Nope. When we hire, we are looking for people who can think and do.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies want that but at cut rate prices. As the labor market tightens the cheapskates will lose talent; and whine thay can't get any or people don't turn up for interviews. If you hadn't treated them like crap when you had the upperhand they wouldn't turn around and do the same to you.
Fear not, after a year or so, most of these graduates will find out what its like to work in the field, and most will decide that they don't like it.
Trying to imagine these kids working in an industry where you don't get to take the day off when the Weather Channel forcasts snow, or when your employer thinks that a 40 hour week is only for department supervisor and above. We had trouble getting the kids to work even 40 hours. Gotta have those mental health days off, yaknow.
TBH, there's a ton of bullshit about how much sleep to get. At the end of the day, if you're waking up naturally and feeling rested and productive through the day, you're probably getting the right amount of sleep for you.
4-5 hours a night is on the low end, but it's not necessarily unreasonable.
That's what I always thought. I don't even use an alarm clock. I've had people bitch at me about it to the point I've asked if I should drug myself to get the amount of sleep that they dictate I need.
I sleep between 4 and 5 hours a night. And I take a lot of guff for that. Lectures on how I'm killing myself, blah blah, blah.
I go to sleep when I'm sleepy, and wake up when I've had enough sleep. Seems simple to me. Who knew? That has to be lot better than lying in bed all upset because you aren't asleep, or drugging yourself to be "healthy".
Now I do know what sleep deprivation feels like - less than 4 hours, and I feel similar to jet lag - do not like.
But there seems to be a sort of public fad that people latch onto regarding silly stuff. Sleep is/was one. The big fad at present is obsessing about how often one poops.
As far as health hazards, I'd bet my bottom dollar that stressing out about how much sleep you get is a lot more destructive than the specific number of hours that some expert has determined is enough.
Which is all to ask - if you wake up feeling rested after 4 hours, are you an insomniac? I feel zero stress about my sleeping habits.
Seriously. There is the evil duo of Crypto-conservatism again.
States so incompetent that they legislate themselves into ideological bankruptcy, but they have time to sneak in an important bill to regulate people who don't stick their genitals in the ideologically allowed place.
This pretty much tell us what living there would be like. Most of the country could care less about who puts what thing where, but the states who do are more concerned about it than they are about fiscal responsibility.
With that base, OK would have a shot of improving its tax base and have a core constituency that it can use to drive other programs to make people relocate.
Goody, I like numbered points too:
1. It doesn't fucking work. I would consider suicide before moving to Oklahoma. A state where the ruling party is so stupid that they are metaphorically sawing off the branch they are sitting on has no attraction.
2. I find your concept of "have a core constituency that it can use to drive other programs to make people relocate." a little odd. The Republicans have moved to the point of making people relocate?
Regardless, Oklahoma is a pretty dreary place. Aside from the general lack of visual diversity in the locale - rolling plains gets old very quickly - Oklahoma is populated by people who are more than happy to install politicians who vote against their self interests. The school system has been gutted, and the politicians elected want to stay the course. This crypto-conservative state has utterly failed. This is the same thing that happened in Kansas, another grand Republican experiment that failed miserably
Now give me a good reason to move to this incompetence center. I'm not even a liberal, but I can see that the powers that be are incompetent and corrupt, and show no evidence of gaining competence or honesty. As well, I'd have to be around people who purposefully voted them into office. Nahhhh, do not want.
I'm a little more concerned the you have the morals of a weasel and have already been caught as an inside player in weaponizing people's personal data, and would sell us out again and again as long as you made a few bucks.
Your ordering employees to use Android phones just shows how pathetically petty, vindictive, and authoritarian you are.
Do you need a race car driver to run the national highway administration ?
Doing actual security work is probably the last thing anyone expects him to do and the last thing his job calls for.
What he is going to have to do is be the voice of his agency within the government
Insure it's properly funded.
You don't need to be the world's leading expert to run a show. In fact, you are in the wrong position if you are.
That being said, there are levels of ignorance that shouldn't be tolerated. Needing an expert to talk about a USB thumb drive is at that level.
I've been working lately with a number of people who don't have a lot of knowledge about matters that I am expert in. But they are smart people, and I've educated them enough so that they won't make fools out of themselves when asked simple questions.
In my world at least, we have High-level, medium level, and low level meetings and briefings. Anyone at the top of a group should be well versed at the High level. Medium level is for middle managers, and low level is for the techs, The expert moves between groups as needed.
This system works. The folks running the show have political issues to deal with as well as keeping the troops functioning. But if you are leading a computer security group, you better have some idea of what thumb drive is. That indicates a certain interest in the work going on.
Example: I am not a professional programmer. But I know enough programming to know when a professional programmer is trying to bullshit me. The same with other matters outside of my field. Trusting your people about things you don't know is good and all, but them knowing they can't bullshit you goes a long way. They can trust what you do then.
How o you do the backups, when do you remove them and how do you store them?
I've never got going. I also don't know how Backblaze work for recovery or changed files.
I'm lucky in that I can use Time Machine. I wish there was a similar program for PC. Anyone with a similar program for PC that can chime in here?
Since i guess you mean windows by pc yes a similar function is available since atleast windows 7 in form av windows backup and with windows 10 it's easier than ever to get setup.
Are you familiar with Time Machine? Those two methods do not appear to be at all alike.
No, the most amazing thing about the backup dilemma is that it is just so damn easy to keep yourself in no backup hell. Modern operating systems are not intended for computer savvy-people, they are built for mollycoddling clueless end users. There are all kinds of tricky to almost impossibly to surmount hurdles to get away from the constraints of safe boot and closed appstores and whatnot.
Yet no system bothers nagging you about backups or proposing or setting up sensible procedures.
And when things go South, all the experts say "user error". It's stupid to blame Adobe here, but it's also stupid to blame this particular user. The guilty party is Microsoft, but it's hardly unique in this.
Ah, but I bypass all of that by using Time Machine on MacOS. Why there is no such thing in Microsoft's fucked up world is beyond my comprehension.
For those that are not familiar with Time Machine, You open the program, tell it what you want excluded from backups if anything, then sit back and let it rip. It works it's way through and copies everything on the drive. At this point, you can restore everything on your system, including programs. Pretty much like a cloned drive.
But then it performs hourly, daily, weekly backups of any changed files, and keeps the old ones in case of reverting need. It will continue doing this until the drive is full, and then will toss the earliest backups. Which by that time are ancient. It will let you know about that, in case for some reason you want to remove the drive and start another.
And the restore process works, which is more than I can say about a lot of Windows archiving processes.
Now for video work, you use it a little differently You use a drive that will handle your work, and back it up normally until you are finished. Then make as many time machine backups as you feel safe with making. Two or three is usually sufficient. Remove from the computer, store one offsite, and there ya go.
Best to start with a base Time Machine backup of the system to renew the work machine for new projects.
Describing the process is much harder than using the process. For regular computing, I don't even have to think about it, other than seeing the activity icon on my backup drives. And in the few cases where I've had to restore a computer, it is likewise painless (other than restore time)
But even that is too much for some folks. You can damn sure know that if I was dealing with a quarter million dollars worth of files on a computer, it would be well backed up. Cost of doing business.
How o you do the backups, when do you remove them and how do you store them?
I've never got going. I also don't know how Backblaze work for recovery or changed files.
I'm lucky in that I can use Time Machine. I wish there was a similar program for PC. Anyone with a similar program for PC that can chime in here?
It's hard to feel sorry for the guy, even if he did lose a lot of money.
Never, ever, ever put working video files - original footage or working copies, on an external drive. It's just too slow, especially in these days of 4K and upwards. The only things I use external drives for are backups, and transferring copies to clients.
The bare minimum for using PP effectively is: 1 drive for OS+software, 1 drive for footage, 1 drive for MediaCache, and many external drives for backups. Never ever mix original footage and scratch copies - as this guy did. As an aside, I don't clear the MediaCache until after the project is completed, the product is delivered to the client, and all original footage is removed from the editing computer and stored elsewhere - external HDDs or whatever.
When I use the term 'drive', it of course includes multi-disc volumes, RAID, etc. But OS+software, footage, and scratch/MediaCache should be on separate volumes.
General comment here, and not a criticism, because you are correct. While we can get into the concept of who has the biggest backup weenie, it always devolves into the same thing as the password conundrum, where someone eventually says they use doubly random 256 Characters changed every minute, otherwise they are dumb.
When in fact, this reductio ad absurdum one upsmanship is contrasted against someone who had no backup at all.
For all of the wonderfulness of the better backup methods, the man simply would have not lost his files if he had 1 simple backup. Didn't have to be redundant, stored offsite, or on several different volumes. It isn't that the good methods aren't good, it's just that having no backup period is just division by zero.
The most amazing thing about the backup dillemma is that it is just so damn easy to keep yourself out of no backup hell. My backup system has local, hourly, daily and weekly backups. I don't even have to think about it, except when I make the archival remote location backup.
Whatever - the lawsuit should be against the stupid asshole who even after all of these years and all of the horror stories, kept exactly 1 set in exactly 1 place.
Suing Adobe? Well, what if his hard drive died? Sue the manufacturer of the drive? Computer glitch corrupts the files, Sue the electrical company? Sorry, It sucks, but you are the person in the wrong, it is tough titty cupcake.
If you're 10+ years from retirement, then you can certainly be stock-focused with your positions (whether mutual funds or ETFs), but the general advice is to be bond-focused (>60%) once you're getting close-in to your retirement.
This is the standard advice in basically all financial planning books that I've read.
If you really don't want to be dealing with this shit, then purchase an annuity from an insurance company.
There are a lot of prudent and sensible ways to save for retirement.
But as I've explained before, there are a huge number of people who are shit with money.
They seem to think they are going to live forever, they refi their houses, they run up alot of credit card debt, then in their mid 50's they get smacked in the face that their dream of retirement is fading fast. Especially when they go to a retirement planning seminar and are told they need a minmum of 2 million or tthey might as well live under a bridge. So these foolish assholes try to figure out how to make 2 million by the time they hit 65 and live the dream.
And since the return on what they can invest at that time needs to be stellar if damn near impossible, they panic, invest riskily, and almost always lose their money.
I am not saying what people should do, I'm saying what they do
Well you asked for the advice, so I'll give you some.
The scenario you mentioned hits on two big things you should learn in your first few hours learning about investing.
First, balance your investments. The percent you have in bonds should be *very roughly* equal to your age, so he should have had over 70% in bonds, which don't lose value. In fact they can increase with the stock market goes down.
Second, don't panic and sell everything at once when there is a dip. If the market is headed down from a high and you're worried, sell 10% or even 15% Typical recovery time is about 18 months, so stay cool. After a year, if you feel you must, you can sell another 10% to protect some gains in case it stays down for a long time.
Well you asked for the advice, so I'll give you some.
But you are preaching to the choir here. As for my question, it was intended as more than just nuts and bolts.
The scenario you mentioned hits on two big things you should learn in your first few hours learning about investing.
First, balance your investments.
But people don't seem to work that way - which is the (admittedly roundabout) point of my question.
The mechanics of building a portfolio for future living expenses are pretty simple. I learned from 2 mentors, my father, and my first financial advisor, who was strictly no-nonsense. But both noted that if someone wants you to get too complicated, it's time to bail pronto. All of my risk was borne in the early years of saving and investing. I would have stretched that longer, but I also pay attention to which Political party is in power. Based on research, one party tends to precipitate downturns, and it isn't who most think. So I had to get the money into a safer place.
Next I took advantage of every possible program available to me. That's how I ended up with 3 external and one internal retirement account. Gotta have a good ecosystem. Now I can live off the interest.
But that isn't how the greater percentage of people act. Witness the 30 year mortgage. Lower monthly payments, to hell with the total paid amount.
Refi refi refi, reverse mortgage. Witness how many people fall for Bernie Madoff scams. Witness how many people spend way too much time listening to "experts" telling them to do this or that. And of course, the risky investment addiction, usually leading to failure.
It really isn't difficult, this money thing. Keep it simple, take any risks early, then move to conservative, Pay the retirement account before you eat, and for gawd's sake pay attention to the total amount saved and/or spent, and not the low low monthly payments. Now I'm probably preaching to the choir too. 8^)
Frightening.
Jack just equated "meaningful conversation" with "what statements provoke the most responses".
Welcome to the future of Twiiter, where clickbait and trolling is considered "meaningful" simply because they provoke the most responses.
I believe that has been Twitter's modus since day one. Having meaningful conversation within Twitter's system simply doesn't happen.
Although it is a great place to commit career suicide.
o very often a person who does retire now will be called back into work as an emergency hire. I know I was. And in a further preview of the future, after returning, there was still no transition planned, they apparently just figured I'd keep going until I dropped.
Screw that.
I'm not sure why you sound pissed. You're already ready to retire, so you don't need the job. You can just keep upping the salary to whatever you want. You have a captive customer, and don't care if they find their way out of the trap.
Not certain why you think I was pissed. There were some specific rules about pay and the hours I could work that would limit the hours (essentially no more than 20 a week) but I eventually saw no point. Now I have taken on a very lucrative part time position - I still don't need the money, but I can buy a lot of cool toys. I still like doing some work, but there is a real coolness in knowing you don't have to.
Oh, you're right. If it hits at the wrong time, you can be fucked. At the same time, a year and a half to get back what you lost isn't all that bad. But, there have to be special (shitty) circumstances where somebody would have to dump their entire portfolio immediately after a crash. Most people should be able to just wait a bit longer.
What I have found to be the issue is that many or even most people are horrible with money management. Even people who are really smart. I've seen it so many times that it can't be a fluke.
Stage 1: The 20's - They can't be bothered to save for retirement, or have some rationale that there is not point. When I was in my early 20's, the rationale was that inflation was going to make any savings worthless.
Stage 2: The 30's - Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Family matters will suck up as much money as you allow it to take.
Stage 3: The 40's - Some folks start to think about putting some money way. Many just re-fi their house to buy that awesome Escalade and fly themselves and their children and friends to Disney World YOLO, y'all.
Stage 3: The 50's Somewhere between the early to mid 50's, these folk suddenly are confronted with the fact that they are going to be retiring. So they start saving hard. But here is where the evil sets in. They attend a retirement seminar. And the grifter H^H^H^H^H^H^ Financial consultant starts in on how they are going to be destitute unless they have at least 2 million socked away. Anything less and they will be living like paupers.
And many of them panic, and make a lot of risky investments. They simply must turn the 50 K they have now into 2 Million if not more.
And........ they lose a lot of money on those investments. I even know 4 people who fell for a Ponzi Scheme.
Stage 4: the 60's Okay now, when people should be winding down, they are coming to terms with still having a mortgage, while that Escalade they bought in their 40's has been melted down and is now part of a Chinese Aircraft carrier. They look at their CC debt. Then they look at the pittance they will be bringing in on Social Security, and see that the amount won't even cover their mortgage payment. Now they are well and truly screwed.
I always catch crap from the smart people about this, but I had 2 outside retirement accounts by the time I was 22, and then a third one before 30. Plus an inside one via employer. I paid my mortgage off in 15 years. I have no CC debt, even though I live on 2 Credit cards, paying them off every month, and making a few thou on cash back every year.
And I retired at 55, having put the money in conservative accounts for the last 15 years or so. And it beats the living bejeezuz out of working. Full disclosure, I have taken on a part time job that pays very handsomely, that I use to buy my toys without affecting the family finances.
I'm a firm believer that we should go back to teaching civics in school, and teaching money management as well.
I only offer this stuff as an alternative for Slashdotters who think they will never be able to retire.
Your balanced mutual funds didn't recover since the last two market crashes? The market as a whole rebounded in an average 1.5 years after the last few crashes. What kind of dog shit mutual funds do you own?
And yet I know a guy who lost it all in 1999 and 2007. Then since he was in his 70's by that time, he simply retired on what was left. What is your wisdom for him? Seems that the masters of the univers like yourself are immune from aging like the rest of us mortals are not.
Slashdot Mirror
>But that's exactly what Industry wants.
Nope. When we hire, we are looking for people who can think and do.
Unfortunately, a lot of companies want that but at cut rate prices. As the labor market tightens the cheapskates will lose talent; and whine thay can't get any or people don't turn up for interviews. If you hadn't treated them like crap when you had the upperhand they wouldn't turn around and do the same to you.
Fear not, after a year or so, most of these graduates will find out what its like to work in the field, and most will decide that they don't like it.
Trying to imagine these kids working in an industry where you don't get to take the day off when the Weather Channel forcasts snow, or when your employer thinks that a 40 hour week is only for department supervisor and above. We had trouble getting the kids to work even 40 hours. Gotta have those mental health days off, yaknow.
TBH, there's a ton of bullshit about how much sleep to get. At the end of the day, if you're waking up naturally and feeling rested and productive through the day, you're probably getting the right amount of sleep for you.
4-5 hours a night is on the low end, but it's not necessarily unreasonable.
That's what I always thought. I don't even use an alarm clock. I've had people bitch at me about it to the point I've asked if I should drug myself to get the amount of sleep that they dictate I need.
I go to sleep when I'm sleepy, and wake up when I've had enough sleep. Seems simple to me. Who knew? That has to be lot better than lying in bed all upset because you aren't asleep, or drugging yourself to be "healthy".
Now I do know what sleep deprivation feels like - less than 4 hours, and I feel similar to jet lag - do not like.
But there seems to be a sort of public fad that people latch onto regarding silly stuff. Sleep is/was one. The big fad at present is obsessing about how often one poops.
As far as health hazards, I'd bet my bottom dollar that stressing out about how much sleep you get is a lot more destructive than the specific number of hours that some expert has determined is enough.
Which is all to ask - if you wake up feeling rested after 4 hours, are you an insomniac? I feel zero stress about my sleeping habits.
Watching a bit of television, I can assure everyone that the present mental bender is obsessing about how often you shit.
Who knew?
Before you rush off to Tulsa for $10k and a little housing subsidy:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/...
Seriously. There is the evil duo of Crypto-conservatism again.
States so incompetent that they legislate themselves into ideological bankruptcy, but they have time to sneak in an important bill to regulate people who don't stick their genitals in the ideologically allowed place.
This pretty much tell us what living there would be like. Most of the country could care less about who puts what thing where, but the states who do are more concerned about it than they are about fiscal responsibility.
With that base, OK would have a shot of improving its tax base and have a core constituency that it can use to drive other programs to make people relocate.
Goody, I like numbered points too:
1. It doesn't fucking work. I would consider suicide before moving to Oklahoma. A state where the ruling party is so stupid that they are metaphorically sawing off the branch they are sitting on has no attraction.
2. I find your concept of "have a core constituency that it can use to drive other programs to make people relocate." a little odd. The Republicans have moved to the point of making people relocate?
Regardless, Oklahoma is a pretty dreary place. Aside from the general lack of visual diversity in the locale - rolling plains gets old very quickly - Oklahoma is populated by people who are more than happy to install politicians who vote against their self interests. The school system has been gutted, and the politicians elected want to stay the course. This crypto-conservative state has utterly failed. This is the same thing that happened in Kansas, another grand Republican experiment that failed miserably
Now give me a good reason to move to this incompetence center. I'm not even a liberal, but I can see that the powers that be are incompetent and corrupt, and show no evidence of gaining competence or honesty. As well, I'd have to be around people who purposefully voted them into office. Nahhhh, do not want.
Oklahoma is hurtling off of a fiscal cliff, and it's entirely self-inflicted. They must be getting desperate.
Seems like the great Republican experiment is cracking at the base.
The cure of course, is more tax cuts.
Your ordering employees to use Android phones just shows how pathetically petty, vindictive, and authoritarian you are.
Nothing personal, but go fuck yourself.
Do you need a race car driver to run the national highway administration ?
Doing actual security work is probably the last thing anyone expects him to do and the last thing his job calls for.
What he is going to have to do is be the voice of his agency within the government Insure it's properly funded.
You don't need to be the world's leading expert to run a show. In fact, you are in the wrong position if you are.
That being said, there are levels of ignorance that shouldn't be tolerated. Needing an expert to talk about a USB thumb drive is at that level.
I've been working lately with a number of people who don't have a lot of knowledge about matters that I am expert in. But they are smart people, and I've educated them enough so that they won't make fools out of themselves when asked simple questions.
In my world at least, we have High-level, medium level, and low level meetings and briefings. Anyone at the top of a group should be well versed at the High level. Medium level is for middle managers, and low level is for the techs, The expert moves between groups as needed.
This system works. The folks running the show have political issues to deal with as well as keeping the troops functioning. But if you are leading a computer security group, you better have some idea of what thumb drive is. That indicates a certain interest in the work going on.
Example: I am not a professional programmer. But I know enough programming to know when a professional programmer is trying to bullshit me. The same with other matters outside of my field. Trusting your people about things you don't know is good and all, but them knowing they can't bullshit you goes a long way. They can trust what you do then.
How o you do the backups, when do you remove them and how do you store them? I've never got going. I also don't know how Backblaze work for recovery or changed files.
I'm lucky in that I can use Time Machine. I wish there was a similar program for PC. Anyone with a similar program for PC that can chime in here?
Since i guess you mean windows by pc yes a similar function is available since atleast windows 7 in form av windows backup and with windows 10 it's easier than ever to get setup.
Are you familiar with Time Machine? Those two methods do not appear to be at all alike.
Suing Adobe? Well, what if his hard drive died? Sue the manufacturer of the drive? Computer glitch corrupts the files, Sue the electrical company?
By that logic, murder should be legal since there are plenty of non-murderous ways for someone to die.
Now you did it!
Nature is a peer reviewed publication. So, there were multiple, independent levels of error. That's not how it's supposed to work.
Well then, just pray a lot - That's the method that always works.
No, the most amazing thing about the backup dilemma is that it is just so damn easy to keep yourself in no backup hell. Modern operating systems are not intended for computer savvy-people, they are built for mollycoddling clueless end users. There are all kinds of tricky to almost impossibly to surmount hurdles to get away from the constraints of safe boot and closed appstores and whatnot.
Yet no system bothers nagging you about backups or proposing or setting up sensible procedures.
And when things go South, all the experts say "user error". It's stupid to blame Adobe here, but it's also stupid to blame this particular user. The guilty party is Microsoft, but it's hardly unique in this.
Ah, but I bypass all of that by using Time Machine on MacOS. Why there is no such thing in Microsoft's fucked up world is beyond my comprehension.
For those that are not familiar with Time Machine, You open the program, tell it what you want excluded from backups if anything, then sit back and let it rip. It works it's way through and copies everything on the drive. At this point, you can restore everything on your system, including programs. Pretty much like a cloned drive.
But then it performs hourly, daily, weekly backups of any changed files, and keeps the old ones in case of reverting need. It will continue doing this until the drive is full, and then will toss the earliest backups. Which by that time are ancient. It will let you know about that, in case for some reason you want to remove the drive and start another.
And the restore process works, which is more than I can say about a lot of Windows archiving processes.
Now for video work, you use it a little differently You use a drive that will handle your work, and back it up normally until you are finished. Then make as many time machine backups as you feel safe with making. Two or three is usually sufficient. Remove from the computer, store one offsite, and there ya go.
Best to start with a base Time Machine backup of the system to renew the work machine for new projects.
Describing the process is much harder than using the process. For regular computing, I don't even have to think about it, other than seeing the activity icon on my backup drives. And in the few cases where I've had to restore a computer, it is likewise painless (other than restore time)
But even that is too much for some folks. You can damn sure know that if I was dealing with a quarter million dollars worth of files on a computer, it would be well backed up. Cost of doing business.
How o you do the backups, when do you remove them and how do you store them? I've never got going. I also don't know how Backblaze work for recovery or changed files.
I'm lucky in that I can use Time Machine. I wish there was a similar program for PC. Anyone with a similar program for PC that can chime in here?
It's hard to feel sorry for the guy, even if he did lose a lot of money.
Never, ever, ever put working video files - original footage or working copies, on an external drive. It's just too slow, especially in these days of 4K and upwards. The only things I use external drives for are backups, and transferring copies to clients.
The bare minimum for using PP effectively is: 1 drive for OS+software, 1 drive for footage, 1 drive for MediaCache, and many external drives for backups. Never ever mix original footage and scratch copies - as this guy did. As an aside, I don't clear the MediaCache until after the project is completed, the product is delivered to the client, and all original footage is removed from the editing computer and stored elsewhere - external HDDs or whatever.
When I use the term 'drive', it of course includes multi-disc volumes, RAID, etc. But OS+software, footage, and scratch/MediaCache should be on separate volumes.
General comment here, and not a criticism, because you are correct. While we can get into the concept of who has the biggest backup weenie, it always devolves into the same thing as the password conundrum, where someone eventually says they use doubly random 256 Characters changed every minute, otherwise they are dumb.
When in fact, this reductio ad absurdum one upsmanship is contrasted against someone who had no backup at all.
For all of the wonderfulness of the better backup methods, the man simply would have not lost his files if he had 1 simple backup. Didn't have to be redundant, stored offsite, or on several different volumes. It isn't that the good methods aren't good, it's just that having no backup period is just division by zero.
FTFT
if its valuable back it up?
The most amazing thing about the backup dillemma is that it is just so damn easy to keep yourself out of no backup hell. My backup system has local, hourly, daily and weekly backups. I don't even have to think about it, except when I make the archival remote location backup.
Whatever - the lawsuit should be against the stupid asshole who even after all of these years and all of the horror stories, kept exactly 1 set in exactly 1 place.
Suing Adobe? Well, what if his hard drive died? Sue the manufacturer of the drive? Computer glitch corrupts the files, Sue the electrical company? Sorry, It sucks, but you are the person in the wrong, it is tough titty cupcake.
Not be in equities that close to retirement?
If you're 10+ years from retirement, then you can certainly be stock-focused with your positions (whether mutual funds or ETFs), but the general advice is to be bond-focused (>60%) once you're getting close-in to your retirement.
This is the standard advice in basically all financial planning books that I've read.
If you really don't want to be dealing with this shit, then purchase an annuity from an insurance company.
There are a lot of prudent and sensible ways to save for retirement.
But as I've explained before, there are a huge number of people who are shit with money.
They seem to think they are going to live forever, they refi their houses, they run up alot of credit card debt, then in their mid 50's they get smacked in the face that their dream of retirement is fading fast. Especially when they go to a retirement planning seminar and are told they need a minmum of 2 million or tthey might as well live under a bridge. So these foolish assholes try to figure out how to make 2 million by the time they hit 65 and live the dream.
And since the return on what they can invest at that time needs to be stellar if damn near impossible, they panic, invest riskily, and almost always lose their money.
I am not saying what people should do, I'm saying what they do
At that point they shouldn't of had the bulk of their money in the stock market.
Indeed! Unfortunately all too many people are really bad at investing.
Well you asked for the advice, so I'll give you some. The scenario you mentioned hits on two big things you should learn in your first few hours learning about investing.
First, balance your investments. The percent you have in bonds should be *very roughly* equal to your age, so he should have had over 70% in bonds, which don't lose value. In fact they can increase with the stock market goes down.
Second, don't panic and sell everything at once when there is a dip. If the market is headed down from a high and you're worried, sell 10% or even 15% Typical recovery time is about 18 months, so stay cool. After a year, if you feel you must, you can sell another 10% to protect some gains in case it stays down for a long time.
Well you asked for the advice, so I'll give you some.
But you are preaching to the choir here. As for my question, it was intended as more than just nuts and bolts.
The scenario you mentioned hits on two big things you should learn in your first few hours learning about investing.
First, balance your investments.
But people don't seem to work that way - which is the (admittedly roundabout) point of my question.
The mechanics of building a portfolio for future living expenses are pretty simple. I learned from 2 mentors, my father, and my first financial advisor, who was strictly no-nonsense. But both noted that if someone wants you to get too complicated, it's time to bail pronto. All of my risk was borne in the early years of saving and investing. I would have stretched that longer, but I also pay attention to which Political party is in power. Based on research, one party tends to precipitate downturns, and it isn't who most think. So I had to get the money into a safer place.
Next I took advantage of every possible program available to me. That's how I ended up with 3 external and one internal retirement account. Gotta have a good ecosystem. Now I can live off the interest.
But that isn't how the greater percentage of people act. Witness the 30 year mortgage. Lower monthly payments, to hell with the total paid amount.
Refi refi refi, reverse mortgage. Witness how many people fall for Bernie Madoff scams. Witness how many people spend way too much time listening to "experts" telling them to do this or that. And of course, the risky investment addiction, usually leading to failure.
It really isn't difficult, this money thing. Keep it simple, take any risks early, then move to conservative, Pay the retirement account before you eat, and for gawd's sake pay attention to the total amount saved and/or spent, and not the low low monthly payments. Now I'm probably preaching to the choir too. 8^)
Frightening. Jack just equated "meaningful conversation" with "what statements provoke the most responses". Welcome to the future of Twiiter, where clickbait and trolling is considered "meaningful" simply because they provoke the most responses.
I believe that has been Twitter's modus since day one. Having meaningful conversation within Twitter's system simply doesn't happen.
Although it is a great place to commit career suicide.
I'm not sure why you sound pissed. You're already ready to retire, so you don't need the job. You can just keep upping the salary to whatever you want. You have a captive customer, and don't care if they find their way out of the trap.
Not certain why you think I was pissed. There were some specific rules about pay and the hours I could work that would limit the hours (essentially no more than 20 a week) but I eventually saw no point. Now I have taken on a very lucrative part time position - I still don't need the money, but I can buy a lot of cool toys. I still like doing some work, but there is a real coolness in knowing you don't have to.
Oh, you're right. If it hits at the wrong time, you can be fucked. At the same time, a year and a half to get back what you lost isn't all that bad. But, there have to be special (shitty) circumstances where somebody would have to dump their entire portfolio immediately after a crash. Most people should be able to just wait a bit longer.
What I have found to be the issue is that many or even most people are horrible with money management. Even people who are really smart. I've seen it so many times that it can't be a fluke.
Stage 1: The 20's - They can't be bothered to save for retirement, or have some rationale that there is not point. When I was in my early 20's, the rationale was that inflation was going to make any savings worthless. Stage 2: The 30's - Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Family matters will suck up as much money as you allow it to take.
Stage 3: The 40's - Some folks start to think about putting some money way. Many just re-fi their house to buy that awesome Escalade and fly themselves and their children and friends to Disney World YOLO, y'all.
Stage 3: The 50's Somewhere between the early to mid 50's, these folk suddenly are confronted with the fact that they are going to be retiring. So they start saving hard. But here is where the evil sets in. They attend a retirement seminar. And the grifter H^H^H^H^H^H^ Financial consultant starts in on how they are going to be destitute unless they have at least 2 million socked away. Anything less and they will be living like paupers.
And many of them panic, and make a lot of risky investments. They simply must turn the 50 K they have now into 2 Million if not more.
And........ they lose a lot of money on those investments. I even know 4 people who fell for a Ponzi Scheme.
Stage 4: the 60's Okay now, when people should be winding down, they are coming to terms with still having a mortgage, while that Escalade they bought in their 40's has been melted down and is now part of a Chinese Aircraft carrier. They look at their CC debt. Then they look at the pittance they will be bringing in on Social Security, and see that the amount won't even cover their mortgage payment. Now they are well and truly screwed.
I always catch crap from the smart people about this, but I had 2 outside retirement accounts by the time I was 22, and then a third one before 30. Plus an inside one via employer. I paid my mortgage off in 15 years. I have no CC debt, even though I live on 2 Credit cards, paying them off every month, and making a few thou on cash back every year.
And I retired at 55, having put the money in conservative accounts for the last 15 years or so. And it beats the living bejeezuz out of working. Full disclosure, I have taken on a part time job that pays very handsomely, that I use to buy my toys without affecting the family finances.
I'm a firm believer that we should go back to teaching civics in school, and teaching money management as well.
I only offer this stuff as an alternative for Slashdotters who think they will never be able to retire.
Your balanced mutual funds didn't recover since the last two market crashes? The market as a whole rebounded in an average 1.5 years after the last few crashes. What kind of dog shit mutual funds do you own?
And yet I know a guy who lost it all in 1999 and 2007. Then since he was in his 70's by that time, he simply retired on what was left. What is your wisdom for him? Seems that the masters of the univers like yourself are immune from aging like the rest of us mortals are not.