The winner is Web Hosting and Data Center companies. Check out www.1and1.com and click on the "Servers" tab. Stare at that page for a minute and see the yellow sticker saying "Sold Out". What? They sold out their entire inventory of server lease? That is beyond impressive assuming that 1&1 is the biggest Web Hosting company in the world.
This is different from the Web 1.0 boom, where people would buy their servers and routers (mostly from Sun, IBM and Cisco) at a huge upfront cost, then have it not be used to its fullest capacity (because the CTO over-estimated the traffic). Then, once the company would bust, the servers, routers and licenses for databases would be sold on the used market at a fraction of what they paid for it. This situation had a major downturn effect on the big tech suppliers.
Web 2.0 is different. First, to get a very good server costs you just a couple of thousands dollars. Colocation is also much cheaper. On top of that, you have very affordable managed servers and virtual servers. Even if the Web 2.0 companies go bust (and most will), 1&1, Internap and other data centers will do much better this time around because they better understand how to grow their business without doing too much upfront expenses.
Here I was building a geo-database for Sampa, when I found something in the middle of the official USGS data that could be either a prank, or somebody that really commited a crime and wanted to be found. You tell me.
The Clues
Everything starts with the official US database of National Geographic Names. I download this file and started importing it into my database, but the import would stop midway. I tried a couple of configuration changes and nothing, but it always failed at the same line, record number 882213.
An ordinary line on this database contains many data about a place, like its name, state, latitude, longitude and some other info. For example, the line for Seattle looks like this:
1512650 Seattle Populated Place WA 53 King 033 473622N 1221955W 47.6062095 -122.3320708 56 Seattle South
The file is so big that you can't use "traditional" ways of opening and going to line 882213, but I manage to get there and the line that was failing to import was this:
2070999 "Tell Him I Blame Him for the Children We Have Lost..." Aish-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe Historical Marker Park MN 27 Aitkin 001 464410N 0931842W 46.73611 -93.31167 Minnewawa
Searching Google I couldn't find any reference to that phrase in the context of a geographical place or not, nor I could find any reference to what "Aish-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe" means. I ask a friend that speaks both Chinese and Japanese, but she said it doesn't mean anything on those languages.
But, there is still one clue left. The coordinates on that row refer to a place in Minnesota near a place called Big Sandy Lake Reservoir, in Aitkin County. Here is the Google Maps link for it.
The Outcome
I can't go there, but if you live near that place or know someone that does, wouldn't be cool to figure this one out? Or, if you know somebody that has access to the USGS database, can you ask them how this data got into the system?
If you have any idea post a comment on this blog or send me an email (marcelo {-at-} sampa.com).
The phrase "Tell him I blame him for the children we have lost..." was said by Asih-Ke-Vo-Go-Zhe (or Native American 'Flat Mouth') in 1850 during negotiations between the US Federal Government and Native Americans on the Minnesota region.
Go to www.glifwc.org to know more, and thanks all for the comments, feedback and investigation.
Still would be interesting to get a picture of that location to see if there is something there.
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and click on the "Servers" tab. Stare at that page for a minute and see the yellow sticker saying "Sold Out". What? They sold out their entire inventory of server lease? That is beyond impressive assuming that 1&1 is the biggest Web Hosting company in the world.
January, 2008