Computer Error Rocks Alaska's Fund

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I’m sure many of you have accidentally formatted a drive and lost valuable data but imagine wiping out a drive with a $38 billion account on it. What can be worse than that? Reformatting the back-up drive too.

That's what happened to a computer technician reformatting a disk drive at the Alaska Department of Revenue. While doing routine maintenance work, the technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account — one of Alaska residents' biggest perks — and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well.
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According to the article, the backup tapes were no use also, they were found to be unreadable.

But having to go though 300 boxes of paperwork because of a technician screwed up, well that sucks.
 
The whole state damn near had a heart attack when news of what happened spread. Most people don't know that residents of the state of Alaska (all of us) get an average of $1,000 per person a year for living in the state. A family of four gets 4x the amount. A computer error like that wouldn't hurt the state as much as it would the people that had their files deleted. :eek:
 
What!!!!!.. I don't get it. Why they blamed it for 'Computer Error'????
The computer did what the technician wanted it to do... :D
 
I'm sure the technician got a raise and a promotion. :cool:

Kinda weird why they didn't simply unformat the drives afterwards, maybe the retard didn't disconnect the drive after the accidental format.
 
Wow, that technician got a $38 billion dollar training class.
 
I guess it pays to check before you format! I could see some totally green computer n00b like my mom doing something like that.. But a technician that should know better? Was this guy high or something? That's one hell of an expensive boner to pull.:eek:
 
MDboyz said:
What!!!!!.. I don't get it. Why they blamed it for 'Computer Error'????
The computer did what the technician wanted it to do... :D
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Must have either been one of those ID 10T or a Pebkac computer errors.
 
I immediately forwarded this to one of my employees that I am not allowed to fire.
 
I wonder if by backup drive they mean mirrored drive. In which case the format was replicated as it happened?

Why was he FORMATING an active system?
Why when the need for formating the active system did he not create an additional back up before preceding, or verify the existing backup?

I take more care with far less valuable data than this.
 
MDboyz said:
What!!!!!.. I don't get it. Why they blamed it for 'Computer Error'????
The computer did what the technician wanted it to do... :D
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I agree, not only is the title of the story misleading, it could actually foster a lack of confidence in the state's computer records keeping system. There was no computer error, this was human error, the computer was simply the implement of choice.

If the same guy were to accidentially shoot someone while cleaning a gun, would the title of the story be "Gun error injures local citizen"? Of course not.

However in this new touch-feely-don't-hurt-anyone's-feelings world that we live in, they can't possibly blame the guy who did it, they didn't even fire him! Notice how the Revenue Commissioner is quoted as saying "There was no witch hunt". Well no shit, there doesn't need to be one if you know which cubicle the witch is sitting in. Permitting failure and praising mediocrity in the name of Political Correctness creates the sort of climate that allows this to happen.

Fear of losing one's job becuase of something like used to be great motivator for preventing such things. Apparently no longer. Now it's ok if, as the Revenue Commissioner says, "Everybody felt very bad about it and we all learned a lesson." Well that's great, we all feel bad about it, *and* we learned a lesson. Which lesson do you suppose that was? Maybe that there are no consequences for failure, other than the taxpayers having to foot bill to correct this dumbass's mistake.
 
Maybe there was fraud somewhere in the account and the tech was...hired by a special interests group. :p


Alaska citizens shouldn't get money to live there! Look how far away from the White House they are!

We in Ohio should though. Damn weather patterns. Every ten steps and the weather's different.
 
Now that story makes me feel better because I did a simlar mistake with a client's hard drive that had precious pictures. However, I'm still recovering his files.
 
Hapatingjaky said:
He must have previously worked for Dell Technical Support...
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Or Geek Squad.

GJSNeptune said:
We in Ohio should though. Damn weather patterns. Every ten steps and the weather's different.
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Ohio? Try living in the Great Northwet (pun intended). Sunny today, then it hailed, now it's sunny again. It's like that every day. :p

adri1456 said:
Now that story makes me feel better because I did a simlar mistake with a client's hard drive that had precious pictures. However, I'm still recovering his files.
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You didn't make a backup drive and "accidently" reformat that too though. :p
 
Bad tapes happen but formatting a production drive AND the backup? A drug test is in order. Well, at least this story has a somewhat happy ending. The residents continue to get their money, the moron tech keeps his job and we all get to make fun of him.
 
Perhaps. But maybe not.

I hate extreme heat, I can only sunburn, and my drive to work is eastbound, so the sun's in my eyes to and from work.

Plus I just like rain. I don't know if the Northwest would be suitable, 'cause I hear it rains a lot without really storming, but I would definitely tolerate rainy over sunny.
 
Skizzy said:
You didn't make a backup drive and "accidentally" reformat that too though. :p
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Now that's stupid.

I forgot to disconnect the removable hard drive and formatted that instead of the C: drive. I was wondering why I still saw the desktop in its original state.
 
Curious. I dont get a FKing check. Where is MY check.

The oil/gas/coal under US territory belongs to EVERYONE and we shoul all be getting a CHECK.

Let this be a lesson to all US citizens. The 400 BILLION barrels of oil in the oil shales are sitting on US PUBLIC land. We the people must make sure that WE get the bulk of the profits to be generated once the oil shales enter production. Something on the order of a $50,000 PER YEAR check to every man, women, and child who is a US citizen would be appropriate. Either that or $.25/gallon gas/heating oil. Given our need to deal with CO2 emissions, it would be best to issue a CHECK rather than cheap gas prices though.

DO NOT let the Republican peices of shit steal your money, as they DID with the 200 BILLION barrels of OIL already sucked out of US reserves in the last 140 years. None of us got a CHECK on that. If you say... gee, that's COMMUNIST.... then you are called Alaskan's COMMUNISTs because THEY get a check for the oil removed from Alaskan reserves every year. Why? Because they weren't STUPID, thats why.
 
So who do we blame? The tech for doing it? The state for having all this data on one fricking hard drive? What?

I swear large entities and computer data just spells bad news, I remember getting a letter from UC Berkeley that a lap top that contain my personal information from when I applied there (5 years earlier... and got denied!) as stolen.. Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, even the "smart people" are pretty damn stupid when it comes to computer stuff (lets ignore the reason why they kept my data on record if they didn't admit me there).
 
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