
Just a Drop in the Bucket (1994) - gwbas1c
https://milk.com/wall-o-shame/bucket.html
======
will_pseudonym
I enjoyed the story of a giant grease fire that could have been. Though, I was
curious as to why milk.com was owned by a computer company, and not, say a
milk company or organization. I read the explanation[0] and enjoyed it as
well.

[0] [https://milk.com/value/](https://milk.com/value/)

~~~
cedricium
The owner behind the website has also cataloged some of his correspondence
with people who failed to realize milk.com was not dairy-related[0], some of
which are very entertaining.

[0] [https://milk.com/experiments/](https://milk.com/experiments/)

~~~
dajonker
I used to have microsoft@<isp> as an email address, and would occasionally get
complaints about blue screens or other Windows related issues. People did not
know how email worked in that time.

------
Animats
Actual news story: [1]

[1]
[https://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/news/1994_Oct_5...](https://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/morgue/news/1994_Oct_5.ELECTRIC.html)

~~~
jsjohnst
Interesting to see how divergent the “urban legend” like version of the story
is versus the actual news report.

1) the 1MW transformer was shutdown, but was not the one which got the grease
dumped on it (which was a 200KW)

2) there was about a foot of grease, not “completely submerged”

3) they didn’t replace the transformers, just cleaned them.

~~~
Animats
Yes. I used to live near there. Palo Alto has occasionally struggled with
their underground transformer vaults. They make the streets look nice, but
they're high maintenance. Many were submerged in the 1998 flood.

The "DEC data center" is of historic importance to the Internet. It's an old
telephone company building, and was the home of AltaVista. It's now an Equnix
data center, and says "PAIX" (Palo Alto Internet Exchange) on the front. [1]

DEC built the AltaVista search engine as a demo for DEC Alpha 64-bit
computers, to show what they could do. Having thousands of identical machines
in racks was a new thing then.

Because it was in an old telco building, with high ceilings, high racks, and
ceiling cable trays from the electromechanical switching era, AltaVista was
built like a telephone central office - tall racks of computers, with the
cables overhead. Before this, data centers were usually raised floor
construction. This is where telco-like data centers started.

As the "Palo Alto Internet Exchange", around 1996, it was the main peering
point for the Internet in Northern California. One of the first big carrier-
neutral peering points.

Also, I think the "1MW transformer" for the data center was actually above
ground in the alley. It, or a successor, is still there, and you can see it in
the aerials, but there's a cinderblock wall in front of it now. It used to be
out in the open on a pad.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4455915,-122.1611684,3a,31y,...](https://www.google.com/maps/@37.4455915,-122.1611684,3a,31y,26.24h,86.73t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1siEqwYn25IybePsHB6ed4iw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

------
isoskeles
Given the title and domain, I thought this was going to be about milk going
into a bucket, you know, from a cow.

------
usermac
[https://web.archive.org/web/20190320011601/https://milk.com/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190320011601/https://milk.com/wall-
o-shame/bucket.html)

As I could not reach the site.

------
JacKTrocinskI
This site made my day, awesome :D

~~~
danfuzz
I'm here for you.

~~~
robmusial
I really appreciate you and your site. I am in my 30s now and have enjoyed the
weirdness of milk.com since I was a teenager. It is really nice to see a pre-
web-2.0 / internet classic site still up and running. It's also great to see
it on a domain name like 'milk.com' not being owned by a massive company.

~~~
danfuzz
️<3

------
gumby
I remember when this happened!

