Y2K preparations were long since made. We had our
gas log installed last week so we were able to spend Christmas day playing
with toys on the floor of the family room in front of a roaring fire.
This was something we have wanted to do for a long time, but Y2K provided
the excuse to get the log installed before the Y2K deadline. The
additional benefit is that I will be able to heat the basement in the event
of an electric failure.
Over the weekend, I realized that every phone in my house was a cordless phone, so if the power went out I would have no way to make a phone call, other than my cellular phones of course. So I got an old phone out of the closet, dusted it off, and connected it in the basement also.
Some News Links & Articles
Prophets of Doom now backing away from dire Y2K predictions...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37377-1999Dec26.html
.... Jerry Falwell who last year said that Y2K would be God's punishment
to "confound our language and communications" like a modern "Tower of Babel"
is now saying that the government reassurances have convinced him not to
be a "fatalist."
Dr. Ted Daniels of "Millennial
Prophecy Report" is also quoted in the article, but I think they misspelled
his name.
Here is a page that details the Y2K Readiness preparations in the Washington
DC region...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/y2k.htm
Here is an interesting article about "Y2K Samaritan Hackers..."
http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/27/samaritan.hacker.idg/index.html
Weird Weather
Coverage of fatal wind storms in Europe: Washington
Post, CNN
For most of the USA, it was a typical cold snowy December day... CNN
High winds delayed the Space Shuttle touchdown... CNN
More links to more weather
stories.
USA Today
print edition page 3A: full page article called "New
Year's Eve of Destruction?"
Many people are canceling New Years party or travel plans. Most
people are planning to stay home. Airlines are already reporting
a much higher percentage of unfilled seats on flights for this time of
year. Some millennium concerts were canceled because of poor ticket
sales. Others that are sold out may find that paid ticket holders
don't show up.
Wouldn't it be strange if... when they go live to Times Square with Dick Clark, there are no crowds, no drunken revelers, no horns blasting? Just a line of riot police and a biological decontamination team waiting on the sidelines?!?
Another article on the front page says "Terrorism Fears Hit Home"...(its
online also)...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndswed01.htm
Public urged to 'stay vigilant' over the holidays...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29105-1999Dec23.html
The Algerian who was arrested in Washington state had a reservation
at a hotel a short distance from the Space Needle in Seattle. Residents
of that neighborhood fear that he might have been part of a bomb plot against
that landmark.
But the Space Needle is actually reserved by a family for a private
New Year's Eve party...
http://www.cnn.com/1999/US/12/23/renting.the.needle.ap/index.html
Speaking of Algerians, an earthquake there today killed more than 28
people and injured many more...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#lquake
http://www.cnn.com/1999/WORLD/africa/12/23/quake.algeria.reut/index.html
Another air crash during rescue relief efforts in Venezuela...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm#vene
http://www.cnn.com/1999/WORLD/americas/12/23/venezuela.flood.02/index.html
What is up with that "Y2K Alert" banner across the bottom of the screen
on the Today Show? It's annoying!
But the "Y2K Hype" has officially begun! And none of this has
to do with the two digit date computer bug.
CNN: State Dept. Issues Global
Travel Advisory
Washington
DC Boosts Security
Brush
Fire in California
Weird accidents: Plane
crash in Guatemala, Bus
crash in Colorado
Boston.com's Y2K page includes countdown clock, New Years Eve tips, and MBTA schedule.
CNN: FAA
Tightens Security at airports after border incidents.
Two more suspected
terrorists detained at the Canadian Border in Vermont
Government
warning about Y2K hackers.
Cyber
Attack on eToys shows need for cyber-defenses.
Venezuelan Floods called worst natural disaster in South America in over a century.
This page of Y2K Tips from CNNFn pretty much says it all...
http://gw.cnnfn.com/output/pfv/1999/12/20/technology/q_y2ktips/
... most important advice - Chill! Don't panic!
Don't change your investment strategy.
Keep a good paper trail- you should be doing that anyway.
If I told you a way to keep fresh milk stored without refrigeration, irradiation, and without that plastic after-taste that often comes from carton milk (Parmelat in particular) or soy milk, would you be interested?
The answer: evaporated milk in a can!
Carnation evaporated milk was on sale at the Safeway last week so I bought a few cans. Then I read the label- you can reconstitute it as whole milk by adding equal parts of water. Over the weekend I experimented with it- mixing a half gallon and refrigerating it. Then I mixed it in with my daughter's baby bottle, and she never complained that she could tell the difference. This beats powdered milk or baby formula any day!
Canned evaporated milk meets all my Y2K criteria: convenience, long shelf life, no refrigeration, easily reconstituted, no cooking! If you keep a half gallon of spring water and two cans of milk per person per day- you have a gallon of milk each per day. And it is cost effective- a can is 89 cents but generates a quart of milk- how much does a quart of fresh milk cost?
Suppose we make it through the winter without the milk supply ever running low. My grandfather used evaporated milk as coffee creamer when I was a child. That's how I acquired my taste for coffee- every morning Walter J would perk a fresh pot of A&P "Eight O'Clock" coffee in one of those old fashioned percolators.
It can also be used in recipes as a substitute for light cream.
This article appeared in the Nov 29, 1999 issue of Information Week...
http://www.informationweek.com/763/y2k.htm
Who is working on 01-01-00? At least 30 percent of IT professionals will be required to work sometime over Y2K weekend! Some will be asked to work a midnight shift on New Years Eve. Many VP level senior management are being asked to staff the Y2K hotline at their corporate operations center. Are you working? If so- email me!
SILENT NIGHT HOLY NIGHT
Internet Operators (IOPS) professional association plans "Silent Night"
vigil for Dec 31...
http://www.computercurrents.com/newstoday/99/12/09/news1.html
It will also be a "Silent Night" because people are bailing out of millennium
bash plans...
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/eo/19991210/en/19991210041.html
...opting instead to stay at home with family to watch the big odometer
in the sky turn to all zeroes.
Several high-priced millennium bashes have been canceled because of
poor ticket sales.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/at2000/
Besides, so many networks are planning round the clock Millennium specials
(CNN, BBC, PBS) why go outside?
For that matter, on 01-01-00, why not stay in your pajamas all day
long?
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~gcmastra/holiday99.html
Y2K efforts are now shifting to personal preparedness...
http://www.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/06/preparing.for.y2k/index.html
CNN's version of Y2K Food storage suggestions...
http://www.cnn.com/1999/FOOD/news/12/09/food.prepardness/index.html
Boston.com has a Y2K
Prep page. Their list of "What Could Go Wrong" is slightly different
from MINE.
... but THEY have the right idea... THEIR top
picks (from a Rte 128 consulting firm)...
(1) Invalid Credit Reporting (70 percent probability)
*** SEE BELOW
(2) Loss of Electric Power for more than one
day (55 pct)
(3) Loss of international telephone service (35
pct)
... good call! Sounds about right to me!
The next three all come in at around 30 pct likelihood...
(4) Error is 1999 tax refund
(5) Error in first January 2000 paycheck
(6) Errors in Social Security Payments
... also a good call! A 1 in 3 chance of
either the incorrect amount or
NO Social Security paycheck at all! Now
do you think *I* am an
extremist? This is on the official Boston Globe
web page, okay?
Here is something controversial- they give a 15
percent chance to these events...
(7) Disruption in Stock Market trading
(8) Errors in bank accounts
On one hand, 15 percent likelihood means there
is an 85 percent chance
that nothing will happen in either area.
But if one out of every six
bank statements had an error on them- that would
NOT be
insignificant!?! I wonder how they
came up with these numbers?
Now to be fair, these all come in at under 5 percent...
(9) Food shortages,
(10) Death or Injuries
... which makes sense, because people living
up yonder in New England
know better- they have already stocked up on
maple sugar, strawberry
jam, sweet cream butter, and candles for the
hurricane lamp!
Also to be fair- telling people NOW that there
is a 1 in 6 chance their
bank statements will have errors is a good way
to get people prepared
NOW so if and when it happens, they will not
freak out about it!
(A) It could mean that some people will be denied
credit unfairly base on incorrect entries in their credit files, based
on someone else's credit card number, social security information, or other
incorrectlylinked identifier.
(B) It could also mean the consequences of identity
theft, because the rate of unauthorized use of stolen credit card numbers
is already skyrocketing, as reported in the press recently. Military
members were recently targeted because their name, rank, and social security
numbers are a matter of public record.
(C) BUT the really big problem with credit reporting will be... you will go into a store to charge something, the network will be really slow, people will be getting antsy in line behind you, and then the clerk will come back and tell you that your credit card has not been accepted!?! WHY NOT?!? Will you freak out and yell at the clerk, causing a scene, and storm out of the store?? Or will you say "Aha! Chris told me that something like this might happen! Not to worry- here is another credit card. Or better yet, let me pay cash, since I withdrew extra $$ from the ATM BEFORE Christmas."
To answer the "Why not" question- this happened to me already in October/November 1999, so the chances that it will happen to YOU in January 2000 are pretty good, actually the week between Christmas and New Years will be the week when these types of incidents begin to skyrocket.
Two scenarios: (1) The number of credit 'authorizations' to your credit card exceed your credit limit; (2) error in processing your credit card payment, resulting in a computer-initiated lowering of your credit limit. BOTH things happened to me in November 1999!
Did you know this? .. Even if you don't purchase something, merchants post 'credit authorizations' to your credit card account, and the actual credit card transaction is not processed until the paperwork is received by the bank. The authorization has the effect of lowering your amount of available credit. If you buy something and return it the next day- the store may offer to credit your credit card, but your available credit will be lower for up to a week until the credit card receipts clear the system.
>From late December 1999 until March 2000, the TIME required to process the paperwork behind the credit card transactions will GROW EXPONENTIALLY because of the extra time spent by banks, VISA, Mastercard, and other credit agencies to investigate the high number of fraudulent credit card charges. So in effect... your credit limit will be LOWER than you think it is, for days or even weeks longer than it should be. Of course, this only matters if you are CLOSE to your credit LIMIT, but...
What also happened to me ( I have since reversed it) was that the credit LIMIT on one of my credit cards was involuntarily lowered because the credit card company thought I had missed the payment- they slapped a whopping late fee on my account, bumped my interest rate up to the maximum allowable rate (from a promotional 6.9 percent to the standard 19.8 percent) and then LOWERED my credit limit to the exact amount of my outstanding balance, effectively freezing the use of the card!
This really already happened. Of course I was on the phone within hours- on the 800# customer service hotline- and I got all my late fees refunded and the correct interest rate restored on the accounts. There is much MORE to the story- but I will save that for another email! [In a nutshell- it happened because I tried to pay my bill ONLINE from the credit card's web site- and THEY lost the payment. Now extrapolate from that... more people are shopping ONLINE this Christmas than ever before.... and you can see how the numbers of INCORRECT charges, as well as deliberately fraudulent charges, are going to SKYROCKET!]
Chris Mastrangelo
Washington DC USA
"Inside the Beltway"
Sensible Y2K Preparation- Stay HOME on New Years
Eve, drink Virginia wine, and eat Vermont cheese...
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~gcmastra/Y2Ksense.html#party
What happens if the internet goes down over Y2K weekend and we can't get email?! Even if the internet itself doesn't crash, email may be so slow it gives new meaning to the term "snail mail." Y2K or NOT, if the internet comes under cyber attack by Y2K viruses, terrorist hackers, or for any reason, do you want to still receive updates like the one above??
Send me your FAX number via email
to my home address.
Other Sites
The Millennium
Matters
Today's
Space Weather
Insurgency
on the Internet (CNN)
Boston.com
Year 2000 page