> the systems which control life-critical services do the same kind of thing,
> but they get downright bitchy about letting operators do something out of
> the ordinary. even if an automatic scheduling system tries to dump huge
> volumes of toxic chemicals into the water supply, there's almost guaranteed
> to be a panel somewhere that says, "are you sure you want to do this?"
> before dumping any volume of chemicals, and "you're dumping too much, go
> back and try again" if the volume falls outside a given range.
I doubt it would ask, but something else would likely pick up that the
water or or other parameters were moving off the norms. And... that
dumping may well be through a series of dispensers that slow the "dumping"
to a reasonably safe quantity.
> if the systems running the world were fragile enough that Y2K could
> initiate global, catastrophic failures, we would have been wiped out by
> typos and other sources of operator error long ago.
We nearly were, by radar echoes off the moon once... Norad computer
systems once indicated a massive Soviet bomber attack. We were about to
go to some maximum configuration, ready to launch, when someone checked to
see if the moon might not possibly be where this huge bunch of bombers was
supposed to be. Yup. The harmonics of the echo intervals had worked out
just right that time. (Read that in several magazines/books in B.W.
(Before Web.))
Another interesting Y2K problem had surfaced in the grocery business,
where computers started dumping perishables with expiration dates in the
year 00+ range. They caught that at one company when manpower
requirements and re-orders began to rise. The employees had kind of
suspected it, but kept quiet. One wonders if they were raiding the
dumpster themselves... (Ref: Computer Risks Digest.)
Yes, there will be messes, but probably not major disasters. I would
not doubt that some people will die as a result of these, but casualties
will likely be light, and not clearly attributable to Y2K, but more to
common sense plus Y2K as an extenuating circumstance. (One is reminded of
the story of the guy who burned his car up during the gas crisis because
he went slightly nuts waiting for gas. Chances are, something else would
have set him off sooner or later.)
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