I think the first point you raised could largely be addressed by modifying my backup scripts to incorporate some sort of checksum comparison.

The second point doesn't really concern me too much. If I drop my bag with the case in it, then I know that the possibility exists that the disk has been damaged and I can act accordingly. It's several years since I last came off my bike and its only happened 4 times in 16 years of cycling. It's not too frequent an occurrence and it would have to happen at the same time as I am carrying the disk. If I start finding the frequency with which I fall of my bike increasing I can always go to work by public transport when carrying the backup drive.

In my case "long periods between backups", 30 days, is an improvement. Prior to this Christmas I have not had anything approaching a decent backup strategy for a long time. I have had data on DVDs, CDs, NAS, old hard disks and more recently for smaller stuff the cloud. The "small stuff" category tends to encompass the data that gets changed most regularly and since that gets replicated to the cloud straight from the directory there are no "long periods between backups" for it.

2.1TB of stuff that I would not want to lose.

Quite a bit of that is captured 8mm and miniDV videotape. The 8mm is degrading quite badly and if I had to recapture it the quality would probably be significantly poorer than what I have a the moment.

I have spent at least 8 years with nagging concerns about what would happen in case of equipment failure, malware, disaster or theft. 5 years ago I started using RAID storage but still had concerns about malware, disaster, theft and to a lesser extent equipment failure.

Finally this Christmas I have been able to assuage my fears: Santa brought me a 3TB hard disk, an eSATA cradle and a padded disk case. Everything important is now backed up onto that disk and stored in a desk drawer at work. The disk will be brought home once a month and an incremental backup performed.

This arrangement still leaves the possibility of discovering that the disk ceased functioning sometime in the last month or an accident befalling me as I bring the disk home from work to restore the data should some disaster have wiped out my home system. However, when funds allow, I intend to purchase a second 3TB hard disk and will alternate between them for the monthly backups and at that point I think all my concerns will have been addressed.

I think the most significant aspect of this is the fact that it frees Tokelau of a dependence on an external resource.

There is no airport or airstrip in Tokelau, nor are there any docks. 2 or 3 boats a month visit the islands, usually departing from Apia in Samoa. Upon arrival in the islands, passengers and cargo are offloaded on to smaller vessels before being taken ashore. As the article mentions tropical storms are a real concern in this part of the Pacific (not to mention tsunami) and shipping can be disrupted because of these natural disasters and for other reasons (mechanical failure, search and rescue obligations, medical evacuations). The difficulty, expense and reliability of supply are no longer matters that need to be considered.

What I don't understand (and this could be due to my complete ignorance regarding the workings of diesel engines) is why they still need to ship in fuel for the cars. The tropical islands of the Pacific do not want for coconut trees and the extraction of coconut oil is a straightforward process with not too much capital investment required. Surely it should be possible to use it as a replacement for diesel or at least convert it into biodiesel, unless of course the cars have petrol engines.

I was in Moscow in May last year. I went on a boat trip along the Moskva River and passed a Buran in Gorky Park. I immediately altered my plans for the following day so as to include a visit.

The next day, May 28th 2009, as I walked towards the Buran I was mortified to see guys with hammers, shovels and brushes starting to demolish it.

I wasn't able to get right up to it to take photos because some uniformed guard insisted that taking photographs was forbidden, but you can see one of the surreptitious snaps I took here - http://www.samoa.co.uk/images/proc0023.jpg

If you look carefully, in the image linked to above, at the nose section where the tiles have been stripped away, you will see that the tiles were actually mounted on wooden lathes.

A somewhat better photo of the nose section can be found here - http://www.samoa.co.uk/images/proc0024.jpg

A little bit of Googling and it turns out that the Buran in Gorky Park was actually a simulator.

The OP was correct, it was a carnival ride.