
California Wildfires Burned Irreplaceable Documents on Silicon Valley History - curtis
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-packard-archives-at-keysight-destroyed
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blackguardx
I 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
The 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
I 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
Yes, 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.

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shepardrtc
The 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.

~~~
Aloha
HP Test and Measurement > Agilent > Keysight

Keysight in essence is the spiritual (if not literal) inheritor of the
original Hewlett-Packard. They still make fantastic well designed, long lived
hardware. But all of those mergers and spinoffs, and whatnot had a less than
ideal effect on the capital available to preserve it's (honestly) awe
inspiring legacy.

For all we know, this was a temporary storage location, pending to something
more permanent being built, or they were located there due to renovations.
Heck, for all we know they were placed there while under the care of Agilent
Technologies, before the spin-off. I'd hesitate to judge them based on this
however.

~~~
mannykannot
Well, if there were extenuating circumstances, Keysight neglected to mention
them in its statement, which is the sort of self-serving denial that we have
come to expect in these circumstances. TL;DR: We did not make any mistakes and
you should not be asking about it.

~~~
Aloha
Those kind of statements almost never mention extenuating circumstances - to
do so is often looked upon as making excuses.

~~~
shepardrtc
"Keysight took appropriate and responsible steps to protect the company
archives"

"This is a time to begin healing, not assigning blame.”

-Keysight Technologies spokesman Jeff Weber

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WalterBright
I'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.)

~~~
Cthulhu_
If 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.

~~~
WalterBright
The 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.

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userbinator
I 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)

------
keypusher
If only they could have found a vendor selling enterprise grade multi-site
data backup solutions. Or a scanner.

~~~
superflyguy
That'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".

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byebyetech
I doubt it but it would be an irony if it were not digitized.

~~~
cm2187
Which 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
> 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
Locked 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.

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taneq
Sounds like someone wasn't following the 3-2-1 rule!

~~~
blattimwind
Get your license of HP Data Protector now!

------
kolbe
I thought The Traitorous 8 were generally considered the beginning of Silicon
Valley.

~~~
lettergram
As we know it, however there were farms and stuff there first

~~~
Stratoscope
For 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
Were they not digitized yet?!

~~~
astrodust
It's HP. Where could they possibly get scanners?

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microcolonel
Good 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-
pa...](http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-packard-
archives-at-keysight-destroyed)

~~~
wpietri
That's easy to say, but there is typically very little money available for
archiving records, and there's very little sense of urgency about it. A friend
right now is trying to find money to preserve a sizable collection of SF
historical documents, and it is far from easy.

~~~
ProAm
> there's very little sense of urgency about it.

That probably means it doesn't really matter.

~~~
gjvc
I think you might have reality somewhat back-to-front, but this is an
interesting point on urgency vs importance.

Silicon Valley has veterans sleeping on the sidewalks, but the chatter in the
coffee shop yards away is about the new fleeting hotness in web frameworks.
Society rarely considers dealing with that which is really urgent until it's
too late, and even then fails to act sufficiently. By a similar token, when a
bank official says "We are well capitalized." they usually mean "We are in
deep trouble and are unable to fix it."

A preventative solution should be as considered as urgent as a cure. Indeed,
when one is dealing with a cure, at least the size of the problem is known.
When one is considering making a preventative measure, the possible size not
yet known with confidence, meaning the problem might be more acute than
previously thought.

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artur_makly
i think it was all done by Skynet. Helps to cover up any negligant details
that can hinder progress.

~~~
freeflight
These 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-
milit...](http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/09/future-us-military-
constructing-giant-armed-nervous-system/141303/)

~~~
kwhitefoot
We don't but they always think that they can control the demons they conjure.

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aclimatt
Original article linked from Gizmodo:
[http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-
pa...](http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-packard-
archives-at-keysight-destroyed?artslide=0)

~~~
dang
Url changed. Thanks!

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harness_up
I suppose that's a loss but thousands of people lost homes and everything they
owned so I'm having a hard time caring.

~~~
kalleboo
"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
That actually seems rare amongst humans, sadly.

~~~
nether
Unicaring is in right now.

