Bubba's Revenge

• Messages sorted by:[ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]

> Here is Bubba's Revenge:

Your Bubba series is pretty hilarious, Bro Terry :-)

> By Neil Winton, Science and Technology Correspondent 

It looks like somebody has pretty seriously pulled the wool over this
Science and Technology Correspondent's eyes.

> "These embedded chips, even top computer analysts find a bit of gray area. 
> Nobody really knows what will happen. 

> Computer solutions company Millennium UK Ltd agrees. 

Looks like Mr Winton got a press release from this Millennium UK Ltd,
which undoubtably makes money by analyzing computer systems for Y2K
problems, and Mr Winton printed it with only a cursory check of the
facts.  This is known in the trade as FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and
Doubt.

> "It doesn't matter that much with video recorders and washing machines, but 
> crucial areas like power stations and telephone exchanges, people shouldn't 
> assume that these will all work," said Jonathan Crabb of high technology 
> consultancy Spikes Cavell. 

We have a token mention of systems that very well might be affected,
but the rest of the article is on embedded computers in cars and
elevators.  The MIPS CPU in a Ford that controls the oxygen mix going
to the fuel injector doesn't know and doesn't care what the date is.

> Technology columnist Guy Kewney from the Ziff-Davies magazine

> "Cars with engine management systems, suspension management, the average brand 
> new executive car has about 20 personal computer level processors. Some are 
> simple, but which are the ones that will malfunction?" Kewney said. 

Run for the hills!

I find it very hard to believe that the engine management and
suspension management systems would know what the date is.  The clock
on the dash might get the day of the week wrong, but that's not going
to keep your car from running.

> Millennium UK's Easterbrook said there is a significant problem with embedded 
> systems and agrees that the use of a wide variety of components makes it 
> impossible to assert that even a batch of chips with the same model number are 
> millennium compliant. 

Maybe we should get in the business of evaluating Y2K conformance for
embedded systems :-)

> "How many devices might fail? There is not much hassle factor in walking up 
> the stairs for one day, but imagine if it lasted for a month?" Easterbrook 
> said. 
> 
> 
> 
> Copyright, Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved 

Why are these copyrighted articles being sent/approved?  This is the
second one I've seen today.  H-F has a strict policy against copyrighted
articles.

Richard "reading between the lines" Masoner