Epstein's injuries look more like murder than suicide, noted pathologist says - <AUTHOR> https://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article236809668.html <comment><USER2> Epstein's death seems the most overt taunt about ruling class impunity in my lifetime. Not only in its circumstances, but in the kind of shifting, threadbare cover stories about everyone with whom he was associated. Bill Gates, for example, had staff overlap between his foundation and Epstein, (including one who was named in Epstein's will!) and was able to diminish these connections in major media outlets with almost no pushback.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey- epstein-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill- gates.html)

<comment><USER3> Epstein's ability to carry in his activities with near impunity during his life seems even more shocking to me. Pretty much everyone knew what this guy was doing for decades.

<comment><USER4> There is some notion that he may have been operating a honeypot (kompromat factory) for Western intelligence services (particularly CIA or Mossad). That would explain why he was collecting blackmail material and all.

I suppose the null hypothesis is that rich and well-connected people can get away with even open crimes in public for years and years. Weinstein got away with rape for years and years, against well-connected people as well. Epstein was a financier just like Weinstein. They have what you need, and they have the ear of a lot of other well-connected people who need things from him.

<comment><USER5> > There is some notion that he may have been operating a honeypot (kompromat > factory) for Western intelligence services (particularly CIA or Mossad).

Mossad seems to be the most likely player here[1][2]:

> Given the chance to refute Ward's report, specifically that the Epstein case > involved intelligence matters, Acosta did nothing of the sort. Indeed, he > functionally admitted that it's true.

> What then can we conclude at this point? It appears that Jeffrey Epstein was > involved in intelligence work, of some kind, for someone—and it probably > wasn't American intelligence either. The U.S. Intelligence Community is > lenient about the private habits of high-value agents or informants, but > they won't countenance running sex trafficking rings for minors on American > soil, for years. While it's plausible that Epstein was sharing some > information with the FBI—many criminals do so to buy themselves some > insurance—it's implausible that he was mainly working for the Americans.

> Who are the suspects then? It seems awfully coincidental that Epstein's best > pal and business partner for decades has been Ghislaine Maxwell, the British > socialite and daughter of the late Robert Maxwell, the media mogul who died > under mysterious circumstances in 1991.

> Six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence services attended > Maxwell's funeral in Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir > eulogized him and stated: "He has done more for Israel than can today be > said."

[1] [https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy- intelligenc...](https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy-intelligence- work/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Israeli_connect...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Israeli_connection)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I tend to be very skeptical of claims of conspiracy and conspiracy theories in general but I've yet to hear a reasonable theory to explain how Epstein could have killed himself in a cell and unit where suicide is made a practical impossibility. A friend in law enforcement related a story about someone on suicide watch who managed to kill himself by eating/shoving massive amount of toilet paper down his throat and then drinking water (which caused the tissue to expand and suffocate him). After that, toilet paper was issued _as needed_ rather than having rolls available in the cells. They go to INSANE degrees to make self-slaughter impossible in these units.

<comment><USER7> > killed himself in a cell and unit where suicide is made a practical > impossibility

Ken White (famous-ish lawyer and notable internet personality) puts it this way: "But your assessment of plausibility is based on your assumptions about how the system works. Those assumptions are, mostly, wrong — naive Dick-Wolf- level law-enforcement-are-competent-good-guys stuff".

Prisons, particularly american prisons, are full of incompetence and casual disregard to human life and dignity. The prison where Epstein died was understaffed, and the guards tasked with watching him had next-to-no training. Epstein had also been taken off suicide watch nine days earlier.

Ken White put together 32 other cases where people died, or almost died in jail because the administration was too incompetent or too indifferent to do anything: [https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/thirty- two...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/thirty-two-stories- jeffrey-epstein-prison-death/596029/)

<comment><USER8> The jail that Epstein died in has had one other suicide in the past 40 years. They haven't actually lost someone to suicide 21 years, despite several attempts. They're not incompetent at all at preventing their inmates from committing suicide. So no, the statement that suicide is made practically impossible there isn't based on wrong assumptions, it's very well supported by statistics.

Source: [https://www.foxnews.com/us/epstein-new-york-lockup- suicides](https://www.foxnews.com/us/epstein-new-york-lockup-suicides)

<comment><USER9> "1 suicide and 3 attempted suicides"\- that's actually both an insanely low attempt rate and an insanely high completion rate/attempt.

<comment><USER10> That means that most people didn't even figure out how to _attempt_ one, because the means were taken away.

You should compare with suicides/suicide attempt rates in general population (or general prison population) to make this statement.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/19/health/prison-suicides- massac...](https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/19/health/prison-suicides- massachusetts-trnd/index.html)

General prison suicide rate is 20/100,000, which is almost identical to the male general population rate in the US (21.1) ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate))

I didn't quickly get data on attempt/completion in prison, but the attempt/completion rate is the general pop is ~30 attempts/completion, and the completion rate is dramatically driven up with access to firearms. ([https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/](https://afsp.org/about- suicide/suicide-statistics/)) I'd expect to see a lower completion/attempt rate in prison, not a higher one, given the monitoring and reduced access to methods.

I stand by my statement- something is funny with the way they reported that data.

<comment><USER11> Again you are comparing apples with oranges. Outside of prison, nothing prevents you from attempting suicide. Whether you succeed or not depends mostly on your resolve and how you do it.

In a perfect prison, suicide attempt should be 0%, not because people are happy, but because inmates should have no way to even attempt a suicide.

If at some point a mistake is made and an inmate manages to kill himself, it will be a 1 attempt/completion and going to the conclusion that prisons make it easy to kill yourself does not seem right.

<comment><USER12> No that is not a perfect prison. A perfect prison should probably be more like the general population. Unless you think the perfect prison is chained to the wall at all times. And that prison is no place for rehabilitation.

<comment><USER11> Sure, I thought it was obvious I meant : "in a perfect high-security cell where the goal is to keep the prisoner from killing himself before testifying"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, outside of Lee Harvey Oswald this guy was the most important prisoner in the history of the USA. The fact that he just "suicided" in prison and we're all supposed to move on and share links about suicide awareness is utter nonsense.

If the corporate media doesn't get to the bottom of this then someone else will, it's just a matter of time. Everyone is so tired of being lied to by authority figures.

<comment><USER14> What if it just was a suicide?

If he had dirt on people would he not arrange so it would be sent out in case of his death? Especially if there was a failed murder attempt just weeks before?

And what stops the victims of naming names now? And what would have stopped Epstein of just not talking and just denying?

<comment><USER15> > If he had dirt on people would he not arrange so it would be sent out in > case of his death?

Considering the circumstances, if you received information from Epstein, what would you do with it? Even if you were brave enough to risk your life in the service of justice, what authority would you even send it to?

<comment><USER16> Honestly, Glenn Greenwald would probably be where I'd turn to. I'd trust him as a journalist, for sure. There aren't a ton of them who've publicly demonstrated how they handle something of this importance (Woodward and Bernstein are the only other two I can come up with off the top of my head).

<comment><USER17> Assange - for which I will get hate. He will publish, in full at considerable personal cost. I don't think there are any credible accusations about him doing anything else, ever. You can still hate him for whatever reasons you have and expect him to do just that.

Have you seen Greenwalds thoughts on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.

I'm not sure they should still be on that list... Maybe, but there's some doubt. More about them than say Assange, for this purpose which is pretty weird and unexpected to think about.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/28/bob- wo...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/28/bob-woodward- obama-military-sequester)

[https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/11/bob-woodward- sl...](https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/11/bob-woodward-slams- greenwald-gellman-178103)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvrSeiG5mJQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvrSeiG5mJQ)

<comment><USER17> [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/10/mannin...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/10/manning- prosecution-press-freedom-woodward)

Wherin Greenwald describes Woodward as follows:

"Bob Woodward is a servant-journalist for US government officials."

That's not pulling punches. Is it fair?

<comment><USER18> I mean I could make the claim

"Glenn Greenwald is a servant-journalist for Russian government officials."

with at least as much evidence:

[https://arcdigital.media/why-are-internet-radicals- helping-p...](https://arcdigital.media/why-are-internet-radicals-helping- putins-russia-6ff2978b172e)

[https://www.towleroad.com/2019/05/glenn-greenwald- russia/](https://www.towleroad.com/2019/05/glenn-greenwald-russia/)

[https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did- not-m...](https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-not-merely- reject-the-trumprussia-conspiracy-theories-he-obliterated-them/)

Is it fair? I mean calling a journalist an agent of the deep state for publishing leaks given to them is quite a leap... especially given that Greenwald is famous in large part for the same.

<comment><USER17> I don't think there's any evidence of Greenwald publishing leaks provided by russian officials. Unless you go with the "Snowden is a russian asset" line which I find lacks credibility. Especially given how often it's been used. Lately Hilary is accusing Deomcrat candidates of it, which is, well, exactly in keeping with her character. An observation that is less controversial now than it used to be.

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/22/hillar...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/22/hillary- clinton-tulsi-gabbard-embarrassing-paranoid)

Never heard of towerload before, but wow, that article is comically terrible. Don't believe me? Here's a tweet from nobody making the same claim without evidence.

The arc digitial article (deliberately?) conflates all those idiots running around yelling "The President is a Russian spy!" and saying that is idiotic with not wanting Mueller's report at all as if those idiots were necessary for Mueller to perform his investigation and write a report.

So yeah, making the claim against Greewald. I'm going with "Not Fair" if that's the best evidence there is.

I've seen no credible evidence that Assange worked with russia fwiw (but the NYT article making the accusation had the silliest diagram I've ever seen in lieu of evidence - so silly it looked deliberately so - as a covert protest perhaps..? ymmv incompetence is the usual go to). If I saw some evidence I might well change my mind on that but I'm just not willing to see russians pulling strings without evidence. I believed WMD claims and I hope I learned /something/ from that error.

Quoting the actual content of Mueller's report. Yeah, I'm ok with that when reporting on it myself. Pointing out that Trump can be a horrible person and awful president without being a russian spy and that constant accusations of it are silly, counterproductive, a massive distraction from the duty of the fourth estate and just need to stop now so we can analyse reality is from the competent journalist playbook rather than a russian conspiracy IMHO.

The claim against Woodward has more legs because he gets top secret leaks and there's no investigation, there's no prosecution, there's no outrage and the stories he writes based on the leaks are anything but embarassing to the government. So I guess all that is at least consistent with what Greenwald is saying. I mean an article that embarasses the government based on leaks with woodward as author - that _would_ be inconsistent and you'd have to address that to keep making the case at least. (well it's 1 this way and 5 the other or something - but I haven't seen the 1).

If I wanted to make a criticism of Glenn in the original context it is that he will use whatever you give him for maximum political impact in support of his political views (but will do so with integrity, eg Snowden is a republican and went to Glenn because of his integrity, also Barton Gelmann and deliberately avoided the NYT for burying stories which should have sent alarm bells ringing loud there, I wonder if it did). Is that political impact according to Glenn what you want? But I guess if what you want released embarasses the government, Woodward hasn't got much form since Watergate..?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is not the head pathologist who performed the autopsy or anything. This is an pathologist hired by Epstein's family who is notable for saying dramatic things in an apparent attempt to get news time:

[https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown- shooting/who...](https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/who- dr-michael-baden-coroner-examined-michael-brown-n183516)

Furthermore, there's nothing new here - all of this was known months ago. The damage in question - Baden's smoking gun - is not uncommon in suicides either.

(Edit: this comment formerly claimed that Baden wasn't at the autopsy. This appears to be incorrect - he was there, but not on the medical team.)

<comment><USER19> From the article:

> Dr. Michael Baden, one of the world's leading forensic pathologists, viewed > Jeffrey Epstein's body and was present at the autopsy, which was held the > day after Epstein was found dead at the notorious Metropolitan Correctional > Center in downtown Manhattan.

It looks like he was at least present at the autopsy

<comment><USER7> You're right, I was incorrect there - I was confused because he wasn't on the medical team for the autopsy. Looks like he was there as an observer, being paid by Epstein's family - which also introduces a fairly significant conflict of interest.

<comment><USER20> Why is it a massive conflict of interest from the family side but not from the state side (their pathologists)?

Presumably they both care about careers and reputation.

<comment><USER7> The state pathologists keep getting paid no matter what their conclusions were.

Epsiein's family pathologist only gets paid as long as he's involved in the investigation. If he said "Yep, looks like a suicide", the family would have no further use for him. But if he discovers some conspiracy that will take an indefinite amount of time to deal with, he keeps collecting paychecks. Also, this fellow seems to thrive on fame, so even more incentive to find something juicy.

<comment><USER21> > The state pathologists keep getting paid no matter what their conclusions > were.

Naive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm don't buy into conspiracy theories and am a firm advocate for Hanlon's razor but this story is really hard to swallow. This is the passage from the relevant Wikipedia article:

> The jail informed the Justice Department, when Epstein was placed in the > special housing unit, that he would have a cellmate and that a guard would > look into the cell every 30 minutes. These procedures were not followed on > the night he died.[4] On August 9, Epstein's cellmate was transferred out, > and no new replacement cellmate was brought in. Later in the evening, in > violation of the jail's normal procedure, Epstein was not checked every 30 > minutes.[4] The two guards who were assigned to check his cell overnight > fell asleep for about three hours.[21] Two cameras in front of Epstein's > cell also malfunctioned that night.[5]

Also assuming it's true one might expect, given the gravitas of this case, that the multiple people responsible for such gross negligence would be prosecuted and brought to light and justice.

<comment><USER23> > I'm don't buy into conspiracy theories

I do. How many "conspiracy theories" have we lived through in tech? I can name two right off the top of my head: prism and carnivore.

Whenever there's an overwhelming chorus of "that's conspiracy theory!" what I hear is "don't look too closely! You might find something!"

<comment><USER24> > what I hear is "don't look too closely! You might find something!"

Ah, you mean like the link between vaccinations and autism?

Or are you just taking about the conspiracy theories you want to believe in?

<comment><USER23> That's a weak argument. One conspiracy theory was proven false so they must all be false? Does that apply to scientific studies, too?

<comment><USER24> Pardon the bluntness, but your argument is equally weak.

> Whenever I hear an overwhelming chorus of "that's conspiracy theory!" what I > hear is "don't look too closely! You might find something!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know if he killed himself or not, but it sure looks suspicious. The expectation is that there would be a flurry of investigative journalism lasting perhaps months, by different media organizations trying to uncover how he got his money, who flew to his island, or other properties, how many victims he had, interview with his house keepers, lawyers, Ghislaine Maxwell etc.

But except for very few news items, there was surprisingly little uptake. You'd think after Weinstein, and #meetoo movement, there would so much interest in finding who is exploiting and abusing girls and young women, especially by someone as connected as Epstein and his "guests".

One article was odd: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/fdny- rev...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/janelytvynenko/fdny-review- jeffrey-epstein-4chan-post) Odd because it was concerned not with the victims or his connections but that some paramedic or bystander took a picture of Epstein's body as it was wheeled out and posted it on 4chan. And how it was an egregious violation of HIPPA and FDNY should look into investigating that. Not a word whether they should look into investigating why the CCTV cameras didn't work showing exactly how he hanged himself with toilet paper...

<comment><USER26> > but that some paramedic or bystander took a picture of Epstein's body as it > was wheeled out and posted it on 4chan. And how it was an egregious > violation of HIPPA and FDNY should look into investigating that

Apropos of all the other things going on in this case - which lets be honest, were getting plenty of news play - why is this article odd?

Because, as a paramedic - fuck whomever did that. I don't care who it is, that is one of the most unprofessional and unethical things we can do. I teach new EMTs and paramedics and we talk about the huge amount of trust and access into the most intimate, worst moments of people's lives, and that's because we have built up this culture of being able to be entrusted to do this.

Whether you're giving care to someone bitten by a canine unit after they were found in the woods after an alleged rape, or to a drunk driver who t-boned your ambulance when you had a patient inside, and so on and so forth, if you can't disconnect your personal passion or despising of someone from your ability to provide medical care, you need to not be in this profession. And furthermore, if you see it not just as an opportunity to be unprofessional but to make a buck / publicity out of an abuse of trust, then even more, get out.

All firefighters and paramedics are certainly not perfect, but there is also a huge stock in trying to maintain the reputation we have - it's what allows people to tell me what drugs they've taken, etc., or whether there's a chance of pregnancy, when otherwise they might not.

<comment><USER25> > Apropos of all the other things going on in this case - which lets be > honest, were getting plenty of news play - why is this article odd?

Because when it came to this story, most people, who are not paramedics would expect a lot more investigative information around Epstein's story besides the fact that his dead picture leaked to some dark web site full disgusting images.

Let's say they followed up the article with another 5 or 10 analyzing the flight logs, unsealed court documents, tried to interview his associates, looked at all his properties, see maybe other inmates heard anything that night. But it didn't happen, it was mostly dropped and instead they called FDNY to ensure there is investigation into the leaked pictures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The most frustrating part is how blatant and in-your-face the excuses have been and how many media outlets just seem to accept what they're told and run with it without question.

Just look at the responses we've been given to various questions (paraphrased, of course):

Q: "How could he have committed suicide, wasn't he on suicide watch?"

A: "Oh, well he was taken off suicide watch shortly before he committed suicide"

Q: "Didn't he have a cellmate though? Why didn't his cellmate do anything?"

A: "Oh, his cellmate was moved to a different location shortly before he committed suicide"

Q: "Well what about the guards, weren't they supposed to be checking up on him every 30 minutes?"

A: "Yeah, turns out they both fell asleep - sorry, we know how important a criminal Esptein was, but our guards were simply overworked"

Q: "What about the cameras? Wasn't there a camera inside his cell?"

A: "Yes, but unfortunately it malfunctioned"

Q: "Well what about the camera surveying the outside of his cell?"

A: "Oh...well...we've reviewed the footage on that one and unfortunately it's, erm, unusable"

Q: "Wasn't the room supposed to be 'suicide-proof'?"

A: "Uhh...it was but we overlooked the surprising tensile strength properties of the paper-thin bedsheets...our bad".

Q: "Well how about some photos of the body? Can we see them?"

A: "Sorry, he's been cremated and buried at his brother's request and we can't release any photos at this time"

And of course, nothing (that we know of) has happened to all the many people associated and possibly complicit with Epstein. The paparazzi is following Ghislaine Maxwell around burger joints while Bill Barr's justice department files lawsuits to prevent Edward Snowden from making a profit from his book sales.

It is legitimately more difficult to accept all of these circumstances than it is to believe it was covered-up, bought-and-paid-for hitjob. I truly do think Occam's Razor would dictate it is more likely that this is the case. Though, it is important to note, we do not yet have the evidence to say this is the case definitively.

<comment><USER28> Plus the motivations of those implicated, if you're Prince Andrew, a Saudi Royal, or a Soviet Bloc oligarch you're just going to sit there and accept consequences?

<comment><USER27> All the players involved kind of add a cover for any nefarious actors. There's so many people involved and so many people that would have motivation to order a hitjob that trying to determine who would be behind such a thing would be at best a wild guessing-game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> When Edward Snowden "revealed" that the NSA had been spying on us for decades, I was shocked that anybody was shocked. After all, we've known that for a long time - people had been SAYING that for a long time. I realized after the Snowden leaks that most people actually thought they were joking when they said that the NSA was spying on all of us: "har har, as if that could ever happen". It's become increasingly clear that I'm not just being paranoid when I believe that they _are_ spying on us, and disposing of the ones who become a problem.

<comment><USER30> People who thought this were widely scorned as "conspiracy theorists".

<comment><USER31> I pay close attention to the "nutters" and "conspiracy theorists". A great way to hide something big in plain sight is to let someone that is unstable see 1/8th of your secret. They will conflate other things into it and sound totally loony, thus invalidating any discussion about your evil plans by anyone, as they will be associated with the unstable person.

I am not going to name names, as that would be inappropriate, but there are some popular public figures that make video and news streams, that have sounded totally loony for decades and yet, turned out to be mostly right or in some cases, spot on. They just conveyed the message poorly.

<comment><USER32> Which would be why the CIA under Johnson came up with the idea. Keep all the undesirable thought together and let it eat itself getting stranger and less palatable all the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It sure was convenient for a lot of high profile people that this guy is dead.

The cameras happened to malfunction on that day... guy got taken off suicide watch. Also his cell mate was an ex-cop who looks like he could snap people in half without trying. I mean come on.

<comment><USER34> _Former_ cellmate; Epstein had no cellmate at the time of his death.

<comment><USER35> What happened when they were cell mates is pretty curious.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/epsteins-ex-cellmate- cleared...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/epsteins-ex-cellmate-cleared- after-probe-into-earlier-suicide-attempt-lawyer.html)

<comment><USER36> Certainly seems like the previous suicide attempt was really a failed hit.

<comment><USER35> I'd follow what the ex-cop's eventual sentence is. If he completely skates, surely something is up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm fascinated by the idea that someone could have killed and successfully covered up a murder this high profile.

How do you handle the guards? How do you keep the other inmates quiet? Can you get away with bribing a single guard or is a larger operation needed? If you bribe people, how do you get the money to them? How do you keep them quiet when the inevitable investigation happens?

I don't think it's impossible, but if this was a murder then it's fascinating that someone could be this good at assassination.

<comment><USER38> It's likely Epstein was tied up with CIA. Once they enter the picture, everything's fair game.

[https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy- intelligenc...](https://observer.com/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-spy-intelligence- work/)

<comment><USER39> Robert Maxwell has been accused of being a Mossad agent. Ghislaine Maxwell was the daughter of Robert Maxwell. Upon his death, six serving and former heads of Israeli intelligence services attended his funeral in Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir eulogized him and stated: "He has done more for Israel than can today be said." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell)

<comment><USER40> Wexner (who gave Epstein his initial fortune) is also suspected to be Mossad:

[https://www.mintpressnews.com/mega-group-maxwells-mossad- spy...](https://www.mintpressnews.com/mega-group-maxwells-mossad-spy-story- jeffrey-epstein-scandal/261172/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It doesn't seem that this new claim discusses anything not explicitly mentioned at the time of the suicide decision. See the NYT article on this new report for a fuller discussion, as well as quotes from many pathologists:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/nyregion/jeffrey- epstein-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/nyregion/jeffrey-epstein- homicide-autopsy-michael-baden.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> The fact that Baden, one of the only two MEs assigned to examine the body, believes it was a homicide is certainly news. So is the fact that the NYC ME listed cause of death as "pending" initially and then it was later amended to "suicide" for reasons unknown.

<comment><USER42> Baden was present for the examination - he didn't perform the examination himself. It's a small detail but I wouldn't put Baden's opinion and the official examiner's at the same level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This reminds me of that Netflix series about JonBenét Ramsey where they had all of these experts _prove_ it was the brother who did it.

It was all very weak stuff, but the people they used were all credible crime investigation people so it sounded legitimate.

The poor brother was grown up now and a software engineer who already went through enough trauma and had to sue the show for defamation.

<comment><USER5> > The poor brother was grown up now and a software engineer who already went > through enough trauma and had to sue the show for defamation.

I have watched that documentary and as someone who has a lot of experience with autism spectrum disorder and complete inability to control one's actions at not such a young age, I have little doubt that he could have done that _unintentionally_.

Even as an adult, he still doesn't look as someone who is fully able to comprehend his actions.

In such a case, it would be easy to understand the parents' desire to protect at least the child who was still alive.

And not suing after the documentary was released was not an option, if they wanted to stick to their story.

<comment><USER43> He unintentionally garrotted his sister in the middle of the night? Then left a basement window open?

They found touch DNA on her pants that matched a Latin male among lots of other stuff that just makes the whole brother story sound ridiculous.

Autism is also not sociopathy.

<comment><USER5> > He unintentionally garrotted his sister in the middle of the night?

Yes, for a kid with autism it would have felt like "playing" without realizing the consequences of the "game" he was in.

Such a person can be mentally unable to think two steps upfront, or even to have real feelings about his actions.

> Then left a basement window open?

Everything what happened later could have been done by the parents in an effort to protect their son.

I personally wouldn't have released this documentary and believe that the family should be left alone, but have little doubt in its findings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This may be the kind of thought bubble that's not welcome on HN, but the Epstein situation of high-powered contacts, the decade-old non-prosecution agreement (for child-sex crimes!) and the various inconsistencies surrounding Epstein's death as described in the article, form a seriously twisted situation when combined with the political rhetoric around end-to-end encryption and societal surveillance in general.

Politicians chanting, essentially, "Think of the children", is phenomenally hypocritical when layered on top of the Epstein situation.

The US and Five Eyes world-spanning communications surveillance operations couldn't even get this guy jailed for child-sex crimes?! How much is it costing for this wholly-ineffectual-at-what-its-claimed-purpose-is infrastructure?

</comment><comment><USER45> This is a rabbit hole that I'm not endorsing just sharing the link [https://twitter.com/LibertyBlitz/status/1148259553621864449](https://twitter.com/LibertyBlitz/status/1148259553621864449)

<comment><USER46> You can't just advertise whatever loony accusations your link goes to (I didn't click) and absolve yourself of responsibility. That's the old "I'm just asking questions..." shtick.

<comment><USER36> What in that thread do you object to?

Seems like it's all either factual or clearly labeled uncertainty ("seems", etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> To not make a snippy comment about the media treatment about it because that would be tiring, I'd like to instead draw an imperfect parallel to narcopolitics in Latin America. Kingpins from El Chapo to Escobar were notorious for getting away with just about anything, the former for his tunnel and the latter for actually dropping bombs. For a lot of folks on the other side of the border, perhaps they thought it was something that could never happen here.

But, I think what I see there, what I see here just tend to reinforce something that I believe is vindicated by the rest of history -- politics can be very dirty, and to prematurely label something a conspiracy theory can get in the way of seeing the reality of what happens on the ground. There's a difference between labeling something a conspiracy theory because it feels unthinkable and labeling something a conspiracy theory because it's a stretch to imagine it logistically possible. I have a hope that somehow we can get to a reality where that's not the case, but it's hard to reconcile that with seeing these things happen again and again.

How strong is a democracy? What is the price of freedom and liberty, and how resistant are any of the world's well-resourced democracies to this sort of high-level corruption? Were they ever resistant to it? Were democracy and technopolitics always merely a smokescreen over invisible perpetuations of the perennial brutal principle of "might makes right" and any egalitarian, humanist drive somewhat doomed to never fully (or even partially) succeed?

<comment><USER48> I'd like to remind people that "conspiracy theory" was a propaganda term coined and spread by the CIA in order to discredit people skeptical of the United States.

<comment><USER49> Coined, no; the term dates back to at least 1870 in a non-political context,[0] and I believe there's a documented use in a political context by 1890. Spread, yes, especially in via the document "Countering Criticisms of the Warren Report"[1] which used the term "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy theorist" whilst instructing agents "To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics" (though that document did not directly instruct agents to use the term).

[0]: [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VsRMAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22consp...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VsRMAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22conspiracy%20theory%22&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q=%22conspiracy%20theory%22&f=true)

[1]: [http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html](http://www.jfklancer.com/CIA.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> If Epstein was about to testify against the Mob and not about expose wealthy elites and politicians I doubt any of you in this thread would discount, at all, that he was "whacked".

There's something really gross about how his proximity to power that we, ostensibly, "like" is decreasing our collective likelihood to state the obvious.

<comment><USER36> Any evidence it was the Mob he was going to testify against? I have seen a lot more speculation that he would reveal his cooperation with state intelligence agencies.

<comment><USER28> They are saying that if he were about to testify against John Gotti no one in this thread would doubt that it was a hit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> When this first happened it seemed that the media was pushing the idea that be was killed as a crank conspiracy theory.

They failed and now a majority believe he was. Including me.

</comment><comment><USER52> A worthwhile read: [https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/la-danse-mossad- robe...](https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/la-danse-mossad-robert- maxwell-and-jeffrey-epstein/)

</comment><comment><USER53> I hate to be boring, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which so far has not been presented.

My brother in law is an attorney who literally makes a career out of the deaths and injuries that result from the incredible incompetence and neglect we inflict upon the imprisoned in this country. And as he puts it "Business is Good."

<comment><USER54> We know that people are murdered in prison (though probably not as often as the media depicts.)

We know that blackmail exists.

While they might be uncommon, neither of those are extraordinary.

It is also undisputed that:

\- a serial and unabashed pedophile had multiple contacts with two presidents, a member of the British royal family and a few titans of industry.

\- when prosecuted for his sex crimes said pedophile came away with a sweetheart deal that apart from violating federal regulations, was _incomprehensible_ in it's leniency.

Now just because those two things are quite extraordinary it doesn't mean they are proof of anything. At the same time though, they are a justification for being a little more circumspect about dismissing conspiracies as crank theories.

<comment><USER53> Both blackmail and homicide are uncommon in prison.

Suicide in prison is very, very common.

The wealthy and powerful being above the law and getting sweetheart deals by prosecutors who are more obsessed with not losing and not working hard for easy pleas against people who cannot afford to defend themselves Federally is very, very common.

Note I am not closed to the possibility he was killed, I'm simply noting the contents of this article are miles away from the kind of evidence sufficient to raise a doubt he killed himself.

Obviously I'm interested...why else am I commenting after reading the article? The problem is that nothing interesting happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> 94% of cases of suicidal hangings do NOT break the hyoid. Must look at proximate causes, including foul play.

<comment><USER56> [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20973326](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20973326):

" _Fractures of the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage in 25% of Thais who died of suicidal hanging were related with older ages and incomplete hanging but not related with location of the knot._ "

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30015282](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30015282):

" _Altogether, we identified the following types of laryngohyoid fractures in 129 of 178 cases (72.5%): isolated fracture(s) to the thyroid cartilage in 60 cases (33.7%), combined thyrohyoid fractures in 41 cases (23.0%), isolated fracture(s) to the hyoid bone in 28 cases (15.7%), and no fractures to the cricoid cartilage or the cervical vertebrae._ "

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13531...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135311310090419X):

" _There were a total of 40 cases of suicidal hanging with an age range of 17–74 years (average = 35 years; M:F = 33:7). Fractures of neck structures were identified in 19 cases (47.5%) and were more common in older victims and males. Nine victims had only thyroid cartilage fractures (22.5%), four victims had only fractures of the hyoid bone (10%), and six victims had fractures of both the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage (15%)._ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Oh of course it was murder, it was clear he would be killed once they put him in jail (I won a bet saying he would die mysteriously within 2 months of his house arrest motion being denied). Then after he died I won another bet predicting that 'the cameras will have been not working', and sure enough when they looked at the video from the cameras it was corrupted or something. Obvious murder is obvious.

</comment><comment><USER58> Whitney Webb has written exhaustively on Epstein at mintpressnews. Julie K Brown and others at the Miami Herald have been on the Epstein case for a decade and for a corporate media firm done a good job with investigative journalism. [https://youtu.be/uQbndmXIkKQ](https://youtu.be/uQbndmXIkKQ)

</comment><comment><USER59> Was it suicide or was it murder?

Epstein, alive and well, doesn't really care which side of the false debate you take.

Of course there is a deadman's switch... It wasn't triggered. This isn't rocket science.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'm gonna go out on a limb here and speculate. Epstein was probably an agent for CIA and/or Mossad, and orchestrated honeypots where prominent figures were lured into sleeping with underage girls. It's such a predictable way for intelligence agencies to gain power over powerful figures.

Once he was headed for a long prison sentence and logically had nothing to lose, the powerful people he had blackmail material over would obviously choose to get rid of him to prevent the chance that he revealed everything. It's really not that far fetched.

</comment><comment><USER61> It is a suicide, just a complex and prolonged one.

(1) Blackmail a whole lot of extremely powerful people.

(2) Get busted and go to prison.

(3) Wait for a hit man to come kill you.

I guess it worked though.

</comment><comment><USER62> If by noted pathologist you mean someone that will say anything if they're paid enough then perhaps that's true.

</comment><comment><USER63> I wonder what the guards on duty that day are doing with their millions right now

</comment><comment><USER64> This guy isn't even the one who did the autopsy. Why do we care what he says?

<comment><USER65> My doctor wasn't even there when I contracted the AIDS virus, why should I even care what he says?

p.s. the doctor was there for the autopsy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I already knew that

</comment><comment><USER67> Wow, I'm so surprised.

</comment><comment><USER17> ok so, tinfoil hat - absolutely, how sure are we that the body was actually his?

<comment><USER17> I'm assuming that this is so obvious that it's considered not worth discussing, which is fine. I'd just like to know how are we sure that it's his body? What is the evidence for that? Is it just too hard to fake it and get away with it? Too James Bong (well it is, sure) but how do we know that's not possible?

I'm prepared to believe it but I'm suddenly just really reluctant to believe anything about this case without evidence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> This doesn't make sense. This man has done so much for science and wayward teens.... who could possibly want to kill him?

</comment><comment><USER69> I think sadly (or deliberately) this has been framed as murder vs suicide. Either way, it's deliberate... Osama Bin Laden would have never been allowed to commit suicide in his cell. Someone looked the other way on purpose.

<comment><USER70> > Someone looked the other way on purpose.

Very much the story of his entire life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> To understand how things work at Epstein levels of elite, look up and watch the interviews with whistle-blower Ronald Bernard by Cooperatie de Vrije Media. Be sure to watch the first two interviews in full.

</comment><comment><USER72> These headlines should all read "says 85 year old man who didn't examine his body."

<comment><USER38> He examined the body. Re-read the article.</comment></comment>


Humanity Lost on Jeopardy - <AUTHOR> http://messymatters.com/watson

<comment><AUTHOR> Short version:

1\. Watson has an unfair advantage in reaction time and Ken and Brad have an unfair advantage in timing their button presses. On balance the buzzer surely favors Watson though. An obvious rule tweak would eliminate this issue.

2\. Humans are still vastly better at understanding what is being asked and vastly worse at knowing the answer.

My verdict: This is super impressive and will be super useful. It might not even be too hyperbolic to anticipate this saving lives or otherwise making the world awesomer. Still, in terms of true natural language understanding — having a normal conversation with a computer — this seems to be pretty minuscule progress.</comment>


Facebook Bought a Police Force - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d3akm7/how-facebook-bought-a-police-force <comment><USER2> > Menlo Park, an affluent, mostly white city of 35,000

According to their own source, Menlo Park is 70% white, but this _includes Hispanics_ , who make up 18%. Assuming they were mostly counted under white, this leaves whites as barely over half of the residents - certainly less than the 61% non-Hispanic white of the US as a whole [1]. So why does Vice try to frame Menlo Park as some sort of white stronghold, when it's less white than the US on average?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity)</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone hack on a home automation/security setup? - <AUTHOR>

I'm wondering if anyone has wired their home? I need to replace our thermostat, and I was looking at wireless thermostats, which got me thinking about how I'd like to do something with temperature sensors, maybe a security setup with an at-a-glance to see if all windows are closed/doors locked on a web interface. I'm wondering if anyone has done something like this and can recommend sensors, kits, etc? <comment><USER2> Be careful of the rabbit hole - once you go down there is no knowing where to stop (and no end of what it can cost!)

Seriously though, it is a fun if somewhat pricey hobby to get into. There is an active community at cocoontech.com and a number of hardware and/or software platforms you can choose from.

I have a setup deployed using CQC (CharmedQuark.com) as the software backbone which is very extensible and robust, though the marketing material isn't great. The online community there is small but vibrant (and some would say zealous).

If you have a significant other in the home then a key factor quickly becomes the reliability of any system that you wire into normal use. They won't be impressed if the bathroom lights don't work in the middle of the night ...

I'd recommend looking at Z-wave thermostats and the various 1-wire temperature probes. I've used the kits from <http://www.midondesign.com> successfully for these.

<comment><USER3> _a key factor quickly becomes the reliability of any system that you wire into normal use_

I had a friend in high school whose dad had set up an elaborate home automation system with simple 2-3 word voice controls for things like "turn on AC" or "turn on sprinklers". Anyway, this system was flawless until my friend's pet parrot Larry learned a few of these commands. One of the funnier situations was when the bird turned on the sprinklers during a dinner party!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Smarthome (<http://bit.ly/aetInd>) has good starter kits for home automation.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think an arduino + dedicated server would make for a pretty expandable platform.</comment>


Ask HN: Popular publishing app that doesn't copyright my writing? - <AUTHOR> Medium, Substack, etc, they all retain certain rights to the things I write on their platform. I find it unfair.<p>Do you know of any other publishing platform (either blog or newsletter or both) that does this? <comment><USER2> You can give a look as [https://write.as/](https://write.as/), never used it but heard a lot of good about it.

Also try to find websites linked to what you are writing about. For instance, for articles about programming, [https://dev.to/](https://dev.to/) offers a very good platform, and so does [https://hackernoon.com/](https://hackernoon.com/). Both guarantee that you completely own what you write there.

But to me the best solution is still to have you own blog. Many platforms will offer you a Wordpress or Ghost blog for a small amount each month (I would stay away from free platforms, most of them still own your content), and if you feel comfortable with a little tech steps, you can try a static blog generator such as Jekyll or Eleventy, and host it on GitHub or Netlify.

For my blog ([https://scastiel.dev](https://scastiel.dev)) I use Eleventy, hosted on Netlify, with my own domain name. Works like a charm :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I am capable of running my own (heck, I even wrote my own blog engine in 2002!! Didn't even call it blog back then), but I know I don't have time to maintain it properly.

Also, what I like about Substack and Medium is how easy it is for people to subscribe and discover. Their "distribution" is great.

I know write.as, what it lacks is a stronger distribution.

Thanks for your tips anyway!

<comment><USER3> If something you write is a big success, especially tech/programming related stuff, chances are, most of the traffic over time will come in from search engines.

Also most of the SEO juice (backlinks etc) comes in shortly after publishing. If Medium/other-platform goes defunct or decides to remove you it will be very hard to rebuild it.

Much better to separate distribution from hosting. The small boost they will give you at the beginning is not worth it IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What do you find objectionable about Medium's terms? They need some sort of permission to publish your work. This is basically boilerplate language for any website that shows user-generated content, including social media, blog hosts, etc.

> You own the rights to the content you create and post on Medium.

> By posting content to Medium, you give us a nonexclusive license to publish > it on Medium Services, including anything reasonably related to publishing > it (like storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it). In > consideration for Medium granting you access to and use of the Services, you > agree that Medium may enable advertising on the Services, including in > connection with the display of your content or other information. We may > also use your content to promote Medium, including its products and content. > We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit > permission.

> You can delete any of your posts, or your account, anytime. Processing the > deletion may take a little time, but we'll do it as quickly as possible. We > may keep backup copies of your deleted post or account on our servers for up > to 14 days after you delete it.

[https://policy.medium.com/medium-terms-of- service-9db0094a1e...](https://policy.medium.com/medium-terms-of- service-9db0094a1e0f)

Edit: compare with HN's terms:

> User Content Transmitted Through the Site: With respect to the content or > other materials you upload through the Site or share with other users or > recipients (collectively, "User Content"), you represent and warrant that > you own all right, title and interest in and to such User Content, > including, without limitation, all copyrights and rights of publicity > contained therein. By uploading any User Content you hereby grant and will > grant Y Combinator and its affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, > royalty free, fully paid up, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, > irrevocable license to copy, display, upload, perform, distribute, store, > modify and otherwise use your User Content for any Y Combinator-related > purpose in any form, medium or technology now known or later developed.

<comment><AUTHOR> This part: By posting content to Medium, you give us a nonexclusive license to publish it on Medium Services.

It's unclear to me to what extent this license goes.

<comment><USER5> In another comment you wrote: "what I like about Substack and Medium is how easy it is for people to subscribe and discover. Their "distribution" is great."

These license conditions allow them to make that discoverability possible. It's probably just legal language to make sure that they can do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I found [https://imprint.to/](https://imprint.to/) on product hunt the other day, seemed good enough for me

</comment><comment><USER7> I have an entry in this space, that I wrote myself:

[https://quanta.wiki](https://quanta.wiki)

However it's not fully baked yet, and not on a server that will have huge bandwidth.

<comment><USER8> Layout's a bit off on mobile: [https://i.imgur.com/XIDOubl.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/XIDOubl.jpg)

Looks neat though. However, it has an absolutely staggering number of features that I think might confuse people. Is it a blogging platform, a wiki, a podcast platform, all of those?

<comment><USER7> Thanks for mentioning the mobile layout issue. That landing page is brand new and I forgot to check mobile.

The platform is a general content tree, so yeah it can hold blogs or wikis or anything. The podcast feature is not sophisticated, it just presents a feed, and lets you click on items to listen to.

What I should do is load all of Wikipedia in (for one topic, like Physics) to demonstrate how much better this kind of architecture for editing is, compared to other wikis, imo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> i would assume all publishing platforms have terms of conditions full of legally stuff that you dont want it sounds like, i would assume your only solution would be making your own site.</comment>


[MIT Lecture] Connections between physics and deep learning - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MdSE-N0bxs&feature=share <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing this lecture by Max Tegmark.

He comments on the video linking to two papers on arXiv which relate to the material in the lecture: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08225](https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08225) and [https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06737](https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.06737)</comment>


New Method of Microbial Energy Production Discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2017/41803 <comment><USER2> > Until recently it was thought that in all of biology, from microbes to > humans, there were only two methods to generate and conserve the energy > required for cellular metabolism and survival.

What are the existing two methods? ATP & something else?

<comment><USER3> * substrate level phosphorylation (SLP) and

* electron transport phosphorylation (ETP)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> something wrong with nrel's website. I think this is the same article: [https://phys.org/news/2017-05-method-microbial-energy- produc...](https://phys.org/news/2017-05-method-microbial-energy- production.html)</comment>


Ask HN: What's your home media storage/backup strategy? - <AUTHOR>

My resolution for the new year is to wrangle in my family's >1 TB digital home photo/video collection. We have 5 computers (all Macs) being inundated with a stream of media from 4 iPhones and 5 digital cameras.
My solution needs to:
1. Securely store the media in the long term
2. Be easy enough for my technologically-challenged parents to add media
3. Be accessible (web interface, playback on the TV, automatic syncing?, etc.)
I have at my disposal:
* a server with two 2 TB hard drives
* a $30/month budget
After about six months of searching, I've yet to find a pre-packaged solution. So where's the startup that can do this? I can't be the only person drowning in media. Ideally I'd like some kind of iPhoto-syncing/flickr-uploading/Apple TV-streaming widget, but I'm willing to do a fair bit of coding myself to tie everything together.
What's your strategy for dealing with your exponentially-increasing home movie collection? <comment><USER2> > _What's your strategy for dealing with your exponentially-increasing home > movie collection?_

I have a small low-power server running Debian Squeeze: \- ZFS-fuse filesystem (packaged with squeeze) \- disks in ZFS pool are arranged in mirror vdevs to protect against single drive failure \- separate ZFS file systems for archive and less important bulk storage \- weekly cron job: ZFS scrub to verify pool data integrity (and report the result) \- daily cron job: ZFS snapshot archive to protect against user errors \- SAMBA shares so the family can easily use the server.

This still doesn't protect against catastrophes which wipe out both disks at the same time, so I also make copies of my archive on USB disks for off-line storage in another location. That's the annoying part which is the most work.

I will probably move to the BTRFS file system in the future, because it is likely faster than ZFS-fuse and it seems to have support for mixing disk sizes, which makes it easier to grow the storage organically.

</comment><comment><USER3> I also have a lot of video media (love my Sony EX1!) so backup is a nuisance.

For programming work and writing, I use git (my own servers, periodically backing up my repos to S3; some github and some bitbucket).

For backing up my MacBookPro (which I use for work and video and photo editing/production) I use two large USB external drives with Time Machine, switching from one to the other every few days. My laptop and backup drives are encrypted with File Vault. When external drives are full, I store them and buy new ones (trying to be careful to plug in old drives and leave them on overnight occasionally so that they can check for damaged sectors, self repair, etc.

I still burn DVDs occasionally for backups also.

My wife uses a single Time Machine external drive and burns backup DVDs.

For your particular needs: I would keep one Mac always on with video on a shared drive. Even with wifi bandwidth it should be no problems accessing your video materials.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this your slick way to see if your startup idea is worth something? :)

Problem: I do care about my home media which is wiped out if my HDD crashes and of course I'm not able to access them in all my devices.

Proposed solutions: 1) I'm willing to pay a monthly fee only if it is a cloud storage which can be accessed on all devices. I'm not going to pay a monthly fee if am going to store my media in my own HDD and all you provide is a service to access them.

2) One time payment for an app that lets me access my media across all platforms iPhone, android, iPad (esp), mac, windows, PS3, Xbox etc.

There 2 problems here, reliable storage and cross platform accessibility. I think you are suggesting 2 HDDs raided for reliability, which is probably the cheapest solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, I need to figure out my own working solution before I claim to solve others'.

1) yes

2) yes

Now where's the company that does that for me?

2 2 TB HDD RAID is probably what I'm looking at right now, with some kind of unlimited cloud backup service just backing up the whole thing, and some way to transfer media easily to the hard drives

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm looking at getting a Synology or QNAP server and using that for backups with a Samba based file sharing system. I have a server lying around, but a dedicated device would save on power consumption so I'm going to go with that.

I believe you can also backup your whole server to S3 periodically using their built in tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh, but S3 is so damn expensive! It would be $140/month for 1 TB of storage (ignoring transfer costs), which I could use to build my own damn server farm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try tonidopro. It is a home server software that comes with backup, sync, dlna server and mobile apps for iOS,android and windows 7.</comment>


A Clojurescript rookie's survival guide notes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.markwatson.com/2013/04/a-clojurescript-rookies-survival-guide-notes/

<comment><USER2> Well, yeah, you might be a rookie ... The line "There might be security issues with this" is too good: Heck, I'll recommend it anyway in my survival guide!!</comment>