if you're an IT wizard, there's definitely work available in washington, DC, if you can take seriously the news article at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/06/29/national1512EDT0658.DTL
Justice Department says it can't share lobbying data
because computer system will crash"The Bush administration is offering a novel reason for denying a request seeking the Justice Department's database on foreign lobbyists: Copying the information would bring down the computer system.
"Implementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating," wrote Thomas J. McIntyre, chief in the Justice Department's office for information requests...
"What they're asking for is a lot, and it's not something at this particular point in time we have the technical ability to do," Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said Tuesday.
that's right -- simply *copying* the data will cause a catastrophic meltdown. so how hard could it be to put a workable solution in place? a dash of linux, a dollop of mysql, a smidgen of RAID, a pinch of failover or high-availability. where's that DC LUG when you need it?
coming soon from the justice department: "the dog ate my hard drive."
rday
