Not too many of those around... UC Berk or RIT?

Yeah our university has one too. Its like 3 miles from where i live. It's pretty small i think (like that matters;).

For a while, it didn't even have a fence around it! Until one day a prying (and very attractive)reporter doing a story on it got a tour of the whole facility without even presenting identification!!

Once her story hit the news, they put up a fence
All this is pre 911 though...

Nah, no calc. I'm a Crime, Law, and Justice major with a Psych minor. Math stopped after statistics (which is good for me, I probably would have went into engineering if not for my sub-poor math skills).

As far as the thumb drive goes I'm taking a basic comp-sci course right now so I need it to save back ups of some files. Otherwise I don't use it much. I really should start taking notes on my laptop, but I still enjoy the simplicity and reliability of paper and a pen.




Penn State (Breazeale Reactor). We were actually the first university officially licensed to operate a nuclear reactor (back in 1955). Its been running for over 50 years. Chernobyl on the other hand didn't last 10.

I thought they shut that down years ago.

I guess that's what happens when all the alumni in the family die and we stop getting the newsletters. :P

one of the very reasons I carry a thumbdrive is important documents. I've scanned all my important documents carry them on my thumb drive. SS card, passport, driver license, insurance papers, etc.

Sure, someone could rob me and now have access to my stuff, but I would definitely be screwed if I lost all of that in say an earthquake, flood, fire, tornado. etc. And, by the way, in a disaster, short of carrying all that stuff with me everywhere I go, I would lose all that stuff anyway. atleast, this way, I have copies of everything on my thumbdrive.

You have a couple of options:

1) Encrypt the files on the drive with software that's self contained

2) Get a flash drive that has a fingerprint scanner that doesn't require additional software

just my $0.02

I'm back in school full time working on a 2nd engineering degree. You could cut down on the size a little by swapping the umbrella for a couple trash bags and binder clips.

For use with a large pack these work better (unless you've got some seriously large bags)to:
split one side
put it around you like a cape
use the clips to hold it closed.

For a quick walk across campus the umbrella is probably a better option than trash bags

i have not thought this out completly but did yahoo just recently make all e-mail accounts unlimited and i thought they encrypt the data. so one could back up anything they wanted and store on the web and access anywhere they wanted. may be a bad idea but like i said i havent thought it all the way out. just an idea.

Yeah, I've been kicking around a pretty similar idea. However, I still have a bad feeling about posting enough info for someone to steal my entire identity. Maybe if it were in a passworded .rar or .zip (can you password a zip file?) hidden away on a secure site with the file name "backpacking 8-21-06.rar" or something that looks like it would be rather boring and is of little value to anyone but me. But for some reason, even that would scare me a little.