897 karma · joined April 12, 2014
Total cost was around USD 400. The result: effectively unlimited bandwidth, and, best of all, an average latency of 1ms to the internet. Do I need it? No. Do I love it? Absolutely.
- configured through Borgmatic
- encrypted
- long retention (daily, weekly, monthly)
- stored on a relatively fast and large external backup disk (right now a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD)
The backup plan is automatically triggered when I connect my notebook to the docking station. Never failed me and already saved me from the embarressment of accidently modifying or deleting important files that are not part of a git repo.
Regarding zstd: I would love to use it cross-platform, but zstd for Windows is still kinda exotic, and yes, it misses proper Gui applications. Now, if Winrar would support zstd... :P :P
While Swiss banks are a bit crazy about anything related to the US (three years ago or so they just stopped accepting US checks from one month to the next, even though they had previously charged a crazy amount of money for it to be cashed in), I heard that banks in neighboring countries such as Germany are less concerned as long as your bank advisor follows some general guidelines.
For example, had Croatia not entered the EU a couple of years ago, it would not have been possible most likely to aquire citizenship for our children without giving up German citizenship. That is because Germany permits multiple citizenship only if you obtained another citizenship by birth and/or the other citizenship is either one of an EU member country or Swiss citizenship. Some with Croatia, which generally allows citizens by descent to have multiple citizenship, but foreigners wanting to naturalize there must renounce their old citizenship (with exceptions, of course). Switzerland on the other hand has no such rules regarding multiple citizenship.
It's difficult to not inform the countries of your multiple citizenship unless you don't apply for passports. With each passport renewal you must also state your other citizenships if applicable.
Anecdote: Shortly after the first child was born, we wanted to visit our relatives in the US. Our child only had a German passport, which we thought would be OK to travel with (because, why not?). Well, as it turned out, once we arrived at US immigration, we were in big trouble. Because our child was automatically a US citizen by descent, she was also required to have a US passport to travel from abroad to the US. This is because formally the US does not acknowledge any of your other citizenships as long as you are US citizen.
My wife is US American, I am German, my dad is Croatian and we've been living in Switzerland for almost 15 years.
When the kids were born, they both had US and German citizenship jus sanguinis. German passports arrived almost instantaneously. The US passports required us to visit the US embassy multiple times and fill out plenty of paper work.
Them gaining Croatian citizenship was more involved. First I needed to apply for it for myself through my dad. I also bought a second home in Croatia were we've spent most of our holidays. I also maintain a Croatian bank account that I use to cover local bills. It took several years and a good lawyer to get passed the beaucracy. Ultimately I received the Croatian passport and so did our children about half a year later.
After staying for over 10 years in Switzerland, my wife, my kids and I applied for Swiss citizenship. It cost us a couple of thousand US dollars, a clean record (no outstanding bills, no other credit issues, proof that you can take financial care of the family), proof of "proper integration" (like do I frequently visit the local pub... really!), a German language proficiency test for my wife, and a test for both of us showing that we understand the cultural, religious and political aspects of Swiss society. The process took exactly one year when we received our passports.
Was it all worth it? I think so. It is a liberating feeling to know that you can move between countries. We also wanted our kids to be able to choose for themselves where to live once they are grown up.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1-Lattingtown-Rd-Glen-Cov...?
10.9m USD.