Fire Destroys Iron Mountain Data Warehouse, Argentina's Bank Records Lost 463
cagraham writes "A fire at Iron Mountain's data warehouse in Buenos Aires left the facility 'ruined' and killed nine first-responders, according to the Washington Post. The origin of the fire is unknown. The facility was supposedly equipped with sprinkler systems, fire control systems, and had a private emergency team on standby. Among the records destroyed are Argentina's bank archives, the loss of which could have some surprisingly far-reaching implications."
Confessions Of an Ex-SLASHDOT BETA user (Score:2, Informative)
Day 1: It wouldn't stop, the redirecting. At first I thought it was malware. Had my first drink in a long time.
Day 2: Barely had the strength to carry on as the BETA REDIRECTIONS continue.. trying not to talk to hallucinations at the bar and in the bathroom which laugh at me about these redirections.
Day 3: Discovered the BETA redirections were random, and while at first they looked somewhat usable, when I looked at me and my monitor screen in the mirror, a horrible woman with flesh hanging off of her body looked back, trying to lead me into a dance as the word BETA appeared across her rancid breasts.
Day 4: These BETA corridors go on FOREVER! On the plus side, I've taken up disassembling vehicles to corner this BETA beast and sacrifice myself rather than lead others to discovering it. I ate some red snow.
Day 5: Finding it harder to concentrate. I've ate some more of the red snow. The taste is starting to grow on me.
Day 6: This typewriter is the only entertainment I have, apart from throwing things at the walls, trying to get some response from the BETA which is now taking over my mind.
Day 7: Hahahahahha! Would you believe it? I'M STILL BEING REDIRECTED TO SLASHDOT BETA PAGES! AHAHhahahaah! Type, type, ding, ding! Wooo!
Day 8: The hallucinations are actually real! Would you believe it? They have offered to help me if I agree to work for them. I'm thinking about patenting this delicious red snow, the taste is unreal!
Day 9: Having black out sessions where I cannot remember large passings of time. Found some makeup, thought I'd paint a joker smile on my face to amuse the people only I can see!
Day 10: Productive today, part of what I wrote for my new screenplay:
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slashdot BETA!
I cannot opt out of Slas
(drops of blood on paper)
There's no default title in a reply in slashdot be (Score:5, Informative)
I'm masochistically viewing this story in slashdot beta. It's horrible.
A few replies down a tree, and comments are squished into a bar about 1/16 the width of the screen. Half of the left-hand side is taken up with whitespace and vertical rules, the right-hand side is taken up with ads.
The comment threshold system is fundamentally broken.
There's a stupid ever-present menubar at the top of the page.
The fucking 'dept' joke is *below* the summary, not above it. Why? Who the hell knows.
I'm pissed, because I've been coming to this site since 1998, I like the community, and I fear that a good chunk of the regulars will leave if Beta is really forced on us.
Re:Some far reaching implications... (Score:4, Informative)
Iron burns as follows:
4Fe(s) + 3O2(g) -> 2Fe2O3(s)
Survey response (Score:5, Informative)
The survey [surveymonkey.com] asks:
What do you like the most about Slashdot Beta?
My response: "It encourages me to find and read new sites."
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)
Yea, if any of you haven't been in one of these data centers, the sear improbability of this kind of fire is staggering.
The rooms are usually kept so cold you need a jacket.
There are firewalls everywhere (and I mean the physical kind)
They have sprinkler systems in the looses sense of the term, They more likely dump CO2 to avoid damaging the equipment.
If all else fails the room seal and Halon dumps (or one of its alternatives) making combustion almost completely impossible.
The only way I could see it happening is if things were shut down for a test or something...
or some neighboring building that was much larger exploded or something.
Re: Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't there?
Not so true (Score:4, Informative)
Hello Ciber-K, the ones who destroyed the economy are Kirchner and friends (which used to include Clarin & cia, so they are NOT saints).
Shell raising the gas prices is obvious taking into account the more than 12% devaluation from the other day, you do remember that Oil is a commodity right? and it's price, and it's extraction costs are all dollar-tied?
Why don't you go ask Capitanich (Former province governor, current second in command) why the Gas Stations he created back in his province have the most expensive gasoline in said province?
Have a little respect for the emergency responders that died, just like the people who died back in Rio Tercero when Menem made it blow to cover his arms trading...
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:4, Informative)
If a national bank decided to destroy a large amount of debt records and then simply refused to acknowledge foreign debts without extensive documentation?
Your logic is completely ass backwards, since the foreigners will have the original loan records, not the Argentines.
Re:I'm thought about trying to reply from the beta (Score:4, Informative)
Even the front page is a disaster. Classic Slashdot has a nice list of stories. A list is easy to scan. The new site has some kind of bullshit "showcase" of stories at the top, followed by massive story blocks that make me scroll like I'm looking at a mobile site on my 5" phone screen. Throw in some stock images because... well, who knows, it pads the space I suppose, and maybe some people like stock images of network cables and company logos.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite. It was designed by someone who (sadly) knows what they're doing, and more importantly knows what advertisers currently want.
A lot of sites have shifted over to this kind of design, so Slashdot is far from alone. Advertisers like it for various reasons - mostly it comes down to ads being more eye-catching - and of course advertisers control the purse strings. But at the same time the public has also had it ingrained into their heads that such a design is the definition of "modern", and therefore any site not using such a design is by definition not modern, and therefore not worth their time ("the site's owners can't be bothered to keep up with the times?"). Which just leads to a feedback loop of advertisers liking it even more, since they want to advertise on sites that the public perceives as hip/modern so that their products are seen in a similar manner.
But the truly terrifying thing is that the industry isn't done yet. I can show you what the future will look like and it isn't pretty: http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5307992/inside-the-mind-of-a-fanboy [theverge.com]. By all accounts the advertisers seem to love it; the text is big and readable (i.e. not threatening), there's animation and lots of flashy effects, etc. It basically reads and behaves like an interactive glossy magazine (People, not Popular Science).
Not that I agree with any of this. Beta needs to be buried 6ft under in a grave lined with lead. But there is a method to their madness; despite what a lot of people here think, Dice hasn't gone off of their rockers. The rest of the world is just slowly moving on from text to images and iconography, as sad as that may be.
Re:I'm trying to reply from the beta (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, and they've all been ignored. Just like every "feedback" thread that's ever been run by a corporation. I also filled out the survey. Ignored.
The change will happen. Readingship will nosedive. Someone at Dice will say "See, told you Slashdot was dying, this proves me right". The site will be mothballed, and Dice News (tm) will be opened as a "leader in a newspace with no competition".
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously you don't know squat about my country's economy or the facts which led to this. Argentinian justice department was investigating a massive fraud commited mostly by US based companies sucha as Monsanto and Shell, and several international baks were impled in the maneuver, the HSBC to name one. This fire looks more a way to cover up for that fraud. If you'd like to exercise your memory, I recommend you to take a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Mountain_Incorporate]trip down Wikipedia lane[/url]. Iron Mountain has a long history of destroying their own facilites to safeguard their customer's data from Justice investigations.
Re:There's no default title in a reply in slashdot (Score:4, Informative)
Readability is less in the new version too. A lot in uselful info of a comment is dimmed. The contrast is diminished all over a post. No clear demarkation between a title, user details and post content.
It really sucks.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:4, Informative)
He spent the gold reserves nationalizing the railroads and buying votes. Later the lack of those reserves resulted in the Argentine peso having the highest inflation rate in the world. If you were reading the Wikipedia article on Peron, it is apparently written by a die-hard Peronista and doesn't cover the real impact of his policies or the true reasons why he was tossed out - not once but twice. I haven't been able to track down the original citation but from what I've read, literally when he became President his first action was to be shown the gold reserves, where he said, "We will take this and spend it on the people!" - the original wording was better but hey. He did in fact spend nearly all of the reserves, and that was a key factor later in the destruction of the stable peso.
Here's just one analyst's view:
In 1930, Argentina’s gold reserves ranked 6th. After the “experts” took over the central bank, reserves fell to 9th in 1948 (with $700 million), 16th during 1950-54 (with $530 million), and 28th during 1960-1964 (with $290 million).
The Argentine central bank, created in 1935, was at first a private corporation. Its president lasted longer (seven years) than the president of the country, and it had strict limits for government debt purchases and even had foreign bankers on its board. It became a government entity in 1946.
When Perón assumed power shortly thereafter, he hastily expanded the role of government, relaxed central banking rules and used the bank to facilitate his statist policies. In just 10 years, the peso went from 4.05 per U.S. dollar to 18 in 1955 (and later peaked at 36 that same year). After Perón’s rule, Argentina further devalued its currency to 400 pesos per U.S. dollar by 1970.
(http://www.visionandvalues.org/2013/06/dont-cry-for-me-america-comparing-argentina-and-the-united-states/) - I don't know anything about this site, it was just a convenient Google result. But these facts are well known.
It should be said that Peron was not the first, or only, leader who made a mess of things in Argentina. The Argentine political system was already suffering from various issues including classism, huge gaps between industrialists and workers, etc., and (according to several sources) a political mind set that made and makes it difficult to maintain a working democracy. The so-called 'Infamous Decade' starting in the 1930s destroyed what was left of a traditional political system and made it possible for the fascists to take over. This [pearsonglobalschools.com] is a pretty good description of the situation.