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University of Twente NOC Destroyed

Posted by michael on from the debian-users-grief-stricken dept.

JanJoost writes "Around 08.00 CET today the University of Twente Network Operations Center, which amongst other things hosts a SURFnet PoP as well as security.debian.org and non-us.debian.org, caught fire. The UT, which hosted the HAL in august last year is completely unreachable and is not likely to come back up any time soon. The fire department has given up every hope on protecting the server area and is now trying to protect the surrounding buildings. More information can be found at the Telegraaf, Planet Internet and Twentsche Courant. Pictures can be found here and here. It's a shame to see a great infrastructure go down in flames like this."

465 comments

  1. More info by Strike · · Score: 5, Informative

    From debian-devel, here's a slightly (only slightly) more informative blurb

    1. Re:More info by Stonehead · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hey, I posted that to debian-devel. Scary to see it get Slashdot headlines, since this posting from Wichert Akkerman himself is more 'official'.
      He's now probably busy setting up klecker.debian.org as the next security.debian.org host. Don't get yourself trojaned, please people, don't panic and just wait for the official Debian announcement that everything has been fixed again. Or play around with inofficial mirrors like these, and there are more. But I feel a bit stupid myself, because - unlike Wichert - I have done nothing myself except forwarding the news and act like a karma whore.

  2. Well Damn... by jhines0042 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... I hope nobody was hurt.

    After that, I wish them luck getting back online.

    --
    42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
    1. Re:Well Damn... by Koos · · Score: 2
      I hope nobody was hurt.
      All news reports say people were evacuated in time from the building and nobody got hurt.

      Funny, I was in this building a few times during the buildup and cleanup of HAL2001. Feels strange now.

      --
      The Virtual Bookcase: book reviews
    2. Re:Well Damn... by Fembot · · Score: 1, Redundant

      I hope they had offsite backup of anything important :-)

    3. Re:Well Damn... by JPDeckers · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Only too bad the UT is in the Netherlands, soo probably only dutchies.

    4. Re:Well Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How is this flamebait but it's parent post isn't? Just goes to show that moderators can't be fair, no matter what the circumstances. ;P

    5. Re:Well Damn... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, he could be talking about "Jan Kees" ("John Cheese")--the original archetypal Yankee, who was Dutch.

  3. Photo's by fearlezz · · Score: 5, Informative

    More images can be found on http://www.bsdfreaks.nl/files/brand.htm

    --
    .sig: No such file or directory
  4. Good Luck by Brian_rts · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Hope everyone made it out...

  5. No Halon? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would a Halon (sp?) system have prevented damage in the server room?

    1. Re:No Halon? by lamj · · Score: 3, Informative

      Depends, if the fire starts inside the NOC then there's a high chance that Halon would extinguish the fire but if the fire started elsewhere then spread to the NOC, most likely the fire suppression systems are not designed to handle that.

      Moreover, Halon system are no longer installed (globally) since 1987 (Montreal Protocol) due to its CFC damaging effect. Most systems already installed are replaced by FM-200. Water, Argon, FE-13, Inergen and a few others are all possible replacement.

  6. In other news by roguerez · · Score: 2, Funny

    Capacity usage of the world largest interconnection lines roughly halved today.

    The cause of this is thought to be a steadily decline in warez/divx/mp3 traffic. The underlying reason for that is still unknown.

    1. Re:In other news by MonoSynth · · Score: 4, Informative

      fact is that the UT is responsible for 30% of the daily internet-traffic in the Netherlands :)

    2. Re:In other news by JohanV · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Nonsense. UT used to be the largest user in the Netherlands until about 14 months ago. After that, they were surpassed by Delft University of Technology, which until the fire today used about 50% more bandwidth as the UT. And even they aren't the biggest anymore, because the University of Utrecht recently became larger than them.
      In total, about 20.000 rooms for individual students in the Netherlands are responsible for over 1 Gbps of traffic. This is non-stop (i.e. during the evening it is closer to 2 Gbps), and over 90+ % is outgoing traffic from 'unknown ports'.

      I guess forcing the RIAA and the MPAA to change their business models the hard way counts as innovation nowadays :)

    3. Re:In other news by osu-neko · · Score: 2, Insightful
      ...and over 90+ % is outgoing traffic from 'unknown ports'.

      Umm, so? Outgoing traffic is almost invariably from a random port > 1024. That's how TCP connections are generally done.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    4. Re:In other news by Mnemia · · Score: 2

      Except that outgoing traffic is normally low-bandwidth. When you use a web browser the outbound traffic is very small compared to the inbound traffic. So the only thing that could generate that much outbound traffic is servers, and since most "legitimate" server applications use low numbered ports, we're likely talking about P2P servers. I think that was what your parent poster was implying (though that ratio seems like it's got to be an exaggeration to me).

    5. Re:In other news by evalhalla · · Score: 1

      traffic on the low numbered ports is low-bandwith: after the request has been made (on the port on which the server is listening) all of the data goes on a random > 1024 one.

      anyway it is quite probable that in this case also most of the requests are for high-numbered ports.

  7. now the engineers come out... by ravidew · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ..to see how this could be prevented in the future. How much fire protection do NOCs owned by the big boys (Verio, WorldCom) have? Offsite backups, too, I hope?

    1. Re:now the engineers come out... by Yo+Grark · · Score: 3, Insightful

      After 911 all the big techfirms created DRA's (disaster recovery area's) in case anything major happened.

      I had no less than 1000 companies call asking how to handle licensing and DRA's.

      I'd be surprised if they didn't have one, it's pretty much standard practice comercially....

      Yo Grark

      - Canadian Bred with American Buttering

      --
      Canadian Bred with American Buttering
    2. Re:now the engineers come out... by rleyton · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Whilst I'm no expert in fire supression systems, I have studied a few data centres in my time as a Senior Sys Admin for a number of companies. Most (decent) NOC's have a fire *supression* system based on gas or (more likely these days) some form of liquid (gas has the nasty side-effect of potentially killing humans).

      These are for small fires that can be contained within a data centre, ie. a computer catching fire or emitting smoke. Really good systems are very localised (racks or cage specific). A big fire just isn't going to be stopped by such a system.

      I haven't read too much into this particular incident (ie. not at all), but my initial thought was that something more serious must have happened (well, duh!), perhaps a fire outside of the main suppression system (outside of the raised floor area?). Or perhaps the paint on the walls/carpet wasn't fire resistant and just took hold very quickly.

      Or a large initial fire (gas leak?) that just didn't die down when the supression system kicked in. Maybe the type of fire (again, gas? oil?) didn't die down because Data Center supression systems presumably focus on electrical fires.

      A well, just my 2p's worth.

      --
      ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
    3. Re:now the engineers come out... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most NOCs I've been in have an oxygen-deprivation gas that's dispersed in the case of a fire (after a series of highly visible and audible warnings). The one I'm in right now seems to have gone the inexpensive (and arguably safer) way of a two-stage dry-pipe water sprinkler system where the pipes are usually dry (empty). In case of a smoke detection above a certain level, the pipes are "charged" (filled with water), and if the heat gets above a certain level, the sprinklers go off. Basically, the decision was made that if there's a fire, the equipment will probably need replacement anyway, so why not use sprinklers?

      Personally, I'm not too sure of this route. I can understand it, from an environmental and human-safety perspective (the gasses eat the ozone layer, and you *really* don't want to inhale stuff that ties up oxygen at those rates), but if it ever happens here, it's going to be an awfully hurried mess to get everything back up and running in a reasonable timespan, even if the fire is only a small one that doesn't destroy the building.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    4. Re:now the engineers come out... by Angry+White+Guy · · Score: 2

      Offsite backups are one thing, but in a case of sheer devistation (such as this), it really doesen't help too much. They have to find a building, fiber, computers, cabling, everything to replace it. Backups, although an important part in the puzzle, are ultimately the last, centermost peices.

      After all is said and done, the U still has to deal with insurance companies, getting specs for colocated equipment, etc. It's not an easy process (if you've dealt with your insurance company not wanting to pay for a dent in your car, imagine telling them that the dent would cost millions to repair) and I doubt that they will be up and operational in less than 6 months.

      I just find it ironic that they put all of their fault-tolerant redundant systems in the same building, only to have it burn down. Distributed computing should mean more than just two computers sitting right next to each other.

      --
      You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
    5. Re:now the engineers come out... by ihowson · · Score: 1

      I guess you'd also have to cut power if it got to the point where the sprinklers were going to go off... I can think of much better places to be than in the middle of a server room with water going everywhere and tons of POWERED ON computers. (bzzzt)

      I've never seen a full-on datacentre (we don't have many in .au, although I work a 2-minute walk from one) - I was under the impression that rooms with Halon were usually isolated in some way from the rest of the NOC to prevent people getting trapped in there?

    6. Re:now the engineers come out... by Nos. · · Score: 3, Interesting
      We have a similar two stage system as mentioned above. When the installers came by a year later for a test, they must have "forgotten" how they hooked it up. Before the sprinklers actually start spraying water, the breaker that runs the power to that room is automatically flipped. The UPS we purchased for the servers is also hooked up so it doesn't do a safe power down, it just powers down.

      Well, they came in to do the test, everything but actually spraying water, and managed to flip the breaker. It was interesting to note, that only a few of the machines actually powered off. Some are on smaller single machine UPSs, so those stayed running. The most expensive piece of equipment in there, a Nortel Telephony Switch which handles 6 PRI lines (almost 150 ISDN lines) is on battery backup, and kept running.

      All in all very little powered down. In the even of a real fire, we would have had sparks flying everywhere. What did management do when I mentioned this to them? That's right, nothing.

    7. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      After 911 all the big techfirms created DRA's (disaster recovery area's) in case anything major happened.

      And six months later, 80% of them scrapped or seriously cut their disaster recovery plans because they were too expensive.

      Most people in chare of creating disaster recovery plans were told something like 'We need to be able to be back in busness 100% within 24 hours, but we can't spend any money (or can only spend a woefully indadaquate amount of money) on new servers, redundant network lines, improved backups, offsite tape storage, etc.'

    8. Re:now the engineers come out... by AlphaInsight · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually FM-200 and Inergen are the current replacements for Halon. Non Ozone-depleting and won't kill you if you're trapped in a NOC. Just lowers the avaliable O2 in the air. You'll get out of breath easily, but as long as you stay calm you won't have to worry.

    9. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      "gas has the nasty side-effect of potentially killing humans"

      This hasn't been a real problem since the original Halon systems. There is generally a long protracted countdown (15-20secs is a long time when talking about fires.) even on the newer systems such as inergen. Potentially dangerous gases have breathing apparatus in the protected area just in case. (ie: someone is electrocuted, fire, can't move person, grab breathing mask, put on their head (or grab two and move them) and leave room.)

      Though these systems are very expensive. We have the largest data center (by floorspace) in Queensland (multi-storey). When someone "mistook" the "release without interrupt" button for the exit door release, it cost AUS$10-12 thousand to replace the gas(inergen). Of course now it's _much_ harder to make this mistake. (Involving a hammer and a glass cover).

      But then again, the person in question was known to play indoor cricket between the mainframes. I'm sure that a fast moving ball had absolutely nothing to do with tripping an inset switch on the wall.

    10. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course sprinkling water into a room full of electronic equipment is REALY safe! I am sure the human body works quite happily with 3 phase current running through it :/

      As HFC etc is heavier than Oxygene how does it get to the ozone layer to damage it? Plus there are alternatives which you can breathe in but nothing will combust (like breathing at high altitude). obvioulsy more Expensive.

      I think water is a cheap and nasty answer, and probably uncalled for, and more dangerous. If your fire supression works, you only need to replace the gas.

    11. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Suggest you mention it to the local equivalent of the Workplace Health and Safety board. Your employer has a legal requirement to do everything reasonably possible to provide a safe working environment. Doesn't sound like your work place qualifies. We could be talking about your life here. Never take a "she'll be right mate" attitude with electricity. (Particularly in a server room, where 10Amp sockets and three phase is not uncommon.)

    12. Re:now the engineers come out... by CaptainZapp · · Score: 3, Interesting
      NOC's have a fire *supression* system based on gas or (more likely these days) some form of liquid (gas has the nasty side-effect of potentially killing humans).

      When I worked for DEC they actually had sprinkler systems in their data centers (I couldn't verify first hand that every data center had sprinkler, but I was told so).

      The reasoning was, that even if they was one big, bad, evil, wicked water damage in a data center, that the company considered this to be better then one killed employee by gas extuinguishing systems.

      That was in the early 90ties

      --
      ich bin der musikant

      mit taschenrechner in der hand

      kraftwerk

    13. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Halon is old hat nowadays. We use inergen in our data center, you can't suffocate in it, but you will get out of breath easily. Gas systems are generally used in mission critical rated facilities, where it is considered more important to keep as much equipment running at all costs. With water systems you have to cut power to either the entire center, or if you have localised systems installed, to the circuit in question (and possibly the surrounding circuits depending on how strict the local labour laws are, and the quality of the spray containment on the racks).

      It costs us AU $10-12K to have a Inergen gas discharge on our two floors, but shutting down some of our clients boxes, even for short periods would cost more due to penalty clauses in the SLAs.

    14. Re:now the engineers come out... by Mysticalfruit · · Score: 2

      Which DEC building did you work in? The company I work for is in the Powdermill Rd. Building and our Lab's are still all sprinklers. However the way the system is setup, as soon as a sprinkler head goes off, the power shuts off.

      --
      Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
    15. Re:now the engineers come out... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 2

      As was mentioned by someone else, these systems trip the power circuits before they go off. Unlike one of the other posters, though, we have no alternate UPS systems aside from the phone switch battery backups, which are kept a couple of feet off the ground in water-proof containers to minimize the chances of sparks from short circuits.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    16. Re:now the engineers come out... by Lumpy · · Score: 2

      Ahem... flooding a room with carbon dioxide does nothing to the environment or hurts you other than oxygen deprivation. yet this is the system in my server room.. one button or the temprature sensor goes off.. the doors automatically close (steel fire doors) and the room is flooded with C02.

      HALON also did not eat up oxygen... it displaced it. and it's msds sheets also shown the human hazard to be minimal other than oxygen deprivation.

      there are no oxygen consuming fire supression systems on the market. it's displacement or smothering or temperature reducing (water).

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    17. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.

      This is highly off-topic, but I love that movie so much. My favorite line:

      "...like I'm gonna put a bullet hole in your fucking forehead and fuck the brainhole!"

      Dan Akroyd rules. Hell, Detriot rules.

    18. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then once AT&T took over, they just naturally went ahead and removed all oxygen from the room from the word GO to eliminate the potential fire problem.

      Reach out and asphyxiate someone.

    19. Re:now the engineers come out... by Stephen+Maturin · · Score: 2, Informative

      -- Which is why most LARGE companies generally do not maintain their own backup data center for their business continuity plan, but lease space/capacity from companies like SunGard, which provide offsite storage & backup data centers.
      Even with scheduling regular business continuity plan tests & sending people offsite for a week or so, these plans are cheaper than maintainig a 2nd data center.

      --
      Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
      -- Cicero
    20. Re:now the engineers come out... by arri · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I am not doubting that these new gases will allow you to survive but I've been too close for comfort to a fire in a Chemistry lab and without adequate training (not in the use of a fire-extinguisher but in the behaviour in case of fire) the last thing I did was "stay calm"... I just hope that places which install this system give adequate training to their people as to what can be done.

      Even the obvious like "lie low as smoke rises and there is more oxygen at ground level" and to "try and cover your mouth & nose". At least, this is what I learned from that incident, sadly after the fact.

    21. Re:now the engineers come out... by buckeyeguy · · Score: 2

      Our server room also has a water sprinkler system... due to less-than-forward-looking regulations in the dumb little suburb we are located in, all areas of the building HAD to have them, regardless of any other fire-suppression we might have paid for. Hope no one lights a match...

      --
      I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
    22. Re:now the engineers come out... by rosewood · · Score: 2

      The key is insurance moneys which will buy them all new toys and we will be better off then when we started.

      --
      The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
    23. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Being a fire fighter, and Having had to deal with server room fires before, most first had fire supression system really dont do much when fire happens. Systems that are preventative are usually the most effective but as its been said when fire strikes it stikes and if the fire is heavey the only thing you really can do it surround and drown the fire until its out. Saving equipment becomes the least of the worries at that point.

    24. Re:now the engineers come out... by EMH_Mark3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Heh. You're trapped in a room filled with fire & smoke, the oxygen is being sucked out of the room and you want to stay calm? Sure, no problem :)

      --
      Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
    25. Re:now the engineers come out... by kriston · · Score: 1

      If carbon dioxide is used you face almost certain asphixiation and death. This happens now and then in apple country where the apples are stored in a mostly CO2 environment in huge air-tight warehouses.

      Kris

      --

      Kriston

    26. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, something much more serious happened. Look at this link posted by a another poster: http://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws/nederland/99589871 1318.html

    27. Re:now the engineers come out... by Lumpy · · Score: 1

      DUH... but you aren't going to die from the carbon dioxide... you die from lack of oxygen as i said in the post... CO2 and HALON are Non-toxic.

      hell water can do what you said.... just ask a drowning victim.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    28. Re:now the engineers come out... by compwizrd · · Score: 1

      Put a bucket under the head, with a spigot drilled into the bottom, run a hose down to the floor, and find a drain point from there.

      Technically, the sprinkler head is still active

      The sprinklers here are ABOVE the drop ceiling, i have yet to figure out how that's going to do any good for the time it takes to soak through a drop ceiling tile enough to make it collapse.

    29. Re:now the engineers come out... by barnaby · · Score: 1

      A high concentraion of CO2 causes an almost irrestible urge to exhale and then inhale. And CO2 displaces oxygen much more "agressively" than halon.

      At least thats what they told me in Navy fire fighting school when explaining why the Navy shifted from CO2 to halon for the fixed fire suppression systems in some spaces

      --
      Barnaby
    30. Re:now the engineers come out... by strictnein · · Score: 3, Funny

      You'll get out of breath easily, but as long as you stay calm you won't have to worry

      And, as we all know, there's nothing more calming than being in a room that's on fire and having some funky gas poured into the room that makes it harder to breath

      --
      Casual Games/Downloads
    31. Re:now the engineers come out... by kapelski · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have 20 some servers in UUNet's (WorldCom's) Ashburn, VA datacenter (where MAE East is located). When I asked them about fire suppression they told me they use a two stage water system that is localized above many many zones throughout the data center. They said the idea is that since the datacenter is so large and they have so many customers with varying SLAs, their goal is to put the fire out at its source before it can spread, while attempting not to affect the operation of other cages/racks. In other words, apparently they don't want to saturate the whole datacenter, just the location of the fire. If something catastrophic happened that would affect the whole of such a large building, then pretty much everything is a loss anyway. Nevertheless, I trudge out there once a week to take backup tapes to an offsite vault...

      I also asked them what happens if a plane crashes on takeoff from Dulles airport (only a few miles away and where the plane that hit the Pentagon took off from) and hits the datacenter, and they said they had the flight path altered when they built the datacenter to minimize the chance of such a thing. They didn't admit to it, but I bet that that building is hardened, too.

      --

      ---------------------------------------------
      Yes! Oh yes! My soul is snoring! - Tom Servo
      I want a
    32. Re:now the engineers come out... by haligan · · Score: 1

      From my experience most properly installed and maintained fire suppression system CAN handle a normal fire. Unless you have an act of arson where someone spreads a load of some kind of accelerant or in case of 9-11 you had damage to the system itself and a large amount of accelerant. I know sometimes the Surround and Drown game has to be played, but I have seen some departments that do this in fire that could be stopped. Good fire inspections, visits from the companies that respond to the facility so that they become more familiar with it and good aggressive fire fighting is what should be done. Remember, I said that I realize that sometimes when it's blowing through the roof Surround and Drown is the only option left.

    33. Re:now the engineers come out... by Cramer · · Score: 1
      Wrong. You can be standing in a room with plenty of O2 but too much CO2. If your body absorbs too much CO2, it'll alter your blood chemistry which will kill you with 100% certainty. (It doesn't take much of a change in pH to cause all sorts of problems.) Plus, CO2 displaces O2 with sufficient efficency to prevent adiquate O2 from entering the body (and CO2 to leave.)

      Go talk to the experts at NASA about O2 and CO2 levels.

      See also: Indoor Air Quality
      • Carbon dioxide

        Carbon dioxide is a non-toxic gas. It has beneficial uses and is the "fizz" in carbonated beverages. When frozen, it is "dry ice". At concentrations of from 2,500 ppm to 5,000 ppm carbon dioxide can cause headaches. At extremely high levels of 100,000 ppm (10 percent) people lose consciousness in ten minutes, and at 200,000 ppm (20 percent) CO2 causes partial or complete closure of the glottis.
      (It's a bit difficult to crawl out of the room after you've blacked out.)
    34. Re:now the engineers come out... by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When you can't get oxygen from the surrounding air, the worst thing in the world to do is take a breath. You will survive much longer by fighting the urge to take a breath, and instead just hold the air already in your lungs in place until you can get out. You don't convert all the oxygen in your lungs into carbon dioxide with each breath - far from it. You just convert a portion of it, so the air you expell just has a smaller percentage of oxygen than the air you breathe in. But there's still quite a bit there that never got converted. (That's why mouth-to-mouth breathing can help someone - the air you breathe out still has enough oxygen in it to be a lot better than no air at all.)

      But if you breathe that air out and breathe oxygen-less air in, you will pass out very fast. Most people have the misconception that you can do without oxygen for a minute or two before dying. That's not true - your body needs to consume fresh oxygen at a continuing rate just to function at all, it's just that your lungs can HOLD a small supply of oxygen to supply this need for a minute or two. Get rid of that oxygen by breathing it out and replacing it with oxygenless air, and you're going to pass out in just a few seconds, and be dead shortly thereafter.

      And the worst part is you won't FEEL like anything is wrong. Your body is unable to measure the level of oxygen in your lungs. Instead your body senses the level of carbon dioxide in your lungs. As the by-product of normal breathing, when carbon dioxide has built up enough, that indicates you've converted a lot of oxygen and it's time for another breath. This is what triggers the automatic involuntary breathing that takes over when you stop thinking about it. This is also what triggers the panic feeling that you get when you know you need air. Your lymph nodes detect too much carbon dioxide and start sending the panic signal to your mind. What this all means is that if your body isn't exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide, your body doesn't even realize it's asphixiating. If there's no oxygen in your lungs to start with, then there won't be any carbon dioxide building up in the lungs, and you will feel no sensation of needing a breath at all. You'll feel just fine for a few seconds and then *poof* you're gone as the blood going to your brain runs out of oxygen and your brain activity just plain stops.

      So if you're ever in a halon gas system when it goes off - DO NOT BREATHE. Just hold whatever breath happens to already in your lungs and get out. The instinct is to hold your breath by first inhaling your lungs full and THEN holding it, but that's the worst thing you could do, as explained above. The tricky part is remembering to override that instinct.

      --

      Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

    35. Re:now the engineers come out... by CynicTheHedgehog · · Score: 2

      The FM-200 guy that trained us on the use of our fire-suppression system said that FM-200 causes an endothermic reaction with the fire--effectively sucking the heat out of it. He said it didn't do anything with the oxygen in the room, and you could stay and play in it as long as you wanted, provided the fire wasn't out of hand (FM-200 reactions produce some lung irritants with hot fires), but by then you'd be more worried about the fire itself.

    36. Re:now the engineers come out... by DunbarTheInept · · Score: 2

      C02 is a poison to the human body if you have it in high concentrations. (That's the big air problem they had on Apollo 13. They had enough O2, but not enough filtering capacity to get rid of the CO2.) How quickly it would kill you depends on how diluted it is with other gasses in the air. the small percentage of it in the earth's atmopshere isn't enough to kill you, obviously. But being in a room full of it is NOT a good idea.

      And CO2 has the very very nasty side effect of tricking your body into thinking it's choking and needs another breath whether it really does or not. (Which was another problen on Apollo 13 - the high level of CO2 was causing the crew to breathe way too fast.) Your body is unable to detect oxygen in the lungs. It only detects CO2. CO2 triggers your automatic involuntary breathing, and it triggers your panic feeling when you think you're asphixiating. Get excess CO2 in your lungs and you will be filled with an almost overwhelming urge to take another breath, which if you are in a room with lots of CO2, will make you have even more CO2 in your lungs and make you have even more physcal desire to take another breath, and so on. This is the worst thing to do because you are getting rid of what little oxygen is left in your lungs and replacing it with oxygen-less air.

      --

      Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.

    37. Re:now the engineers come out... by frost22 · · Score: 2
      but you aren't going to die from the carbon dioxide... you die from lack of oxygen as i said in the post...
      Sorry, wrong.

      Carbon dioxide is lethal up from about 30% air volume. No matter what the rest of the air consist of - even if that contains comfortably much oxygen. As far as I remeber my paramedic training, it's called an acidosis - essentially, CO2 at high percentages soures your blood, to a point where your metabolism cant handle it any more.

      --
      ...and here I stand, with all my lore, poor fool, no wiser than before.
    38. Re:now the engineers come out... by frost22 · · Score: 2

      If NL Universities are like German ones, they don't have any insurance, as mandated by law.

      The key idea is the state itrself is the largest solidarity community anyway, so paying insurance is waste of state funds.

      Needless to say, in reality, you are fucked when something big happens to your computers. Maybe in next years Budget, you get some additional money to replace them. Or not.

      --
      ...and here I stand, with all my lore, poor fool, no wiser than before.
    39. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The solution is simple, although possibly expensive: Build buildings with fire-resistant materials, and equip them with fire resistant systems, carpeting, furniture, etc.

    40. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. Ok. I'll come out. I'm a Engineer and yes, I build POPs and COs. First, NOCs do not have fire supression at the level that you would find in a POP or CO. A NOC is a Network Operations Center. It is located off site from the POP or CO and is used as a point to monitor (and in some cases actively provision, test, take trouble tickets, etc) locations and networks. These usually are located in some sort of corporate office. Some companies have multiple NOCS, INOCS, etc, but also have multiple corporate offices. So do NOCs have fire supression? Yes. But that isn't really what we are talking about here.

      In a POP, most times the fire supression is not at the same level of protection you would find in a CO due to the fact that the investment is not the same. But still it will have something along the lines of some form of Haylon replacement if it is up to date...be that FM 200 or a Inergen based system, both of which come in the form of a colorless odorless gas. The gas is stored in a series of tanks and this will errupt when smoke is detected via blasting caps. Some fire supression systems are more sensitive than others. Some will dump at the first hint of smoke. Others it takes a decent amount.

      If I were to speculate, I would venture that this fire was possibly caused by a problem with the power plant at the POP, or CO. That is often the cause of fires in environments such as these. A cable from a breaker distribution frame may have become cracked over time if it was not correctly sized to deal with the DC load (and proper jacketing selected), which in turn could cause an electrical charge to "bleed out" on a surface that would act as a conductor (ladder rack for example) which in turn could cause the fire.

      Also, it is possible that the float voltage from the DC power plant was not set correctly, which in turn caused the batteries to over charge after a long period of time (known as thermal runaway). Batteries used in these offices will boil if charged at too high of a level for too long of a time. Since the liquid (gel or otherwise) within the cell is at a higher temparture than what it should be, a gas will be emitted from these batteries in that is highly flammable. You could turn on a light switch (if you didn't smell the hydrogen gas, which has quite a strong odor) and cause a fire (explosion would be a better term). But one would deduce that the fire supression system, should in fact extinguish that fire regardless. But numerous other factors come into play (proper care of the fire supression system, following fire codes, etc). I could write a lovely thesis on the subject if you would like :D

      But I'm sure the folks that entrusted this provider have learned a interesting lesson and will be much more careful in the future. So for all you Debain site hosters (whom I depend on I might add) I would ask your service provider:

      1. What do you have in place to prevent conditions like thermal runaway?
      2. Ask to see documentation that shows that the site where you are going to collocate has a fire supression system that is maintained on a regular basis. If they can't produce that documentation, do not do business with them.
      3. Ask to see documentation that shows they perform the same for their power back up systems (generator, UPS for collo in particular) etc. These need to be maintained in the same fashion. If they are not, don't waste your time.

      There is more to a service provider than just cheap bandwidth folks. Not to say this was cheap, but you have a right to demand proof that these carriers have what they say they have. Ask to go on a tour of the facility where you will place your servers. Ask the tough questions. My customers always do and I respect them for it. Shows they know what they are doing :D

    41. Re:now the engineers come out... by zoloto · · Score: 0

      As a fire saftey inspector one of the gasses is known as Haylon. Haylon binds to oxygen causing it to become useless, thus extinguishing the flame and saving the remaining equipment from water damage. Sprinkler heads will burst on the opposite end of the LAN room if just one head is burnt. this is due to the water pressure being forced by either a 2k lb. electric motor or a diesel engine to keep site water pressure up. Haylon when breathed won't harm you, because (and I may give this the wrong name) aveoli / capelaries in your lungs won't absorb the molecules. The binding of the elements of Haylon and Oxygen is too large.

      As for the other posts speaking of a water system in a LAN room, that's just messed up. Those companies obviously don't have much of a clue when it comes to fire saftey, and the saftey of their corperate network.

      Just my 0.02c

    42. Re:now the engineers come out... by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 2

      As long as they use distilled water in the system, it'd be ok. Water itself isn't conductive, just the impurities in it. You could flood the entire NOC and still have live traffic.

      Of course, corrosion would be a major prob after the water was shut off.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    43. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hardened my ass. Is this the UUNET on Arlington Blvd (route 50)? They have
      their windows open every night, and you can actually see the admins typing at the
      consoles.

      There aren't that many high building around, the UUNET building is the highest,
      but if you climb the McDonald's flag pole, with a binocular, I am sure you can
      see what they are typing.

      You're right about the flight path though; the dulles flights don't go over fairfax
      city, alexandria or fallschurch.

    44. Re:now the engineers come out... by vkt-tje · · Score: 1

      Those are pictures from may 2000. (the last one is clearly dated may 13th 2000).

      On that day a fireworks factory exploded in the city. The university is out of the center and was not at all affected then.

      This is a completely different, new story, fortunatly with less lives lost.

      --

      120 chars is not enough!
    45. Re:now the engineers come out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your lymph nodes do not detect the CO2 levels in your blood. Your lymph nodes are a part of your immune system. The partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) in your blood is detected by the chemoreceptors in the medulla (part of the brain stem) near where the 9th and 10th cranial nerves exit. The CO2 diffuses into the cerebral spinal fluid surrounding this area of the brain, lowering the pH. This activates the chemoreceptors and leads to activation of the sympathetic nervous system (increased heart rate, vasoconstriction, etc.). The CO2 can also directly act on the chemoreceptors.

      The best thing to do? Breathe into a bag. This will both satisfy your body's urge to breathe and prevent you from breathing in the Halon or whatever gas. Rebreathing the air from your lungs will work much better than breathing in gas that contains no oxygen.

  8. All point to... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't get me wrong, but I'm sure that MS did that. As this (Linux) is a community project, I believe this is our best opportunity to knee MS.

  9. English, you insensitive clod! by ArthurDent · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Hey how about a link in English for those who are unfortunately unilingual?!?

    Ben

    1. Re:English, you insensitive clod! by Jugalator · · Score: 2

      Hey how about a link in English for those who are unfortunately unilingual?!?

      There are some news at The Register.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:English, you insensitive clod! by CoolVibe · · Score: 2
      Learn dutch then.

      The slashdot posting says it all really, the Utwente NOC burned down. I myself am dutch, so I grokked the links quite fine :)

      Many friends of mine study at utwente. I was already wondering why they weren't on IRC, but since I heard the news I knew why.

      Oh, AFAIK, utwente kept off-site backups of all data, so all is probably not lost.

    3. Re:English, you insensitive clod! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you really grok them, or did you just understand them? That's a pretty serious misuse of the word, akin to: "I found out what is on today at 2:00 from the TV Guide. I am enlightened"

      Learning Dutch is a bad idea. There are no payoffs. Learn French, German or Japanese. So many people in Holland know English that they won't even speak Dutch to you unless you're completely fluent, or a local.

  10. Re:why does this matter? by Sc00ter · · Score: 4, Informative
    can you read?

    "which amongst other things hosts a SURFnet PoP as well as security.debian.org and non-us.debian.org "

    security.debian.org and non-us.debian.org are GONE (well, burning, hopefully data can be recovered). Yes there's mirrors, but it still sucks.

    --
    Free Mac Mini
  11. Vunerability by e8johan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This shows the vunerability of putting all computers in one building. To have a safe network one needs to spread (duplicate) the information over several computer at several locations. How far apart these locations has to be is depending on how important you data is.

    It is a shame that a building hosting so many good initiatives should be the one to go, but as always: there is no excuse for not have a backup. By that I don't only mean that tape that always seems to go missing when needed, but multiple sites (or at least buildings) that provide redundancy.

    1. Re:Vunerability by Psiren · · Score: 5, Funny

      To have a safe network one needs to spread (duplicate) the information over several computer at several locations.

      What a stunning idea. Perhaps they should call it the internet... ;-)

    2. Re:Vunerability by xyote · · Score: 2, Interesting

      When iSCSI becomes real you are going to see a lot more raid-1 mirroing with one half of the mirror at a remote location. Also using remote tape drives for backup. Currently if you do store your backup tapes offsite, there is still that logistical problem of getting them offsite in a timely manner. Things like if you have 10 partly full DLT tapes at $$ a tape, do you send then offsite right away or do you wait for the next set of backups to fill them up. The former can be quite expensive. Also, since most restores are from most recent backup tapes, sending them offsite right away causes delays in your restores while you wait for the tape to come back. Remote tape backup will solve a lot of these issues.

    3. Re:Vunerability by nbvb · · Score: 3, Informative

      TSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) does a great job at mitigating all of those problems:

      1) Sending tapes off-site too early -- TSM allows you to have multiple "storage pools" within one library. Basically, you backup your data into one storage pool (set of tapes) and then duplicate it to the off-site copies. Then the DRM (Disaster Recovery Manager) scripts automatically eject the tapes from the library for packaging to send off-site. You don't ship off your on-site copies, so when you need to do a restore, it's always here.

      2) Partly full tapes -- TSM has a concept of "migrations" where it moves data between tapes to better utilize them. The internal DB automatically knows where the data is, so you don't have to worry about which tape has which days' backups -- it doesn't matter.

      3) Full backupset -- TSM 4.2 introduced "portable backup sets" -- basically, you backup your data into the TSM server as normal, then "generate" a backupset -- takes all the files for a particular node and writes them to a series of tapes which you then eject and store off-site. When you need to recover from those tapes, the server component isn't needed -- locally attached tape on the server and the client piece of TSM is all you need --- speeds up recovery by a few hours!

      TSM's a great product. Does lots and lots of great things that other vendors are only now trying to figure out.

      Sure, it's pricy, but how much is your data worth?

    4. Re:Vunerability by coupland · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is a shame that a building hosting so many good initiatives should be the one to go, but as always: there is no excuse for not have a backup.

      Uhhh, yes there is... I suspect you either know nothing about IT or are fresh out of college. DRP (disaster recovery planning) factors in things such as criticality of data, cost, and acceptable downtime. A university payroll system may need to be back up within 12 hours of a major incident, so in addition to tape backups you might have a failover site. Contrary to your simplistic post, even the richest corporations rarely have failover sites of their own. They simply contract out to a DRP vendor who have these types of machines lying dormant in a glass room, waiting to cut over. On the other hand a university FTP site is probably classified as low risk, low impact. So you would rely on off-site backup tapes and perhaps only restore when you've arranged for an alternate site and taken delivery of new servers. You don't pay millions of dollars to have two glass rooms just so you can have uninterrupted FTP service...

    5. Re:Vunerability by pellaeon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Try doing that on a university-wide multi-gigabit capable network on the budget of the average Dutch university. Our universities aren't like M$ in cash, you know. I know, I'm an admin at one myself.

      I just hope they're well insured....poor colleagues...

      On the upside: they may get a squeaky-clean start when this blows over :-)

      --
      -- /bin/coffee missing. universe halted.
    6. Re:Vunerability by operagost · · Score: 2
      Maybe something like this.

      800 kilometers should do it.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    7. Re:Vunerability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm sure that a full risk assessment will be made after the arson investigators have completed their work.

      BTW, did anyone find any burned-up butterflies in the area? THAT would explain the cause! :-)

    8. Re:Vunerability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I'm an auditor (pause for tomato dodging) and this reminded me of a couple risks I had to nail clients for.

      The first kept their AS400 farm running the majority of their critical applications in a building near their chemical plant (*ding*). Normally this would only be considered a minor risk, however they were in a low-lying area of Louisiana. We were actually looking UP at the Mississippi River (well, we would have without the dykes). They never seemed to grasp why we were so appalled that we could see a WATERLINE from a previous flood about 6 feet above groundlevel!

      Another had a backup site and stored their tape backups at a site that was DIRECTLY in the path of one of the busiest runways at an extremely busy airport. We actually had to pause conversations when anything jet-powered was taking off. They didn't consider that to be a risk either.

    9. Re:Vunerability by soramimicake · · Score: 2, Insightful
      This shows the vunerability of putting all computers in one building.
      Actually, the debian.org names affected all point to a single box, satie.debian.org. Your point is still valid, though. Come to think about it, that makes it _more_ valid, as only one box crashing will take down all your services.
    10. Re:Vunerability by complexmath · · Score: 2, Informative

      One notable exception being the finance industry. In NYC, most of the larger trading organizations maintain DR sites somewhere else in case of something like, oh, Sept 11. The issue here though is that these companies need a fully capable and connected trading floor rather than just a backup server room, and the short-term loss potential of the industry is such that DR costs are generally quite reasonable in comparison.

    11. Re:Vunerability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wanna hook my University up with the funding to do something like that? Didn't think so.

    12. Re:Vunerability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Should be -1, Condescending.

      Yes, you do seem to know what you're talking about, but chiding and making assumptions about the parent poster makes you look like an arrogant prick.

      Uhhh,

    13. Re:Vunerability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh, my company's headquarters and main server farm is in a location like that... South runway at a fairly busy west-coast airport, and a stone's throw from the airbase at that airport. Actually, we're off to the right, but like it's going to matter... Actually, we've got a pretty good DRP plan. After sept 11, the idea was brought up, and they spent a year implementing it. We have a couple of backup servers that can keep the company limping along in case our main site is destroyed, and part of our main initiative is completely hosted offiste, with only development machines in the building. We also have two backup systems -- one makes a backup of our main production database and is stored offsite in a bank deposit vault every night, and one is our rack of StorageTek DLT jukes. Everything's backed up on the jukes once a week at the minimum, and our internal CVS server and main production deebee's are stored offsite nightly.

    14. Re:Vunerability by borft · · Score: 1

      well, 99% of the data isn;t lost. Only the router and the uplink where in the building :( We already have a 54 Mbit connection back up again, but that is nothinh compared to 1 Gbit.... And we are behind a maquerading firewall, so, no mirrors as of yet :( BUT, we'll be back! :P

    15. Re:Vunerability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, except that the internet doesn't really guarantee any kind of reliable duplication.

      The internet does with connectivity what this guy is suggesting you should do with data. Freenet is probably closer to what he describes.

    16. Re:Vunerability by e8johan · · Score: 2

      Great news! I hope that you'll recover quickly so that everything will be up and running!

  12. Hmmmm... by charleschuck · · Score: 0

    I hear the next version of ReiserFS is supposed to have protetion for this... :-)

    -CM

  13. A good reminder.. by Martigan80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To never keep back-ups in the same physical location.

    --
    This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
    1. Re:A good reminder.. by Zocalo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or even general location for that matter. A friend of mine did disaster recovery work for IBM after the Trade Towers attack. They had their data center in Tower 1 and their backup center in Tower 2. After six weeks of what was essentially scrabbling through rubble they managed to recover a single spindle. The company concerned became another statistic, and part of an important lesson in DR implementation; safety increases with distance.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    2. Re:A good reminder.. by Martin+Blank · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Cantor Fitzgerald, the company hardest-hit in the attack with 700+ employees killed, had just that viewpoint. eSpeed, a subsidiary of CF, had all trading activities back up and running by the morning of Sept 13, due to the multiple locations and real-time backups being done on the network. My understanding is that the time from loss of connection with CF headquarters to full resumption of its trading activity around the world was about 46 hours.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    3. Re:A good reminder.. by PD · · Score: 1

      No point in keeping your backups any further away than your most remote customer. If the customers are gone, you don't need the backups.

      --
      If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
    4. Re:A good reminder.. by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Funny

      To never keep back-ups in the same physical location.

      That's why I use Kazaa to keep backups of my pr0n all over the world!

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    5. Re:A good reminder.. by Tom · · Score: 2

      absolutely. A local power company I sometimes work with has the following simple policy:

      It is not considered a backup until it's stored in two locations at least 10 miles apart.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    6. Re:A good reminder.. by LWATCDR · · Score: 2

      A secure Freenet for backups maybe?
      encrypt your data and put it on freenet style system?
      You could then recover from anywhere on the network.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    7. Re:A good reminder.. by JonKatzIsAnIdiot · · Score: 1

      Do you have any links to more info about the two companies you mentioned? Sounds like it would be an interesting read.

    8. Re:A good reminder.. by Martin+Blank · · Score: 3, Interesting

      My mistake: 47 hours.

      Details on the recovery:
      http://www.baselinemag.com/article2/0,3 959,36807,0 0.asp

      Some information on the scale of what eSpeed handles:
      http://wstonline.com/story/mag/WST200110 08S0007

      Even Cantor Fitzgerald mentions it in their Q3/01 results summary:
      http://www.cantor.com/articles/article11 192001.htm

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    9. Re:A good reminder.. by RAMMS+EIN · · Score: 2

      ``safety increases with distance.''
      If only life were that simple. Yes, keeping backups accross the country gives better protection against localized disasters than keeping them in the same room, but the increased distance also increases the risk that something happens on the way, and also increases the time required to get things up and running again.

      --
      Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
    10. Re:A good reminder.. by athakur999 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I personally don't keep backups. However, I'm sure at least two other me's in parallel dimensions do, so I'm probably good to go.

      Hopefully the other me's in the other dimensions aren't counting on me to keep backups. Those idiots.

      --
      "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
    11. Re:A good reminder.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To never keep back-ups in the same physical location.

      You don't know the half of it. Primary loss-of-life cause in server rooms? Staff re-entering smoke/toxic-fume filled rooms(or rooms still on fire) to retrieve backup tapes.

      Also- combustible material(paper, light plastics, that sort of stuff) should NEVER be in the server room.

      Here is a stupid question- fires of that scale are extremely rare in sprinklered buildings. At least here in the US, sprinklers are required in almost every public building. Why do I get the impression that neither the "datacenter" nor the rest of the building had any sort of fire protection?

      Same thing for dmoke detectors/fire alarms. Either their fire department is grossly incompetent, or I'll bet they didn't have fire alarms and the fire burned for a while before being noticed.

    12. Re:A good reminder.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was there (I work for a vendor) the week before at the WTC site and a week after at the NJ site. It was absolutely amazing. People running around like ants do after the ant hill has been stepped on, working in a big room full of laptops, folding chairs, folding tables, powerstrips and CAT5 cable strewn about, photos, newspaper clippings, obituaries on the walls. I will never forget it. They weren't only focused on getting the business up and going, but also providing information about the status of employees for families/friends on a website.

    13. Re:A good reminder.. by osu-neko · · Score: 1
      I always try to hook up with buddies in other *continents*.

      If only the Atlanteans had thought of this...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    14. Re:A good reminder.. by Menkhaf · · Score: 1

      "Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds (just had to post it)

      --
      A proud member of the Onion-in-Hand alliance
    15. Re:A good reminder.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we lose a city to WMD a secure Freenet is what to have. Even during a massive disaster vital data is worth the effort to save.
      We need to return to the old Cold War doctrine of "asset dispersal".

    16. Re:A good reminder.. by roalt · · Score: 2
      To never keep back-ups in the same physical location.

      The university made full backups this weekend and the building where the backups are is approximately 3km away from the Computer Centre that burned down.

      In fact: this 'backup' building used to be one from the Dutch Bank (say the Federal Bank in the US) and the backups are also stored in the original (giant) safe !

  14. Erm... by Apiakun · · Score: 1

    Yowch :( That looks like one hell of a fire. I certainly hope there were recent backups. I'll observe a moment of silence for all that data gone up in smoke, and I suggest a 15 ping salute.

    1. Re:Erm... by Stonehead · · Score: 2

      Hmz. Didn't that get translated? There are no casualties and there are full backups (from last weekend, anyway) from all the student and research servers. For the rest, I don't know - probably not. The damage has roughly been estimated on 23 million euro for the building and 17 million euro for everything that was inside. But the building is still smoking - it's only 6.5 hours ago that the fire started.

    2. Re:Erm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I believe the comment was "moment of silence for all that data gone up in smoke."

  15. Damn! by devilkin · · Score: 1

    I really hope everyone got out ok... Its always a shame to see a NOC go down, especially one of a university where communication is quite vital... DK

  16. Re:why does this matter? by fearlezz · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's the fastest university network in the netherlands, and it's running a lot of mirrors (debian mirrors and others). The most important thing: terabytes of warez. :) (I believe it was the BSA lighting the fire :) )

    --
    .sig: No such file or directory
  17. So much for server areas never burning down by Martin+Blank · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is something I keep hearing from people, particularly those who balk at paying for upgrades to expensive fire suppression systems. "They're always built so well that there's never been a case of a server room destroyed by fire." I always did doubt that, and now whenever they tell me that, I can point to this.

    What a shame.

    --
    You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    1. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by CuriousGeorge113 · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Yes, but did this server room have one of those fancy fire suppression systems? If so, yes, you can point to this an laugh. If it didn't, your friends that always say "Server rooms are never destroyed by fires because of their fire suppression systems." will have the last laugh.

      I.E. "See, if they would have had a fire suppression system, this would have never happened."

      --
      No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
    2. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by Plutor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The fact that "The fire department has given up every hope on protecting the server area and is now trying to protect the surrounding buildings" leads me to believe that the fire didn't start in the server area. Lots of server rooms were destroyed on September 11, for example, but it wasn't the fault of the room's design, or the presence or lack of fire suppression systems. If the whole building is burning down, fire suppression in one room is only going to work until the floor and ceiling collapse.

    3. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by jhines · · Score: 2

      A server room perhaps, they are generally kept very clean.

      However, it usually sits next to a room full of cables, and the telco plant. This is flammable. Look at the pictures, very heavy black smoke, so this is very likely.

      An old cable plant has lots of PVC and other cables that are not fire resistant the way modern Teflon is, and that will still burn, if it is hot enough.

    4. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

      The thing that is odd (knowing absolutely nothing about the building in question) is that there typically aren't sufficient materials of combustion in a data center to create such a substantial fire! (Sparing large printers and paper rolls.)

      A fuel vault should have foam or CO2 suppression, neutralizing that risk. The building should have a full sprinkler system, to minimize the risk of spread of fire. Hopefully, the computer and tape rooms have Halon/FM200 to extinguish a fire on the first signs of smoke. It is very rare that a building would be completely lost if these components are working properly.

      The flip side of it is that the more things that are done to prevent an accidental sprinkler discharge (pre-action systems, double-interlocked pre-action, abort stations, etc.) increase the time for a system to respond, and consequently increase the size of the fire that has to be put out.

    5. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 2

      The cables are not fire resistive (normally); they are low smoke. (Unless you are british, in which case they could actually be somewhat fire resistive.) Ultimately, given a high enough temperature everything burns. If a fire lasts more than 2 hours, you expect to loose the building.

      After 30 minutes or so, all the cases, finishes, rubber will burn, and that will give you the black smoke, but it doesn't indicate the initial source of combustion.

    6. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by ReelOddeeo · · Score: 2

      Yes, but did this server room have one of those fancy fire suppression systems?

      Followup question: Was it a fire suppression system, or was it a Microsoft fire suppression system running Windows CE and Visual Basic?

      --

      Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
    7. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by mmol_6453 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, any cable that passes through the heater system has to be Plenum. And considering that, at Greybar, you have a choice between Plenum and riser-cable, most of the new (as in, last twenty years) telecom wiring in Grand Rapids is fire-resistant. The insulation of Plenum will liquify before it burns...

      --
      What's this Submit thingy do?
    8. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by bad-badtz-maru · · Score: 2


      Plenum insulation doesn't liquify any more than regular insulation and it definitely can't be considered fire-resistant, it just gives off less toxic smoke when it burns. Plenum is not really a term that describes a type of insulation, it's a term that refers to a building space that is used as a circulation space for HVAC. This space is typically between the drop ceiling and the roof. When burning, plenum-rated cable will not induce as much smoke into the plenum as regular cable does.

      maru

    9. Re:So much for server areas never burning down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, random MS bashing on a completely unrelated story. Whodathunkit?

  18. So... by leecho · · Score: 0

    Debian is not secure anymore?

  19. Re:why does this matter? by seosamh · · Score: 1

    From the description it sounds like this is one of the major Debian archives. Not a Debian user, or Dutch speaker, so I'm guessing from the original post.

  20. In a related announcement... by Zocalo · · Score: 5, Funny

    The University of Twente's attempts to overclock the new AMD Opteron and Nvidia GeForceFX card in the same case are declared a failure. "We certainly won't be building a Beowolf cluster of these..." commented a spokesperson.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    1. Re:In a related announcement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or testing their new firewall software when it was unexpectly slashdotted and causing the main server to explode.

    2. Re:In a related announcement... by OrangeSpyderMan · · Score: 3, Funny

      UNIX? They're probably not even circumcised! Savages!

      You're thinking of that Linux distro with a BSD style ports things aren't you? What's it called again, Gentle, Gentool - Gentile Linux!!! Thats right! :-)

      --
      Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
    3. Re:In a related announcement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Looks like FreeBSD 5.0's SMPng needs more tweaking.

    4. Re:In a related announcement... by penfold69 · · Score: 1

      Debian users retaliate after flame war on Slashdot.org

      --
      Beer Coat: The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3 in the morning.
    5. Re:In a related announcement... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember: Only YOU can prevent Athlon Fires

  21. I told them! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "The room where SURFnet network hardware stands has been given up by firemen."

    Never tell the firemen there is only linux geeky stuff on the computers, you need to tell them about your terabytes of porn to get them to work harder.

  22. See what happens when you don't use a bong by DrSkwid · · Score: 1, Funny

    those crazy Dutch and their roaches

    --
    There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
  23. Maybe.. by jedie · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone took "firewall" too seriously? :)
    (and this isn't *flame*bait :p)

    --
    "The majority is always sane, Louis." -- Nessus
    http://slashdot.jp
    1. Re:Maybe.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you even know what a firewall is?

      Dumbass.

    2. Re:Maybe.. by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2


      http://www.cluebomb.com/comics/cluebomb/cartoon3 .g if

  24. Well.. by flatface · · Score: 1

    Better submit this one to Bugzilla...

  25. Priorities by brianvan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Was anyone killed?

    If not, was anyone hurt?

    If not, do they have insurance?

    If they do... well, I'm sure someone just lost their masterpiece pr0n directory, but otherwise, things like this happen. (ask Hemos) You have to make it through such things. In this case, it was a commercial (educational) building and no one is homeless, so it's less of a tragedy than usual. Let's hope that they rebuild with something better and newer.

    That said, I get the feeling that those plumes of smoke really are millions of dollars floating away in the wind...

    1. Re:Priorities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They'll undoubtedly build it with something newer.

    2. Re:Priorities by bzzzt · · Score: 5, Informative

      No, no and no.

      The university doesn't insure itself agains this kind of disaster because they are able to set aside enough money to cover the cost themselves and don't have to pay the insurer's profit.

      Now how they are going to deal with this and their financial troubles (they're almost broke) is another issue...

    3. Re:Priorities by nukey56 · · Score: 1

      That said, I get the feeling that those plumes of smoke really are millions of dollars floating away in the wind...

      Well, it was mostly a bunch of warez anyways. Warez in the wind.. could be a catch song title.

    4. Re:Priorities by tinus · · Score: 1

      Actually they do, but only for large amounts of damage.

      The problems they will face are the things that you can't buy insurance for, like the cost of not running the network for a few days, not having room for employees and students, things like that.

    5. Re:Priorities by Plutor · · Score: 1

      "... they are able to set aside enough money to cover the cost themselves ..."
      "... they're almost broke ..."

      Eh?

    6. Re:Priorities by pa3gvr · · Score: 1

      Let's hope that they rebuild with something better and newer.

      It was already one of the fastest infrastructures of Europe. Maby now it will become one of the fastest of the world.

      Sjaak

    7. Re:Priorities by dazed-n-confused · · Score: 2

      If they do... well, I'm sure someone just lost their masterpiece pr0n directory, but otherwise, things like this happen. (ask Hemos)

      Remind me: when did Hemos lose his masterpiece pr0n directory?

    8. Re:Priorities by pellaeon · · Score: 1

      That's what I thought as well :-)

      But basically, if they're _anything_ like the other Dutch universities, it's the latter. We're doing a pretty thourough job of dismantling our knowledge infrastructure.

      --
      -- /bin/coffee missing. universe halted.
    9. Re:Priorities by brianvan · · Score: 2

      It's a shame I remember these things. I really need to get out more.

    10. Re:Priorities by MonoSynth · · Score: 1

      They can't (and won't) pay the profits of the insurance-companies. Having your own disaster-budget is less expensive if you have the facilities to manage it.

    11. Re:Priorities by MonoSynth · · Score: 1

      ...like cutting 358 million Euro's in the next four years, while there is already a shortage of 700 million for the maintenance of the buildings only :(

    12. Re:Priorities by NoOneInParticular · · Score: 1
      Phrasing of the grandparent was a bit wrong, it should be:

      Traditionally, they were able...

      Now they're broke...

      And yes, the Dutch government has decided that the Dutch educational system can be top of the line with spending less money on education (in percentage points of the GNP) than Uganda.

      The truly sad thing is that the statistic above was from last year. Now they're cutting another 5 percent. Ah well, nothing bad, my university is coping by not renewing any temporary contracts. So that will get rid of all postdocs funded by the universities directly.

      Now I'm going to continue writing that grant proposal.

    13. Re:Priorities by ReelOddeeo · · Score: 2

      Let's hope that they rebuild with something better and newer.

      There is a problem with this. Longhorn is not out yet. We know it will at least be newer than XP. As for better, well, Microsoft has promised that it will be.

      --

      Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
    14. Re:Priorities by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps they should raise the taxes on pot to come up with the money ;-)

  26. last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by ahu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    lo0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net 3613: Nov 20 07:20:50.927 UTC: %ENV_MON-2-TEMP: Hotpoint temp sensor(slot 18) temperature has reached WARNING level at 61(C)

    few seconds later on the local side:
    lo0.cr2.amsterdam2.surf.net 1146: Nov 20 07:20:56.458 UTC: %CLNS-5-ADJCHANGE: ISIS: Adjacency to ar5.enschede1 (POS2/0) Down, interface deleted(non-iih)

    1. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wonder if they got the Linux "easter egg" error message "Printer on fire"? I guess it would be appropriate for once.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      ping lo0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net
      PING lo0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net (145.145.255.14): 56 data bytes
      --- lo0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net ping statistics ---
      3 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss :-(((

    3. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by CoolVibe · · Score: 4, Informative

      Those are Cisco syslog messages. No linux easter eggs.

    4. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by Jugalator · · Score: 2

      Those are Cisco syslog messages. No linux easter eggs.

      Of course, but surely they must have had *some* Linux box there that noticed strange things going on in the printer room. :-)

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    5. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by CoolVibe · · Score: 2

      Maybe one with a LM chipset in there perhaps? Who knows. :) A fire in the room would surely increase the mobo temperature. Allright, who's got MRTG or RRDtool graphs?

    6. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      temperature has reached WARNING level at 61(C)

      FYI- 61 degrees C = 141 degrees F.

      Sprinkler systems kick in around 150 to 160 degrees; temperature at the top of the room was probably higher.

      My bet is that router died(along with everything else) when the sprinkler system came on and power was cut to the room(most fire suppression systems in datacenters, water or gas, cut power to the entire room.)

      It dated back to the earliest systems- "big red switches" usually have what are called "Molly guards", which are supposedly named for the daughter of a Univ. of Calif. programmer whose daughter hit the button 3 times in one day.

      The same jargon dictionary mentions that in the 'early dates', said BRS fired a shell into the mains bar of the mainframe to sever it.

      That said, 60 degrees is about the max operating temperature for most electronics. So take your pick :-|

    7. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by Coke+in+a+Can · · Score: 1

      Man. I dunno why, but I'm crying at that. It's like the server's last cry for help. And then the connection is lost. :-(

    8. Re:last syslog messages from SURFnet routers by jelle · · Score: 2

      Network traffic rrdtool graph.

      --
      --- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
  27. Hope they ... by zensonic · · Score: 2

    ... got backups. Only fools ditch the backup procedure!

    If the actually have backups it's only a matter of money/time before sites will be up'n'running again.

    --
    Thomas S. Iversen
    1. Re:Hope they ... by devilkin · · Score: 1

      Well, let's also hope the backups are stored OFF-SITE! Otherwise they'd also be burned to crisps... DK

    2. Re:Hope they ... by Martin+Blank · · Score: 2

      I imagine they were well-insured. On the greed side of things, some major server company is going to report a small spike in Q4/02 server sales in Europe.

      "Hi, we need a quote for a few hundred new servers and a couple dozen new routers and switches. Oh, and we need them *now*. Hello? Hello...? Dammit! Another sales rep fainted!"

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    3. Re:Hope they ... by mezzin · · Score: 1

      What I heard they were off-site

    4. Re:Hope they ... by ntp · · Score: 1

      Of course. Daily backups to /dev/null. It's much faster that way.

      Another useful tip from the BOfH.

      --
      I control the time!
    5. Re:Hope they ... by LinuxHam · · Score: 2

      nah, we can get 'em up with a coupla z800's sometime next week. A few thousand virtual servers in a single 19" rack. They'll get tons of floor space back and maybe this time they'll consider DR to another z800 in another building on campus.

      --
      Intelligent Life on Earth
    6. Re:Hope they ... by HuibertAlblas · · Score: 1

      Remember All says: "Save time, save often!" (tm)

      From Leisure Suit Larry I, II and III

  28. But that's no problem... by jmo_jon · · Score: 1

    But that's no problem, all i need to do is apt_get...

    Does this mean that there will be no more apt_get interesting +5 posts in a while?

  29. Halon dumps? by wiredog · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The last time I worked in a NOC, it ran Vaxes, but we had a halon dump. A Big Red Button that got smacked by the last person out of the room. The halon would smother any fire by replacing all the oxygen in the room (which was why the last guy out hit the button). Why wasn't there a halon dump in this NOC? Or, if there was one, what happened?

    I hope Debian practices good management principles by having offsite backup.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
    1. Re:Halon dumps? by Entrope · · Score: 2

      The blurbs imply ("The fire department has given up every hope on protecting the server area") that the fire originated elsewhere and spread -- fire supression systems are good for fires that start in server rooms, but if somebody puts tinfoil in the microwave next door, the fire may be just too big by the time it gets to the server room.

    2. Re:Halon dumps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it looks like the building housing the NOC burned - in other words, halon might have stopped the fire IN the NOC, but when all six walls are burning away, halon (or fm200) can only do so much.

    3. Re:Halon dumps? by Martin+Blank · · Score: 2

      Depending on whether there was a recent overhaul of the system, Halon is now illegal in most countries. Existing systems were grandfathered in, but new systems are prohibited from using it. I'm not sure which gas replaced it, but I understand that it's incredibly expensive, and not quite as effective. Of course, as has been pointed out, if the fire originated (and thus was fed from) elsewhere, the gas would have been useless once the storage tanks were empty.

      --
      You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
    4. Re:Halon dumps? by lamj · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Halon DO NOT replace oxygen in the room to extinguish the fire. It breaks the chain reaction of fire, basically stop the elements of fire to react with each other.

      Most scenario would only require a less than 8% of concentration to take out the fire. Under 10% and you can still breath.

      Problem of Halon is when over 900 degree C, it breaks down into hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen bromide and bromine - stuff that are toxic. So, run!

    5. Re:Halon dumps? by Get+Behind+the+Mule · · Score: 2
      Halon DO NOT replace oxygen in the room to extinguish the fire. It breaks the chain reaction of fire, basically stop the elements of fire to react with each other.

      Most scenario would only require a less than 8% of concentration to take out the fire. Under 10% and you can still breath.


      Really? Well, I worked in a server room with a Halon system back in the 80's, and the big scary warning signs said that you wouldn't be able to breathe within n seconds after the stuff fell. So always be prepared to dash for the door.

      It was pretty ominous, looking at those two big ol' red buttons on opposite walls with the all-caps, white-on-red warnings next to them, imagining that you could just go wham!, and maybe kill a few people, if they couldn't think & run fast enough. And imagining that in case of a catastrophe, you just might have to do it, and then scream at everybody to get the hell out, wondering whether you saved some lives or ended a few.
      --
      Always keep a sapphire in your mind
    6. Re:Halon dumps? by VirtualAdept · · Score: 1

      Wow. It sounds like all that place needed to be like Star Trek was a large, heavy emergency door that closes just slow enough that the last person can roll out of the room just in time for the door to slam shut.

    7. Re:Halon dumps? by kriston · · Score: 1

      In the US it's being replaced with FM-200 gas and some places are using a new concept called "dry pipe" where the sprinkler systems aren't pressurized so you have time to turn things off before escaping (assuming that if the fire goes on long enough for the water to reach the computer room before turning off, the room is lost).

      Or something.

      Kris

      --

      Kriston

    8. Re:Halon dumps? by nolife · · Score: 2

      Halon DO NOT replace oxygen in the room to extinguish the fire.

      It cools, replaces O2 and works to break the chemical chain. At least according to this

      There is a fire triangle. The points of the triangle represent heat, oxygen, and a combustable material. If you take any one of the three away a fire will go out. Halon and other devices (Baking Soda, AFFF, PKP, etcc) replaces or prevents introduction of O2 causing the fire to go out. Use of water removes the heat, CO2 replaces the O2 and has a slight cooling effect. Halon also breaks the chemical reaction. A problem with O2 removing substances is if the temperature has not gone down, reintoduction of O2 will cause a reflash (like opening the door to early).

      http://www.nifc.gov/pres_visit/whatisfire.html
      http://www.usbr.gov/power/data/fist/fist5~2/5~2_1. htm
      http://www.princeton.edu/~ehs/theater/Appendi xA.ht ml

      --
      Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
    9. Re:Halon dumps? by mrjive · · Score: 1

      Don't forget the heroic grabbing of the hat that fell off on the other side of the door, Indiana Jones style.

      --
      If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. -George Carlin
    10. Re:Halon dumps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or just push the button, run really fast and close the door, holding the handle tight so that no one can open it.

      Could make for a fun sight through the glass in the door.

    11. Re:Halon dumps? by mmol_6453 · · Score: 2

      Dry-pipe sprinklers aren't new...I've got a ten-year old Firefighter's training book at home that describes their effectiveness and how to turn them off after the fire is knocked down.

      --
      What's this Submit thingy do?
    12. Re:Halon dumps? by mmol_6453 · · Score: 2

      Considering that the pyrolysis reaction for each compound is different, I find it's rather difficult to know how to break down each reaction without displacing oxygen--the common component in nearly all fires.

      (I say "nearly" because, once it's started, acetylene doesn't require oxygen to continue burning. They get away with using it for welding because the gas escapes the cylinder faster than the fire can creap up the stream. At least, that's how it was explained to me.)

      --
      What's this Submit thingy do?
    13. Re:Halon dumps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but wouldn't that mean that once you turn off the gas, it would creep down the line???

    14. Re:Halon dumps? by oh · · Score: 2

      Again, this is from memory, but isn't acetylene the gas commonly used in whats commonly called and oxy torch? Every acetylene torch I've looked at had two cylenters, and two hoses. One was a black cylender with a white top for the oxygen, and a slightly bigger, red-brown cylender for the acetylene.

      see this

      --
      Democracy isn't about no one telling you what to do. It's about everyone telling you what to do.
    15. Re:Halon dumps? by mmol_6453 · · Score: 2

      It requires oxygen to ignite, but does not require it to continue burning. See the firefighting section of the MSDS ("Right To Know") sheet. Look at the entry under "Flammability Limits in Air."

      It can only be 2.2% of the gas in a given volume of normal atmosphere, to ignite, but, once started, it can continue to burn even after it is the only volatile gas left.

      --
      What's this Submit thingy do?
    16. Re:Halon dumps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wondered about that...the only thing I can think of is that the valve shuts very quickly, to close off the valve path before the flame recedes up the pipe.

      You might also be able to displace the acetylene (as opposed to displacing an oxidizer) with another gas, to reduce the intensity of the flame to the point where it becomes too cool to burn.

      --mmol_6453

  30. I predict... by bLanark · · Score: 2

    That in the next year, most new OS documenation and projects will have several URLs built in for all online stuff (gentoo's Portage; TLDP; having a sourceforge page and a mirror, for example).

    OS people learn quickly from mistakes like this.

    --
    Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
    1. Re:I predict... by gmack · · Score: 3, Informative

      I predict they will use their backups and repoint the URL to another location.

      It's not as if the debian project didn't have the domain properly setup with 3 diffrent nameservers in 3 completely different locations.

      They may even have a working mirror...

    2. Re:I predict... by Wolfrider · · Score: 1

      --Yep, this explains the problems I was having yesterday with apt-get update / upgrade. However, today things are working fine, so they must have brought 'security' back up somewhere else and either propogated the DNS or kept the same address.

      --I'm really getting to love Debian. This from a longtime SuSE 7.3 user (even bought the DVD).

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
  31. Has to be said... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They should've used a firewall.

  32. Dutch -- English? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    good thing i can read dutch or else all these links would have been useless for me ;-)

  33. Re:why does this matter? by brianvan · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're not gone. They're just experiencing a Distributed Combustion Denial-of-Service attack.

  34. Debian Security mirror by lemmen · · Score: 5, Informative

    In case one might be interested, Essent mirrored security.debian.org.

    You can use debian.essentkabel.com to download the latest security updates (in case you haven't already). Please note this is NOT an official mirror.

    --
    Daxy's Networking Blog
    1. Re:Debian Security mirror by Tottori · · Score: 3, Informative
      I don't want to besmirch Essent or anyone else, but please don't install security-critical software from a mirror some guy posted on Slashdot. apt-get doesn't check signatures, so if you put a compromised or malicious mirror in your sources.list, it's game over.

      Debian haven't released a security advisory since yesterday, so it's deeply unlikely you'll need an update before they get a new security.debian.org online tomorrow.

      --
      use constant PERL_IS_BROKEN => $] >= 5.006;
  35. OK, folks, admit it! by matija · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who posted a link to UT's webserver on slashdot?

    --
    Duct tape + WD40 => DevOps
    1. Re:OK, folks, admit it! by McFly69 · · Score: 2

      Sheee... don't tell anyone.. it was me. *hides under bed*

      --



      NO! NO! Please don't mod me, I'm too young to die a troll. *click* Oh the pain, the pain...
    2. Re:OK, folks, admit it! by erpbridge · · Score: 3, Funny

      And why would you do something like that? Think, McFly, think!

    3. Re:OK, folks, admit it! by FFNieko · · Score: 1

      Right, /.ing a 9.6Gbps backbone link? ;)

  36. More Pictures from the webcam by CuriousGeorge113 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Here's some statics taken from their webcam. Someone might want to mirror these before they get slash'd. Webcam PicsPics

    Also, here's what seems to be the only close up I could find of the fire. pics

    --
    No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
  37. OpenSmoke ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    vaporware ?

  38. last syslog entry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    the last syslog entry from AR5.Enschede1.surf.net to SARA:
    Nov 20 08:20:51 lo0.ar5.enschede1.surf.net 3613: Nov 20 07:20:50.927 UTC: %ENV_MON-2-TEMP: Hotpoint temp sensor(slot 18) temperature has reached WARNING level at 61(C) :-)

  39. Halon is probably illegal today by mangu · · Score: 4, Informative

    Effective as it was, Halon was also a major ozone-hole cause, so it has been outlawed in most countries by now.

    1. Re:Halon is probably illegal today by Porsche_Pilot · · Score: 1

      I beleve that they have stopped production of halon, but their is still stock, just like R12 that used to be used in car A/C. Many people I know have halon extinguishers in their cars, an when I get another air-cooled car it will have a installed halon system .

      --
      404 sig not found
    2. Re:Halon is probably illegal today by phil+reed · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wouldn't have helped. A halon system in the server room doesn't do much when the entire building goes up.

      --

      ...phil
      "For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
  40. Enschede is a bad place for fire by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Two years ago a fireworks explosion leveled several city blocks. What is it with that place?

  41. My Salute! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > ping -n 21 non-us.debian.org

    Pinging non-us.debian.org [130.89.175.34] with 32 bytes of data:

    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.
    Request timed out.

    Ping statistics for 130.89.175.34:
    Packets: Sent = 21, Received = 0, Lost = 21 (100% loss),
    Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

  42. Oh Dear.... by Zech+Harvey · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Is there anything that could cause this naturally? I mean, judging from the pictures it looked fairly large and out of control...I hope no one caused this purposefully. I've never had to deal with a catastrophe like this, luckily...I send my best wishes of luck and hope to those involved and pray no one got hurt. =(

    --
    Zech Harvey, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNA
    1. Re:Oh Dear.... by BabyDave · · Score: 2
      I hope no one caused this purposefully.
      Cue another round of "Bill Gates/MS evil anti-Linux conspiracy" posts ...
    2. Re:Oh Dear.... by CH-BuG · · Score: 1

      > Is there anything that could cause this naturally?

      A match?

    3. Re:Oh Dear.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, they suspect someone did. When I went from the uni towards home, i heard some people talking about the fire in the train. They were saying that the day before, they found a litterbin was set on fire in a locked room; the attempt failed but looks like today, the attempt was successfull.

    4. Re:Oh Dear.... by SagSaw · · Score: 2

      At my university the computer center is housed in the oldest building on campus. This building also contains a foundry, welding shop, E.E. labs, etc. While I have no idea what the circumstances in this instance were, I imagine many acedemic institutions have similar set-ups. It's not overly difficult so see how a fire could start and quickly spread in such a building.

      --
      Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
  43. Dangerous server rooms by Bazman · · Score: 4, Funny
    Lets hope the place didnt look like this beforehand:


    Dangerous server rooms

  44. Re:why does this matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are (should be) no mirrors of the security.debian.org ftp site. They want people to get the most recent updates, so they want them to avoid mirroring delays.

  45. Keyserver.org (Open PGP network) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The SURFNet network was the managing server for the Keyserver.org organisation. An open and distributed network for the PGP keys.

  46. Slashdot effect? by lyonsden · · Score: 1

    Is that what happens to a web server when an article housed on it gets posted on Slashdot?

  47. Re:why does this matter? by smnolde · · Score: 2

    Time for them to switch to FreeBSD. With mirrors all over the world I don't have to worry about where to go for the source.

    However, any fire destroying the building is a *bad* thing and if it's arson I hope they pin his nuts to the wall. I hope the data in the NOC is restored quickly.

  48. The truth is right here by nukey56 · · Score: 1

    Now, you see, this didn't happen through some random electrical spark or from some warez-eliminating conspiracy, the truth is that this building was just fine -- until it was slashdotted. Those pictures, well, those were posted later on. I mean, seriously, the link probably said "mad warez now!" for the first few minutes, then they changed it and put the fire story up.

    Moral of this story: never underestimate the power of the slashdot effect.

    1. Re:The truth is right here by CoolVibe · · Score: 1

      The roof!
      The root!
      The roof is on fire!
      We don't need no water, let the warezkiddies burn!
      burn! burn!

      Allright, that was cheap... *ducks*

  49. Update from SARA (SURFnet NOC) by mdav · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's an update from SARA (that's where I work), the network operator for SURFnet. SURFnet is very busy ordering new equipment and fixing the 2 x 10 Gbit/s lamda's to Enschede. We hope to restore connectivity a.s.a.p. Greetings, Marco

    1. Re:Update from SARA (SURFnet NOC) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Informative? I have seldomly seen such a non-informative article...

      "we are busy and we hope to fix it as soon as possible". Yeah. But that does not tell you anything more than "we may be back next year!".

    2. Re:Update from SARA (SURFnet NOC) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2x10Gbit? Wasn't that 2x650Mbit just 3 years ago?

      Btw, isn't that 2x10Gbit over 1Mbit per student?

  50. Re:why does this matter? by The+Dobber · · Score: 3, Funny

    Boy Scouts Of America? Which merit badge would that be?

  51. It must have been Microsoft by micaiah · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Witnesses saw a large balding man monkey dancing from the scene and a slim geeky man with glasses trailing behind continuously adjusting his glasses." An in other news....

    1. Re:It must have been Microsoft by $rtbl_this · · Score: 2

      Am I the only one who just pictured the Gentlemen and their henchmen from the Buffy episode Hush? **Shudder** I'll never take the piss out of Steve Ballmer again.

      --
      "Are you being weird, or sarcastic?" said Emma. I said I didn't know because I get the two feelings mixed up.
    2. Re:It must have been Microsoft by plugger · · Score: 1

      A *slim* geeky man? It couldn't have been Gates then.

    3. Re:It must have been Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Homer and Mr. Burns?

    4. Re:It must have been Microsoft by Kashif+Shaikh · · Score: 2

      Yeah, microsoft is that desparate to take out Debian. Or...

      It may be a university that didn't want M$ 'donation' so that they could have more windoze courses.

      Either way, I think the monkey is trying to do a rain dance!

  52. LFS mirror affected too by decarelbitter · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Dutch LFS FTP mirror was also hosted at the University of Twente, which means it's also down. The Dutch HTTP mirror should work properly, since it's outside utwente.nl space.
    Last news is that HP (Who supplied most of the UT backbone equipment) is on its way with emergency equipment to have things up and running somewhere tomorrow.

  53. At least the fire... by l0wland · · Score: 1

    ...was good for something. My DSL d/l-speed doubled after the Cisco's at UT got smoked. :-)

    --

    "Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
  54. Warning Sounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    If you ever smell smoke in a computer enviroment, take it serious! I once was in a computer pool room and only the smell of burning paper made me aware of the fire. Only then i realized a beeping noise, simlar to the noises some computers or cardreaders make to draw maintainace attention towards them.
    In that environment an old fashion siren would have been a much better solution.

  55. Oh, well... by larien · · Score: 2

    Time to find out if their disaster recovery procedures work... There'll be a heck of a lot of running around trying to get some kind of infrastructure back in place now, I'd imagine.

  56. Re:Lazy commie bastard by zztzed · · Score: 2

    I have yet to see any machine translators that will do Dutch to English.

  57. Re:Halon dumps? -- not if the whole building is in by earthy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The fire did not start in the server rooms. What happened was that a fire started in one of the lecture rooms (and a smallish one at that, number A108) that just happened to be in the same wing of the TWRC building that also housed the server rooms (yes, multiple). It then proceeded to take out two entire wings and threaten other buildings nearby as well as the library.

    Now, I would *love* to see a halon system capable of stopping that...

    Owh, and the fire seems to be under control by now, as evidenced on http://webcam.traserv.com/
    (which you can contrast to http://www-infstud.sci.kun.nl/~arthurvl/ispy.jpg (taken at about 09:40 CET this morning)).

  58. thank god for mirrors by dspeyer · · Score: 1

    Let this be a lesson to all system archetechts: don't put stuff in only one place -- it could catch fire. With all the debian mirrors out there, I don't expect this to cause all that much trouble (obviously, if people had been hurt, that would be another matter, but apparently everyone got out in time).

    --

    Sig:Why copyright isn't a fundamental human right

  59. Hm.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Slashdot strikes again?

  60. English translation of the planet internet story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A large fire broke out in one of the college buildings at the UT in Enschede. The area has been closed off.

    The fire broke out around 8:00 Wednesday morning. Nobody was injured. The fire department evacuated a number of buildings in the immediate area. It's expected that extinguishing the fire will take the rest of the day.

    The fire caused damage in the tens of millions of euros in the IT services, among others, revealed (dean? I think) F. van Vught.

    Van Vught said that backups of the network information had been made. "All information is saved". Classes will continue this week, due to tests. There were only a few students on the campus area Wednesday. Most test could not proceed on Wednesday.

    In the burned building, used by the UT IT department, a part of the Management school was destroyed. The network was known as one of the fastest in Europe. An emergency network is now being deployed.

  61. PGP Keyserver root was hosted by SURFNet by Erik_ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I believe, the open and distributed network of Keyserver.net (distibuted network of PGP keyservers) was hosted by SURFNet. This network is a distributed network holding PGP and OpenPGP keys. The loss the to UT NOC could have an impact on the updating of key-rings across the keyserver.net network.

    1. Re:PGP Keyserver root was hosted by SURFNet by arjennienhuis · · Score: 1

      Yes, but was it at UTwente? SURFNet works just fine without Twente.

    2. Re:PGP Keyserver root was hosted by SURFNet by dwaallicht · · Score: 1

      The keyserver hosted by SURFnet is called 'horowitz.surfnet.nl' and is physically located in Tilburg, several 100 kms from Enschede. It is of course possible there was an important piece of keyserver.net infrastructure hosted at utwente.nl that I am not aware of, what I do know is that that part would not have been hosted by SURFnet. Jan

  62. Re:why does this matter? by Angry+White+Guy · · Score: 3, Funny

    The arson and destruction of private property badges. If a car burnt as well, they're well on their way to achieving the elusive 'inciting riots' and 'urban terrorist' badges. These last two were proudly held by a select few: Ted Kazinsky, Che Guevera, and Jimmy Carter

    --
    You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
  63. The registers take on things... by ContemporaryInsanity · · Score: 1

    El Reg have an article up (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28204.html ) paying particular note to the warez / pr0n side of things.

    1. Re:The registers take on things... by SpaceJunkie · · Score: 1

      Hmmm- Maybe the MPAA and RIAA could be implied here.... The register artical pointed out how much of a major P2P hub this segment was.

      --
      OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
    2. Re:The registers take on things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmm... so maybe it was Micro$soft after all...

  64. oh my... by rimmon · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    that's what I call a flame war :-)

  65. Re:why does this matter? by mezzin · · Score: 1

    I agre with this with security patches you need to have them as fast as you can. Shame the servers are gone :-( hopefully they find a good new spot for them.

  66. security updates mirrored worldwide. by novakreo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, Debian security updates are usually also added to the proposed-updates section, which means that they are available on nearly all Debian mirrors worldwide.

    Something like
    deb ftp://ftp.XX.debian.org/pub/debian/ proposed-updates main contrib non-free
    deb ftp://ftp.XX.debian.org/pub/debian-non-US/ proposed-updates/non-US main contrib non-free
    (replace XX with your ISO country code) in your /etc/apt/sources.list should work well.

    You can find mirrors on Debian's website.

    --
    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
  67. OK by wiredog · · Score: 2

    It started elsewhere. What about other fire supression systems? Sprinklers and the like?

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
    1. Re:OK by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 2

      Well, not knowing what's in room 108A, I can think of several types of fires, where sprinklersystems won't help.

      Magnisium catching fire.
      Na (which I can't remember the English name for) stock in the room would also spell disaster.

      --
      We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
    2. Re:OK by Tet · · Score: 1
      Na (which I can't remember the English name for)

      Sodium.

      --
      "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
    3. Re:OK by CoolVibe · · Score: 1, Redundant
      Na == Sodium

      Glad to help :)

    4. Re:OK by bartjan · · Score: 1

      The building in question is the TW/RC building (Technische Wiskunde / Rekencentrum = Technical Mathematics / Datacentre) which is a 3 floor high building consisting of 4 wings (A, B, C and D) and partially built on water. A Google Image search on 'tw utwente' will show some pictures from the outside of the building.
      The building is almost 30 years old and the two destroyed wings have just been renovated a year or so ago. Because of this renovation the 2 wings are believed to pass current fire code (the other wings don't).
      The hallways are a bit narrow and are laid out in what can be described as a maze, so I'm not surprised that a large enough fire managed to spread through the entire building.
      I'm almost sure A108 is one in a series of 'normal' classrooms with only chairs and tables and a blackboard, so I'm a bit puzzled why the fire would have started there.

  68. Osama by tha_european · · Score: 1

    I wonder if CNN's gonna broadcast something like "CIA has found links suggesting, that al-Qaida is responsible for this act of terrorism." ;-)

  69. Re:why does this matter? by mezzin · · Score: 1

    For security patches. and the non-us section. And a lot of other mirror are down now ;-((((

  70. Re:Lazy commie bastard by novakreo · · Score: 1

    worldlingo.com has one.

    --
    O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
  71. Re:The importance of professional hosting... by decarelbitter · · Score: 1

    When a fire starts outside of the systemsroom you can have all the Halon gas you want, but it won't help. And if it would, the water used by the firedepartment would drown all machines. This is not just a datacenter which went up in flames, it's two wings of a whole building, which also happened to host the utwente.nl datacenter.

  72. BACKUP!!! by Beliskner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now we can find out how secure and hardened Debian really is. You are as good as your latest backup.
    BACKUPS BACKUPS BACKUPS Off-site! I've had enough of people who are talking about RAID-5 because 5TB tape drive arrays are too slow. Always keep your BACKUPS!

    --
    A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
    1. Re:BACKUP!!! by noahm · · Score: 2
      Umm, what does "secure and hardened" have to do with backups? From my experience, secure and hardened is often counter to backups. Every additional copy of the data you have is an additional security concern.

      That said, people are currently working on restoring the machine now, and the rough ETA is given as tomorrow. So backups are not an issue.

      noah

    2. Re:BACKUP!!! by Beliskner · · Score: 2
      Umm, what does "secure and hardened" have to do with backups?
      Secure is meant in the "safe and secure" sense, not the "securely encrypted" sense. Hardened is used in the sense that the Internet is hardened, having been designed to survive a nuclear war.

      Dual language is also used in various religous texts - e.g. "convince the non-believers" can mean talk to them, or it can mean kill them all.

      --
      A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
  73. Translation of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia by TeeWee · · Score: 3, Informative

    [Apologies for the poor translation, no time for a better attempt]

    The burning building contains the IT department and a part of the faculty of Business Administration [Closest I could come up with: Bestuurskunde]. The building has three storeys.

    The university fears the loss of its network facilities and is trying to save the main computer. According to a spokesman this network is amongst the fastest in Europe. Most classes are expected to resume as normal today. [According to other sources, this is an exam week, meaning few classes anyway. This is also a reason that few students were around so chances were that this also reduced potential casualties]

    The fire department is fighting the fire with 25 firefighters and expects to need the entire day to extinguish the fire. No dangerous materials have been released by the fire at this point. At the moment nothing is known about the cause of this fire.

    1. Re:Translation of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia by CoolVibe · · Score: 2
      No dangerous materials have been released by the fire at this point.

      Oh? I heard lots of asbestos was released into the air because of this fire.

    2. Re:Translation of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      At the moment nothing is known about the cause of this fire.


      Debian security site.. hmm.. has anyone questioned the people at Mandrake and Red Hat yet? Fuckers.

    3. Re:Translation of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia by TheLink · · Score: 2

      Someone tried to cancel an exam and succeeded?

      --
    4. Re:Translation of the Twentsche Courant Tubantia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Business Administration [Closest I could come up with: Bestuurskunde]".

      I don't think Bestuurskunde comes even close to an MBA, or even a BBA. Except when you interpret the 'B' as meaning Bureaucratic.

  74. How is "Twente" pronounced?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am geographically illiterate. How is "Twente" pronounced -- Twenty? Trent? Tweent? Twit?

  75. Re:The importance of professional hosting... by nochops · · Score: 1

    Hmmm...
    It looks like your REAL datacenter's web server just went down in flames, and the link's only in a comment, not the main story!

    --
    "A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force." -William Blum
  76. Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by mks113 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can't install new halon systems, but existing ones are still legal (in Canada, anyway).

    However, I wouldn't want to have to fill out all the paperwork involved with a discharge! We had an accidental discharge (a leak, I believe) and they decided it was enough impetus to remove the system.

    I think they are using CO2 now. The advantage of Halon is that you can breathe quite comfortably in an atmosphere that will not sustain fire. CO2 works just about as effectively but will not sustain life.

    OTOH, more recent studies have shown that just because you can still breath in a Halon infiltrated environment doesn't mean that there are no health effects!

    I expect there are more CO2 systems going in now, with lots of alarms to make sure people get out before the atmosphere gets unlivable.

    Michael

    1. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by srpatterson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We've got a couple of server rooms at work with big (5ft tall) CO2 extinguishers, you have 10 seconds to leave the server room after they activate.

      Strangely enough, there are no servers in there, just hubs, routers and comms gear.

      --
      -- The Heineken Uncertainty Principle: You can never be sure how many bears you had last night.
    2. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by 914 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Halon will kill you just as dead, just as quickly, as CO2.

      Both gasses extinguish fire by excluding oxygen... which isn't good for people either.

      The difference is that one cannot comfortably breath CO2, an involuntary physiological reaction makes it impossible. (next time you open a bottle of Coke, try sniffing the little cloud of CO2 that forms in the top of the bottle)

      Halon, otoh, is perfectly comofortable to breathe in and out, but will provide no oxygen. This is similar to breathing helium (recommended as the nicest way to commit suicide, after N20) in that one would be quite comfortable right up until one passed out from hypoxia. Death follows soon after.

      Also, i've read in boating magazines that undersized Halon systems used in engine compartments can be dangerous. Apparently, if the diesel engine is running when the system fires and there isn't enough Halon to kill the engine, the burned Halon/air/diesel mixture produces some really nasty toxic gasses.

      Anyhow.. enough rambling!

    3. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by ComaVN · · Score: 1

      Because, obviously, there will never be a false alarm, will there...

      --
      Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
    4. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by Dahan · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Halon, otoh, is perfectly comofortable to breathe in and out, but will provide no oxygen.

      Why does it need to provide oxygen? The air provides oxygen. How come you're not worried that air is about 80% nitrogen, which also provides no oxygen? See, humans don't need to breathe 100% oxygen... we do fine with much less. The advantage of Halon over CO2 is that it does not extinguish a fire by displacing oxygen. It will put out a fire at concentrations of about 5%, leaving plenty of oxygen to breathe.

      the burned Halon/air/diesel mixture produces some really nasty toxic gasses.

      And a fire doesn't? If you have an undersized system installed, you're gonna have problems in a fire anyways. With a proper system, the small quantity of toxic gasses produced by the Halon decomposition before the fire is extinguished (which is a fraction of a second--Halon systems have been used for explosion suppression) is much preferable to the large quantity of toxic gasses and heat produced by a fire.

    5. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by haligan · · Score: 1

      One reason why Halon works i sthat it displaces the air to remove that side of the fire tetrahedron. You cannot breathe in an atmosphere filled with Haoln, this is why there are big red buttons that will delay the discharge of the Halon. That way you have more time to escape the area that is about to be filled with Halon. And you cannot buy nor recharge a Halon system in the U.S. anymore. A sprinkler system should have been in place instead. It might not have been required by the building code, but there has never been a multi-fatality fire in a building with a properly installed and maintained sprinkler system and statistics have shown there is a greater chance of recover from a fire as well. The DOE has placed many sprinkler systems in their Server rooms.

    6. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by 914 · · Score: 1

      It will put out a fire [tpub.com] at concentrations of about 5%, leaving plenty of oxygen to breathe.

      I stand corrected! I was under the impression that it works by displacing the ambient air (and it's oxygen).

      As for the engine-room thing, I think the point was that an engine, being essentially a large positive-displacement air pump, could actually pump the halon out of the engine room, creatng toxic gasses as it did so, and also lowering the overall amount of halon in the room to the point of rendering it ineffective.

      There is some controversy (according to this article in PassageMaker) as to whether these halon systems should be installed with an automatic engine-kill or not. On one hand, it would suck to have your engine suck all of the halon out of the engine room.... otoh, it would suck worse if you needed that engine to maneuver during the emergency (to avoid collision etc) and it had been killed by the fire system.

      Anyhow, you make good points and I'm glad I know better now.

    7. Re:Halon systems aren't illegal, but.... by SillySlashdotName · · Score: 1

      I have never understood the thinking behind changing the 'fire triangle' to the 'fire tetrahedron.' A triangle has three points - coresponding to fuel, oxygen, and heat - while a tetrahedron has four points - with the fire tetrahedron points being fuel, oxygen, heat, and "chemical reaction". BUT "The chemical chain reaction know[sic] as fire occurs when fuel, oxygen and heat are present in the right conditions and amounts." (The Fire Tetrahedron) If you replace "The chemical chain reaction know[sic] as fire" with "Fire", the tetrahedron reverts back to a triangle with "fire occurs when fuel, oxygen and heat are present in the right conditions and amounts."

      In other words, if you have fuel, oxygen and heat in correct amounts, AND YOU HAVE FIRE PRESENT (fourth point of the tetrahedron), you will have fire.

      Well duh!

      --
      Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
  77. About as good as it gets with only two sites... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I mean seriously, each tower collapsed because it was hit by its own plane. If one tower had been in NY, one in California and both were still hit by a plane each, the result would be exactly the same.

    The lesson should be: Primary back-up is a very good start, but secondary/tertiary back-up is the thing if it's that critical.

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    1. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The chances of two buildings standing side by side being taken down by planes is ridiculously low.

      It apparently can happen, though.

      In any case, the chances of two buildings standing side by side being taken down is much greater than two random buildings on either coast.

      Keep in mind - there's enough nuclear weaponry out there to make the United States into a glass desert. What if that goes off? I hope you had secondary+ backups in Canada and Mexico!

      (Frankly, I wouldn't be concerned with backups at that point.)

      The point is that backup is simply another game of risk.

    2. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by operagost · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Considering how several other buildings in the WTC were damaged or destroyed just from debris, I'd say that even if only one tower had fallen, there's a good chance everything in the second would have been trashed.

      Really, not having your backups in close proximity to the data center IS good policy.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    3. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "American-hating anti-semites?" If you honestly believe that then you have to open your eyes. :P

    4. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by Fencepost · · Score: 3, Insightful
      No, you want two geographically diverse sites in case of natural disasters or other events that keep you from reaching (physically or electronically) one.

      I'm sure that there's been lots of study of this, but I suspect that a good distance is 1-2 hours drive. Far enough to avoid most of the impact from things like a big chunk of the city being shut down for weeks, close enough to get to (with some inconvenience) if necessary.

      In the Chicago area it might be something like downtown Chicago and Schaumburg, Naperville, Aurora or even Rockford (at the 2-hour mark).

      --
      fencepost
      just a little off
    5. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by 0x69 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bullcrap. BOTH towers had been exposed as very vulnerable to ONE bomb in the underground parking garage long before. BOTH towers were connected to the same small pieces of the electrical, telecom, water, sewer, gas, etc. systems, and Chicago demonstrated the dangers of that a few year ago.

      The only [gag] good [retch] reasons to have the backup in the other tower are spelled "lazy" and "stupid".

      --
      It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
    6. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by gaudior · · Score: 2

      I wish some of the downtown outfits would put some data centers out here in Rockford. I need a job.

    7. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by madsen · · Score: 1

      Spreading them out is definately a good thing to do but you also have to think about in what kind of a building you put the NOC. There is a worldwide banking network that has its NOCs on three continents and in towns that are not in any way on anyones radar (well I guess they are because of these NOCs). The buildings are built as bombshelters and with faraday cages aso. They also have at least "double everything" in all NOCs.
      This is ofcourse extreme but if you want no single point of failure and have the need to do it right, this is the way to do it.

    8. Re:About as good as it gets with only two sites... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, if only they had put a tertiary backup site somewhere far away, like, say, in the Pentagon.

  78. slashdot effect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    could a slashdot effect save it?

  79. WARNING: Above post a GOATSE! by Cletus+the+yokel · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I just lost my breakfast. Thanks ever so much.
    If you want to read about the fire, go here. Apparently UT was a major node for KazAA, and'a primo source for warez and pr0n.

    --
    Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking .sig - Apply here.
    1. Re:WARNING: Above post a GOATSE! by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 2

      Apparently UT was a major node for KazAA, and'a primo source for warez and pr0n.

      And the firefighters will determine it was lit by a professionaly arsonist, but never be able to figure out what orginization funded him..

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
    2. Re:WARNING: Above post a GOATSE! by ReelOddeeo · · Score: 2

      >>Apparently UT was a major node for KazAA...

      And the firefighters will determine it was lit by a professionaly arsonist, but never be able to figure out what orginization funded him..

      ....but never be able to figure out which of the *AA's funded him.

      --

      Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
    3. Re:WARNING: Above post a GOATSE! by Cletus+the+yokel · · Score: 1

      >(Score:0, Flamebait) ...
      > Apparently UT was a major node for KazAA, and'a primo source for warez and pr0n.

      Flamebait?! I didn't say it, The Register did!

      Bah... moderators on crack again.

      --
      Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking .sig - Apply here.
    4. Re:WARNING: Above post a GOATSE! by Yottabyte84 · · Score: 1

      set goatse.cx to 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file. I realized it befor the rediredt hit, but my hosts file would have redirected it to my local http server.

    5. Re:WARNING: Above post a GOATSE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I tried this, but unfortunatly my own http server is a goatse mirror

  80. Backup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope they had an offsite backup!!!

  81. In still other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The local Microsoft sales office reported on a recent visit of a corporate "fireman".

  82. The importance of only posting crap after READING by mdb31 · · Score: 1

    Yeah, yeah, whatever. In case you were not paying attention: the entire *building* (which happened to contain most core routers etc. - there are servers in other buildings as well, but they kinda lost connectivity) burnt down. This building not only contained the IS department (which, I'm sure, has active fire protection in its most data centers), but also normal offices, classrooms, etc. Once an entire structure is on fire and collapsing in flames, there's only so much your fire suppression system can do. In this case, it will most likely have evaporated... Fire suppression systems only help if a fire is *starting* in a protected area, not if the entire structure the system is in is collapsing in flames

  83. Re:why does this matter? by cjwatson · · Score: 1

    Yes, security.debian.org, non-us.debian.org, qa.debian.org, and nm.debian.org were hosted on our machine there. Work on restoring all of them to another machine is already in progress. Packages aren't too much of a problem; the infrastructure running there will take a little longer to rebuild.

    Fortunately the majority of the critical infrastructure was kept in CVS.

  84. Disaster Recovery plans by ACK!! · · Score: 3

    This brings to the forefront of my mind the fact my organization is currently devising disaster recovery plans for our new building.

    The NIH Computer Center Disaster Recovery Plan is available online somewhere in pdf format and provided a good deal of insite.

    Does anyone else have good hints on texts and outline for good disaster recovery plans?

    ___________________________________________

    --
    ACK /ak/ interj. 2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. i
    1. Re:Disaster Recovery plans by wiredog · · Score: 5, Insightful
      The Gartner Group put some stuff up after 9/11. Most of it is common sense.

      Do full backups weekly, store copies offsite. Incremental backups daily, copies offsite also. If you can afford it (or can't afford any downtime), have emergency backup hardware (enough for minimal operations) in an offsite storage facility. Old hardware that would otherwise be thrown out is good for this (remember, it's for an emergency). Have a supplier who can get replacement hardware to you in a hurry (so you can get off of those old 90 MHz Pentium servers).

      The most vital part of the plan, after backups, is good insurance. If the building burns to the ground Monday morning, you want to be able to call the insurer Monday Noon, and have the check in hand Tuesday morning at the latest.

      These recommendations do not cover disasters such as 767s flying into the building and killing all the sysops. Earthquakes dropping the building on the same. Etc. The people are the most important part of any company and, if too many of them are lost at once, the company probably is lost too.

      Unless you have really good (and expensive)insurance which can provide enough funds for you to hire new people, get them trained, and keep the company solvent while you do so.

      --

      Best Slashdot Co
    2. Re:Disaster Recovery plans by guacamolefoo · · Score: 1

      The most vital part of the plan, after backups, is good insurance. If the building burns to the ground Monday morning, you want to be able to call the insurer Monday Noon, and have the check in hand Tuesday morning at the latest.

      Despite all the horseshit about "State Farm is there" and "Nationwide is on your side", you will not have a check in hand the next day. When you make a claim, you are a cost center to the insurer, not a policy premium paying buddy.

      Expect to have your ass turned inside out a la goatse.cx before seeing so much as a nickel from an insurer. An "expensive" policy doesn't mean that they will be any nicer about it -- it just means you overpaid for the privilege of being dejected, suspected, inspected, and rejected by a greedy little monkey-fucking insurance company.

      --
      Lots of petrified grits
    3. Re:Disaster Recovery plans by ReverendRyan · · Score: 1

      These recommendations do not cover disasters such as 767s flying into the building and killing all the sysops. Earthquakes dropping the building on the same. Etc. The people are the most important part of any company and, if too many of them are lost at once, the company probably is lost too.

      Perhaps if the disaster recovery plan included dummy instructions for getting basic services back online. A manual that was as easy to follow as "..insert the tape labeled 'usrbin20021119-6' and type 'tar -xzfv /dev/st0'. Now change directories to /home and insert the tape labeled 'home20021119-3' and type 'tar -xzfv /dev/st0'..."

      With a system like that, the entire IT department could be killed and as long as someone knew where the disaster plan was, the site could be recovered.

    4. Re:Disaster Recovery plans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is not very realistic.
      A plan that is detailed enough to be followed by any monkey would invariably assume that the configuration you are going to restore to is a duplicate of the existing system. Same systems, same model, same disk capacities, etc.
      But that won't happen when your systems have been running for more than half a year when disaster strikes.
      There will always be differences between the new and old environments, and decisions will need to be made that go beyond the "insert tape and type command" stuff.

    5. Re:Disaster Recovery plans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the building burns to the ground Monday morning, you want to be able to call the insurer Monday Noon, and have the check in hand Tuesday morning at the latest.
      Not at all! I've worked for two businesses that were completely wiped-out by disasters. In both cases, it was many months before insurance paid a penny. Of course, the companies were long out of business by then. One was an IT company, and our building collapsed. No, that's not a typo. We were in a huge plantation house that was built in the late 1700's. Every single one of our floppies were ruined, and all of the hard drives (ok, all three of them) were ruined. 8" floppies and hard drives from 1981 were very fragile. In the second business, we had our equipment room and service vans crushed when half of a parking garage collapsed during a small fire. We had our servers in this cheap pair of rooms we rented in parking attendant supervisor's office that was right in the middle of the garage. Thankfully, no one was physically hurt in either case.z

    6. Re:Disaster Recovery plans by noz · · Score: 2

      "...good insurance. If the building burns to the ground Monday morning, you want to be able to call the insurer Monday Noon, and have the check in hand Tuesday morning at the latest."

      This is good advice. Sites need insurance, but demanding payment in under 24 hours is not reasonable. If insurance for fires is unconditional, then within one to five days is reasonable, but then again, many people will have conditions in their insurance contract that may either be void in certain circumstances, or simply require investigation under others.

  85. Re:How is "Twente" pronounced?? by devilkin · · Score: 1

    As you write it - Twente. Take 'Twenty' and replace the 'y' with the sound of the 'e' in the same word. DK

  86. On the bright side... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now their whole network is Fire Wire based.

  87. Yeah by wiredog · · Score: 2
    It might have been a chemistry lab with willy pete (white phosphorus), sodium (Na), or something like that. Or a gas main could've blown.

    In Maryland a couple days ago several businesses in the same building burned to the ground after a medical supply company caught fire. The company supplied oxygen tanks.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
  88. A moment of silence please by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ${FLAG} waves in background, jet fighters fly by in a missing man formation, a lone bugler plays Taps.

  89. 100% Loss by Hobbes_ · · Score: 0

    How apt. :)

  90. Re:why does this matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like some bad karma generated from all those moron apt-get debian zealots.

    Big deal, it's a fire and all the true zealots have been making the move to gentoo anyways.

  91. The world's most warped error message... by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... finally gets to make an appearance in earnest.

    'lp1 on fire'

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  92. I wondered what was going on by BenjyD · · Score: 1

    There I am wondering why my Debian machine's update script won't work, I bring up slashdot and find this story.

  93. Re:Lazy commie bastard by spiny · · Score: 1

    there's this:

    http://www.worldlingo.com/products_services/worl dl ingo_translator.html ....

    --

    Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
    Leela: No he didn't.
  94. I swear... by flaez · · Score: 1, Informative

    ...I was updating my debian & was checking
    slashdot out of boredom because there seemed
    to be a network problem.

    [screenshot]
    http://flaez.ch/scratch/twente_bur ns.png

  95. Ah HAH!!! by wiredog · · Score: 4, Funny

    Some damn fool wrote an assembly program that used the dreaded HCF instruction, didn't they?

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
    1. Re:Ah HAH!!! by Ziviyr · · Score: 2

      The 64 bit HCF must be pretty powerful.

      (though I really am a bit sad to hear such well purposed hardware combust)

      --

      Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
  96. Oops. by Effugas · · Score: 3, Funny

    Maybe I shouldn't have released that code after all...

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

  97. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  98. More info... by citizenkeller · · Score: 1

    ...straight from the horse's mouth here.
    There are some pictures, official news and infos.

    --
    -- Serge K. Keller
  99. Debian is working on recovering by StormCrow · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quote from debian-devel-announce

    At around 8 this morning (local time) a fire started in the computing facilities of Twente University. This affects Debian, since one of our servers (satie) is hosted there. At this moment it seems very likely that the machine can not be recovered from the fire.

    The following services are currently down as a result of this:

    security.debian.org
    non-us.debian.org
    nm.debian.org
    qa.debian.org

    We are working to restoring these services on another machine and hope to have things in mostly working order by tomorrow. Security advisories are still available at http://www.debian.org/security/

    Wichert.

  100. it was the printers!!! by manual_overide · · Score: 3, Funny

    lp0 on fire!!!

    (sorry, couldn't help myself...)

    --
    If bad puns were like deli meat, this would be the wurst
  101. Re:CNN claims it's a deliberate act! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nice? 'Arseonism' kinda gave it away.

  102. It's all redhats fault. by neoh · · Score: 0

    I think upon furthur investigation, redhat is going to be held responsible for the fire - pure jealousy.

  103. With Apologies to Mr. Curtis. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whoops! Someone Spilled Beer on the Server!

  104. Breathe Quite Comfortably? by Guido69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The advantage of Halon is that you can breathe quite comfortably in an atmosphere that will not sustain fire. CO2 works just about as effectively but will not sustain life.

    You've obviously never been in a Halon dump. Either that or you consider burning in your lungs to be "quite comfortable". Not to mention that if you're standing under one of the discharge nozzles at a dump you can get a nasty case of frostbite.

    I've personally been through two 1211 dumps and had to enter a computer room and drag staff out after an FM200 dump. It takes about two days to completely stop coughing.

    --
    - If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? - Steven Wright
    1. Re:Breathe Quite Comfortably? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you value equipment over your life? Why don't you wear a hazmat breathing apparatus?

      Congratulations-- you have croseed the line from courageous to foolhardy.

    2. Re:Breathe Quite Comfortably? by Wolfrider · · Score: 1

      --You're an idiot. He said he was dragging STAFF out - that means PEOPLE. Read the friggen text carefully before you post like a numbnuts.

      --Dumbass.

      --
      .
      == WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
  105. See what happens.... by Cap'n+Canuck · · Score: 1

    See what happens when you get a beowulf cluster of those things? Ka-boom!

  106. conspiracy by antonsthlm · · Score: 1

    it's obvious that this fire was really caused by the RIAA/MPAA terrorists trying to target 'piracy terrorism'. It was only a matter of time before this new pre-emptive strike policy targetted the Really Free World: Western European Universities (The american ones don't count - they are just brands).

    there are dead people, they won't tell you though.

    welcome to the real world.

  107. Bunkers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A friend and I once talked of developing a bunker somewhere out in California, preferably near a desert of some sort.

    Above-ground military-like encampment, bunker deep below the earth, presumably safe from conventional and nuclear weaponry. Halon/etc. as well. You didn't see the warning lights? Sucks to be you, the data must be saved!

    Now *that* would be a data center.

    Actually, thinking back, this reminds me of various cyberpunk games I've played. The megacorps usually had installations like this. Hmm. Maybe we'll see a switch to better-secured locations in the future.

    Damn. Too bad there's not more venture capital out there. *chuckle* What with the threats du jour today, I'm willing to bet that someone with an underground lair(tm) could make a pretty penny off of paranoid system administrators who are worried about their company's data.

  108. Not funny... by distributed.karma · · Score: 2

    Looks like somebody forgot to patch the firewall. *ducks*

    --

    --
    If you moderate this, then your children will be next.

  109. Insert "don't overclock in your noc" joke here by otis+wildflower · · Score: 1

    .. and they could have halt -n'd with a legitimate reason..

    Still from what I can see with my nonexistent Dutch nobody was hurt and backups were fairly solid, which is about all you can ask for at a time like this.. Still, you know what this means.. NEW TOYS!!!!

  110. NOC-out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess you could say it was NOCed out.

  111. Cause? Injuries? by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    Just curious if everyone is ok, and if they have found a cause yet..

    *insert M$ terrorist joke here*

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  112. Students! by flippet · · Score: 5, Funny
    The Register has a story about it. I like the paragraph at the end...

    Twente's high-speed network was originally constructed to provide students with access to high-speed Internet access for their studies. It soon became one of the major hubs for peer-to-peer exchange programs like KaZaA. This perceived misuse of Internet resources caused former Dutch education minister Loek Hermans to comment: "It would be nice if the students at Twente University would use their fast connections for information and education purposes, instead of downloading huge amounts of porn."

    Phil, just me

    --
    "Cattle Prods solve most of life's little problems."
  113. Grrr by Zathruss · · Score: 1

    You know, fuckit, one day someone, somewhere, may come up with something really cool like cold fusion, zero point energy, whatever... and no one will know about it.. Why is that? Because it'll be bloody slashdot'ed right out of existence within five minutes of being posted. goddamnit.

    1. Re:Grrr by Zathruss · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I posted this to the "fan wing" story. Damn gremlins....

    2. Re:Grrr by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Even if there were repeatable steps to yield the same fantastic results of some new discovery, it would probably get laughed out of slashdot anyway by the majority of the readers.

      "Extraordinary results require extraordinary proof!"
      "Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
      "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

      And so on.

    3. Re:Grrr by Zathruss · · Score: 1
      ..."it would probably get laughed out of slashdot anyway by the majority of the readers.
      I know, and it has many times before. I was basically venting my frustration at the fact that everytime something nifty comes along, I have to wait hours till I can read about it. Its not like the blurb tells us anything useful, (mostly).
  114. Final job by bullgod · · Score: 1

    Request failed: printer on fire.

  115. Re:moderators on crack by Zathruss · · Score: 0

    Because Mr AC, the "grandparent" isn't a freaking goatse.cx link.

  116. Terrorism by SamMichaels · · Score: 1, Troll

    I'm surprised noone has screamed "OH NO TERRORISM" yet.

    Seems like everytime something happens we have to blame the evil terrorists first...then find out what actually happened.

    1. Re:Terrorism by osu-neko · · Score: 1
      Piss of the USA? No problem. But piss off hackers? The terrorists know better...

      [More likely, technoculture remains below their radar. They'll go after Hollywood before Silicon Valley...]

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    2. Re:Terrorism by Koos · · Score: 2
      I'm surprised noone has screamed "OH NO TERRORISM" yet.
      It did not happen in the US ;-)
      --
      The Virtual Bookcase: book reviews
  117. Won't someone PLEASE think of the servers... by Nonillion · · Score: 1

    At least no one lost their life in this fire. Well, unless you are a server. Hopefully this will turn out to be an accident and not arson or botched terrorist act. It always bums me out when inocent servers lose their lives ;)

    --
    "I bow to no man" - Riddick
  118. Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Sorry for their loss, but somebody had to post this...

    World's Most Dangerous Server Rooms

    Yes, I'm a bad bad person. But evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

  119. Re:moderators on crack by Zathruss · · Score: 1

    Ug... will someone please shoot me now? The "grandparent" is indeed a goatse.cx link. And I need some sleep. Sheesh, I never thought I'd have to apologise to an AC...

  120. burn by pr0nbot · · Score: 1

    Is this what happens when you're slashdotted by God?

  121. Re:CNN claims it's a deliberate act! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hahaha! Even better. I had failed to notice the spelling due to a serious lack of sleep / coffee. Thank you.

  122. Twente University targeted in piracy raids 1 year by Megasphaera+Elsdenii · · Score: 1

    Might this fire have something to do with this, one cannot escape wondering?

  123. Al Gore already took that idea... by DanEsparza · · Score: 1, Redundant
    What a stunning idea. Perhaps they should call it the internet

    Nah. Al Gore already took that name. Or was it the 'Information superhighway'?

    :-)

  124. Sad by ledow · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe it was a flame war between students? Were they overclocking? The dangers of using FireWire. Were their harddrives Quantum Fireballs? (They are now) Is this what you get when you try to hot-swap them?

    Other sad jokes will no doubt follow.

    1. Re:Sad by ledow · · Score: 1

      Were the students playing on Heat.net too much? Did they do too many warm reboots?

  125. warez by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That'll piss off the warez monkeys. They were a source of several really big sites...

    Kind of hard for them to complain though. :-)

  126. translation.. by mikevdg · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is a translation from the telegraaf (which, btw, isn't the best newspaper in holland, but anyway..)

    "University network down from fire"

    "ENSCHEDE - A fire in the computing center from the university of Twente (UT) in Enschede has caused a few 10's of millions of euros damage on Wednesday.

    The fire, which broke out about 8:00am, has disabled the universities network. There were no injuries. The fire department has cleared out several buildings in the nearby facinity. The IT departments of the UT and a part of the business studies department were housed in the building where the fire broke out. The building was three stories high.

    The fire department fought the fire with several dozen people and estimated that they would need the whole day to get the fire under control. There are, until now, no dangerous substances released. The cause of the outbreak is not yet known.

    According to Van Vught, a backup of the network's data has been made. "All data have been safely stored". Because of exams, there were no classes at the time. There were also few students on the campus on wednesday. Exams on wednesday have been cancelled.

    Staff at the UT want to set up a temporary network, which can take several days. Thousands of staff and students can not make use of the campus network until a temporary network has been installed.

    One on-looking business studies student is shocked (?): "incredibly sad. It means that I can't do my assignments. Doubtless, a temporary building will need to be set-up to help the situation". The Saxion Polytechn in Enschede has made room available.

    The web-site from the Enschede city council is not available because of the fire. The council used the servers from the UT. The Saxion Polytech is also without internet access for the same reason."

    Okay, this translation is a wee-bit too literal, but it's understandable.

    Michael.

  127. The cause of the fire? by Lethyos · · Score: 4, Funny

    So wait, the University of Twente NOC caught fire. Why? Was there a story posted on Slashdot's front page that linked to a server at their location? Or was this fire caused by something other than a hardy slashdotting?

    --
    Why bother.
    1. Re:The cause of the fire? by SeanAhern · · Score: 1

      Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 7, Line 66?

    2. Re:The cause of the fire? by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 5, Funny


      They should have just let Milton have his stapler...

    3. Re:The cause of the fire? by pmind · · Score: 1

      Is this the guy in that famous movie "Office space" ? :)

      I like the way they destroy that printer hehe...

  128. Could this be...? by fruity1983 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Microsoft said they were looking for new strategies to counter the rise of linux, but who woulda thought they'd go this far?

    --
    I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
  129. Slashdot Coincidence? by Destoo · · Score: 1

    Seeing this happen just a few hours after the story about Which desktop distro will die first? is quite scary.

    </sarcasm>

    --
    Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
  130. I bet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I bet they were stress testing Athlon T.birds there.

  131. Donations? by Akardam · · Score: 2

    I understand from a post a ways down that the University is currently having financial difficulties. Does anyone know if there's been something setup, whether for the University in general or Debian in specific to accept donations? I know (even though I don't use Debian) that I would contribute a few dollars to help them pay for all the new equipment, and I suspect that there's more'n a few geeks out there who feel the same way.

    1. Re:Donations? by jpetts · · Score: 1

      I understand from a post a ways down that the University is currently having financial difficulties.

      Did anybody see the Dean beforehand sneaking round with a can of petrol?

      --
      Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
  132. Elmer Fudd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the University of Twente

    Most famous alumnus: Elmer Fudd

  133. clicky clicky (was Re:The registers take on thing) by CoolVibe · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    Did you know you could use a subset of HTML on slashdot? Check it out:

    click

    Next time use the allmighty <a> tag.

  134. Utwente - The proof that admins shouldn't smoke by fluor2 · · Score: 2

    Utwente - The proof that admins shouldn't smoke

  135. security.debian.org backup online by m0i · · Score: 2

    Apparently, klecker.debian.org (194.109.137.218) is now hosting security.debian.org (as seen in NS updates propagating).

    --
    have you been defaced today?
  136. Re:Halon dumps? -- not if the whole building is in by Salamander · · Score: 2
    I would *love* to see a halon system capable of stopping that...

    I wouldn't. Any halon system capable of doing that would literally be a killer in its own right.

    --
    Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
  137. You mean HiveCache (formerly MojoNation)? by Fencepost · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's exactly what the Mojo Nation folks are doing now. Info at http://www.mojonation.net/.

    --
    fencepost
    just a little off
  138. Err...ummm...uh....ummmmm... by President+A.+Lincoln · · Score: 0, Funny




    ...I believe you have my stapler?


  139. Conspiracy Theory!!! by fantomas · · Score: 2

    Come on guys, where are the conspiracy theories???


    UT hosted HAL2001 last year, surely it was the FBI / CIA / KGB / SMERSH / Mysterons / [enter your bad guys of choice...] getting back at those pesky linux hackers?

    1. Re:Conspiracy Theory!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Seriously
      There was more to hal than silly linux

  140. Uh-oh by NBrooke271 · · Score: 1

    Did we slashdot these guys latley?

    --
    Free messageboards and more! Your girlfriend's seen myWang
  141. Great Infrastructure? No. by President+A.+Lincoln · · Score: 0



    Apparently, having fire supression gear in the lab was something these masters of infrastructure never thought of. Personally, anything involving Debian and fire sounds like a good thing to me. Now, if only the rest of the project would go up in flames..I can only dream.

  142. fire supression systems? by eclectric · · Score: 2

    sure, they kill everyone in the room, but they're also pretty good at putting out fires. What are they using... water?

    1. Re:fire supression systems? by kylegordon · · Score: 1

      What has a higher chance of succeeding? An entire burning building, or a room full of Halon? I know which one I would put my money on.

  143. You name it by complexmath · · Score: 1

    For one thing, the NOCs and the switching centers of the major switched carriers aren't always even in the same building. The only people in the switching centers are people that need to be there and switching centers of major carriers all even occasionally share a building (maybe bad from a single-point-of-failure standpoint, but it means that they all get to exploit a single well-designed and well-placed building for a slightly more reasonable cost). The hardware rooms are all temperature controlled, are on replenishable power backup systems (to account for theoretically unlimited time off-grid), and protected from fire by gas systems (like Halon). They also generally don't have anything flammable anywhere (how did this fire get started anyway?). You've got to remember, in the US anyway, phone companies are considered utilities and governed by special rules as a result. If a city were being firebombed and police had ordered that civilians not be allowed on the streets, switch operators would be an exception to that rule. It's highly unlikely any of our switching centers would fail from much besides a natural disaster (floods have interrupted service before) or a deliberate attack.

  144. If a man asks you for his stapler back... by HaloZero · · Score: 1

    ...here's an example of why you should give it to him.

    Gee whillickers. That sucks. I've heard great things about their infrastructure, mostly about HAL and how it went.

    I can't read Dutch, or whatever the hell those articles were posted in, but, does anyone know how exactly the fire started? As we speak, I'm getting dressed with one hand and typing this with the other, on my way over to my own Uni's ops room. Just have to make sure my babies are ok.

    --
    Informatus Technologicus
  145. apt-get by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    apt-get

  146. Twente Hard NOCs? by digitac · · Score: 1

    Oh come on, where's all of the jokes about the "School of Hard NOCs"?

    "The School of Twente Hard NOCs offers course on Fire Safety"

    42

  147. Re:Well Damn... Nobody Hurt! by The+J+Kid · · Score: 1

    ..wel, there was nobody hurt or killed.

    There has been a lot of asbestos freed, but otherwise it's ok. Everything is backuped and HP will have a small part of the network up by tomorrow.
    To get the whole network up will take 3 weeks, insides say.

    The main point is, is that the warez servers are not affected (I'm NOT kidding), that's because they are mostly located in the dormitories of the campus and not in the computer center.

    security, qa & non-us.debian.org ARE down...but there are mirrors, mentioned elsewhere in this topic.

    --
    Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
  148. OpenSource Lightning? by Diesel+Dave · · Score: 1

    How about this one:

    Write free software
    ????
    Insure Everything
    Light a Match
    PROFIT!

  149. So, when does the pledge drive start? by bADlOGIN · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since Debian doesn't have a 40 Billion dollar monopoly warchest to draw from, I'm assuming that some funds will need to be raised to get new boxes. This is a perfect time for uses to step up and make a contribution back.

    --
    *** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
  150. Perens-kabob by Gothmolly · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Hopefully Bruce Perens was in the building at the time.

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
    1. Re:Perens-kabob by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the reminder of how depressingly low a human being can sink...

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  151. NONONONO! by greenalbatros · · Score: 0

    now the GI's have free run! we are doomed! doomed!!!!!!!!!!!!

    --
    this sig steers like a cow. and i can prove it
  152. More Photo's: (Re:Photo's ) by The+J+Kid · · Score: 1

    can be found at the official backup utwente site:

    http://srv1ut.utwente.virtu.nl/nieuws/items/brand/

    --
    Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
  153. The really important thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who the hell cares about debian or the people, as long as the warez are okay!

    Psst! Anyone know where I can get a hold of the Doom3 alpha?

    1. Re:The really important thing... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Psst! Anyone know where I can get a hold of the Doom3 alpha?

      Just check a past article on this groovy warez site

    2. Re:The really important thing... by lhdentra · · Score: 1

      Or if you've already got it... warez.slashdot.org.

  154. This isn't homeowner's insurance by wiredog · · Score: 2

    Business insurance is more costly, but has better service. If the word gets out that a certain company isn't able/willing to pay claims on policies with high quarterly premiums expeditiously, then all the companies that used to buy from that agency will go elsewhere. Fast.

    --

    Best Slashdot Co
    1. Re:This isn't homeowner's insurance by bad-badtz-maru · · Score: 2


      Have you ever filed a claim against a business insurance policy? I was involved in the filing of a $1.1M USD claim involving hurricane damage and I assure you, the check is not there the next day... or the day after... or the day after... even though our annual premium, for more than seven years, had been more than four times the amount of the claim. And this was a major insurance carrier.

      maru

  155. OhNO! More.. or Less.. lemmings.. by ixxologic · · Score: 1

    OMG.. Arnold.c64.org wasnt hosted at UTWENTE was it?

  156. Cause of fire? by Kakarat · · Score: 1
    Perhaps they didn't replace a recalled battery?

    --
    "I bet I'll get blamed for this." --Mayor Quimby
  157. On second thought... by rholland356 · · Score: 1

    Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to replace the consoles with laptops...

    http://www.computerproblems.com/answer.cfm?Answe rI D=14867&QuestionID=14929&CatID=40

    "Dude, your datacenter got Delled!"

  158. Class IV construction by mmol_6453 · · Score: 2

    I don't doubt it. That's a Class IV construction; I.e. mostly concrete and steel. It's really hard for fire to spread in buildings like that; You'd have to have notably flammable materials in any direction the spreads.

    An excellent example of Class IV construction would be any recently build NFL stadium. I haven't been in one often, but I was struck by how far apart any flammable material (food carts, etc.) is. Even the hallway ceiling I saw was actually the bottom of the concrete steps above.

    --
    What's this Submit thingy do?
    1. Re:Class IV construction by haligan · · Score: 3, Informative

      As a former fire fighter and fire inspector I must comment that yes the construction may have been type IV , but like most people , Architects included, you are forgetting that the contents are mostly flammable, (ie carpet, paint, some ceiling tiles). Mike B.

    2. Re:Class IV construction by mmol_6453 · · Score: 2

      As a former fire fighter and fire inspector

      Explains your username. :)

      ...forgetting that the contents are mostly flammable, (ie carpet, paint, some ceiling tiles).

      I thought about that, but I presumed that the materials would be somewhat spaced out; distance between couches for comfort, room between rows of computers (in labs) for safety. Things like that.

      All in all, though, good point.

      --
      What's this Submit thingy do?
  159. They Needed Low-Tech Fire Protection by 0x69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Our ISP bought an old legal office building for their HQ and colo facility. The place was built with file rooms to safeguard tons of irreplaceable paper documents - imagine thick concrete walls & ceilings, with heavy steel fire doors, rated to preserve the contents through an EVERYTHING-else-burned-to-the-ground fire.

    Critical stuff is spread between the file rooms, with metal conduit, etc. protecting the few small holes they added for wiring.

    Steel & reinforced concrete aren't quite obsolete.

    --
    It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
  160. more information by Ruliz+Galaxor · · Score: 2, Informative

    I live about 5km away and at 11:00 CET I could still see a lot of brown/grey smoke in the air.

    frontpage.fok.nl (a dutch news site) reports the following, well at least not the article itself but in a reaction to it: "The D-wing was recently renovated to make it more 'fireproof', so there are no harmful gasses and such.
    Every morning a backup is made from all the data. Unfortunetely, before this backup could be taken, it was already destroyed, which means data from yesterday morning is lost.

    Tonight (CET of course) there will probably be an emergency network running at 10kb/s and the server will probably be online in 3 days. Until then Teletop (some kind of information system for communication between tutors and students) and the utwente email will be down. Something about the building: The TWRC building some kind of monument which included that the outside of the building cannot be changed. This means the renovation plans have to be the same as the orignal building."

    At least I hope they got rid of the air-problem, because it really stinked in that building anyways. Too bad everything to lost. They were just about to move all the servers to another location.
    I was just printing my report which I had to hand in at 12:00 CET when I heard it. I worked the last 24 hours to complete the damn thing and then this. :(
    Lucky for me I don't have internet from the university, but it still sucks bigtime.

  161. firewall by Ruliz+Galaxor · · Score: 1

    So much about a firewall...

    sig(h)

  162. Re:+5 OT: Karma by Stonehead · · Score: 1

    Your reply is indeed off-topic (just like this one) and may even be a troll. The text is inconsistent and even flamebait - why would schools not teach knowledge? But I find this one of the most beautiful -1-rated comments I have seen in time.
    Thanks.

  163. this guy probably did it... by h4x0r-3l337 · · Score: 2
    Jos Boersema, usenet cook

    (yeah, I know physics department != NOC, but this guy isn't very bright)

  164. next time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Next time don't be so fucking cheap and buy a fucking case ok you bums.

  165. Insurance money... not much by erpbridge · · Score: 2

    Back the end of Sept 2001 we had a lightning strike on campus where I work. It twisted around a tree, then went into the ground.

    The UPS's worked great, and none of the power was affected at all. Howerver, the problem was when the lightning hit the ground, it traveled in all directions... eventually hitting the buildings themselves, and found the bundles of CAT-5 running below the floors, in the walls.

    Being a small campus, we only lost 14 workstation network cards, 4 printer network cards, and 1 workstation. However, one of those buildings was where our main fiber / copper switch was for the campus. We lost two blades on that, as well as a few lesser switches.

    The moral being: Insurance company only gave us about 40% of what everything was worth. In something like the fire we're all talking about, they may give some more, but nowhere near enough to bring the campus back up to where it was. There is going to be some significant cost to this university.

    1. Re:Insurance money... not much by rosewood · · Score: 2

      Someone was under insured then or not properly insured

      You can be covered so that everything ruined from that would be COVERED

      but hey, that costs MONEY

      --
      The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
  166. No! MPAA/RIAA by bsd-mon · · Score: 2, Funny

    It soon became one of the major hubs for peer-to-peer exchange programs like KaZaA

    DMCA enforcement in full effect

    --
    To read makes our speaking English good. - X. Harris
    1. Re:No! MPAA/RIAA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "DMCA enforcement in full effect"

      And misfiring again... This time not even in the right jurisdiction.

  167. Hey! Those are in order! by mmol_6453 · · Score: 2

    Interesting that almost all the pics there are in time-sequence...You could make an animation out of it.

    I don't know how, but I encourage other people to try.

    --
    What's this Submit thingy do?
  168. Re:In other news - right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He, you might be right about that! :-)
    (I'm one of the students who has an internet connection at the University of Utrecht.)

  169. Two sites don't cost much more than one by billstewart · · Score: 2

    Instead of putting all the computers in one building, put half of them in two buildings. The main cost difference is some extra real-estate preparation. And if you've got a multi-gigabit network, it's going to multiple buildings, so spread out your routers. Huge centralized computers were really useful back when mainframes were the size of dozens of refrigerators, but if you're using modern machines, they're either rack-mounted or pizza-boxes, and or else they're PC-shaped. But you've got multiples of them and can spread them around.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
    1. Re:Two sites don't cost much more than one by pellaeon · · Score: 1

      Yeah, you could do that, but like a countryman of mine (apparently) remarked, there's a shortage of about 700 million euros in real estate (both maintenance and new) in the higher education echelons.

      Spread most of that among 14 universities and you can imagine the space shortages...
      On top of that: server rooms aren't exactly as cheap as offices.

      And if you've got a really expensive piece of equipment that you simply can't split up, what do you do?

      --
      -- /bin/coffee missing. universe halted.
    2. Re:Two sites don't cost much more than one by billstewart · · Score: 2
      No, but while you probably need more total air conditioning if you split between two buildings, you need only about half as much space per building as you did before, because you're putting about half the stuff in each. So instead of one building with N square meters of server rooms and another building with N square meters of cheap low-quality graduate student desk space (:-), you need two buildings, each one with N/2 square meters of computers and N/2 square meters of desks. Obviously some pieces of equipment can't be split, so you have to decide how badly you need two of them for reliability - but for almost everything in the computer business, prices are much lower than in past years, comparable to expensive physics or chemistry equipment (which is more likely to catch fire.)


      While it's too bad that the equipment was lost, and much worse that data was lost, one advantage of replacing old computers with new ones is that the same amount of computer capacity will cost you less money with new equipment, and will use less floor space, electricity, and air conditioning, and will cost less to maintain than the old equipment. Depending on your campus wiring infrastructure, it may be possible to take advantage of some other new architectural developments, like peer-to-peer storage. It's not just for pirate music - the cost of PC data storage is almost down to $1000 per terabyte, and some of the applications can be reliable enough to use it effectively.

      --

      Bill Stewart
      New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
    3. Re:Two sites don't cost much more than one by pellaeon · · Score: 1

      But if you do it that way and one of the server areas gets devastated you lose half your capacity. You still lose out from an operational point of view.

      It all comes down to: what do you do when you _don't_ have the money to duplicate everything? Sure, I'd like to have everything quadrupled and in multiple buildings, but with university budgets that's not going to happen any time soon (i.e. 100 years =)

      I agree completely with your second paragraph, btw.

      --
      -- /bin/coffee missing. universe halted.
  170. The cause is clear by Maskirovka · · Score: 2

    I guess the their boss fired the bofh.

  171. more bad puns by Linuxthess · · Score: 1
    The HotLine Server crashed and burned, whilst the CD-R Burner was spittin out toasty-coasters. Thats what you get for playing with Alcohol 120% and Nero. Damn pyros.

    ----------

    --

    I sig, therefore I was.
  172. Enschede ?? by fred666 · · Score: 1

    Enschede ?? Remember: about 4 years ago, a fireworks factory ended up in flames. throwing out *huge blocks of concrete* in the sky. Many houses in the neightborhood were gone in smoke.

    Enschede is a really hot place. :-)

  173. Do NOT stay at ground level with HALON! by billstewart · · Score: 4, Informative
    Halon is heavier than air, so if you're somewhere there's been a Halon dump, DO NOT HIT THE GROUND! Walk/run as upright as you comfortably can. The usual "stay low" advice is because hot air and smoke are lighter than regular air, so the regular air stays near the floor.


    Halon (or at least most of the Halons used for fire suppression; not sure about all of them) is non-toxic, though it'll get you a bit high, like nitrous oxide or most solvents, so being stuck in the stuff won't injure you quickly (except from flying objects that were blown around by the gas pressure.) However, it's no substitute for oxygen, and you'll probably be wanting some oxygen real soon now. If you can remember not to breathe in the stuff, try not to breathe deeply, because there's more oxygen left in your lungs than the stuff you'll be breathing in, and unfortunately, while your body can generally figure out not to breathe in water or hot smoke, it's not as good at realizing that near-room-temperature inert gases aren't very useful. Mostly, don't worry about it - find a safe door to run for and run for it, and do some deep breathing once you're outside, and try to close the door behind you.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  174. OT: dutch (was Re:English, you insensitive clod!) by CoolVibe · · Score: 1
    So many people in Holland know English that they won't even speak Dutch to you unless you're completely fluent, or a local.

    Favourite prank I tend to play on foreigners:

    Foreigner: (trying really hard) "Hoe gaat het?"
    Me: "What did you just say about my mother?"
    F: "Uh, uh, sorry... I didn't mean to.."
    M: "Gotcha! Just kidding!"

    Also, teaching foreigners lude words in dutch is lots of fun.

    As for the "grokking" "understanding" and "enlightenment", well I tend to use all of those those loosely. It's just my whacky sense of humor I guess...

  175. Uplink back by MiDS · · Score: 1

    Thanks to Progress and Essent we have an uplink again.

    1. Re:Uplink back by Venix · · Score: 1

      To explain this post a bit. Thanks to the great guys of SNT, CIV and the ones named above, the uplink is back here. This is realized by setting setting up 4 sattelite dishes, and now there is a uplink through these dishes. It still isn't as fast as it used to be, but at least we're back online and much faster than was foreseen this morning.

  176. Back online... kinda by smeagol415 · · Score: 1

    Hi, this is a message from an Utwente student living on the university campus. We're back online.

    A couple of guys set up a connection from one of the student buildings to the BB building which has a new uplink, using transmitter dishes.

    It will take quite a while before things get back to normal. But at least we can check email and surf the web now.

  177. Things are being restored slowly by wichert · · Score: 3, Informative

    Lots of people are helping to restore the lost network and computing facilities. People from XS4ALL drove from one side of the country to bring spare junipers and other equipment. The campus is already back online thanks to Virtu. Mail for student is being stored at a new backup MX server courtesy of Terena and zedz.net

    Debian is restoring the lost services on klecker. At this moment qa.debian.org is up and running and the non-US and security archives are available as well, although their backend systems have not been restored yet.

    Valuable lessons have been learned though: it is very useful to have machines on standby where you can switches services to when needed. Having backups of important data is also really useful (and we could have done a bit better at that. UTwente apparently has good off-site backups of its own data though). And having good insurance is also definitely useful.

  178. Re:moderators on crack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now take it like the bitch that you are!

    yeah... thats it...

  179. Backup strategies vary widely by billstewart · · Score: 2
    Some companies run their own backup data centers, some use backup / disaster recovery vendors, some don't. It varies a lot by customer and industry. Another strategy that's been emerging rapidly is the use of Internet colo centers as backup sites (primarily the rackspace-oriented colo rather than managed hosting colo.) Engineering companies and companies that formed from mergers of similarly-sized companies often have two data centers anyway, so they'll use one to back up the other.

    The big value of many of the disaster recover vendors, beside consulting skills, was traditionally that they owned mainframes, and assuming not too many people had disasters at the same time, they could mount your data on their mainframe without you having to spend a few million dollars to buy a spare mainframe - so they were basically selling part-time use of the mainframes. Transaction-based online services companies could sometimes live with this kind of environment, but not usually - if it takes a day to rebuild your database from backup tapes and journalling, that's probably ok for a manufacturing company, and maybe ok for a traditional bank, but it's a total disaster for an airline ticket sales system or an online stockbroker; even a couple of hours may be too expensive. So those companies often have to run their own backup sites, or at the very least will have a dedicated backup mainframe at the backup vendor.

    One of the interesting technologies that's starting to affect this business is metropolitan-distance fiber optics for Storage Area Networks. Somebody else mentioned iSCSI, but for the mainframe world, Fibre Channel lets you connect processors and disk farms at distances up to about 30km, and for real computers (:-) Gigabit Ethernet on fiber also has a long range (and eventually 10gigE will be mature.) This is especially useful in some niche markets - Wall Street trading and banking firms can put disk farms in New Jersey, partly for physical diversity and partly for real estate cost reasons. They're also good for other downtown/suburban connections. Sometimes these are managed by the customer, but the internet data center business and local fiber providers are going hog-wild trying to sell this. (I work for AT&T, which is selling this.)

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  180. did the engineers do this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope they remembered to 'duck and cover'.

  181. security.debian.org down by slifox · · Score: 1

    And in unrelated news, a huge hole was uncovered in Debian systems today, allowing anyone, from anywhere, to gain root access simply by connecting to port 80 on the machine.

  182. Actually they are old Sys V UNIX messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LP1 on fire
    stty: not a typewriter
    process forked, no more processes

    are all old Sys V UNIX error messages.

  183. PROVEN FACT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hyperlinks are hard.

  184. Bad Jokes? by duncf · · Score: 1

    If I hear another bad joke about "flame wars" or "firewalls" in reference to this, I think I might puke. :-)

  185. Re:Nice Moderation by scott_evil · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ... I hope nobody was hurt.

    After that, I wish them luck getting back online.


    Someone explain how the FUCK that can be considered insightful?

    Yet again we see the need for moderators to pass an IQ test.

  186. Works already by sabri · · Score: 0

    Well, you can say whatever you want, but they fixet connectivity quite fast: 21:57 -!- Wh|teDude [~whiter@utwente-gw.virtu.nl] has joined #clue (14 hours after the fire). SurfNET is already building a new pop and they expect it to be productionready.

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  187. Re:+5 OT: Karma by DancingSword · · Score: 1

    Knowledge, in the sense intended, means "wisdom", not facts.

    There is difference.

    The substance of realization is immeasureable-compassion, and the means of realization is wisdom. Facts are just objects that attach one's mind to matter and ignosises.

    karma and /. "karma" aren't identical: karma is cause-and-effect law, in mind rather than Newtonian mindless matter.

    Eastern understanding is, to our culture's prejudice, beneath dirt, but is oft eleganter than everything we've come up with, and oft enough declares quantum stuff ( see Alexandra David-Neel and Lama Yongden's "Secret Oral Teachings in Tibetan Buddhist Sects" CityLights.com where the discreteness of "quantum" reality is outright declared, but ignored by us... ).

    --
    Messages to/for me ( in me journal )
  188. Damned if I remember the code by CaptainZapp · · Score: 1
    DECs Zurich office, which - aside that it was inbetween nothing and nowhere - was a great place to work.

    What stunned me at that time was that they had sprinkler in a fairly modern building. I understood better when I got a hang of that companies general attitude towards its environment and its employees at that time.

    --
    ich bin der musikant

    mit taschenrechner in der hand

    kraftwerk

  189. Re:The world's most warped error message... gone by rastos1 · · Score: 1
    That one may be gone by this time:
    patch-2.4.20.log:
    Alan Cox :
    • replace end user confusing "on fire" joke with real info
  190. Idiot moderators by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The above comment is right on, which idiot modded this down as flamebait?!?!? METAMODERATORS!

  191. Last Post! by alpg · · Score: 1

    No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the
    Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea,
    Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if
    a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes
    me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know
    for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
    -- John Donne, "No Man is an Iland"

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...