streiff.net

Oh, hey, I'm blogging again. We'll see how long this lasts.

SSDs have been coming down in price, and I've been thinking about hopping on that train. One of the biggest concerns about SSDs, though, is their lifetime, which is why I've been trying to come up with a solid plan for backups.

Yes, a solid plan for backups. I've never made one. Somehow over the course of two decades or so I've not been bitten in the ass by that.

Of course, I don't have a plan for backups is not the same thing as I've never made backups-- I generally make sure that any data I have exists in more than one place (in practice, on more than one computer) at a time, but my means for doing so have always been ad hoc and never on any sort of regularity.

My current basic thought is something along the lines of:

• My desktop rsyncs an 'Archived' folder to a Linux fileserver I keep at home, at some interval.
• The fileserver rsyncs the same folder to my Linode VPS, at some interval.
• At some interval I make snapshots to some more-permanent means of storage (DVD, tape, CF cards, no idea).

This approach would give me both on-site and off-site backups, which would be nice. And the off-site backups go to the motherfuckin' cloud, which is all full of rainbows and unicorns and shit, yo.

But thinking about this a little more, that really only addresses the problem of one computer's backups. There's some of that data that I would like to have accessible from multiple computers, and I'd really like to be able to handle that in a way better then schlepping eight gigabytes of data around everywhere. Really, the use cases become:

• I want all my data to be backed up in both on-site and off-site means.
• I want to not be dependent on a specific third-party service. I can always migrate software on my VPS to another VPS provider. I'm a little more screwed if I'm depending on Picasa and Google pulls a Wave.
• I want to be able to access documents from both my desktop and my laptop.
• I want to be able to get to my photographs from my desktop, laptop, and my phone.
• I want to be able to do these things without necessarily having downloaded them to those devices a priori.

I think really what I'm after, in that case, is closer to Dropbox, but I'd need to shell out money for their 'Pro' service for the amount of space I'd need, and if Dropbox goes away then I'm back at square one.

SparkleShare might be worth a try, perhaps, but its use of git as a backend has me concerned about performance with large binary files (in my case, mostly photographs). Although in this case, I guess they won't be changing much, so maybe it's alright. It doesn't address some of my other use cases (like being able to get photos on my phone) though.

I got another 2012 Presidential Platform Survey from the Republican National Committee. So what's different this time?

The intro letter is worded pretty much the same, with some minor edits now that Romney is the presumptive nominee. Some examples:

• 'these and other issues that are dominating the 2012 Presidential campaign!' becomes 'the issues dominating the campaign debate between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama!'
• 'electing Republican leaders' becomes 'electing Mitt Romney and Republican leaders' (which I suppose may be a backhanded statement on how capable of a leader the RNC views Romney)
• A couple paragraphs talking about what the RNC is and does got reworded and rearranged.

Curiously the margins on the intro letter seem to be ever so slightly different; some of the paragraphs are word-for-word identical, yet they've flowed on the page differently.

As far as the survey itself, I see the following changes:

• There's now a demographic question asking if I plan to volunteer for the local Republican Victory Center for this election.
• 'Defending the Constitution' is no longer an item under the 'how important is it to voters that candidates give attention to these issues' question in Section I
• The loss of a question in Section II asking if Congress should block efforts to raise the debt ceiling.
• The loss of a question in Section III asking if I support reform of how the government pays for Medicare for future retirees.
• A new question in Section IV about whether Obama's decision to eliminate the military's "two war" strategy.
• The loss of a question in Section IV asking if it's time to withdraw from Afghanistan.
• A new question in Section VII which really amuses me: 'Are Republicans in your area enthusiastic and committed to voting for our Republican slate of candidates this November?'

Of course, they haven't let up in their attempts to try and extract at least $15 from me, for 'tabulating my Survey'.

Today I received a 2012 Presidential Platform Survey in the mail from the Republican National Committee.

I scanned it to share (1.6MiB PDF), of course. The actual survey portion is on paper about 10.75"x14", which made it a bit difficult to scan.

The enclosed letter states:

After compiling and modeling demographic information for the thousands of activists in our database, you were selected to represent voters in your area in the OFFICIAL 2012 Presidential Platform Survey.

Enclosed is a special questionnaire document - REGISTERED to your name and address -- identifying you as THE DESIGNATED REPRESENTATIVE of VOTERS residing in your district.

It seems that if they 'compiled and modeled demographic information' for 'thousands of activists' they would have managed to pick someone who is, I dunno, actually somewhat enthusiastic about the Republican party? Maybe this is karma for me having voted in the Republican primaries in 2010?

The letter also strongly implies that I can't throw it out, that it must be tabulated in my name,, etc. I seem to recall that anything that is mailed to me unsolicited becomes my property, but I can't find the appropriate laws on the subject. Something about companies sending stuff and then sending invoices, or something.

I also enjoy how the letter highlights that Obama is 'campaigning full-time' (since I guess he's solved everything so now the presidency is just a walk in the park these days) and that he's 'raising tens of millions of dollars' (unlike the combined $205.6 million from the nine Republican candidates as of the end of February).

The questions are... wow. This post by Don Nordeen, who also received one of these surveys, sums up my feelings about it. Interestingly, my survey appears to be slightly different: mine does not have a question about potential support of another bailout, but rather there's a question about concern about inflation increasing my cost of living. He also has a question about medical malpractice reform that I do not.

Some of the questions, especially toward the end, are obvious baiting. It's clear that they're looking for one response and one response only.

30. Do you believe the Republican Party needs to do a better job of exposing the Obama record and his radical liberal agenda?

31. Are you committed to helping ensure that in 2012, the Obama-era of radical liberalism, reckless spending and embarrassing foreign policy comes to an end?

In the end, it's a survey that won't actually tell the Republican party anything but will just serve to validate their positions. The last thing they need is an echo chamber.

After completing the survey, it would seem that I would be left with three options in the 'Support Reply Form' section:

• YES!, I want to help elect Republicans all over the place, here's $35-500.
• No, I don't wish to participate, but here's $35-500 anyway. (I guess this is if you want to donate but you don't want your survey results counted, or something?)
• No, I don't wish to participate, but here's $15 to cover 'tabulating my survey'. Seriously. What the hell?

So I'm left wondering what I should do with this survey. I could simply ignore it (despite the stern warnings, the Republican National Committee is no Census Bureau). I could send it back blank. I could fill it out, either as a deep-end right-wing (giving them the answers that they clearly expect) or as myself (which would be the opposite choice for nearly all of the questions), but then I'd have to give the RNC $15. Or maybe I could just send it without money. Or send it with 11.24 EUR, perhaps? I'm sure that'd piss somebody off.

Yes, I still have one of these. I replaced the 4GB CompactFlash microdrive with a 16GB solid-state CF card, and the battery life is pretty much shot, but it works well enough for car audio.