Many more people protect themselves with guns than die in tragedies like this. Women especially are vulnerable to physical attack, and benefit from having a firearm available to protect themselves. My wife and I both concealed carry, and we had to go through classes and background checks in order to get our licenses. While I was deployed to Afghanistan, I was able to focus on my mission knowing that my wife was able to protect herself from predators.

I really find it sad that people forget one glaring point: All of these rampages happen in places where the bad guy knows that he will have easy targets who cannot protect themselves. Virginia Tech, this one, even the Fort Hood shootings, since soldiers aren't allowed to be armed on post.

If those teachers had been allowed to go through the process (again, training and background checks) to be armed on campus, many fewer people would have died.

I wish that the gun-banning nuts would allow us to protect our children.

Sorry, the <user> and <server> replacements got messed up because I forgot that they'd be interpreted as tags. Let's try that again:

@echo off
cd c:\Program Files (x86)\cwRsync\bin
rsync -av --chmod u+rwx -e "ssh -i c:\Users\<user>\Documents\certificates\cwrsync" "/cygdrive/c/Users/<user>/Documents/rsync/" <user>@<server>:/home/user/rsync/

Except that my wife's camera doesn't have the Eye-Fi cards, so we're manually downloading the pictures from the camera to the laptop.

I have an Ubuntu server running rsync. I've installed cwrsync and am using a very simple script (below) to sync my laptop to the rsync server. I'm using a windows at command to schedule the script to run hourly when the laptop is on. That last part is pure laziness, I haven't bothered figuring out how to test for network connectivity and then to run when connected.

One very nice advantage to running my own rsync server is that I can sync my photos from my Android phones as well. Micha Kowalczuk has written a terrific rsync backup program for Android that's easy to use and can easily be set up to use ssh public/private keypairs for authentication using the instructions on his website. That, in addition to Crafty Apps' Tasker, enables me to backup all of the pictures (and whatever else I want) from my phone every time I have an established WiFi link. (Note that that is my own restriction. I don't want to pay the extra data fees for uploading my pictures over the cell data link.)

Hope that helps.

Note that and are replacing the actual values to protect my server. ;-) Also, I have created ~/rsync folders for each user for the backups. Finally, the switches in use will NOT delete pictures from the server if they're deleted from the laptop.

@echo off
cd c:\Program Files (x86)\cwRsync\bin
rsync -av --chmod u+rwx -e "ssh -i c:\Users\\Documents\certificates\cwrsync" "/cygdrive/c/Users//Documents/rsync/" @:/home/user/rsync/

Actually, the Supreme court has already ruled that this is, in fact, legal.

Because the average rural Afghan doesn't even have a radio. You tell the village elders what you're doing, you don't bother putting it on TV. The stuff on the Internet and TV are for us, not the people that the Taliban want to rule.

And while our control links to our UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are encrypted, the video feeds are NOT. And we *know* that the bad guys are tapping into the video feeds when we have UAVs overhead. Which just goes to show that contractors can do some silly things.

Not sure I like the idea of having ALL of our UAVs and various robots using a single OS. Because unless it's VERY secure, I can forsee a time when the bad guys hack the OS and our drones/UAVs/robots/etc are used by them against us...

I've been a Verizon customer for a couple of years, but got fed up with the prices they charged while I was deployed and not even using the service, merely to keep my phone number for when I got home.

I'm tired of it, and tired of being locked into contracts and paying for data. I want freedom! So here's what I did:

1. - I purchased two unlocked Galaxy Nexus penta-band GSM phones for $400 each
2. - I purchased StraightTalk unlimited prepaid plans for each phone for $45.

Yes, I paid an early-termination fee. But by my calculation, even with paying the full cost of the phone, I come out even in six months. And I no longer have to worry about the tyranny of a contract. I'm free to go to any MVNO.

Actually, that's incorrect. We (I'm a Signal Officer in the Army National Guard that just returned from a deployment to Afghanistan) have several communications systems that use civilian satellites.

So your statement would more correctly read: The military has plenty of money to rent time on civilian satellites.

To head off the inevitable "it's not secure!", we use NSA-provided end-to-end encryption for all of our tactical communications, especially those going over civilian networks. Including satellites.

I just got back from a deployment to Afghanistan, and I can tell you that sometimes the only way to get to sleep is by watching something that will get your mind off of what's really going on. My favorite was light comedies and sitcoms.

I didn't know about this guy. We got most of our movies over there from local vendors who would sell pirated copies (that's legal in Afghanistan). The MPAA is getting the Customs Service and DoD to crack down, though. We used to be able to buy whatever we wanted from the locals and bring them home. Then when I came home from Iraq in 2008, we were allowed to bring one copy of each movie/TV show, and that was fine as well. This time when we were coming home we were told that we could only bring one item, period. Which was fine, again, because now we're ripping the movies to our hard-drives, anyway. I wonder how long it'll be until the MPAA gets the Customs Service to look at all of the content of our laptop hard drives on re-deploying back to the U.S....

If you were lucky enough to be stationed at Bagram Air Field, then you had a PX where you could by legit movies for full price, but for most of us stuck out at various FOBs scattered across the country, the local guy was all we had. Hopefully the Pentagon Pukes don't listen to the MPAA and take that away from us, or we'll be in a world of hurt over there. This deployment sucked pretty bad. Not sure what'll happen if the next one is even worse due to those greedy MoFo's in the MPAA...

Yeah, President Obama will say "Hey! I'm running for re-election, how do I get some of that dough?"

Um...isn't California broke?

Something that you're overlooking: The insurgents are actively attempting to get us to accidentally kill civilians. We *know* that this is a Tactic/Technique/Procedure (TTP) that they're using. They hide behind civilians, or wear civilian clothing and shoot at us, then hide the weapons when we return fire. They are actively attempting to make it look like we're killing civilians for their Information Operations (IO) campaign. Of course, the liberals don't deal with reality, they prefer the "American soldiers are killing babies!" headlines. Sorry, it's just frustrating for those of us over here when the Main Stream Media actively ignores the reality of what is going on over here, in favor of "higher truth".

I'd have much more confidence in "climate scientists" if everybody claiming the title made their data transparently available. Not just to those who agree with their stance, but everybody. Hiding your data means that you don't have a scientific agenda, but a political one.

I'm a Major in the National Guard, a Signal Officer currently deployed to Afghanistan. That whole thing about getting kidnapped is B.S. All of the contractors here fly on the same helicopters that we do, or drive in the same convoys that we do. They get the same security and eat in the same DFACs. The only real difference is that they don't go around armed, unless they're the Law Enforcement Professionals (LEPs) or security contractors.

For the most part they stay on the Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) just like those of us not actually out on a mission. They work six months and go home on leave (I can't remember if it's 2 weeks or a month). It's all in their contract.

When I finished my Iraq tour, I was offered $250k per year to take over managing the I.T. section at a major Iraqi FOB. I was bone-weary from the deployment and just wanted to go home, so I didn't take them up on it. One of my soldiers here was offered $125k to come back and work in the I.T. department at BAF after the tour. She's still thinking about it.

Ignore most of the B.S. that's being posted here, they have zero idea what they're talking about. The pay is high, as is the security. The downside is the hours that you work. 12-18 hour days, with no days off is the norm. It gets to you after awhile.

Believe it or not, one of the things that really gets to you over here is the lack of GREEN. At least the FOBs I've been to, I am SICK and TIRED of sand and gravel, tan and grey. My wife emails me pictures of our lawn so i have something green to look at...

No, the one majorly awesome thing here is the native Google experience. Which means that when Google releases an update, I don't have to wait for months for Samsung or T-Mobile or whoever to release the updated OS.

I've got a T-Mobile Vibrant, and the only thing making it worthwhile is the fact that Team Whiskey is releasing custom ROM's. Froyo was released how long ago? And we STILL don't have an official Froyo release for the best-selling Android phone in the U.S?????