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Juneau's NBC affiliate now available in HD in Ketchikan, AK
Alaska's first city can now enjoy the spoils of 30 Rock, The Office and Sunday Night Football in high-definition, and it's all thanks to GCI Cable picking up the KATH-TV feed from Juneau. As of now, Ketchikan residents can finally pull in a high-definition version of the NBC affiliate, and this February locals will be able to see the Super Bowl in HD -- a first for Southeast Alaska. KATH-HD was launched in the state's capital city this August just in time for the Beijing Olympics, and thanks to a new fiber-optic run from there to Ketchikan, service is being expanded. Moreover, GCI Cable is hoping that this addition will be just one of many to come in the looming months, though no details about exact expansion plans were discussed.
Alaska Department of Revenue vaporizes $38 billion account
The Last Frontier is no stranger to computer failure on a noteworthy scale, but the latest mishap far exceeds the severity of yet another e-voting failure. A quick-fingered technician at the Alaska Department of Revenue reformatted a hard drive while handling "routine maintenance work" that contained an account worth $38 billion -- yeah, with a B. To make matters exponentially worse, he / she also deleted the backup drive for reasons unbeknownst to mere men, and we can probably assume that at least a few individuals in the department suffered a near-heart attack when they found the backup tapes completely unreadable. The only remaining proof of the oil-funded account was in 300 boxes of paperwork, which had to be digitized yet again by staff members working incredibly long hours completing work that had just been done a few months earlier. Incredibly, no one was reportedly punished for the incident, and while the recovery efforts were actually finished in just six painstaking weeks, the damage inflicted by a few careless keystrokes totaled $220,700 in excess labor costs. Ouch.[Via Fark]
