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California Wildfires Burned Irreplaceable Documents on Silicon Valley History
- byebyetech 9y agoI doubt it but it would be an irony if it were not digitized.
- Viper007Bond 9y agoIt wasn't.
- cm2187 9y agoWhich to me is the main story. Document scanners are really fast nowadays, they could have lined up a few of them, hired some temp worker, and it could possibly have taken them just a week to scan the whole thing with a modest budget. We should really do that with any paper archives and books that matter. The physical document usually doesn't have much value, outside of some really ancient documents. The content has. Digitizing also makes it more accessible and searchable. Countries must be sitting on massive archives of paper documents.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago> Countries must be sitting on massive archives of paper documents. Which are currently safely in locked rooms. If they're digitized, they become much less likely to stay private in the hands of most government contractors. I agree that they should be digitizing this content, but they also need to work on establishing basic competency in securing it once it's digitized. Also, in preserving it - it's easier to just leave documents intact in a long row of boxes and file cabinets than it is to dispose of them, but it takes effort and maintenance to keep them alive on hard drives.
- cm2187 9y agoLocked room or some dodgy basements. I remember watching a documentary many years ago on the transfer of the archives of the french republic where many were lost to rats and other fungus. But I agree with your point that if we scan anything confidential, it will need to be stored in a lock room very much in the same way than the paper originals (as opposed to anything connected to the internet). But it will still be easier to have multiple copies in multiple locations.
- microcolonel 9y agoGood old negligence, never fails to amaze me what people let happen. Did they digitize any of this? is the information lost, not just the artifacts? The original article[0] is much better, and should ideally replace this thin Gizmodo rehash. [0]: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-packard-archives-at-keysight-destroyed http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-pa...
- Alex3917 9y ago> never fails to amaze me what people let happen. Especially since the exact same thing happened a few miles down the road with Terence McKenna's archives at Esalen.
- microcolonel 9y agoLet us not forget that, until a petty political hysteria[0], there were no plans to have a mirror of Archive.org; just one pretty little building between chaos and order. As a recurring donor and huge fan of the Archive, I find this pretty concerning. [0]: https://blog.archive.org/2016/11/29/help-us-keep-the-archive-free-accessible-and-private/ https://blog.archive.org/2016/11/29/help-us-keep-the-archive...
- UnrealIncident 9y agoI'm also a yearly(-ish) donor and also find it a bit concerning considering they did have a fire in the building 4 years ago. Archive Team have the INTERNETARCHIVE.BAK[0] project. I think they're in need of more disk space if anyone has some to spare. [0]: http://iabak.archiveteam.org/ http://iabak.archiveteam.org/
- microcolonel 9y agoThanks for the link! I did not know about IA.BAK. I think I will commit to backing up the whole drive over the next year. ~110TiB is totally doable!
- aclimatt 9y agoOriginal article linked from Gizmodo: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-packard-archives-at-keysight-destroyed?artslide=0 http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-pa...
- dang 9y agoUrl changed. Thanks!
- taneq 9y agoSounds like someone wasn't following the 3-2-1 rule!
- blattimwind 9y agoGet your license of HP Data Protector now!
- kolbe 9y agoI thought The Traitorous 8 were generally considered the beginning of Silicon Valley.
- lettergram 9y agoAs we know it, however there were farms and stuff there first
- dbcurtis 9y agoIn those days, it was called "The valley of heart's delight." There used to be bus tours along Blossom Hill Road to look out at the vista of fruit trees in blossom.
- Stratoscope 9y agoFor anyone interested, run Google Earth (the real desktop version), zoom in on the SF Peninsula from Palo Alto through Cupertino or Saratoga, select View/Historical Imagery, and then run the slider back to 1948 or 1953. As you keep zooming in, look for a regular grid of dark dots in many places. These are orchards. Of trees. With fruit on them. All over the valley! I worked at Tymshare in the '70s when we moved into two new buildings on the north side of Valley Green Drive between Beardon and Bandley (now Apple buildings). The first year we were there, they'd only built one of the two buildings, and the lot for the other building was still an apricot orchard. We got to pick all the apricots we could eat. What a glorious summer! The next year they built the second building, and it was less glorious. Tymshare had just acquired Douglas Engelbart's research team, and then discovered they had no idea what to do with the technology. It really didn't fit into any of Tymshare's business initiatives. I remember running into Doug a few times there, and he always seemed a bit forlorn after a "successful exit" but now facing an uphill battle getting the company on board with anything he was doing. A few years after that, microcomputers became a thing. Some of us had experimented with them and thought they had potential. But when we talked with the sales and marketing people, the message was clear: Tymshare had a successful and profitable business with their mainframe timesharing services. They didn't want to get into microcomputers, because they could be a threat to the established business lines. And you know what, they were right!
- beambot 9y agoWere they not digitized yet?!
- astrodust 9y agoIt's HP. Where could they possibly get scanners?
- harness_up 9y agoI suppose that's a loss but thousands of people lost homes and everything they owned so I'm having a hard time caring.
- kalleboo 9y ago"I suppose that's a loss but millions of people are starving to death in Africa so I'm having a hard time caring about some rich people losing some material possessions." You can care about multiple things at once.
- justinjlynn 9y agoThat actually seems rare amongst humans, sadly.
- nether 9y agoUnicaring is in right now.
- notyourwork 9y agoWhy can’t both be sad? The world lost history and lots of families lost their personal belonging, houses and possibly friends and/or family member. I think both are a tragedy.
- Santosh83 9y agoAlso the devastating impact on wildlife... biodiversity loss is also irreplaceable considering this is the only planet we know with life in the universe so far.
- averagewall 9y agoAt the same time, hundreds were killed in road accidents. Why care about mere property? And that's only Americans. I don't think humans are well equipped to apply our feelings of caring to strangers we hear about on the news because there are far too many of them. We'd be reduced to blithering wrecks if we actually cared about all suffering.
- artur_makly 9y agoi think it was all done by Skynet. Helps to cover up any negligant details that can hinder progress.
- freeflight 9y agoThese kinds of jokes become way scarier when this stuff creeps into reality and the military actually names it very aptly "Skynet" [0]. Somebody should tell those guys in the Pentagon that the Terminator movies do not depict a utopian future we would want to emulate, not at all. [0] http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/09/future-us-military-constructing-giant-armed-nervous-system/141303/ http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/09/future-us-milit...
- kwhitefoot 9y agoWe don't but they always think that they can control the demons they conjure.
- shepardrtc 9y agoThe records went from "special vaults inside permanent facilities, complete with foam fire retardant and other safeguards" to boxes on shelves in a modular building. I don't know anything about Keysight, but I think their actions tell me everything I need to know.
- emh68 9y ago"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much"
- mtremsal 9y agoIs this a common adage? I'm not sure I understand its meaning in this context.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoIt's a reference to the biblical parable of a shrewd/dishonest steward from Luke 16 [1]. It looks a little more like ancient corruption to modern readers, or an admonition to escort disgruntled employees out the door the day they are fired or give notice, rather than maintaining their privileges for two weeks: the guy buys friends on the outside by mismanaging his employer's funds when he realizes that he's going to be fired. I believe the parent is saying that if Keysight was lazy, shortsighted, or irresponsible with these historical documents, they probably won't treat the design, construction, and your purchase of an expensive oscilloscope with a different attitude. So, ostensibly, buy Tektronix (or, for hackers, buy a Rigol - more value for less money; I love my $900 MSO1074Z-S and the closest Keysight device is a $8000 oscilloscope that doesn't include most of the software decoders you want, and doesn't include the $3000 function generator). [1] https://www.bible.com/bible/111/LUK.16.niv https://www.bible.com/bible/111/LUK.16.niv
- HeyLaughingBoy 9y agoI don't know how different the culture at Keysight is from the original Hewlett-Packard. But I do remember in 1994 or thereabouts, calling the h-p customer service number with questions about the old hp 'scope I had just picked up for $50 that came without a manual. The lady who answered the phone put me on hold to go digging through file cabinets and then came back with the documentation to politely answer all my questions. I have never been anything but completely impressed by all of Hewlett-Packard's instruments or any interaction I've ever had with them. And BTW, IIRC that Rigol made some of HP's low end DSO's back in the early 00's.
- blackguardx 9y agoI used to work at this company and facility when the document move likely occurred. They used to have a really good library and a librarian on site. After the 2008 financial crisis, they had a massive layoff (over 10%) that included the librarian. I don't remember if they shut down the library, but it seems likely given that these documents were stored in a modular building. The two modular buildings that burned down were like very large mobile homes. They were supposed to be tempory (built during the dotcom boom) but were probably built as well as any silicon valley strip mall.
- throw2849834 9y agoThe library got turned into a conference room, but there is still a skeleton library staff. It's strange that the important docs ended up in the modulars since that's where they put a bunch of random storage stuff, IT contractors, the ergo people, etc. But if you were there you know that the HP Way is long dead. So it goes.
- blackguardx 9y agoI didn't use the library at all, but thought the lab stock perk was awesome. Basically, you could take anything you wanted from a central prototyping parts storage area and use it for personal projects. It gradually got worse and worse as they stopped maintaining it as well. Do they still have lab stock?
- throw2849834 9y agoYes, we still have labstock and it is great. Although, I was told we weren't allowed to take stuff home. The old hands seem to have a different, if judicious, understanding.
- userbinator 9y agoI hope they don't just consider it a complete loss and throw everything out... there has been successful attempts at recovering and digitising burnt documents: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8921286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8921286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8984425 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8984425
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- keypusher 9y agoIf only they could have found a vendor selling enterprise grade multi-site data backup solutions. Or a scanner.
- superflyguy 9y agoThat's not as disruptive as this fire seems to have been. If anything actually important was lost then perhaps in the future it'll just be noted that user error was just as much an issue for developers and entrepreneurs as the actual users those sorts of people usually denigrate with "perhaps next time you'll make backups haw haw haw".
- WalterBright 9y agoI've tried to digitize the mountain of paper that I have. Scanning with a flatbed scanner was hopelessly slow. A sheet fed scanner helped a lot, and produces the best results. But the fastest method for random paper was to simply point my phone at it and take a picture. The resolution of the phone camera is plenty good enough these days. I know some archivists cringe at the thought of just putting the stuff on a table and clicking away, but it's the cheapest and fastest way to do it, and you've got far better than nothing if the originals get destroyed. I trust multiple copies distributed to different physical locations a lot more than fireproof vaults. (And a fireproof vault won't help in a flood, either.)
- userbinator 9y agoCameras have gotten good enough that they're also used for book "scanning" now. Nondestructive and very fast.
- sdrothrock 9y ago> Nondestructive This is the important part, IIRC. Example: http://diybookscanner.org/archivist/ http://diybookscanner.org/archivist/
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoIf just getting the information contained on it, then sure, phone cameras are fine and better than nothing. If it's for digital archival purposes though, like, museum quality, then investing time and effort in e.g. scanners is worth it. It's also some of the most boring work I can imagine, but hey.
- rtkwe 9y agoThe question there is do documents like this need that level of detail in scans? Just pages of someone's notes or corporate documents probably don't need that super fine level of detail.
- WalterBright 9y agoThe thing is, a lot of stuff (like the HP archive) does not get digitized because scanning them takes too much time and costs too much. That's where the quick & dirty phone camera shines. Yes, it's boring, but so is mowing the lawn.