Facebook Data Center Coming To Central Oregon

So it appears that the mystery company behind the datacenter that’s going to be built in Prineville is going to be none other than Facebook, according to KTVZ, KBND, the Bulletin, a couple people I know, as well as a few comments on my site from yesterday. Of course, none of this is completely official yet, as the official announcement is scheduled to come later today. Considering the press this is getting this morning, I doubt that the company behind all this is anybody other than Facebook — though it would be quite hilarious if everybody was wrong.

Update: More on this: Apparently a construction worker on-site slipped to the Bulletin about this, even though they weren’t supposed to say anything. I’ve talked to somebody who is close to the whole thing (and under NDA and annoyed that the story got out — honestly, I’m amazed it took this long), and they have confirmed that it is Facebook. Official announcement from the company should be coming later this morning.

Update later: It’s official. Here’s Facebook’s blog post, story from the Oregonian, and the KTVZ story has been updated (all with pretty artist’s renderings). For those hardcore datacenter geeks, Data Center Knowledge has a good article up about where Facebook’s move from leasing space to building their own center (I was amazed they were co-locating their servers all these years). Techcrunch has the story as well.

Congrats to all for making this happen!

Time Killer For The Evening

1066 is a middle-ages war game that’s a load of fun.

Prineville Datacenter Is Not Yahoo or Google — So Who Is It?

A couple months ago stories broke about a datacenter that was going to be opening up in Prineville. A new article in today’s Bulletin confirms it’s not Google or Yahoo! and that work on the site is already under way. There is a thought that the name of the company behind Vitesse (the company that’s doing all the dealings with Prineville) might be released on Thursday.

Anybody have any new theories or information?

Update: From the Oregonian, all will be revealed tomorrow, but if anybody wants to blow their NDA (which, from what I hear expires tomorrow at noon), feel free to comment below.

Bulletin Now Allowing More Commenting Options

While KTVZ has provided commenting features on their new stories for quite a while, the Bulletin only started allowing them recently, and only to subscribers. (KOHD allows comments on their site, too, but KOHD just doesn’t have the up-to-date and depth of content online that KTVZ and The Bulletin have, so there is very little discussion.) The Bulletin has now opened up commenting to non-subscribers as well. KTVZ’s comment system is powered by JS-Kit/Echo and it appears the Bulletin’s is powered by Disqus. Both sites allow you to use your Facebook, Twitter or Yahoo! accounts (among others) to sign in, but you still need to either register somewhere to post on the Bulletin’s site (you can post anonymous, but moderated, comments on KTVZ’s site, which doesn’t appear to be an option on The Bulletin’s site).

I don’t know the relative benefits or advantages of either commenting platform (there is a lot of discussion here), but it’s good to see the options for discussion in the community (since I’ve long shuttered Bend Forums).

Reading Material

I Need A Wii

And if I ever get one, I’m totally getting this game.

If you can read the Japanese, the game’s site is here with a Japanese trailer (which is quite entertaining) here.

Woot Tears Apart Twilight

Daily deal site Woot‘s product descriptions have alway been hilarious, but today’s take on Twilight is one of its best.

Time Killer For The Day

Nothing to kill off a Friday like a game where you’re taking on heavy fire — but you have no weapon.

Want To Secure Your Checked Airline Baggage?

Late Night TV Chaos

The blog world is all in a dither about NBC’s late-night shake-up. First, NBC outlined a plan to move “The Jay Leno Show” from it’s 10PM time slot to an 11:35 time slot, moving Conan O’Brien’s “Tonights Show” to 12:05. The reasoning, apparently, was because NBC affiliates were complaining that their 11PM newscasts were seeing lower ratings. The topic was brought up on pretty much every late night show. Conan came out and said he won’t do the show if it’s moved to a different time slot. The Web has come to the support of Conan, or “Coco” as he’s known, calling Leno all sorts of names. The Consumerist is encouraging people to email NBC before he decides to bail and go to Fox.

Personally, I’ve always like Conan and his show far better than Leno, but this whole fiasco is just hilarious and shows how much pull Leno still has at NBC (and how little respect they have for Conan).