I was wrong about Y2K

In 1997 we had a party at our house. It involved grilling food, drinking drink, and lots of talking with good friends. Some of those friends brought other friends.

I spent a short confused few minutes talking with one of those people.

In Vino Veritas, he passed on his conviction that he was going to make a fortune working for the company he was with, and soon. I asked why. His reply, in short cryptic terms that he would not explain: "Because we have the answer to the Y2K problem".

That was the first I ever heard the term 'Y2K', and it was a good year later that I found out what he meant, and what it meant. I spent a few days studying the problem in depth, as best I could, then I asked for help.

I got myself on some programmers forums and talked. I introduced myself, explained that in large scale computing I was an idiot, but otherwise not a fool. I explained that I have a family, children to care for, and needed to know if this was something I should be concerned about.

Well..... didn't that open the can 'o worms!

They told me, in no uncertain terms, exactly what the issues were. Not only told me, but shared prints of the code and examples of issues already showing up. They also shared their own work issues, the inside stories, their own preparations for trouble, their own plans. I contacted my own power utility and talked quietly to one of their technical people, that is, until I got a letter from the company saying it would be best if I did not call again, and they were committed that Y2K would not be a problem for them. The man I talked to.... said he wasn't allowed to talk to me any more.

Uh OH..........

From my view point, what could I do about this? I have a family to take care of. I prepared for the worst I could reasonably prepare for.

Nothing wild, nothing outlandish. We already live in the country on purpose. We made sure that water and food were not going to be issues. Not for several years if need be. That wasn't all that difficult for intelligent people, and it turns out that we prepared well enough that it's paid off over the years since 1999.999.

We ate the food, swim in our 'water storage device', and enjoy the new skills we learned. In fact, we leaned so much that now we are planning a 'zero energy load' home for our future.

Yup..... I did all this.... my family did all this... and some of my friends did all this. None of use regret it, for we didn't sell our souls to fear. We didn't stock up on MRE's and hide in a shack in the woods with an AR-15 and a dieing flashlight.

Now, although I don't regret our insurance one little bit, I will admit this. I was wrong about Y2K.

It's not that I made predictions of disaster. I simply said "My study shows that we are in danger of societal disaster, and insurance makes sense". Just like life insurance, car insurance, and locking up my power tools where the kids can't play with them.

Yup... I was wrong about Y2K it seems. But.... it now seems I was only wrong about the nature of the danger, not that we were in danger in the first place.

It seems that Y2K did strike, and in a totally missed sort of way. Missed, at least by me. It turns out that Y2K may be the cause behind some bogus computer data and models. Important NASA computer data and models. Important NASA computer data and models that all the climatologists use to make predictions.

Predictions like..... Global warming.

It appears that Global warming is a Y2K computer bug, and responsible for one of the largest global financial power grabs in human history.

I was wrong about the results of Y2K. I wasn't wrong to prepare. As our economy deals with the damage coming at us from the global warming gimme power crowd, those preparations just might come in handy.

Global warming has turned into the new religion for some people. Like their own Jihad, they pursue it with fervor and conviction. Facts are not part of the issue, and these new facts will not be tolerated since they counter the religious dogma.
People are bad. Nature is good. People should be punished. Someone needs to be in power and in control to administer the punishment in the proper way to the proper other people.

In the middle east people have been killing over religion for so long they have lost track of the history. The rest of the world regularly thrashes in blood over religion. I see no reason to be so arrogant as to assume we are immune.

Whether the global warming religion fades or explodes, I can't say. In either case, my duty is first to family. It's time to examine this latest threat in more detail.

Sigh....

(Updated info...)

I just thought I would add this to the discussion:
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/
For more information from the person who nailed the math and programming issues with NASA's data.

No surprise his own blog site is down and he reports on another's site.
I suppose it should be no surprise either that the hard line to the
system carrying real time temperature data from the test stations has suffered a 'problem' and that data is not available to the public at this time.