I often ask questions that I already have an opinion about (or believed expertise) to either validate my thoughts or to bring in additional insights from others.

Just because he's asked the questions doesn't mean that he is not competent in this area.

Personally, I think *not* asking these types of questions is arrogant and closed minded.

If you think you're an expert that has nothing more to learn, you are a lot less smart than you think - this is just another take on the Dunning–Kruger effect.

If they were 'close enough' why do so many whine about it?

What are your 'intents and purposes'? I'm whining because for *my* intents and purposes it isn't 'close enough'. 1920x1080 is just a horrible size screen for doing any serious work on, never mind the stupid 1366x768 screens.

I agree with many comments here - screen resolutions have gone backwards and I have a sneaky suspicion that it just so manufacturers can put a "FULL HD" sticker on the things.

Well that's another copy - not a backup.

But he's taking a USB flash drive anyway - it's not that different.

He could purchase another as I suggested - they're not exactly prohibitively expensive.

It doesn't need to be stored in his laptop bag, and let's not forget his main backup is sill in the cloud...

and I know this is not what he asked for, but wouldn't the simplest solution be to purchase a second external drive (maybe an SSD for durability) and actually have a complete backup on the road... Or even just take his current external with him - he has it backed up in the cloud any way...

I ask because he never stated why that external drive was stuck at home..

If that won't do, another possible solution.

1) I don't see a need to sync the USB stick when he returns - just perform your usual backup when you return and only care about the USB stick if it you have a failure before returning home.

If (1) is workable for him then: 2) how much data will he really need to backup when out-and-about? Can't you setup an 'away from home' backup profile that will only backup the things you'll be changing while away - document, current working folders, but skip the movies, porn and music for this backup (it's still at home and in the cloud anyway)..

Since he expects the deltas to fit on a USB stick, I'm assuming he's not wanting to backup a heap of video editing or some other hungry activity...

Those stats aren't mine, they were lifted straight from the link provided...

Also note those stats were from 2006 and on about.com...

My original post was a symptom of engaging keys before brain..

I see the flaws in my comment :)

Oh well, at least the other's thinking the same silly idea will now see where our thinking was flawed.

Thanks for correcting my blabber!

(indeed, I am far from a epidemiologist)

That is a good point...

So we only have an estimated population of around 7 billion people, yet as of November 2006 there were 200 individuals worldwide diagnosed with mad cow disease, including 164 people in the United Kingdom, 21 in France, 4 in the Republic of Ireland, the 3 in the US, 2 in the Netherlands, and 1 each in Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and Spain, according to the CDC. Of these individuals, most (170) had lived in the UK for over 6 months during the years 1980-1996; 20 others had lived in France during that time. [taken from: http://rarediseases.about.com/od/rarediseases1/a/vcjd.htm ]

So using CDC math we should only have a 0.7 reported cases........