I wonder how much data can be processed compared to a modern "hackable" system? My guess is close to nil. How much of it gets lost? How much of the paper is duplicated for backups? How much time is spent looking through filling cabinets for relevant data? How is data transmitted - physically mailed, or faxed, or scanned and emailed, which is hackable anyway? There are costs to both practices.
I mean, gathering all kinds of junk may make you loose sight of what you really are about. See for instance various self-criticism from within the three letter agencies, about how operational capabilities were lost in favour of hoovering up as much data as possible. Most of which is useless. When compiling and processing data is very painful, you make sure you compile and process the best data you can find.
I'm not saying we should go back to clay tablets or anything. I'm just saying in any rapid technology transition, we risk loosing the good with the bad.
Analyzing the data becomes more difficult as you put quantity over quality wrt how you're structuring data and where its coming from.
There's a database somewhere of Do Not Fly suspicious people, but how was it compiled? Should we put any weight on these lists of names?
I think this is what OP was alluding to, when it is more painful to collect and organize data, you make sure the data is worth collecting and organizing.
Do you know that though? does the system know if it misses someone? How long does it take? The linked article suggests employees are banking months of vacation time in anticipation of the long delays in processing.
filing systems are fairly robust. it's down to trade-offs. valuable data is better kept offline and the costs can actually be less than keeping it in cloud database
On the other hand, it can cause issues if it gets forgotten.
I used to explore the steam tunnels under my university. One of our favorite places to get into was this massive room full of forgotten athletic equipment beneath a basketball stadium scheduled to be torn down in a couple years. In the middle of that massive room was an unlocked filing cabinet full of about 3 decades worth of employee information. Addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, social security numbers, all sorts of goodies.
We obviously never did anything with it but like. Damn.
Depends on your definition of hack. If you mean “compromise” the only safe assumption is all of it.
Has any employee read a document then relayed what they saw to a third party outside the facility? Or pocketed/copied a document? Or altered a document? Or destroyed a document?
How would you know? How can you assume they have not?
how easy is it to leak millions of records? digital data it takes seconds to do, hauling filing cabinets out of that facility is exponentially harder almost intractable
>“On a daily basis, we would get from five to 50 e-mails, asking everybody to take time out of their day to search their desks for case files,” the former worker said. That worker said the experience of hunting down lost paperwork and lost files inside an underground cavern had been bad enough to force a career change.
>The worker’s new job: setting off explosives.
>“I’m handling live ordnance on a daily basis, just to get out of there,” said the worker, whose company blasts holes in the ground for oil and gas wells. “One of the five worst jobs in the world was a great alternative to being down there.”
Since when is getting to blow shit up one of the worst jobs in the world? Sure it might be more dangerous than pushing papers but it's still every teenager's dream job along with astronaut and monster truck driver.
Edit: I forgot I'm on a board where the prevailing groupthink is that the slightest physical danger is to be avoided at all costs.
Most explosives (especially the kinds used commercially) are very stable. It's a feature. I can't see it being any more dangerous than anything that involves standing on the side of the road (tow truck driver, garbage man, cop) or working at height (various construction and maintenance trades). The only reason it could be scary is because people fear what they're unfamiliar with.
Not a business center, but if you ever get the chance to go to the The Wieliczka Salt Mine just outside of Krakow, Poland don't miss it — absolutely stunning (and easily accessible by local public transit).
Supposedly, it was one of the Tolkien's inspirations for the mines in the Lord of the Rings. And because it's a salt mine, the air is very clean. They used to send asthma sufferers into the mines as a form of therapy.
It's an experience for sure. We toured near closing time and ended up on our own tour with one of their historians. She was able to answer a lot of our engineering questions about the mine and their approach to preservation. A fun fact is that since the mine is made of salt, the rooms and passages twist and deform under pressure and humidity. The tour for the masses is light and saltysweet, but if you have the chance to visit try calling in advance to see if you can get a guide who can delve more deeply.
There is a salt mine in Kansas too, 600 feet underground. Neat tour. I seem to recall seeing a Cylon from the original Battlestar Galactica down there.
How do they handle the exhaust from vehicles inside the mines? I've seen cases where they only allow electric vehicles with no exhaust inside facilities like this.
I did some work at a wolframium mine in Portugal, and all the workers would come down the mine in 4x4 pickups. All the excavators and heavy machinery were diesel as well. Somehow, there wasn't a lot of smoke under the ground - I guess the ventilation system must have been really good.
Actually you need ventilation also for the actual humans.
A common "standard" for mines/tunnelling is:
3 Cubic meters/minute per worker
4 cubic meters/minute per diesel HP (calculated on the max power output of the engines)
Electric vehicles (battery powered) are usually not considered as they normally represent a fraction of the power involved in the construction/digging.
The large machines that are electrically powered (via cable/wire) are not included as they do not produce exhaust fumes nor particles/vapours, but they may be considered in some cases for the amount of heat they produce.
From the bit of time I did working in warehouse software, all the indoors warehouses I've seen were exclusively using electric forklifts, specifically because gas/oil coulnd't be used because of the fumes.
OT: Recently the fire department called me because the carbon monoxide detector in one of my buildings alarmed. That was mysterious since in the summer the furnaces are not used. Eventually we discovered that the cleaning crew was using propane-driven buffers on the floor! We're not going to allow that anymore. It's a 6000 sq ft office that is mostly carpeted; they certainly don't need to use dangerous equipment that was designed for large buildings like sports stadiums.
I think it was in Suarez's book 'Kill Decision' where they went to one of these facilities to try to hide from drones. Great book, but I didn't realize these facilities already existed.
Looks like a datacenter here would have more cred than that datacenter “in the catacombs of Paris” we read about couple of weeks ago.
Article says it's mostly warehouses but given that temp, looks like it would work well for Datacenters. Do datacenters in general use geothermal energy for cooling?
It would definitely be beneficial for AC, but electricity is still more expensive in Missouri than a place like Washington state or Montana. You might be better off in a colder climate with cheaper electricity.
Given its central location in the middle of the country, you may have benefits for having low-ish average latency from both coasts, but I'm not sure how close the mine is to any long haul internet backbone.
This is the direction I hope the Boring Company goes in. Since underground temperature is so well regulated, subterranean structures may have some good applications as climate change continues to progress.
This seems like an incredibly good place for a data center, particularly given it already even comes with multiple fibre uplinks...and incredibly low temperatures.
Limestone can be on the "softer" side (part of why it formed natural caves so easily) so that might not be the greatest idea, at the very least for liability reasons.
I heard Louisville, KY's "Mega Cavern" added climbing walls, but I believe they are the usual sort of indoor "adventure park" climbing walls.
I've heard the zipline is a lot of fun. Keep hoping for a group outing excuse to visit the Mega Cavern. Usually if I'm by myself and thinking of heading that direction I'm more likely to wander the Zoo.
