I thought some of you might enjoy this colorful explanation of Y2k: Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 00:27:11 -0700 Subject: NHNE Y2K Update 3: Polishing Marbles To: NHNE Mailing List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Mime-version: 1.0 X-Unsubscribe: send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Precedence: bulk From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "News, Inspiration, & Consumer Protection for Spiritual Seekers" ------------ NHNE Y2K Update 3: POLISHING MARBLES Saturday, September 5, 1998 ------------ Our work is made possible by the kind and generous support of people everywhere who want to solve the fundamental mysteries of life and help give birth to a new, more spirit-filled and loving world. You can support NHNE by joining our Friends of NHNE program and/or through tax-deductible donations. See the end of this update for details. ------------ Total NHNE Mailing List: Last Mailing: 1107 This Mailing: 1108 ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo POLISHING MARBLES On August 24, 1998, Westergaard columnist Jim Lord compared the Y2K situation to a grand canyon full of marbles that needed to be polished. Called, "How To Explain Y2K To Non-Believers" (http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Tip/Lord/lord9834.htm), Lord's analogy was widely quoted and circulated on the Net. Today, Gary North, perhaps the planet's most apocalyptic-minded Y2K expert, humorously elaborated on Lord's analogy... Wrote Jim Lord: "Suppose I gave you a shoebox full of marbles, a can of polish and a little rag and told you, "I need for you to polish these marbles and you have to be done by next Friday." Now, you're faced with a very simple task. The solution is easy to understand and you have all the tools you need to get the job done. (Just like Y2K, this is pretty trivial stuff.) "Now let's change one small thing. Suppose I took you to the Grand Canyon and it was filled to the brim with marbles and I told you, 'I need for you to polish these marbles and you have to be done by next Friday.' "Your task has not changed -- it is still simple and easy to understand. The solution is still easy and you still have all the tools you need. We both know, however, there is no hope of completing the job on time because there is so much of it. This is a perfect analogy of the Year 2000 situation today." Responded Gary North: It's not perfect. It's pretty good. But it's not perfect. It makes it sound too easy. Here is my version: 1. Only a few of the marbles need polishing. You don't know which ones. 2. Some of them need replacing (embedded systems). You don't know which ones. 3. Most of those that need replacing are no longer being manufactured. 4. The marbles are in shoeboxes of varying sizes. 5. Many investors own a small percentage of each shoebox. 6. The shoebox managers must decide to spend the investors' money now for the sake of owning a shoebox worth no more later on. 7. Most managers don't believe there is anything seriously wrong with any of the marbles. 8. Neither do the investors. 9. The marbles come in carefully designed sets that will lose 100% of their value if they get randomly mixed up. 10. There are tiny mechanical devices programmed to move marbles from box to box every few seconds, which increases the value of each newly altered collection (most of the time, anyway). 11. The defect of the bad marbles is specific: on the same day, they will deteriorate in such a way that the mechanical transfer devices will not be able to recognize them as belonging in exactly this or that shoebox collection. 12. The mechanical devices will begin to move defective marbles into boxes that were not designed for them. 13. As the marbles are moved, the market value of each shoebox collection will fall. 14. The longer the devices cannot recognize the defective marbles, the lower the value of the collections. 15. The people who sell investments in these marble collections do not want to admit that the value of every collection could fall to zero within 60 days after the defective marbles start fooling the devices. 16. There are not enough marble repair experts to be hired by every manager of every shoebox. Now, here is your job: design a marble repair/replacement strategy that will offer incentives to managers to design and execute individual repair strategies for their systems, but in such a way that their individual repair strategies do not pull marble repair experts away from anyone else's repair project. You are in charge of the overall project, but all of the managers can be motivated only by an appeal to their own self-interest. You have one week to design it and persuade all of the managers and a majority of the the investors in each shoebox collection. Do this in approximately 100 different languages. You dare not take more than a week. If you figure out a way to do this at a profit, your life is forfeit. You will be kidnapped and tortured by ruthless men seeking ownership of the solution. Or maybe you give it away for free. Now you face a million skeptics who say, "If it's that easy, why didn't I think of it? It's fake." No government can require the vast majority of shoebox owners to fix their marbles. But if the government does nothing, all of its tax revenues cease: it's paid off in boxes of marbles. If the marbles get mixed up, the value of the boxes falls. The point is, it's a much more difficult project than Jim Lord implies. But we are dismissed as hypesters, paranoids, and self-proclaimed y2k gurus for pointing out how impossible the repair task is. Oh, yes. I forgot. What about the silver bullet? Can't you just fix all of the marble-transferring devices to recognize the defective marbles and save the system? Sorry about that: each device speaks a different computer language. And nobody remembers most of them. If your money is invested in shoeboxes full of marbles, now is a good time to sell your interests and find something else to buy -- a long way from the Grand Canyon. (Maybe Taos, New Mexico.) http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/2494 ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Please feel free to share this report with as many people as you like. If you do share this report with others, we ask that you reproduce it in its entirety (including all credits, copyright notices and addresses), not alter its contents in any way, and pass it on to others free of charge. ------------ NHNE Y2K Team: David Sunfellow Judith Ryan Robert Sniadach Einiyah ben-Elyon David La Chapelle Lance Botthof Sandy Ezrine Michael Sohaski Edgar Ball Sherri Anderson ------------ NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE) P.O. 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