One has to setup the backup systems. Sign up for dropbox. Choose plans. Directories to backup. Schedule, if not automatic, depending on bandwidth costs at particular times.

Or setup the local backup - get local hard drives. Choose and configure backup program.

This setup is what causes postponing for people. And the majority of costs. And this is not what can be done in parallel - unless you can delegate it to minions. In which case it ceases to be "home" use for most people.

So you can misinterpret the post and call it a fallacy. Or you can put effort in understanding what I posted. Your wish.

It is a BACKUP. To be used when original data is lost. By using 3 disks for backup, you are again preparing for a situation when 4 disks crash SIMULTANEOUSLY. Again once a century , if not a millenium, event.

And I already said local backup while cheaper saves from less vectors but being much much more cost effective should be done first, and will not encourage postponement. So rest of your post is based on a flawed reading of my posts.

This might help.

I thought the "zpool replace" is for that purpose? I am planning a ZFS setup, but all I can afford is a motley collection of dissimilar drives.

Can't I replace one disk at a time when upgrading?

People living under rocks in suffocating environments don't always say there aren't alternative ways of living , they just show their preferred way of living. Someone has to point out that it is suboptimal and unhealthy. They may or may not listen.

If all of them are NOT travelling, which is the typical state of a typical person, either B or C is forced to be alone for no fault of theirs.

I don't understand the second one. The website believes that you ran the computation against a passport, but what if you run it against /dev/random?

Being the real Mike, you must know everything about identifying real people ;)

So you have a suspicion this agency will have power/resources comparable to NSA's by any stretch of imagination? Or access to anything comparable to national security letters ?

If not, I don't see why one snooping can't be much worse than the other.

No, classes are cliques.

No, it will be used when no set of cliques the students can be arranged into. Other than the trivial set of cliques with each child a separate clique into oneself, of course.

This can happen in remarkably more ways than if each child were a loner. It also leads to injustices like:
A wants to be with B, C.
C wants to be with A, not B.
B wants to be with A, not C.

Now If you choose sets (A,B) (C), C is punished and B is rewarded for no reason. Similar injustice with (A,C) (B).

You have to take into consideration that NOT wanting to be with someone is to be prioritized over wanting to be with someone? At the expense of loneliness?

Apt and Yum plugins for btrfs snapshotting before updates have been around for more than 3 years. Come out from under the rock and smell some fresh air.

One might talk about it, and while it may even be true, but such statements as yours are hard to discuss seriously as they are not falsifiable by nature.

E.g. I can say you "failed" in registering for a username amimojo, and by mistake registered for AmiMoJo. Just because I feel like it, and I don't see why you would capitalize a few characters, it is my right to consider you a failure. Can I prove it? Nope. Can you convince me otherwise using logic even if I were otherwise logical? Nope again.

So you missed where Samsung and HTC have vowed to keep their bootloaders open and have been true to it ever since, and Sony has an unlock bootloader on their own website, that works for a majority of their Android phones?

Don't like the application launcher? Change it to one of 2 dozen. Even access your phone solely through VNC. Don't like your default video player? Change it to one of 10 available. All this even without rooting or unlocking bootloader.

Within 5 years of GNU/Linux, this couldn't be done for GNU/Linux either. So wait 10 more years, and I don't see any reason this can't be done for Android too.

In context of your reply, my post can be said to have 2 parts:

1. Do the more cost-effective (your words) backup first.
2. Local backup is more cost-effective.

If you are saying that dropbox is more cost-effective and hence should be done first, you agree with the first part, where I am also saying more cost-effective backup should bedone first. There, you are addressing a strawman that doesn't agree with this.

As for your contention against the second part, that local backup is more cost-effective, unfortunately you forgot to mention anything concrete about cost AGAIN. Empathy about your shopping life stops me from ridiculing.

PS : I am sure your forgetfulness is aided significantly by the fact that cost factor utterly destroys your argument for dropbox being more cost-effective.

Ok, I see 3 issues with your post :

1. Incorrect or at least hugely unsubstantiated :

I live for 10 years in a city with population that has increased from 4.5 million 10 years ago to 6 million now. There have been precisely 4 big incidents of fire - one in a very low tech market, one in an office, 2 in residential houses. The office fire was all about smoke - building + furniture survived but basement fire released such smoke that some people were suffocated / jumped to death. Out of about million houses in 10 years. Expectation value of a particular house being destroyed in fire - less than once in a million years. NOT taking into account people burning their cake in an oven in an attempt to bake it - as I strongly recommend not keeping backup hard disks inside an oven in use.

Burglaries are more common, but complete burglaries are nearly unheard of. Burglars are scared - so they quickly grab cash, gold, and sometimes small electronics that they understand - like mobile phone. So yes, I am not sure data loss due to burglaries or fire are more than once a millenium events.

The post I was replying to already admitted those events happen once in 100 or 1000 years, so if you argue about whether it is 1000 or 100 years, it is pedantic in that regard. Without even the rigour of citation expected of a good pedant. My saying "once in a millenium events" was merely a way to refer to the events that parent post was referring to while admitting they happen in 100 to 1000 years.

2. Strawman, or at least misunderstanding the gist of my post :

I was arguing that the policy of "safest backup first", to the extent of protecting against once a millenium events (admitted in the post I was replying to) results in no backup at all due to people postponing difficult activities. This is human nature, and your misunderstanding it will not make it better. You don't even assert that this is not how human nature works, so your argument is addressing the strawman in that regard.

3. While arguing about remote backup being "cost effective", you completely ignored cost? Short term memory loss? Calculate the cost of dropbox account as compared to a USB drive per year and get back to me. The cost comparison is so laughable that I guess I don't need to compare but just mention that you forgot to take the primary motivation into account. It is like going for shopping and forgetting to shop and coming back home, but maybe it happens to you due to a medical condition. Hope it doesn't happen too frequently.

You also didn't take into account the upload bandwidth that would be required for online backups that most people don't have. And I know multiple people who depended on MegaUpload for backup.

Again, I remind you of an aspect of human nature - the following don't happen together :
1. spending on cloud backup,
2. even after MegaUpload and Snowden
3. by a non-geek
4. before a data loss actually happens
5. In spite of internet bandwidth and data limits

Reduce the cost drastically by asking them to get a USB drive and backup manually/TimeMachine/windows backup, in a few months - can happen much more easily while saving from less damage vectors.

My apologies, when I was typing about cctv, I thought I mentioned "casual observation from less than 8 feet away" too, but I didn't. If you use pattern lock a few times while teenagers are annoying you, it's game over. Observations of finger trail might also occur to them as an attack vector, which I did mention though.

My problem with cctv is that minimum wage drones have to / get to see lots of cctv footage, who are the same people who will find phones forgotten / dropped in malls. I agree someone "pulling " footage is making a lot of effort, but the drones are a real worry.

I don't think anything that will be used by more than 0.1% of users can ever defend against dedicated attackers so I try not to talk about such security in phones.

Don't you get tired being wrong so much?

I don't have a Nexus 4. You want to send me one?