This is either sad or pathetic depending on where you look at it.

Couchsurfing is OFFICIALLY DEAD

You've probably not used the service but how it died is very interesting - their back-ups FAILED. I've know the feeling of having to re-contruct three months of code after accidentally "purging" it out of those antiquated VAX systems --- but THREE YEARS OF DATA (!!!)

here's an excerpt of the owner's farewell letter, you can read the rest in TechCrunch:

"Dear CouchSurfers,

Two days ago CouchSurfing experienced what could be described as the perfect storm. The database administrators we hired made two critical mistakes. First, we had a major, avoidable hard drive crash. Secondly, the incremental back-ups weren’t executed in the correct manner, and twelve of our most important data files didn’t survive.

I have been working non-stop trying to repair the data, but as difficult as it is for me to say, it has become clear that certain essential pieces are not recoverable. This crash happened at a particularly vulnerable time, in a transition between two back-up methods. If the crash had happened a week ago, or next week, we would have had a different outcome.

It is with a heavy heart that I face the truth of this situation. CouchSurfing as we knew it doesn’t exist anymore. We’ve had an amazing two and a half years."

This kind of post is probably one of the reasons that I will always be a Christian. In the end --- Jesus Saves.