Well I thought it would be rude not to put something on the blockchain prior to it exploding in an hour or so.....
That's if you believe some people, including witnesses. A couple of sentences from the @steemitblog yesterday seem to suggest they are ready if (/when?) issues to arise.
The uncertainty of unknowns and things that are difficult to predict
We will be fully staffed and prepared to deal with any problems that may arise.
Due to this uncertainty, we added a “fail safe” to the code that will enable witnesses to revert from the RC system back to the old bandwidth system if absolutely necessary.
...That being said, as the transition goes on, users will likely notice some changes in user experience, though it is difficult to predict what those changes will be.
We will be monitoring the behavior of the RC system following the hardfork and promise to inform users of any changes that represent serious threats.
The changes in user experience should only last around 7 days. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to know exactly how things will unfold as the system relies on unpredictable human feedback.
As with the RC system, there are a lot of unknowns with respect to how this will function IRL.
...but the cost we must bear is some uncertainty with respect to how these systems will interact with users in the short term, as well as what systems and tools we will need to build in order to effectively leverage the features we are adding to the base layer.
Scared? Excited? Both!
As it stands we have all of the top 20 witnesses on v20.2. 'Only' 23 of the 120 currently active witnesses are not running the latest code, but I expect these, and those currently offline, to upgrade over the coming hours and days. Picking out the above sentences doesn't fill me with the utmost confidence that all will go to plan,but I do think that because of the recent hiccup, Steemit Inc and key witnesses will be glued to their screens ready for whatever action needs to be undertaken.
Positives
Personally, I'm looking forward to being to update my 'profile' page, and I think this is a good use case for being able to update older posts. I doubt I'll be going through eighteen months worth of posts and correcting spelling mistakes though, but I can see some content producers (writers?) wishing to do so.
Resource Credits sound promising, at least for accounts with a reasonable stake in place, and it does sound like new accounts will not be able to run free with their old 'free' 15 SP delegation from Steemit. If you've spent any time in the past year looking at what large groups of these accounts tend to do, RC's have to be seen as a good thing. If you want to 'comment circle-jerk' from now on, you'll need to buy/delegate Steem Power to all these accounts, with the amount depending on the 'cost' of these transactions. However:
...we are making transactions artificially cheaper than they would otherwise be at the beginning‒setting the resource pools to 90% of max equilibrium at the time of the hardfork‒which will allow users to continue using the blockchain after the hardfork and gradually transition them into the RC system..
And so at the start, the true reduction in suspect behavior may not be quantifiable for a little while.
Perhaps the most exciting thing to look forward to is not what happens in about 45 minutes time, but that today's effort is 'Setting the stage for communities on Steem and Smart Media Tokens'. I have read about a push in price coming due to the fork (which did happen but probably only because of liquidity and the wallets being closed on the exchanges), but have my bets down for Communities and, most of all, Smart Media Tokens to really give Steem a name. Whether this name is repeatable to your kids or not, we will have to wait and see.
No power-downs so far for me.... fingers-crossed for today and next March then.
Cheers
Asher