Today is World Backup Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Today is World Backup Day

#41

Post by derekp7 » Sun, Mar 31, 2013, 11:41 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #11

t0 wrote: post #2

Is it worth buying a few extra terabytes to backup? I simply don't have enough free space to even begin backing anything up.

For $50/year you can have unlimited backup of your local drives through the various players (I use backblaze, others say good things about crashplan).

Is there a service about as cheap as Backblaze, but lets you use your own backup client, and doesn't limit which file types you can backup? I would love to find something that gave me a remote Linux account (even on a shared host), where I can put my home-grown backup package, and a half TB or so of storage.

Re: Today is World Backup Day

#42

Post by robmay » Sun, Mar 31, 2013, 11:45 PM UTC

Backupify didn't take the post down for legal reasons. We took it down because I talked to the founder of World Backup Day and he explained it was all a misunderstanding.

As a tech company CEO who has to deal a lot with lawyers, I'm not surprised this happened. Most of us in tech view lawyers as a necessary evil to be used sparingly. Lawyers often view themselves as protectors of original ideas. They often don't understand the social structure in which most techies operate.

So, I'm sure as a 20 something college student who hasn't experienced this yet, you lean on authority. If you have a bad experience with the first World Backup Day and someone tells you lawyers can prevent that, then you go and find a lawyer. The right thing to do would have been to use the community to police it and point out the scammers, but it's hard to understand the dynamics of these interactions until you have been through them.

Let me just say that Backupify supports World Backup Day, and intends to be a sponsor sometime in the future. We are on good terms with the founder, and I think his attorney was just a bit overzealous with enforcement.

My expectation and understanding of the future is that World Backup Day will belong to the community, and anyone will be able to discuss it, but to be a formal sponsor and be listed on the WBD site will be a paid option. I think that sounds fine.

Re: Today is World Backup Day

#43

Post by lquist » Sun, Mar 31, 2013, 11:47 PM UTC

Fitting that this comes a day before April Fool's

Re: Today is World Backup Day

#44

Post by cdjk » Sun, Mar 31, 2013, 11:49 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #38

aw3c2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine losing all your data and thinking "dammit, I would give X of money to get my data back". Find X and decide for yourself.

Not even remotely correct. I crash my 100k dollar car, and I think, damn, I'd give 100k to get it back . But when insuring it, I don't pay 100k for insurance! You have to take value x probability of loss to arrive at your X.

Corrected for your risk tolerance, of course. Suppose my data is worth $10k, and and there is a 1/100 chance of data loss (making those numbers up). I'd gladly pay $500 for "data loss insurance" (i.e. backups) to avoid the chance of data loss, even though $500 > (1/100)*$10k.

Just multiplying by the probability is what's known as "risk neutral" - it works and is a very good approximation when the dollar amounts amounts are small compared to your net worth. It tends not to be a good approximation when the dollar amounts are higher.

Of course, a realistic analysis would also account for the fact the the "data loss insurance" itself is probabilistic, but this is a start.

Re: Today is World Backup Day

#45

Post by jlgaddis » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:26 AM UTC

pinwale wrote: post #37

pytrin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original post said that they contacted you through the site you put up, and that you requested sponsorship ranging between $40k and $400k to be associated with this "holiday". That doesn't sound like you were just trying to protect public interest (which is not clear why you would think it is you who should say who can use that name or not).

That was some proposed advertising packages on reddit plus a couple other things-I didn't handle the advertising. I'm really tired and sorry. I just wanted want a nice event for everyone. :(

So which non-profit are you donating the sponsorship fees to?

Re: Today is World Backup Day

#46

Post by deeths » Mon, Apr 01, 2013, 1:51 AM UTC

davidw wrote: post #17

At least here in Italy, it seems to be more about 'restore' than backup.

To point out the old adage: "Amateurs backup. Pros recover." While backup day is a great reminder for folks, "make sure your backup can actually recover" day seems like the one more people would benefit from.