The war on paper, part 7

A lot of you have asked (and by a lot of you, I mean one, which technically is infinitely more than none, the more common number of questions, so I hold a lot to be valid) about organization and backups of the scans.

Organization: Currently I organize the files the same way I organized them in the filing cabinet. Scansnap creates folders where it deposits the PDF’s, as well as running a pretty decent OCR algorithm through to make them searchable. So, if I ever needed to find record of a purchase in ‘07, I browse to the ‘07 folder and perform a word search. A couple of test runs has thus far proved fruitful.

Backups: Currently backups are performed onsite. I have a simple D-Link NAS setup in the living room with a 1TB and 500GB hard drive in it. I run GFI Home backup which works well and is free. Every 10 days it performs an incremental backup of my system on one of the two drives. I have the same setup running on my wife’s machine. Admittedly, this means that I can lose up to one week’s worth of work, but at the same time it can take a while for a corruption to manifest, and I prefer incremental backups, so I prefer a method where my backups are a few weeks out of day vs. having recent updates that are both corrupted, and then all of the data is lost.

At some point in the near future I hope to setup a backup of critical data to a cloud source. I’ve not settled on a particular solution, though I’ve looked at Mozy, Carbonite and Skydrive. I’d rather avoid the monthly maintenance fee so I’m trying to keep critical data to minimum to remain with the free offerings of the different services.

On a side note, you may notice that there is a wireless router next to the NAS. It’s actually a WiFi repeater, not a router, configured to extend my existing network to make it wireless and have the NAS in the living room without running lots of ethernet through the ceiling and walls. Admittedly, this slows down the backup process, but there are multiple reasons to set it up there. Some may ask why (or not), but that is a story for another day.

Learning from babies

I’ve concluded that the reason we shake our heads to signify ‘no’ comes from people trying to feed you when you’re a baby. You move your face left and right, away from the spoon, with your mouth closed to say “No, I don’t want to eat that!” I don’t know why nodding means yes yet. It is an orthogonal action, which is logical, so it may be as simple as that. But I plan to keep watching Alex for any other insights. Also, if I’m not paying attention he’ll throw his cup on the floor.

Road Rage as it applies to a Superiority Complex

I’ve long contended that the purest form of equality available in America today can be found on the road. When you’re sitting in traffic, you’re sharing the road with teachers, CEO’s, migrant workers, engineers, lawyers, grocery store clerks, and anyone else able drive. You’re just as likely to be cut off by a soccer mom as you are a doctor.

I sometimes wonder if many people don’t find such a level playing field frustrating. After all, there are so many “bad” drivers out there. Consider that a lot of people feel the need to exert some degree of control or superiority over those around them. Such people try to steer conversations to topics where they are most knowledgeable, to leverage an advantage. Sometimes they’ll put down (publicly or quietly) other people to make themselves feel better than them. Now take such a person, and put them in a car behind the person they are better than. In traffic. With no way to pass.

Road rage stems from many things, but I’ve had a fair deal of experience driving in 3 different states (Texas, NY and Mass), and I have to say that Mass is by far the worst when it comes to road rage. Specifically, the closer you get to Boston. I also believe that the level of pretentiousness, competitiveness, and need to exhibit superiority correlates with this level of road rage.

Admittedly, I’m writing having just read an article on Confirmation Bias, which states that once you have an idea, you’ll start seeing evidence that you feel validates your theory, and ignoring evidence that contradicts it. I don’t know of any studies that point to strong ties between road rage and superiority. I also don’t know of any studies that contradict. But this has never been about being right. It’s been about getting thing out of my head so I don’t have to dwell on them anymore.

My Grandfather's WW2 stories

Back in middle school I interviewed my grandfather about his experiences in World War 2 as part of a class project. We recorded the interview on a cassette tape. Then, in college I found the tapes and digitized them, creating an MP3 collection. It's available here for anyone who might be curious.