Is 'The Cloud' over hyped?

[SteveRiley]

So the project has morphed into a full-on sink replacement. And, of course, the cut-out in the granite top is slightly non-standard (too small). Thus the search is still on for a right sized sink.

I know the money analogy isn't ideal. I mentioned it for the discussion value it brings.

[Frank616]

Steve:

So the project has morphed into a full-on sink replacement. And, of course, the cut-out in the granite top is slightly non-standard (too small). Thus the search is still on for a right sized sink.

I had that happen a couple of months ago. I called the plumber, who managed to get another of the old-style faucets we have, and installed that.

I know the money analogy isn't ideal. I mentioned it for the discussion value it brings.

We know. No problem. Thanks for sharing.

Frank.

[whatthefunk]

The bank analogy:
There is a need for people to store their money in a bank. If people leave their money at home, there is a chance that it could get stolen. There is also an incentive, interest, although these days it doesnt even cover the lose in value due to inflation. Further, there is an incentive for the bank to hold your money because they can use this money to invest and make huge piles of cash.
The first two dont exist on a large scale in cloud computing.
Need: Why do I need to use cloud programs and keep all my stuff on the cloud when I have a perfectly good harddrive?
Incentive: Why pay for something I dont need when I have to buy a new kitchen sink?

[oshunluvr]

@whatthefunk: To me, your description of the bank analogy reads like a good reason for using the cloud, not against it. Specifically another reason people use banks besides protection from theft is also protection from catastrophic events - like a house fire. Your "perfectly good harddrive" is clearly in danger from both of those events. Both of those events can be protected from by banks and cloud storage - sort of like a type of insurance.


"Need" is defined by the individual who owns the data (although I'm not totally clear on the meaning of "owns" in this case, maybe posessess is a better word ) so I think cloud storage or even computing (remote software) has tremendous potential. One example currently in use by me is Google Music. I have 400+ CD's ripped to my home server for my use. My Google Music account mirrors the data on my server and has a restore function in the event I lose my data. I still have the CD's so a hard drive crash wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's many days and weeks of work protected for free. Plus, I have remote access to my music via my phone or tablet which I don't have any other way.

[oshunluvr]

I know the money analogy isn't ideal. I mentioned it for the discussion value it brings.

Was this pun intended?

Re. your sink: Your local Home Depot has a stone saw you can buy, but it's a huge mess to use because of the water cooling of the blade!

[SecretCode]

So the project has morphed into a full-on sink replacement. And, of course, the cut-out in the granite top is slightly non-standard (too small). Thus the search is still on for a right sized sink.

Have you considered moving your sink requirements into the cloud?

[oshunluvr]

Have you considered moving your sink requirements into the cloud?

Good one! LOL

I bet Mrs. Riley would think not so much...

[Frank616]

oshunlovr:

One example currently in use by me is Google Music. I have 400+ CD's ripped to my home server for my use. My Google Music account mirrors the data on my server and has a restore function in the event I lose my data.

And for that type of thing, cloud storage is fine. The information is generic, and intended to be public. It is not personal. Your music is just one of millions of copies of that music around the world, and your copy is no better than another copy somewhere else. Here the money analogy fits.

When the information is of a personal nature, however, then there is a risk. Like I say, if you save it in the cloud, eventually, someone other than an intended recipient is going to read it.

Frank.

[whatthefunk]

@whatthefunk: To me, your description of the bank analogy reads like a good reason for using the cloud, not against it. Specifically another reason people use banks besides protection from theft is also protection from catastrophic events - like a house fire. Your "perfectly good harddrive" is clearly in danger from both of those events. Both of those events can be protected from by banks and cloud storage - sort of like a type of insurance.

Yes everything in my house would be destroyed in a fire. So should I keep everything in a bank? I have things in my house that are much more valuable to me than any computer file but I dont need to store them in a fire proof safe off site. Also, I am not sure about the safety of cloud storage units. They too could burn down or be destroyed by an earthquake or some other catastrophic event. Or the files could be stolen. Having millions of peoples data in one data center is like pinning a target to a deer and staking it to the ground during hunting season.

[Qqmike]

Sometimes I wonder how much of our sh* we need to be keeping and storing. How much of it do you ever refer to? re-read? consult? use? How many family photos of people and home and yard are not good photos, bad stupid silly poorly shot photos, duplicates--won't just a few do? In some cases, the best camera is the mind's eye: pay attention to what you see or experience and remember it, know how to bring it up in your mind. All those references that we never reference. All those critical articles that we store and that we never read but just uncritically re-store ad infinitum. By hanging on to all your junk, what are you trying to hang onto? OK, then, go ahead, keep some of it. Instead of 1 TB, won't a few GB's do? :-) --forever, The Cynic

[whatthefunk]

Sometimes I wonder how much of our sh* we need to be keeping and storing. How much of it do you ever refer to? re-read? consult? use? How many family photos of people and home and yard are not good photos, bad stupid silly poorly shot photos, duplicates--won't just a few do? In some cases, the best camera is the mind's eye: pay attention to what you see or experience and remember it, know how to bring it up in your mind. All those references that we never reference. All those critical articles that we store and that we never read but just uncritically re-store ad infinitum. By hanging on to all your junk, what are you trying to hang onto? OK, then, go ahead, keep some of it. Instead of 1 TB, won't a few GB's do? :-) --forever, The Cynic

Agree 100%. I know guys who have over 10 TB of crap saved, so much that they dont even have time to do anything with it. Whats the point? People spend so much time these days trying to document and share what they are doing that they arent even really doing anything. Throw it all out and just live.

[Qqmike]

Along with "using a computer device as a consumer of information versus using it to create something," there's this: "using the Internet/computer to talk about life and to 'store' life versus walking away from the Internet/computer and living some life!" If everyone stops living life, pretty soon no one will have anything interesting to share (except for brain neurons popping off in response to their 3" screens). People often seem more interested in recording and sharing their "life" than they do about actually living their life deeply and "fully in the present." Thus, the Cloud--so they can safely store and transfer (to where?!) even more of their past and more of the things they probably have not really, carefully read or studied or used.

[GreyGeek]

Good points, Qqmike!

I'm looking at the filing cabinet next to me. It contains some of the dozens of CDs I'm storing. I'm wondering how many of them will no longer be readable by the CDROM in my new Acer?

I have data going back to my Apple ][+ computer in 1978. When the 3.5" floppies came out I transferred all that info (dozens of 5.25" floppies) onto them when I switched to a PC. Then, Iomega's ZipDrive came out. I used it for a backup until the "click of death" stories began circulating, so I went out and bought a CDROM and moved my files to it. I still have the 100Mb ZipDrives but no hardware to read them. Move forward five or six years. Articles about the life times of data stored on CDs began raising doubts about the security of my data. I began checking the CDs. About 30% of the write-only CDs were unreadable. All of the RW DVDs were OK. All my important data is on RW DVDs now. I use CDs only for one-offs and giveaways, mainly copies of Kubuntu LiveCDs.

But, and there are always buts, 4.7GB per DVD takes too many DVDs to store my accumulating data. Four GB USB sticks are more convenient, and eight, sixteen and thirty two GB USB sticks are big enough for some stuff, but one gets tired of keeping track of a what is stored where, and keeping multiple copies of each out of the fear that one of them would become unreadable and the data would be lost forever. Tape decks that are reliable enough and could store a Tb of data are too expensive. The small tape devices are too unreliable and too slow.

That leaves only external HDs. My Sony VAIO had a 160GB drive. I bought a 320GB HD. My previous Acer had 500GB. My new Acer has 750GB. My external HD is too small to back up my new Acer. My UbuntuOne account is only 25GB and cost $30/yr, but it is only marginally better than a 32GB USB stick. What IS nice about UbuntuOne is that when I drop a file into my UbuntuOne folder it is automatically uploaded to the UbuntuOne server.

It looks like I will have to cull my data. You might as well ask me to choose between my children and kill one of them. Besides my financial data, and copies of programs and documents I've written, my family data is too important to pick and choose between. Besides, a picture I think is worth of trashing my wife may want to keep, and the reverse is also true.

My wife spent over 20 years collecting genealogy data and five years writing it all up. I spent two years typing it into LibreOffice as a 300 page document (man, did that document master in Libra Office work neat!) and printing it out on the duplex laser I bought specifically to print it. If I lost that document and the stored images of the original documents, some dating back over 250 years, she'd kill me! That document and its supporting images and files are backed up several times on several devices. Besides that major document there are hundreds, if not thousands, of photos, documents, etc. which recorded moments of our lives which never made it into the genealogy book.


It seems that the only mediums that can survive any length of time are documents carved in stone or written by India Ink on heavy, acid free Linen paper, or on Vellum. Mmmmm.... that gives me an idea .... start a company that stores family info on extremely high quality paper using inks that won't run or fade. The premium service would be thin slabs of pristine granite fused onto a Titanium mesh underneath and on the glassy surface the family history is carved deeply, but small enough that several pages per surface could be stored. Or, make it microscopic and include a microscope to read it. Write once, last forever.

[SteveRiley]

I'm traveling this week, just arrived in San Francisco. I haven't forgotten about this! And while I'd like to direct the topic to include compute aspects as well as storage, do take a look at the newly-released Amazon Web Services Glacier. Archival storage for a penny per gig per month. Automatically replicated in multiple locations, encrypted in transit and at rest.

[Frank616]

GreyGeek:

Besides that major document there are hundreds, if not thousands, of photos, documents, etc. which recorded moments of our lives which never made it into the genealogy book.

See post #7 in this thread for my solution to this issue.

And, yes, you have to cull your data. Something that I have been trying to drum into my daughter who continues to fill up hard disks with 20 copies of slightly different versions of the same jpeg image. I cull mine as soon as they come off the camera. The good ones I keep. The others get deleted NOW.

There is no permanent medium. There are permanent formats (more or less), as long as they are open and understood. Even if the file formats are no longer 'current' (pcx, wpd), the knowledge needed to read them remains for a long time. I have files that go back to the 80's that I still have, and which are still readable. The media has changed many times.

"The Cloud" is not a permanent medium either. Companies come and go. EULA's come and go. However, disks get bigger faster than I can fill them with data -- even large jpegs and dvi images. As long as I keep moving my /data directory to multiple instances of newer and newer hardware, I feel secure.

Frank.