Fact Check.. (Score 5, Informative)

Just wanted to post some fact check data here. I live 10 miles from the data center, was interviewed for a position there (turned down the consequent job offer) and am friends with the data center administrator. First of all, the article is incorrect - the data center is in Shiprock New Mexico on the Navajo Nation, NOT in Albuquerque. This is a 240+ mile difference. It's a common occurance that news articles written by people outside the area tend to make. Everyone not from New Mexico thinks that Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos are the only places in New Mexico. Also, the data center was not built with grant funds. The grant funds went towards the fiber optic project. NTUA, the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, invested their own capital to build the data center. In fact, what the ariticle does not make clear is that NTUA houses and manages the data center. What makes this unusual is that NTUA is the utility for the Navajo Nation (water, sewer, electricity, etc.). Building and running a data center is a little out of their core compentencies. Having said that, however, they've done an impressive job. The data center is state of the art and well built. They have power feeds from two different bulk electric utilities, two massive backup generators, two buildings of UPSs, and a state-of-the art NOC. What they don't have, in my humble opinion, is a completely fleshed out marketing team. But then I don't know exactly what their marketing strategy is anyway. As far as being racist goes, the only comment I've seen so far which I would say is blatantly racist is the one about "every liquor store in the region" putting up a website. That's kind of harsh, and is a really bad sterotype. Again, however, that's just my opinion. This is a free country after all.