Episode: 2602
Title: HPR2602: HPR Quick Tips July 2018
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2602/hpr2602.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:25:30

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This is HBR Episode 2622 entitled HBR Quick Tips to I 2018.
It is hosted by Operator and is about 25 minutes long and can remain a explicit flag.
The summary is either a K backup and trekking that.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by archive.org.
Support universal access to all knowledge by heading over to archive.org forward slash
Donate.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio with your host Operator.
I am apologizing again, get again for the audio, I am sitting again still in the same
place we left off with you with me last time in gridlock traffic in Atlanta, Georgia.
So I wanted to do another quick tip, this is going over cloud storage, the different
providers and where I am at in that current process.
So I have about a terabyte worth of stuff I need to put on the internet, images and music
and all that, all my media and everything, try to backup portions of it to the cloud and
I've looked at a few options here.
Now the fellow just got out of the car, made me a little bit concerned.
So the first thing I started with is my Amazon account which is $60 a year and I think
up until you just missed it, March of this year you had you unlimited storage that is going
to be discontinued.
What you had gave you some brief history about that is I think they wanted to get the
market on other providers, Amazon wanted to get the market on other providers like
Dropbox and Google Drive and all that.
So they said $60 unlimited.
The cool part about that is for about a year and a half if you purchased a subscription
with Plex live time you got the cloud for free.
So their Plex live time is I want to say $85 to $100 and something now when I first
spotted it was a lot cheaper.
You got their unlimited account or you got the Plex pass for a media box streaming media
services kind of like build your own T-bow right.
You got that cloud version for free and you could actually aim it at your Amazon cloud
storage which was $60 a year for unlimited access.
So essentially for the price of a existing Plex pass subscription or for if you don't
have it for like $85 and then another 60 bucks you could have unlimited cloud storage
of your media server on Amazon for that price which is astounding.
So what you had was a flood of people, trolls and folks trying to jump on that opportunity.
So we had things like Amazon sync applications, I can't remember the names of the two that
I looked at but if you look on like Reddit forms you'll see that it worked, it worked
to work and then all these posts about people trying to sync their Plex boxes and they
lost the ability to do that because the API key got banned from like Google or not Google
but got banned from Amazon and another API key for another application got banned from
Amazon.
So they had a bunch of people trying to store their data and Amazon kept pushing back
and not allowing people to store their essentially legal content on these cloud storage.
So I tried to get it to work with Amazon, didn't have any luck.
I also looked at a different provider that wasn't Google Drive and they also complained about
the same thing.
So I ended up sticking with Google Drive.
I had worked with them before, I looked at what they were using as our clone I think
to do the syncing and I had some familiar with it, familiarity with it, I've used Google
Drive for a while now and I thought that would be a good choice for me because it's fast
and all that good stuff.
So what I ended up doing was paying for their 20 and some change on month, two terabyte
plan and I, over the course of a month or so, I uploaded from my home connection all
of my backups, had them up there and I recorded a podcast with a fellow that doesn't live
too far away from here at this point downtown and I'll have that posted up probably next
couple of weeks and I uploaded that with a zip file of the original raw wave files to Google
Drive and they marked it as like copyrighted MP3 or something.
I don't know what their algorithm is or whatever and not only did it mark the MP3, it actually
marked the zip file with the wave files track broken out tracks where I stopped and started
recording the podcast into into that.
So I don't know what happened with their algorithm that marked it.
I also had some instances where I shared my USB folder which has some content in it that
can be considered pirated material where I took my license and I made it a virtual thin
applications, a virtual portable application for that.
So that way if I'm on the road, I can simply just go to my USB drive and install the application
and have everything I need running and I don't have to worry about licensing or activating
or having a local administrator or whatever.
So what ended up happening is Google would flag those as spam and then in some instances
as viruses and I couldn't even download my own files that I upload.
So for the example of the MP3, it wouldn't actually let me download my own file that I
had uploaded to Google Drive which is completely unacceptable and I do understand their licensing
and their issues around pirated content but that's not the situation that I'd like
to be in.
So I made the decision to remove all my content and cancel my subscription to Google Drive,
looked around for some other options and I'm not sure I'm going to even have the options
that I want but I ended up sticking with Spyder Oak which is the no knowledge not to be
confused with zero knowledge but a no knowledge of cloud storage provider.
There are tools although not open source obviously, appeared to be good and I'm in the process
of syncing all that content and I have shared some of the items that I had issues with
in Dropbox through Spyder Oak and I don't appear to have the same issues that this automated
automatic was being flagging stuff did and in Google Docs.
So the short answer to all this is I'm still evaluating Spyder Oak, I'm waiting to get
the same type of treatment that I got with Dropbox which was even worse than Google Drive
whereas Google Drive, you could at least petition to have that information unflagged but Dropbox
would do stuff like completely disable sharing altogether because of one random proof
of concept executable inside of one of my security folder.
So they wouldn't even tell you I had to go through several emails back and forth to get
the actual reason and what file was involved with the kind of the disabling of sharing
with my account.
So I think that's pretty much covers all my setups and my ideas.
You know again I started with Arclone which is kind of a kind of a sync that will cross
against multiple platform cloud providers and I used Google's for that and I will say
that when I back up my route I've been using Borg backup to do that but there's incremental
backups and you can do full backups.
So I'll make a change to my route or I'll make a whatever and I'll have those incremental
backups in Borg and I'll have several, what I want to do is have several incremental
full backups and several incrementals in there so that can constantly keep those sync
to the internet if I go need to go back and look at a configuration file from six months
ago that I completely destroyed.
But anyways along with Borg backup to backup my route and using spider oak with their
tool the command line version to back it up I did have to use the UI to initially set
the backup locations and stuff what to back up and what to not back up I'm assuming you
can do that via the command line but it was a lot easier for me to do that just through
the UI and Debian and then once I set that up I was able to run the headless mode and
do the verbose and look at some of the logs that we're going through and look at the traffic.
So I'm looking at another month of sync time for that data but hopefully on the end of
this we'll have some some ability to share with spider you can have a password for each
share and each share has its own kind of encryption so that way for example if I share a folder
my whole the idea is that that thing has its own encryption and it's different than the
other from what I understand so if someone were to get access somehow to the rest of your
data that key is only good for whatever the bucket or whatever that you shared so that's
some good news and that they have that in mind so we'll see whether or not their you know
anti piracy and anti shenanigans start flagging stuff within spider oak but I'm hoping with
the password prompt and the limited amount of people that I do send this these links to
I won't have to worry about silly automatic flagging flagging my my recorded mp3s in custom
binaries as malware and not allowing me to read my own files anyways still sitting in traffic
here and maybe I'll record another episode before the days end of a good one.
There's another quick tip. I wanted to go over quickly my experience in tracking or hiking
whatever so someone wanted to hike the the Appalachian Trail and I figured I could do it if they
could do it so I was my first experience so I don't know anything about what you're supposed to pack
or how you're supposed to pack or any of that stuff. I wore some crappy tennis shoes and I spent the
whole time staring at the ground making sure I wasn't going to trip or fall and I didn't which is
good but I think with some nicer shoes and a little bit less staring at the ground I could have
enjoyed it a little bit more but I did not want to fall in the water and you know like down on my
first try and then have a twisted ankle rolled ankle for like you know three days straight but anyways
I'm more pertinent to know anything about anything about this but I'll tell you my experience going
completely blind for three nights. I've only gone camping before and this says this was my first
time doing a full bone you know night stay over and then and then breaking you know freaking camp
for for the next day and then doing that three times so I can handle three times three nights
without a shower that that that third night waking up in the morning I was kind of done and I
needed a shower and I probably and a shower and a real meal I probably could have pulled off
more days but my day is my you know I'm 37 38 whatever and I don't exercise that much and I
enjoy being not feeling like grossness so three days three nights was my was my limit it was
fairly cool it was fairly cool at night so I'm here in South Georgia and we went top of this
blood mountain and it was a trek to get up there um we went I think at night or something like that
um our first sort of run through we made it up there really like a two o'clock like 12 or
something we finally made it up that way um when we camped out on top it was freezing cold I didn't
bring enough warm stuff um but luckily I had a um I had had that same experience in 30s 30s
6 degree 32 31 degree whatever it was freaking cold when I camped once so I got a nice a decent
little I don't know how to explain it a little sleeping bag that can be compressed down and it's
you know rated for something decent um a decent mummy type of sleeping bag and that saved my life
I had a t-shirt other than that and there are two t-shirt three t-shirts I think it was what I brought
with me um what I will say is that and everybody warned me I should have done the MREs at
Inter at REI and not military grade MREs because they have they'll they'll they're just not
as good and you'll want to not poop for four days um so I I run out the bat do not drink eat too
much protein or fiber do not drink too much water um I think I actually drink too much water that
also contributed to my to me having foul movement issues so I had too much MRE and too many
we got some free protein bars I would have probably had to steal someone else's food
because I didn't pack enough snacks and or MREs to to eat so I was eating protein bars for
some of my meals um which was a really bad idea um other than that I'll say that um I was just
very careful not to trip or fall um on roots or anything like that and not to fall in the water um
I had three pair of socks I think total um and I was pretty legit now I did buy one of those fancy UV
things for the water and I did not have a filter so I used somebody else's
basically pee filter for the first two two nights and then we had somebody else join us
our group and they had a um MRE MRE MRS MSR pump and that was okay and that was like super
filtered water um and I didn't I didn't see it super necessary to to work that hard for water um
we had a super skinny girl rolled up with her um platypus gravity fed platypus platypus
filter and that is enough I mean and she was she had her three bottles she walked over there filled
it up gravity fed and then fed it filled it back up gravity fed and she was off with her like three
liters of water or whatever in very short time with the little oh he's crazy the little um plastic
I think they're one liter maybe they're one liter and she had like two or three of those and she
was in and out and in no time and I'm sitting over there with it MSR pump trying to back
backwash it and all that crap and between that and then doing the UV I think that was a bit
overkill I don't know um so we had some pretty simple one or two sketchy places to get water um
and I I tried to be super careful I would I did like I'd shake up the water and do the the UV
thing a couple of times because I wasn't super happy about having a basically a coffee filter for
a water filter but I couldn't complain because I didn't bring any of my any of the gear for that I
just brought the the water zapper thing um uh the memories like I said I wouldn't do the military
grade I would if you could spring for the nice uh REI ones they are wonderful um wonderfully good
and ten times better than the MREs you get the military grade ones um like got army surplus um
they're gonna be cheaper and they're gonna have like more salt in them and they're gonna give you
more bang for your butt but you're gonna have bowel issues and and it's got a lot of salt probably
more salt in them than than REI stuff um what else um I did not know this that I actually borrowed
somebody else's sack or rough sack russet rucks rucks ruck sack whatever um so there's like a backpack
okay no and then there's like these sets compression backpacks based on the thing so it's a big bag
a big sack and you shove it full of shit um and that's what I luckily I got like it was like a 65
ounce liter one a 65 liter one and I was luckily I got to borrow with that and that saved me um
I put I was the lightest guy the travel because for my first time I didn't want to be lugging
around a bunch of shit and have my back go out but what I did not know about the whole thing and
if you look at anything online it's all in your your waist and you have to keep the
the the the the weight on the kind of off your shoulders and you shouldn't feel a whole lot
on your shoulders and you can alternate back and forth to completely getting rid of all the weight
off your shoulders and you know putting a little bit more weight on your shoulders to give your
backs and relief and unbuttling the front um the idea is that front buckle um you're gonna need
that for more than a day of hiking or trekking whatever if you don't have that front buckle with
an actual real backpack you're gonna just be miserable the whole time and we had to do I mean half
my size in in you know he was pretty built actually but he he didn't have a thing he just had a
regular like sack and it had no belt strap because it was broken or some shit and he carried that
shit on his shoulder for two days um we had three days and they'd end up with a slayer but
I could not have done um because I I would have I alternated between on my back and on my
shoulders and I had I that was about as much as I could handle um so yeah I wasn't experienced
to me to to know that you know you put it all on your your your back your hips and put all that
weight on your hips and try to keep you know your the balance everything balanced even the weight of
your sack you don't want everything on the left or the right um that was interesting to to understand
and figure out um and I didn't super think that I would enjoy it but it's it was something different
and you feel like especially if you're doing you know the Appalachian Trail and you're just going
you know to the wall also the walls with it for three days um we did 30 miles in three days was
about ten ten ten miles a day but we did blood mountain and down and then we went to top of
spring or at the end so we went backwards I think from what most people do um what supposedly was
easier uh but I had a blast um it's fun um I want to do it more um just probably get some nice
REI things um I bought some fancy shoes some Solomon shoes because I've got some Solomon
Boller Skates that I've had forever um so I bought some fancy shoes and broke them in um just day
hiking so I'm ready to do another big hike but um we got we got we caught a little bit of sun
and uh towards the end we ran into a giant like military grade uh water truck or buffalo I think
they called it and it was just a giant tank of water and it was cool because it was in you know
a big metal tank and it was cool to go to the touch um and that was a godsend to be uh drinking
ice because when you're drinking water out of camelback it's the at least the one I had was a
was like a military drink camelback very sturdy but it was uh three liter I think um it the problem
with it is that uh you you had the issue of I'm trying to not come myself here you had the issue of um
it uh being hot so the the line was a black line um and it was warm so if you let the water sit
in there for a while you you're just drinking like warm water and it's not super appealing to
to do that but water's water and you can't complain when you when you're dying if there's um
but I tried I tried to make sure I was just sitting on water the whole time
because I did not want to have any issues with dehydration or not getting enough energy to
make it through the day so I think that made a lot of difference um and I'm I made a I made a bad
choice to wear some crappy tennis shoots but that's all I had and I didn't really have time to
break in some new shoes and I I just you know debate it whether or not to bring broods um you know
if you're light on your feet then you take care of your feet and you don't you watch where you're
walking and very carefully um you can get away with nice hiking shoes or trekking shoes or
whatever you call them that basically look like tennis shoes and then they have like mid pumps
basically and then they have your full lawn boot um the problem with both of those is you risk
getting blisters and I would rather roll my ankle than pretty much guarantee I'm going to get a blister
when I wear boots um I'm sure there's tactics you can do to keep yourself from getting blisters but
in general um the guy we had had a nasty one and I'm like no really particularly want to do that
but I also don't want to roll my ankles so I can start the ground for three days um other than that
uh don't really have any other suggestions I body used pack of the internet it was actually one
of the osprey travel things so it's kind of actually I like a jack of all master of none um it did
have a belt strap which is essential it was a 65 ounce and it had the compression stuff but it was
more of like a travel sack so you could take it like an international travel or whatever and it's
supposed to fit it doesn't actually fit in the overhead luggage but it has that kind of suit casey
type of appeal to it and it's got a lot of a lot of um extra weight and foam which is more extra
foam which is not a whole lot extra weight but it's extra weight regardless so I probably have an extra
you know you know half a pound worth of just crap and foam I don't really need um so if I would
have done it I would have got a proper rucksack not a military grade one I would have got a really
fancy um waterproof one um which are really expensive I don't understand why they don't make
them waterproof in the first place but they sell like waterproofing statues that go over the top
of it um I'm guessing the idea is that whatever master wizard fabric they put on this stuff is not
is not also waterproof which doesn't make a whole lot of point a lot of sense um talked about shoes
clothes I'd add three shirts um I think I brought um three underwear and I brought three shirts
and I think that's it and I had pants I wore um some uh true spec pants which I'm wearing right
now it's because I did airsoft and I basically let the zipper open the whole time because I
wore whitey tighties to help with uh air flow if you're a male um this will help you but uh I wore
whitey tighties for air flow and then I left my zipper um fly open the whole time in it um personally
helped me um get relief in that whole area um I hope people get water I got water for people a lot
um I wanted to make sure people were drinking clean water so I tried to zap everybody's water
they could I could zap um but you know there's no guarantee um you just kind of have to be
whatever the odds of you actually getting sick are pretty if you if you even just use a filter
I think a basic you know a basic basic uh gravity fed filter like a platypus nice platypus set up
near pretty much unless you get something really nasty you're gonna be fine you're gonna get
not gonna get dirty either the comment of crap you get um that's pretty much it and um if you
haven't done it you need to do it at least you know one or two nights of uh of hiking of of
spending the night and then waking up in the morning breaking camp and trying to get everybody
wake up um it was fun anyways hope that helps somebody or doesn't or let me know if you have any
questions or if I did something vastly wrong or said something vastly wrong please let me know um
um because I'm really interested in it and I haven't done a whole lot of research um I was lucky
we had a medic and like two army guys come with us so they had been doing a lot of walking
and they're just like food and water and shelters all you need and it's like okay whatever so
I pulled it off anyways I've been going to take this
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