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.

The war on paper, part 6

Another quick update. I’ve gotten back to scanning.  I was going to say that the pile on the shredder has gotten bigger, but Julie has discovered that she loves to shred paper too. These bags are filling up fast!

It should be noted that shredding is messy business. Especially when you have cats that love to play with the bits of shredded paper and them track them all over the house.

Also, I’m an idiot (no surprise there). I’ve still not signed up for receive statements electronically, so things keep coming in the mail. This must be resolved quickly!

The War on Paper, part 5

No giant revelations today. The fact is, work has consumed my life for the last two months, and I’m only just now able to be at home and not doing work. As such, progress has been slow.

But, I am proud to say that we’ve kicked off the next phase, and perhaps the most gratifying. The shredding!

This is but a small sample of what needs to be shredded. Sadly, our shredder like most consumer grade devices can only handle a few hundred pages before the motor starts to overheat. Mind you, it’ll keep going, but that’s bad for the life of the machine. If it came down to it I suppose I could retrofit it with a 24V boding double worm reduction motor that weighs more than the shredder itself, but that would  be cheating, and probably destroy the gears instead. Because of the bandwidth limit on the shredder, we’ve started shredding before we finished scanning, which is a little intimidating. I can’t say, “Okay, that parts done and solid, now on to the next part.” I’ve been waiting to say that for the last few months, but due to work instead I just look at massive piles of paper that sit there, already scanned, waiting to be shredded, simply taking up space in an ever shrinking office.

It was a little nerve-wracking at first, but quickly gave way to a game of how long I could string together pages without changing the cadence of the shredder mower before the bin got full.

Pedestrian SUVs

I can honestly say I do not care for umbrella’s. In the pedestrian world, people with umbrella’s are the SUVs. Umbrellas are oversized and impractical. They do the job of a hood. There is no value added by having an umbrella. Your pants still get wet. You keep your jacket dry, which is intended to get wet and keep your shirt dry, so there’s no real point there.

In some ways, however, umbrellas are even worse than SUVs. SUVs are constrained to a single lane on the road. Even if they fill it pretty tightly, they cannot spill over. A single umbrella can cover an entire sidewalk, slowing or blocking the traffic of people moving behind them. Stepping off the sidewalk easily results in water in the shoes, soaking the socks, leading to a general state of misery for the rest of the day. I really don’t like wet socks. I keep a pair of dry socks at work as an emergency in case a puddle incident happens. Not everyone can do this, and so must suffer soaked sock syndrome when forced to bypass an umbrella walker while in a hurry to get to work.

Umbrellas are dangerous. Shorter people hold them at a level that is just right to smack a taller person in eye. I’ve had more than one umbrella spoke glance off my glasses.

Umbrellas can lead to dumb behavior. I’ve seen a woman stand and get completely soaked because her umbrella got blown inside out, rather than walk the remaining 15 yards to cover with her umbrella. I cannot count the number of times someone comes to a door, stops, takes the time to collapse and shake the rain off their umbrella, all the while blocking the door while people try to get in or out.

So please, if possible, leave the umbrella at home if you can. If you’re walking with a little one whose hood cannot stay up, or in a stroller with no cover, use them by all means. I will not begrudge you. But if you’re strolling down the path side by side with a friend, talking about what so and so said at lunch yesterday while a pack of 8 people wait behind you for an opportunity to get past, please leave the umbrella at home.

I do not care for umbrellas.