Thanks for proving to the audience that you don't understand science at all, because science works pretty much exactly like that.
Confusion abounds: Who said we were talking about science here? I certainly didn't.
Historical writers aren't trusted, nor are scientists.
I beg to differ that historical writers aren't trusted. I believe you will find that if they are not, we have VERY little history because there isn't much external evidence (other writings) for most of the history we "accept". This is the "double standard" people employ when it comes to historical writings in the Bible. They want "proof", but accept other historical writings with little or no proof whatsoever.
This is why science is based is based on repeatable observation, so you don't need to trust the scientist. Historical science doesn't have the same ability to repeat observations, but can simulate it fairly well by using accounts from multiple people.
Note specifically that one of the more common failure in science is exactly to trust something too much, when it later on proves out to have been falsified or incorrectly demonstrated.
And no, false ideas don't cause much confusion since such theories have to match into the framework that is observable reality, and a general application of Occam's Razor can be used to discard theories that try to fit reality by using lots of special case scenarios. Also, good ideas in science should be put in such a way that they can be falsified.
Science projects and accepts "theories" as facts all the time. Prove what many accept as evolution to me. Not the evolution of species when subjected to different environments, but the evolution that teaches that sperm whales and butterflies evolved from the same single celled organism.
You accept lots of "science" that can't truly be proven. You have faith in the scientists until proven otherwise.
And here is the fun part. As we can't observe God, we do have a rather wide net of possible assumptions that could be made. Hence, questioning your assumptions about who God would send to hell is completely valid, as there is nothing special about your assumptions that makes it hold true, and so you can use Occum's Razor.
You see I believe that we have and can observe God and He has given us a clear set of guidlines. I also stated very clearly (earlier) that I believe strongly that God doesn't send anyone to hell. They choose to go there themselves. Works like this: You are in a burning building and I tell you that all the ways out are blocked except for one. You don't like that answer because you are a smart guy and there must be more than one way and I'm being completely intolerant of your belief that there is more than one way out. So you don't take the exit that leads to safety...
Nothing wrong with questions. Questions are good. Discounting any answers that don't fit in your "view of the universe" doesn't seem to fit you either.
Now I think the REAL question comes down to this hypothetical question: If God came to you right now and convinced you that I'm correct, how could you possibly document it so that it could be shared with others? The only "proof" is your word and others belief in what you say.
Like a said earlier, this is God's universe so we play by His rules not ours. Creating hypothetical alternate god's and then using them as a basis for not believing in any god isn't going to get you any closer to the truth, and that is what we are discussing isn't it? The fact that other gods "could exist" doesn't mean that they do. If you use this same logic on all other knowledge that you "believe" you possess, you would find that you would not be able to be sure about anything that you didn't personally observe. All history would be discounted (not sure I can trust the historical writers and I can think of a bunch of alternative histories that I like better). All science would be discounted (I don't trust the scientists and much of what they tell me is so far fetched it is virtually impossible to believe). This approach would guarantee confusion because there are an infinite number of alternate (and false) histories or scientific theories that can be fabricated.
Christianity believes that there is one true God, that He loves His creation so much that He would sacrifice his Son on a cross to redeem them. Jesus didn't die on the cross for those that love Him. He died for everyone, even those that hated Him. Jesus was either who He said He was or He was a lunatic. If He was who He said He was, then what He said to us it true "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." Note: He didn't say I am one of many different ways. Apparently it is this "one way" solution that bothers many people. If there is only one way (the truth) it is extremely important that people know what that one way is. If you were sick and your doctor told you there was only one way to get well, you would be fine with that (assuming it were true). You wouldn't create hypothetical alternative ways of getting well and find yourself unable to make a decision about the correct treatment and let yourself die would you?
Writers like Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis started out believing much as you and set out to disprove Jesus testimony, but in the end both were convinced that Jesus was who He said He was (you might want to read some of their books as a basis for testing your beliefs against theirs). With eternity in the balance, that decision has, one might say, far-reaching consequences.
God is perfectly just. There's no contradiction in how He deals with mankind. Many men try to convince themselves that God "grades on a scale" (if I'm more good than bad I'll be OK). He doesn't. It is completely pass/fail. If you are perfect (which is impossible), you will spend eternity with Him. If you sin without redemption, it is impossible for you to be in His presence. Holiness (God) cannot be in the presence of sin. The two are incompatible. We may not like the rules, but then you and I aren't God. Ignoring them isn't an option. As much as we my try, we cannot replace his rules with ours. When we create a universe out of nothing, we can set the rules for our universe. In His universe, we are subject to His rules (some I don't understand, but then I'm not God). He knew that it would be impossible for us to lead a sinless life so He provided a second way, the redemptive blood of a sinless Jesus. This is a gift (available to all), but like any gift it comes with a requirement: it must be opened and accepted to be enjoyed. You are free to refuse the gift, but the cost will be separation from God for eternity (Hell). Many people believe that God's judgement is what sends people to Hell, but they aren't reading scripture correctly. God doesn't send anyone to Hell, everyone that goes to Hell is choosing to go there against God's wishes. God's judgement (in Revelation) will be for those that are redeemed. Those that are lost (i.e. those that choose not to spend eternity with God) judge themselves. Without free will there cannot be true love. God wanted to spend eternity with beings that love Him and that is impossible if He: 1) Doesn't give them the opportunity NOT to love Him, and 2) if He reveals so much of Himself that our free will is taken away. Faith requires just a little of "not knowing" or it wouldn't be faith at all. He believed in free will/love so strongly that He even gave free will to heavenly beings (some of which chose to reject God).
Use your intellect to investigate God's plan for humankind and you won't need to "trust your gut", you will have assurance. Don't let others tell you what God has said (many of them are VERY wrong), investigate it yourself. Christianity isn't as much a religion, as it is a relationship (with God). That is what He wants.
You either have to believe that humans are eternal beings or that we live, then die, and that's the end. If Christians are correct in accepting the Gospel (that Jesus sacrificed His life for their sins), they spend eternity in Heaven. If they are wrong, it doesn't matter. If you are wrong, you spend eternity in Hell. There are no merits that will get you judged "Holy". Everyone has sinned and sin is incompatible with Heaven. That was the reason that a perfect sacrifice was necessary. If we could do it on our own, we wouldn't have required a savior. God loves you so much that He will allow you to choose NOT to spend eternity with Him. He also provided you with a way TO spend eternity with him (accepting his Son as your personal savior). Ultimately the choice is yours. You owe it to yourself to take a closer look at what Christianity REALLY means.
So I'm guessing you aren't using hosted email in any way. If you are, your email data is "in the cloud". Another excellent use of the cloud is for system backups (note I work for a company that provides secure system backups to our cloud storage). One of the few "reliable" ways of keeping up-to-date point-in-time backups of systems for disaster recovery is by using secure cloud storage. Every other method that I've investigated has serious (and often fatal) flaws to keeping a recoverable image of critical business systems. I gave up on the "take a copy of all my servers/workstations" home method a long time ago because it has become unworkable and people are inherently unreliable.
While I think that purchasing more RAM should ALWAYS be your first choice, couldn't you put/SWAP on the SSD. If it gets used a lot, the SSD will get worn out (write cycle limit on the SSD), but hey you are the one that wants to use SSD for SWAP.
So how do you feel when someone breaks in line in front of you? They bring you no harm, but I'd be willing to bet that you get upset because it is morally wrong.
And, unless you are a vegetarian, you narrow your definition of "bring harm to another" to only humans?
And if you are not a vegetarian, I'd bet that even you get angry if you see someone being cruel to an animal. But wait, you then you have to redefine "harm" (killing for food is not harm, but cruelty is).
I contend that you haven't thought your "idea of morality" all the way through. Morality isn't "what you decide", it is in the very fabric of the universe and was put there by the Creator.
Your definition is an attempt to make yourself the center of the universe (you'll be the judge of what is moral). Original sin began because man (and woman) tried out this exact same "thought process". I know God said not to, but eating the apple couldn't possibly bring any "harm to another" now could it? Look where that got us.
While the op is asking about RAID it is clear that RAID is only one third of what people require. They require backup, disaster recover, and availability. RAID only addresses availability. If you want RAID done correctly add a multi-port controller (preferably one that is compatible with your motherboard RAID) and mirror two drives with a hot spare (3 minimum). That way the hot spare will auto sync to the working drive after a failure and be there if the second master drive fails shortly thereafter. That will provide excellent availability, but backup and disaster recovery are another matter.
Disclaimer: I'm the CTO of vitalEsafe. Having watched clients struggle with backups and disaster recovery for the last 27+ years. I finally decided (4 years ago) that nobody was providing the solution that people actually needed, so I designed one from the ground up.
Based on vitalEsafe's secure web services platform, shadowSafe address ALL the requirements of the vast majority of users. It is backup and disaster recovery as a service (nothing to purchase). We use StorageCraft's excellent ShadowProtect backup and disaster recovery software married with secure storage of your backups on our remote servers (which are backed up using Amazon S3). Data is fully encrypted and stored for you in the event of a catastrophic failure and a local copy is maintained for all those "other" times where you need to recover a file, volume, or an entire machine. No bandwidth limitations like some online backup systems out there. If you go out of business, you have a fully functioning backup and disaster recovery system on your system that is completely independent of vitalEsafe (without the catastrophic recovery option of course). Backups can even be imported into VMware virtual machine a booted in minutes.
Based on the list of potential failures shown above (and with one addition, catastrophic event), here is how shadowSafe address each problem:
1) Aw sh1tz. "I didn't mean to delete that folder"... or "Whoops! I formatted the wrong drive", "I saved the wrong version of the file!", whatever. Although I *myself* don't have this happen often, it does happen. And even in my case I've lost about as much useful information this way as by drives dying. Users delete stuff all the time, and it's usually my job to bring it back, which is why I perform redundant, historical backups EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Mount any point-in-time backup (yes it is like a "time machine") and restore your file. You can backup every hour if you like, but most people think 1, 2 or 4 times a day is adequate. This can be done because our software utilizes volume shadowing services (VSS) that is built into Windows (sorry Linux/Mac users, for now you are out of luck) that can make backups of Exchange, MS SQL, Oracle 11g, Pervasive 9/10 (and any other VSS-aware database or service) backups without shutting them down. Backups are made at the block level (not the file level) which means that intra-day backups are really small and very fast.
2) Malware. Don't minimize this - it's real, and it's why I reply to Parent. You are more likely to lose information from a virus/worm/malware and/or b0rked install of something that hoses your filesystem than by a hard disk crash given stable hardware.
Always do an incremental backup of your machine before installing software. Then if you 'hose" the machine,
restore your entire machine back to any point-in-time backup in minutes (from your local backup). Works like a restore point for your entire system.
3) Bugs. Filesystems have bugs. So do applications, utilities, anything with software. Strange, unexpected conditions, often caused by bugs in applications can cause data to "disappear", files to get corrupted, filesystems to get corrupted, folders to be incompletely written, etc. This is about as likely to cause lost data as:
Restore your entire machine back to any point-in-time backup in minutes (from your local backup).
If we received a court order to turn over the contents of a safe my understanding is that we have no choice but to do so. vitalEsafe would provide the legal entity with the AES-256 encrypted files. It would be up to them to decrypt them. I don't have access to the decryption key to provide decrypted files to them. If they can decrypt them, then they can decrypt your local copies as well (assuming your local backups are fully encrypted) which you would be compelled to turn over via the same court order (unless you destroyed them all).
vitalEsafe, Inc. provides online encrypted storage to a number of law offices and to all lawyers submitting and receiving legal documents from/to the Mississippi Chancery Courts. We provide secure storage, sharing, and transmission of documents. Many law offices do nightly backups of changed documents to our servers for complete offsite disaster recovery protection. Each account's data is encrypted with a separate key that is only available to the account's owner. We believe the encrypted sharing and sending features are unique among online storage vendors at this time.
I've been programming for going on 35 years and have tried a BUNCH of different languages and approaches. I'm glad I've finally settled on writing virtually 100% of my code in Python (using C only when performance is an absolute must). That plus some shell scripts seems to work for almost any project that I've come across in the last 5 years. Python brings lots of tools, good support system, etc. and I'm finding that concentrating on a single language means I'm deepening my understanding with every program I write and adding to a robust personal library of reusable functions and classes that make writing bulletproof code a pleasure. I can be VERY productive because of the high level nature of the code. It is almost like writing pseudo-code once you get a good understanding.
I write for Windows and Linux (not much on the Mac). I've written Windows Services, COM objects, GUI programs (with wxWindows), as well as normal batch programs and scripts. On Linux I've written daemons, GUI programs, and background batch processing scripts. What is great is that I only need the one language.
I have just never felt at home in the GUI IDE world that seems so popular with some.
I was watching a professional thief turned consultant on TV a few years ago describe his best and easiest scam. He would get a rent-a-cop uniform and stand outside a bank branch somewhere at the night depository. When people came to the bank to make their night deposits, he explained that it was broken and the bank had hired him to collect the bags. He claimed that most people actually gave him their night deposit bags!
While it might not work for the more advanced subjects or those like history that need to be updated more often. The textbook required to teach language, math, science 1st through at least the 10th grade haven't changed in quite some time. The Algebra I I used 30 years ago would be adequate today.
Copyright law (contrary to popular opinion) was originally designed to protect the populace (not the publishers). After some time, the work was to be in the public domain. I think it would be a really good idea for a group of educators to set up sites where copies of good textbooks that have expired copyrights available for download.
We keep hearing how our schools don't have enough money. This would go a long way of lifting that burden. It has worked for software, why not for textbooks. Some people would even place new textbooks directly into this repository (like open source software).
Just my 2 cents.
Re:RAID5 is stupid, RAID 10 or no RAID
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What NAS To Buy?
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· Score: 2, Informative
Over the past 15 or so years my company has built quite a few RAID5 arrays on servers. We have used many different controllers (SCSI and ATAPI) from ultra-high priced (>$1500) hardware based ones to low cost ones. We have done it on different Operating Systems: Novell, Windows Server, Linux. We have used different software. EVERY ONE OF THEM HAS HAD A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE THAT RESULTED IN LOST DATA FOR A CLIENT. I gave up on RAID5 about 8 years ago. RAID10 (with at least one hot spare) has proven to be both more reliable and WAY better performing.
I have had some success with RAID6 on Linux, but performance is not anything like RAID10. During the same time a client has only lost data on RAID10 array ONE time. They ignored the failure of both of their hot spares (which kicked in and rebuilt failed drive properly) and continued to run without telling anyone! No fault tolerance could protect them.
>>That being said, if you could choose the genetic make-up of your children and spare them any diseases or malformations I would be hard pressed to form an argument against it. Especially, since I would want the same for my children.
This type of thinking is VERY dangerous. Given pre-birth information what would have the parents of the following people have chosen to do:
Stephen Hawking (ALS)
Lou Gherig (ALS)
Richard Prior (ALS)
Mao Tse Tung (ALS)
Billy Graham (Parkinsons)
Katherine Hepburn (Parkinsons )
Harry Truman (Parkinsons)
Johnny Cash (Parkinsons)
Muhammad Ali (Parkinsons)
George Harrison (cancer)
Mickey Mantle (cancer)
Charles Lindbergh (lymphoma)
Gilda Radner (cancer)
the list is endless
Everybody dies of something.
You cannot know the contribution that someone will make to the work BEFORE their disease gets them. Even very young people that die can make huge contributions. Ask parents of down syndrome children what they think about their experience.
These tests can also only tell you about a predisposition to a disease, not that you will get it. In "The China Study", Dr. Campbell states that these predispositions are only 10-15% of the picture, while lifestyle is the other 85-90%. The reason that many families share a predisposition to a disease has a lot more to do with a share lifestyle (e.g. eating habits, environment, etc.) than it does with anything that we can tell from their "genes". They also can't tell you "when" the disease will get someone. Is your decision different it a disease kills someone when they are 9 or 90? These are terrible odds to base such an important decision on.
People to God: Why do you allow so much suffering on earth, wars, famines, etc? Why don't you send someone to solve these problems?
God to people: I keep sending people that can help solve these problems, but you keep aborting them before they can be born to do their work.
www.websafe.com (currently being renamed www.vitalesafe.com) provides encrypted sharing of folders over the Internet. Much easier to set up and maintain than a VPN (you could have a secure sharing configuration set up in less than 10 minutes). Requires no special client software (you can use browser, or WebDAV client, or free client-side sending software). Your data is protected end-to-end during the transfer and during the on-disk the storage. Every account has a unique encryption key. One of the design goals of our product is to meet just such a need as the one you outline. There are other features like online backup, Patient managed Health Record (PHR), and a Password Manager that can be used in addition to the secure sharing/collaboration. Free trial accounts are available (limited to 50Mb).
Disclosure: I am the Director of Technology for WebSafe/vitalEsafe.
These types of taxes are stupid for two reasons:
1) They cherry-pick some insdustries while others get off scott free. If they want to tax everything then they should just pass a VAT or GST like Canada.
2) You can actually tax any business. They just act as a "collection agency". They always pass these taxes along to the consumer. If you need additional money (which I doubt), raise everyone's income tax. We already have a everything in place to handle that.
If something exists that meets ALL your needs, I've never seen it. Some of what you ask for is quite hard. We haven't found an exact solution but we have found one that meets "most" of your requirements. If you use Super Flexible File Synchronizer (SFFS) (http://www.superflexible.com/) and WebSafe (http://www.websafe.com/) you can accomplish the majority of what you want. SFFS provides a very flexible synchronization program that can be run manually or scheduled. WebSafe provides encrypted online storage for your files. File transfer is via https (SSL) with at-rest files encrypted using AES-256 encryption (in WebSafe). WebSafe provides both a browser and a WebDAV (Web Folder) interface for online file access. Binary diffs can be done for local synchronizations, but binary diffs would be extremely difficult to implement between a local binary file and a remote encrypted binary file. You sure don't want to have your files available on the Web in clear text (unencrypted). With the flexible scheduler available in SFFS and WebSafe's encrypted online storage, this meets our needs for syncrhonizations that exceed 45Gb of storage at our office.
I should let you know that as one of the programmers on the WebSafe team, we designed it to meet just the type of needs that you outline.
This is a pretty silly thing to say. With the current 32-bit operating system unable to address more than 3.5Gb of RAM and new applications like PhotoShop, InDesign, Illustrator using HUGE amounts of memory, I need 64-bits today! In 1981 someone said "you will never need more than 640Kb on a PC". Just about the same.
I can't speak to the security of these locks but they might be worth a look. You unlock them using the Dallas Semiconductor iButtons. Each one has a unique serial number imbedded it it and it can't be copied. We've sold these peoples timeclocks and they have worked well. They also have a line of locks that sound like they might meet your needs.
http://www.accesspilot.com/
And if God had not chosen to create this world and all his children, nobody would have suffered! But, then again, nobody would be able to be with Him in heaven for eternity because they would not have existed. I believe it helps if you start looking at our existence on earth in the context of ETERNITY. A few years of suffering for eternity with God is a small price to pay for EXISTENCE (even though it doesn't seem like it at the time). Our existence was not guaranteed until God willed it. The alternative to the suffering you observe is the lack of existence altogether. I'm completely sympathetic to the misery that some of His creation must endure, but compared to forever with Him it nothing. I'm convinced that there will come a time when the suffering many people endured while here on earth will be like the scraped elbow you had when you fell off your bike when you were 9. It hurt a lot at the time, but now it is a distant memory.
People have the power to eliminate most of this misery if we would choose to, but free-will also allows us to choose not to. That's the problem with free-will, we can choose to ignore God's commandments. But without free-will, there is no true love and that is what God wants from us. He didn't want to create robots (you can't love a robot). He wanted to spend eternity with beings (both heavenly and earthly) that truely loved Him.
We use Websafe (http://www.websafe.com/). https:/// SSL encryption while on Net and AES-256 while at rest (I have the clear-text encryption master key in my possesion). Also supports WebDAV webfolders via WebDrive service (http://www.webdrive.com/). Comes with free ZBKUP utility that zips data BEFORE it is transmitted and can be scheduled to do lights-out backups unattended via webfolders or you can use any D2D backup you like. Depending on your Internet upload performance you can easily upload gigabyte (compressed) backups during the night. No firewall issues because it only uses https:/// port 443. Cluster of Linux/64 servers power the service. Each storage disk is on separate controller and is mirrored. Backups are maintainted with a grandfather, father, son rotation (nightly) as well. Supports browser access and sharing of individual folders with other WebSafe users. Not the cheapest, but the combination of encryption, collaboration, and ease of use are unmatched.
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Thanks for proving to the audience that you don't understand science at all, because science works pretty much exactly like that.
Confusion abounds: Who said we were talking about science here? I certainly didn't.
Historical writers aren't trusted, nor are scientists.
I beg to differ that historical writers aren't trusted. I believe you will find that if they are not, we have VERY little history because there isn't much external evidence (other writings) for most of the history we "accept". This is the "double standard" people employ when it comes to historical writings in the Bible. They want "proof", but accept other historical writings with little or no proof whatsoever.
This is why science is based is based on repeatable observation, so you don't need to trust the scientist. Historical science doesn't have the same ability to repeat observations, but can simulate it fairly well by using accounts from multiple people.
Note specifically that one of the more common failure in science is exactly to trust something too much, when it later on proves out to have been falsified or incorrectly demonstrated.
And no, false ideas don't cause much confusion since such theories have to match into the framework that is observable reality, and a general application of Occam's Razor can be used to discard theories that try to fit reality by using lots of special case scenarios. Also, good ideas in science should be put in such a way that they can be falsified.
Science projects and accepts "theories" as facts all the time. Prove what many accept as evolution to me. Not the evolution of species when subjected to different environments, but the evolution that teaches that sperm whales and butterflies evolved from the same single celled organism. You accept lots of "science" that can't truly be proven. You have faith in the scientists until proven otherwise.
And here is the fun part. As we can't observe God, we do have a rather wide net of possible assumptions that could be made. Hence, questioning your assumptions about who God would send to hell is completely valid, as there is nothing special about your assumptions that makes it hold true, and so you can use Occum's Razor.
You see I believe that we have and can observe God and He has given us a clear set of guidlines. I also stated very clearly (earlier) that I believe strongly that God doesn't send anyone to hell. They choose to go there themselves. Works like this: You are in a burning building and I tell you that all the ways out are blocked except for one. You don't like that answer because you are a smart guy and there must be more than one way and I'm being completely intolerant of your belief that there is more than one way out. So you don't take the exit that leads to safety...
Nothing wrong with questions. Questions are good. Discounting any answers that don't fit in your "view of the universe" doesn't seem to fit you either.
Now I think the REAL question comes down to this hypothetical question: If God came to you right now and convinced you that I'm correct, how could you possibly document it so that it could be shared with others? The only "proof" is your word and others belief in what you say.
Like a said earlier, this is God's universe so we play by His rules not ours. Creating hypothetical alternate god's and then using them as a basis for not believing in any god isn't going to get you any closer to the truth, and that is what we are discussing isn't it? The fact that other gods "could exist" doesn't mean that they do. If you use this same logic on all other knowledge that you "believe" you possess, you would find that you would not be able to be sure about anything that you didn't personally observe. All history would be discounted (not sure I can trust the historical writers and I can think of a bunch of alternative histories that I like better). All science would be discounted (I don't trust the scientists and much of what they tell me is so far fetched it is virtually impossible to believe). This approach would guarantee confusion because there are an infinite number of alternate (and false) histories or scientific theories that can be fabricated.
Christianity believes that there is one true God, that He loves His creation so much that He would sacrifice his Son on a cross to redeem them. Jesus didn't die on the cross for those that love Him. He died for everyone, even those that hated Him. Jesus was either who He said He was or He was a lunatic. If He was who He said He was, then what He said to us it true "I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." Note: He didn't say I am one of many different ways. Apparently it is this "one way" solution that bothers many people. If there is only one way (the truth) it is extremely important that people know what that one way is. If you were sick and your doctor told you there was only one way to get well, you would be fine with that (assuming it were true). You wouldn't create hypothetical alternative ways of getting well and find yourself unable to make a decision about the correct treatment and let yourself die would you?
Writers like Josh McDowell and C.S. Lewis started out believing much as you and set out to disprove Jesus testimony, but in the end both were convinced that Jesus was who He said He was (you might want to read some of their books as a basis for testing your beliefs against theirs). With eternity in the balance, that decision has, one might say, far-reaching consequences.
God is perfectly just. There's no contradiction in how He deals with mankind. Many men try to convince themselves that God "grades on a scale" (if I'm more good than bad I'll be OK). He doesn't. It is completely pass/fail. If you are perfect (which is impossible), you will spend eternity with Him. If you sin without redemption, it is impossible for you to be in His presence. Holiness (God) cannot be in the presence of sin. The two are incompatible. We may not like the rules, but then you and I aren't God. Ignoring them isn't an option. As much as we my try, we cannot replace his rules with ours. When we create a universe out of nothing, we can set the rules for our universe. In His universe, we are subject to His rules (some I don't understand, but then I'm not God). He knew that it would be impossible for us to lead a sinless life so He provided a second way, the redemptive blood of a sinless Jesus. This is a gift (available to all), but like any gift it comes with a requirement: it must be opened and accepted to be enjoyed. You are free to refuse the gift, but the cost will be separation from God for eternity (Hell). Many people believe that God's judgement is what sends people to Hell, but they aren't reading scripture correctly. God doesn't send anyone to Hell, everyone that goes to Hell is choosing to go there against God's wishes. God's judgement (in Revelation) will be for those that are redeemed. Those that are lost (i.e. those that choose not to spend eternity with God) judge themselves. Without free will there cannot be true love. God wanted to spend eternity with beings that love Him and that is impossible if He: 1) Doesn't give them the opportunity NOT to love Him, and 2) if He reveals so much of Himself that our free will is taken away. Faith requires just a little of "not knowing" or it wouldn't be faith at all. He believed in free will/love so strongly that He even gave free will to heavenly beings (some of which chose to reject God).
Use your intellect to investigate God's plan for humankind and you won't need to "trust your gut", you will have assurance. Don't let others tell you what God has said (many of them are VERY wrong), investigate it yourself. Christianity isn't as much a religion, as it is a relationship (with God). That is what He wants.
You either have to believe that humans are eternal beings or that we live, then die, and that's the end. If Christians are correct in accepting the Gospel (that Jesus sacrificed His life for their sins), they spend eternity in Heaven. If they are wrong, it doesn't matter. If you are wrong, you spend eternity in Hell. There are no merits that will get you judged "Holy". Everyone has sinned and sin is incompatible with Heaven. That was the reason that a perfect sacrifice was necessary. If we could do it on our own, we wouldn't have required a savior. God loves you so much that He will allow you to choose NOT to spend eternity with Him. He also provided you with a way TO spend eternity with him (accepting his Son as your personal savior). Ultimately the choice is yours. You owe it to yourself to take a closer look at what Christianity REALLY means.
So I'm guessing you aren't using hosted email in any way. If you are, your email data is "in the cloud". Another excellent use of the cloud is for system backups (note I work for a company that provides secure system backups to our cloud storage). One of the few "reliable" ways of keeping up-to-date point-in-time backups of systems for disaster recovery is by using secure cloud storage. Every other method that I've investigated has serious (and often fatal) flaws to keeping a recoverable image of critical business systems. I gave up on the "take a copy of all my servers/workstations" home method a long time ago because it has become unworkable and people are inherently unreliable.
While I think that purchasing more RAM should ALWAYS be your first choice, couldn't you put /SWAP on the SSD. If it gets used a lot, the SSD will get worn out (write cycle limit on the SSD), but hey you are the one that wants to use SSD for SWAP.
So how do you feel when someone breaks in line in front of you? They bring you no harm, but I'd be willing to bet that you get upset because it is morally wrong.
And, unless you are a vegetarian, you narrow your definition of "bring harm to another" to only humans?
And if you are not a vegetarian, I'd bet that even you get angry if you see someone being cruel to an animal. But wait, you then you have to redefine "harm" (killing for food is not harm, but cruelty is).
I contend that you haven't thought your "idea of morality" all the way through. Morality isn't "what you decide", it is in the very fabric of the universe and was put there by the Creator.
Your definition is an attempt to make yourself the center of the universe (you'll be the judge of what is moral). Original sin began because man (and woman) tried out this exact same "thought process". I know God said not to, but eating the apple couldn't possibly bring any "harm to another" now could it? Look where that got us.
While the op is asking about RAID it is clear that RAID is only one third of what people require. They require backup, disaster recover, and availability. RAID only addresses availability. If you want RAID done correctly add a multi-port controller (preferably one that is compatible with your motherboard RAID) and mirror two drives with a hot spare (3 minimum). That way the hot spare will auto sync to the working drive after a failure and be there if the second master drive fails shortly thereafter. That will provide excellent availability, but backup and disaster recovery are another matter.
Disclaimer: I'm the CTO of vitalEsafe. Having watched clients struggle with backups and disaster recovery for the last 27+ years. I finally decided (4 years ago) that nobody was providing the solution that people actually needed, so I designed one from the ground up.
Based on vitalEsafe's secure web services platform, shadowSafe address ALL the requirements of the vast majority of users. It is backup and disaster recovery as a service (nothing to purchase). We use StorageCraft's excellent ShadowProtect backup and disaster recovery software married with secure storage of your backups on our remote servers (which are backed up using Amazon S3). Data is fully encrypted and stored for you in the event of a catastrophic failure and a local copy is maintained for all those "other" times where you need to recover a file, volume, or an entire machine. No bandwidth limitations like some online backup systems out there. If you go out of business, you have a fully functioning backup and disaster recovery system on your system that is completely independent of vitalEsafe (without the catastrophic recovery option of course). Backups can even be imported into VMware virtual machine a booted in minutes.
Based on the list of potential failures shown above (and with one addition, catastrophic event), here is how shadowSafe address each problem:
1) Aw sh1tz. "I didn't mean to delete that folder"... or "Whoops! I formatted the wrong drive", "I saved the wrong version of the file!", whatever. Although I *myself* don't have this happen often, it does happen. And even in my case I've lost about as much useful information this way as by drives dying. Users delete stuff all the time, and it's usually my job to bring it back, which is why I perform redundant, historical backups EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Mount any point-in-time backup (yes it is like a "time machine") and restore your file. You can backup every hour if you like, but most people think 1, 2 or 4 times a day is adequate. This can be done because our software utilizes volume shadowing services (VSS) that is built into Windows (sorry Linux/Mac users, for now you are out of luck) that can make backups of Exchange, MS SQL, Oracle 11g, Pervasive 9/10 (and any other VSS-aware database or service) backups without shutting them down. Backups are made at the block level (not the file level) which means that intra-day backups are really small and very fast.
2) Malware. Don't minimize this - it's real, and it's why I reply to Parent. You are more likely to lose information from a virus/worm/malware and/or b0rked install of something that hoses your filesystem than by a hard disk crash given stable hardware.
Always do an incremental backup of your machine before installing software. Then if you 'hose" the machine, restore your entire machine back to any point-in-time backup in minutes (from your local backup). Works like a restore point for your entire system.
3) Bugs. Filesystems have bugs. So do applications, utilities, anything with software. Strange, unexpected conditions, often caused by bugs in applications can cause data to "disappear", files to get corrupted, filesystems to get corrupted, folders to be incompletely written, etc. This is about as likely to cause lost data as:
Restore your entire machine back to any point-in-time backup in minutes (from your local backup).
4) Hardware failu
If we received a court order to turn over the contents of a safe my understanding is that we have no choice but to do so. vitalEsafe would provide the legal entity with the AES-256 encrypted files. It would be up to them to decrypt them. I don't have access to the decryption key to provide decrypted files to them. If they can decrypt them, then they can decrypt your local copies as well (assuming your local backups are fully encrypted) which you would be compelled to turn over via the same court order (unless you destroyed them all).
vitalEsafe, Inc. provides online encrypted storage to a number of law offices and to all lawyers submitting and receiving legal documents from/to the Mississippi Chancery Courts. We provide secure storage, sharing, and transmission of documents. Many law offices do nightly backups of changed documents to our servers for complete offsite disaster recovery protection. Each account's data is encrypted with a separate key that is only available to the account's owner. We believe the encrypted sharing and sending features are unique among online storage vendors at this time.
More info at: http://www.vitalesafe.com/
Disclaimer: I'm the CTO of this service
I've been programming for going on 35 years and have tried a BUNCH of different languages and approaches. I'm glad I've finally settled on writing virtually 100% of my code in Python (using C only when performance is an absolute must). That plus some shell scripts seems to work for almost any project that I've come across in the last 5 years. Python brings lots of tools, good support system, etc. and I'm finding that concentrating on a single language means I'm deepening my understanding with every program I write and adding to a robust personal library of reusable functions and classes that make writing bulletproof code a pleasure. I can be VERY productive because of the high level nature of the code. It is almost like writing pseudo-code once you get a good understanding. I write for Windows and Linux (not much on the Mac). I've written Windows Services, COM objects, GUI programs (with wxWindows), as well as normal batch programs and scripts. On Linux I've written daemons, GUI programs, and background batch processing scripts. What is great is that I only need the one language. I have just never felt at home in the GUI IDE world that seems so popular with some.
I was watching a professional thief turned consultant on TV a few years ago describe his best and easiest scam. He would get a rent-a-cop uniform and stand outside a bank branch somewhere at the night depository. When people came to the bank to make their night deposits, he explained that it was broken and the bank had hired him to collect the bags. He claimed that most people actually gave him their night deposit bags!
While it might not work for the more advanced subjects or those like history that need to be updated more often. The textbook required to teach language, math, science 1st through at least the 10th grade haven't changed in quite some time. The Algebra I I used 30 years ago would be adequate today.
Copyright law (contrary to popular opinion) was originally designed to protect the populace (not the publishers). After some time, the work was to be in the public domain. I think it would be a really good idea for a group of educators to set up sites where copies of good textbooks that have expired copyrights available for download.
We keep hearing how our schools don't have enough money. This would go a long way of lifting that burden. It has worked for software, why not for textbooks. Some people would even place new textbooks directly into this repository (like open source software).
Just my 2 cents.
Over the past 15 or so years my company has built quite a few RAID5 arrays on servers. We have used many different controllers (SCSI and ATAPI) from ultra-high priced (>$1500) hardware based ones to low cost ones. We have done it on different Operating Systems: Novell, Windows Server, Linux. We have used different software. EVERY ONE OF THEM HAS HAD A CATASTROPHIC FAILURE THAT RESULTED IN LOST DATA FOR A CLIENT. I gave up on RAID5 about 8 years ago. RAID10 (with at least one hot spare) has proven to be both more reliable and WAY better performing.
I have had some success with RAID6 on Linux, but performance is not anything like RAID10. During the same time a client has only lost data on RAID10 array ONE time. They ignored the failure of both of their hot spares (which kicked in and rebuilt failed drive properly) and continued to run without telling anyone! No fault tolerance could protect them.
>>That being said, if you could choose the genetic make-up of your children and spare them any diseases or malformations I would be hard pressed to form an argument against it. Especially, since I would want the same for my children.
This type of thinking is VERY dangerous. Given pre-birth information what would have the parents of the following people have chosen to do:
Stephen Hawking (ALS)
Lou Gherig (ALS)
Richard Prior (ALS)
Mao Tse Tung (ALS)
Billy Graham (Parkinsons)
Katherine Hepburn (Parkinsons
) Harry Truman (Parkinsons)
Johnny Cash (Parkinsons)
Muhammad Ali (Parkinsons)
George Harrison (cancer)
Mickey Mantle (cancer)
Charles Lindbergh (lymphoma)
Gilda Radner (cancer)
the list is endless
Everybody dies of something.
You cannot know the contribution that someone will make to the work BEFORE their disease gets them. Even very young people that die can make huge contributions. Ask parents of down syndrome children what they think about their experience.
These tests can also only tell you about a predisposition to a disease, not that you will get it. In "The China Study", Dr. Campbell states that these predispositions are only 10-15% of the picture, while lifestyle is the other 85-90%. The reason that many families share a predisposition to a disease has a lot more to do with a share lifestyle (e.g. eating habits, environment, etc.) than it does with anything that we can tell from their "genes". They also can't tell you "when" the disease will get someone. Is your decision different it a disease kills someone when they are 9 or 90? These are terrible odds to base such an important decision on.
People to God: Why do you allow so much suffering on earth, wars, famines, etc? Why don't you send someone to solve these problems?
God to people: I keep sending people that can help solve these problems, but you keep aborting them before they can be born to do their work.
www.websafe.com (currently being renamed www.vitalesafe.com) provides encrypted sharing of folders over the Internet. Much easier to set up and maintain than a VPN (you could have a secure sharing configuration set up in less than 10 minutes). Requires no special client software (you can use browser, or WebDAV client, or free client-side sending software). Your data is protected end-to-end during the transfer and during the on-disk the storage. Every account has a unique encryption key. One of the design goals of our product is to meet just such a need as the one you outline. There are other features like online backup, Patient managed Health Record (PHR), and a Password Manager that can be used in addition to the secure sharing/collaboration. Free trial accounts are available (limited to 50Mb). Disclosure: I am the Director of Technology for WebSafe/vitalEsafe.
These types of taxes are stupid for two reasons: 1) They cherry-pick some insdustries while others get off scott free. If they want to tax everything then they should just pass a VAT or GST like Canada. 2) You can actually tax any business. They just act as a "collection agency". They always pass these taxes along to the consumer. If you need additional money (which I doubt), raise everyone's income tax. We already have a everything in place to handle that.
If something exists that meets ALL your needs, I've never seen it. Some of what you ask for is quite hard. We haven't found an exact solution but we have found one that meets "most" of your requirements. If you use Super Flexible File Synchronizer (SFFS) (http://www.superflexible.com/) and WebSafe (http://www.websafe.com/) you can accomplish the majority of what you want. SFFS provides a very flexible synchronization program that can be run manually or scheduled. WebSafe provides encrypted online storage for your files. File transfer is via https (SSL) with at-rest files encrypted using AES-256 encryption (in WebSafe). WebSafe provides both a browser and a WebDAV (Web Folder) interface for online file access. Binary diffs can be done for local synchronizations, but binary diffs would be extremely difficult to implement between a local binary file and a remote encrypted binary file. You sure don't want to have your files available on the Web in clear text (unencrypted). With the flexible scheduler available in SFFS and WebSafe's encrypted online storage, this meets our needs for syncrhonizations that exceed 45Gb of storage at our office.
I should let you know that as one of the programmers on the WebSafe team, we designed it to meet just the type of needs that you outline.
This is a pretty silly thing to say. With the current 32-bit operating system unable to address more than 3.5Gb of RAM and new applications like PhotoShop, InDesign, Illustrator using HUGE amounts of memory, I need 64-bits today! In 1981 someone said "you will never need more than 640Kb on a PC". Just about the same.
I can't speak to the security of these locks but they might be worth a look. You unlock them using the Dallas Semiconductor iButtons. Each one has a unique serial number imbedded it it and it can't be copied. We've sold these peoples timeclocks and they have worked well. They also have a line of locks that sound like they might meet your needs. http://www.accesspilot.com/
And if God had not chosen to create this world and all his children, nobody would have suffered! But, then again, nobody would be able to be with Him in heaven for eternity because they would not have existed. I believe it helps if you start looking at our existence on earth in the context of ETERNITY. A few years of suffering for eternity with God is a small price to pay for EXISTENCE (even though it doesn't seem like it at the time). Our existence was not guaranteed until God willed it. The alternative to the suffering you observe is the lack of existence altogether. I'm completely sympathetic to the misery that some of His creation must endure, but compared to forever with Him it nothing. I'm convinced that there will come a time when the suffering many people endured while here on earth will be like the scraped elbow you had when you fell off your bike when you were 9. It hurt a lot at the time, but now it is a distant memory. People have the power to eliminate most of this misery if we would choose to, but free-will also allows us to choose not to. That's the problem with free-will, we can choose to ignore God's commandments. But without free-will, there is no true love and that is what God wants from us. He didn't want to create robots (you can't love a robot). He wanted to spend eternity with beings (both heavenly and earthly) that truely loved Him.
We use Websafe (http://www.websafe.com/). https:/// SSL encryption while on Net and AES-256 while at rest (I have the clear-text encryption master key in my possesion). Also supports WebDAV webfolders via WebDrive service (http://www.webdrive.com/). Comes with free ZBKUP utility that zips data BEFORE it is transmitted and can be scheduled to do lights-out backups unattended via webfolders or you can use any D2D backup you like. Depending on your Internet upload performance you can easily upload gigabyte (compressed) backups during the night. No firewall issues because it only uses https:/// port 443. Cluster of Linux/64 servers power the service. Each storage disk is on separate controller and is mirrored. Backups are maintainted with a grandfather, father, son rotation (nightly) as well. Supports browser access and sharing of individual folders with other WebSafe users. Not the cheapest, but the combination of encryption, collaboration, and ease of use are unmatched.