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."
Classic Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
This is off topic, but I'm getting a warning at the top of Slashdot that classic is going to be going away soon (looks like in 4 months).
How many readers are going to leave if they cut it off slashdot classic completely?
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll probably be gone.
I'm trying to reply from the beta (Score:5, Interesting)
have you left any constructive comments in the Slashdot "blog" threads? That appears to be the official avenue by which they claim to want feedback, so duplicate your efforts over there.
I too am a classic user, and I don't much care for the beta interface. I left comments indicating what I wanted the UI to do that it wasn't currently doing, and why I still use the classic mode.
Hmmm.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Argentina having an economic crisis... Making impotent threats over the Falklands didn't work, let's try burning all the bank records.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been coming to /. since before you had to register to comment.
This is the first design change that has actually made me consider leaving.
Re: Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
4-digit UID here.
Don't like the beta one bit.
Get off my lawn.
Neither surprising nor far (Score:4, Interesting)
Business majors (Score:5, Interesting)
McDonalds notes that the best people to own franchises are farmers, because they follow instructions to the letter. Since the McDonalds franchise model has been honed to perfection, the farmer-owned franchise is a guaranteed success.
The worst franchise owners are MBAs. They want to make changes, to do things "better", and this never works out in practice. The franchise instructions do things in specific ways for a reason, all the bugs have been worked out, and the franchise model really is the best way.
Slashdot is run by MBAs, they won't listen to us. They know better, because they are, like, business majors... ya know?
The biggest mistake MBAs make is thinking that management/administration is a plug-in skill - you can move to a different business and manage it without knowing the ins and outs of the business.
Any MBA can become a middle manager in, for example, a newspaper without knowing the newspaper business. It's all about managing people, getting projects done on time, and being a buffer between management and workers.
Any MBA can manage Slashdot, you only need to survey the landscape and implement all the features that make other news sites great.
Being like other sites will make Slashdot even greater!
Re:I'm thought about trying to reply from the beta (Score:5, Interesting)
I looked at the beta, and thought "I'll give it a go"
And then found the large default font, the lack of auto-copying the OP subject and the general "messiness" of it all too painful.
Just as well I had the classic in another tab...
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:4, Interesting)
How many readers are going to leave if they cut it off slashdot classic completely?
I'm likely to. I'm thinking of changing my signature to "If Hitler were also a pedophile, he'd still be better than Slashdot Beta". But maybe beta will improve?
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's more like Shell having the gasoline in their hands, if any of the accusations of the Argentinian government are true, since it seems Shell is trying to destabilize the Argentinian economy, they raised the price of gasoline 12% and have made some speculative monetary moves that are devaluating the Argentinian peso lately.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how effective that would actually be... If a national bank decided to destroy a large amount of debt records and then simply refused to acknowledge foreign debts without extensive documentation?
In the UK if you dispute a debt the onus is on the lender to prove it exists. Quite often with old debts they have lost the paperwork and end up having to drop them.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Interesting)
In the last 120 years, Argentina has singlehandedly destroyed their own economy a total of three separate times. In 1910 Argentina was a 'first world' state, IIRC the fifth largest in the world. Then Peron got elected, and almost his first act was to pull all of the gold out of their national bank and spend it.
Re:So they eliminated their debt with a fire? (Score:5, Interesting)
That happened here in the US for a number of home loans - their loans had been shuffled so many times between institutions that some borrowers successfully argued in foreclosure proceedings that there was no evidence that the foreclosing party actually owned the loan.
Iron Mountain places seem to burn easily (Score:5, Interesting)
Out of interest, I was looking for more detail.
Found a story on the BBC about one of their facilities that went up in flames in London in 2006 (I think)
Was a link to another fire too..
Maybe not the safest archivist out there, then..
Re: Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow.
It's like seing a unicorns.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll probably be gone if this beta abortion becomes the only available interface. I mean WHAT THE FUCK?! This nazi piece of shit just imperiously throws away all of my paragraph breaks!
Come on, slashdot. Really? Admit failure. Fire whoever needs to be fired, and get back on track.
I mean jesus christ. Maybe I will even start a site to compete. One whose design is not brain dead and whose management will never become brain dead.
Re:Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I read Reddit and Hackernews for most of my tech news these days but have always fallen back to scanning Slashdot every day for the cream of the crop and to check the comments for interesting dialog because it was a lightweight, scan to get through the content.
I've gotta say, the Beta is pretty bad from a UX perspective and I would say that it is out of line with my perceptions of who a Slashdot user is.
It's like someone just said "this is trendy, make it happen" without any real consideration for the active user base. I can only hope that the feedback from the Beta supports my perception and they reverse on it, but I have to admit to myself that that's highly unlikely and I can say right now that it will very likely effect my visit frequency to the site.
Pretty bummed about it.
Re: Classic Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
I still read the site every so often, but it's gone from one of my main sites that I read religiously to one that I forget about for a week or two.
The level of the articles don't even warrant skimming the summary in most cases, let alone reading the comments or actually commenting myself. Part of it is that my interests have diverged and part of it is that Slashdot has seriously lost any edge it ever had.
I can see why they feel the need to freshen up the design -- and it's not like it's ever been strong on a design front -- but the beta is atrocious and once I can't avoid it I doubt I'll ever be back. Slashdot may have outlasted Digg but I suspect it will share the same fate.