Gyroscopic Investing

Folks,

Thanks. Some good stuff.

I will begin investigating as soon as the weekend obligations are over. There might be a surprise or two yet to be discovered.

Desert wrote:

Maddy wrote:. . . And old people can't operate Facebook.

Yep.

+2

And people in my generation didn't know how to crank start a car or shoe a horse. So what? It's called progress (not to be confused with "progressive" politics - or at least hopefully not).

If I were doing my own home data backup, I'd make a second backup of stuff I would hate to lose on Amazon Glacier. As it is, I just use Dropbox. It's essentially regular Amazon with a premium price for the syncing/sharing software, which is completely worth it to me. With all my research collaborations & lab, I'd be lost without it.

I once read an article comparing the costs of Amazon or similar cloud storage to the total costs (including electricity & hardware replacement) of running a live home backup system with NAS drives. The cloud came out cheaper. And the problem with DVD and USB is that you have to remember to backup frequently, and you probably don't do it often enough.

I'm out of touch with Windows, but Mac's Time Machine makes one-touch back up possible, and I hit the button several times a week (can also be set to auto). My backups are on a traditional hard drive, which will fail, but at 1 terabyte for US$50, I can have more than one.

Also, older folks: don't fall into the trap of thinking that an external drive or USB key is a backup if you took the original data off of your computer. Keep more than one copy!

WiseOne wrote:If I were doing my own home data backup, I'd make a second backup of stuff I would hate to lose on Amazon Glacier. As it is, I just use Dropbox. It's essentially regular Amazon with a premium price for the syncing/sharing software, which is completely worth it to me. With all my research collaborations & lab, I'd be lost without it.

I once read an article comparing the costs of Amazon or similar cloud storage to the total costs (including electricity & hardware replacement) of running a live home backup system with NAS drives. The cloud came out cheaper. And the problem with DVD and USB is that you have to remember to backup frequently, and you probably don't do it often enough.

And the extra benefit of storing your backups in the cloud is that the NSA can help you out if necessary.

Well, it seems that old people can't operate microwaves, either.

I've been using a borrowed microwave for the last several of weeks due to an injury that's made it hard to get around. Last night, I made my usual cup of tea by microwaving a ceramic mug full of water for 130 seconds--just as I have done on at least 50 prior occasions over the last few weeks. Exact same mug, exact same microwave, exact same time setting. Anyway, when the beeper went off, I reached into the microwave and grabbed the handle of the mug, which is normally cool to the touch, and promptly received a whopper of a burn to the inside of my third finger. Strangely, the water inside the mug was only warm, but the mug itself was so hot it required a pot holder to handle. WTF?

That has happened to me occasionally with my cherished old Correlle mug. Be careful!

Libertarian666 wrote:And the extra benefit of storing your backups in the cloud is that the NSA can help you out if necessary.

Exactly my reaction.

dualstow wrote:That has happened to me occasionally with my cherished old Correlle mug. Be careful!

For God's sake, don't send the social workers!

One thing the Snowden revelations did confirm is that encryption works. Encrypt it on your end, with a good, modern, trusted algorithm (and don't use the service's encryption) and you'll be fine.

I use Veracrypt. Works great. I couldn't get my dad into it, so I bought him the same USB key with a numeric keypad that I told craigr about and which he ended up buying. (Apricorn Aegis)

Xan: the WSJ mentions this morning quantum computers that will be able to crack encryption on "classical" computers. I guess we have a few years though. (?)

Maddy wrote:

dualstow wrote:That has happened to me occasionally with my cherished old Correlle mug. Be careful!

For God's sake, don't send the social workers!

hmm, good point. I suppose you can't guarantee that it won't be crackable in the future. Unless you encrypt with a one-time pad, of course, which is unbreakable even in theory.

Xan wrote:hmm, good point. I suppose you can't guarantee that it won't be crackable in the future. Unless you encrypt with a one-time pad, of course, which is unbreakable even in theory.

I'm off to wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad
Because for me, it's something I buy for my wife about every 3 1/2 weeks at the drugstore.

The NSA is welcome to enjoy my photo collection and the science-geek papers, grants and figures.

I have Veracrypt and should probably use it for sensitive stuff like tax records, but what's the point? My SSN and other personal data have been circulating around the nether regions of the world for years, and I'm sure there have been many more breaches than the 4 or 5 I've been told about. A hacker who can get past Dropbox's and Amazon's security layers almost certainly has all my personal data already. Like it or not, there is no such thing as online privacy, and you can't do anything about the fact that all your data are online. Credit freezing & monitoring is about as good as it gets.

WiseOne wrote:The NSA is welcome to enjoy my photo collection and the science-geek papers, grants and figures.

I have Veracrypt and should probably use it for sensitive stuff like tax records, but what's the point? My SSN and other personal data have been circulating around the nether regions of the world for years

True, but Veracrypt is not for your SSN. It's for protecting your tell-all memoir until it's posthumously published.

For anybody who's interested, a little nosing around the internet landed me on a site that explained the phenomenon of ceramic mugs suddenly becoming dangerously hot in the microwave. It seems that microwave energy affects only certain kinds of molecules, one of which is water. Ordinarily, dishware stays cool, or becomes only moderately hot as a result of heat transfer from the food being heated, because the material of which it is composed does not absorb microwave energy. But occasionally moisture enters a ceramic piece through a small crack or from repeated wear in the dishwasher, and when the piece is subjected to microwave energy, it "cooks." This, apparently, accounts for the vast majority of instances in which a piece of dishware that has been used for years in the microwave without any problem suddenly becomes branding-iron hot.

Live and learn.

Interesting.

Interesting Maddy!

Microwaves are the most annoying useful item ever. I will have to remember that about ceramic mugs.

dualstow wrote:I use Veracrypt. Works great. I couldn't get my dad into it, so I bought him the same USB key with a numeric keypad that I told craigr about and which he ended up buying. (Apricorn Aegis)

Xan: the WSJ mentions this morning quantum computers that will be able to crack encryption on "classical" computers. I guess we have a few years though. (?)

Maddy wrote:

dualstow wrote:That has happened to me occasionally with my cherished old Correlle mug. Be careful!

For God's sake, don't send the social workers!

Microsoft is spending a lot of money on developing quantum computers.

Of course that doesn't mean that they will succeed, but it won't be due to lack of trying.

Needless to say, they have other uses than just for decryption.

Update on my possible defective DVD-Rs.

Appears it's the DVD player. The blasted things kicks out store-bought Casablanca and Scent of A Woman with the same enthusiasm toward my home-burned DVD-Rs. I'll toss the villainous DVD player and hook up one of the remaining two. This may be easy. I will report back soon.

Reporting back.

My home-burned DVD-Rs are performing flawlessly on another DVD player.

Since my home-burned discs are more than 10 Years old, should I recopy them all from the master copies. Does their sitting for a decade push my good luck?

Thanks.