[HN Gopher] How I lost my backpack with passports and laptop
___________________________________________________________________
How I lost my backpack with passports and laptop
Author : eatitraw
Score : 103 points
Date : 2025-07-15 17:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (psychotechnology.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (psychotechnology.substack.com)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| My late friend Hugh Daniel used to refer to his Bihn's backpack
| [1] as his "LSD", for "Life Support Device". Like when we were
| leaving the house he'd shout in his boisterous voice so all the
| neighbors could hear, "Oh no, I forgot my LSD! I'll be right
| back!" then run back in and fetch his backpack.
|
| But now my smartphone is my LSD.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13687369
| ghaff wrote:
| Except it's really not if you're traveling internationally.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| >Except it's really not if you're traveling internationally.
|
| What do you mean?
| ghaff wrote:
| Not having a passport is a big issue that will take a lot
| of hassle to deal with. Probably a generational thing but
| losing my passport feels like a much bigger deal than my
| phone if I've taken reasonable precautions. In fact, my
| iPhone broke 4 or 5 years ago on a trip and I was fine.
| mijoharas wrote:
| I think he's saying you don't want to go shouting "I've got
| my LSD with me" in an airport.
| ta1243 wrote:
| I'd rather be stuck in an international country with only a
| phone than only a passport. Hell even when I've been in war
| zones if it's a choice between a working phone (sat phone for
| example) and a flak jacket, I'd go for the former.
| ghaff wrote:
| Good luck getting home with just your phone.
| nancyminusone wrote:
| Should have called it a BOMB - Backpack Of My Belongings. Great
| for airports!
| criddell wrote:
| I've never heard of phenibut before. It sounds interesting.
| bn-l wrote:
| I think it may cause cognitive decline. I mean longterm.
|
| It was rightly banned in Australia. Fuckwits had a tendency of
| buying it online and then taking huge doses without a break
| (sensitisation) and then posting essays on the sheer horror
| they go through when the drug leaves their system and they
| rebound.
|
| A nice reminder to libertarians that, yes you may be smart and
| careful with risk taking but there are many fuckwits who aren't
| and shouldn't have to suffer because of it unnecessarily.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Their body, their choice. Why should people who can use it
| responsibly be denied? And worse, why should they be punished
| if they choose to use it regardless of legality?
| vkou wrote:
| Surely there's some sensible ground between ruining the
| lives of addicts and putting heroin into elementary school
| vending machines.
|
| Libertarianism as an ideology does not have the tools to
| deal with the harms of the latter.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| Libertarianism is stupid, but I also think GP is using it
| as an easy straw-man to justify prohibition.
| HighGoldstein wrote:
| > Their body, their choice. Why should people who can use
| it responsibly be denied? And worse, why should they be
| punished if they choose to use it regardless of legality?
|
| Because we don't live in isolated universes of
| individuality. When they cause massive damage to their
| bodies and minds, that cost is not only borne by themselves
| but by their close circle and society at large. You can
| argue that prohibition is not the right approach to
| preventing these problems, but doing the non-optimal thing
| is better than doing nothing at all.
| lisbbb wrote:
| This is precisely why my enthusiasm for libertarianism
| has waned over the years--a lot of things just don't
| scale and I think benevolent anarchy is one of those
| things. It just becomes pure anarchy with all the Mad Max
| horrors.
| mft_ wrote:
| There are many 'everyday' activities, foods, and
| substances that can be shown to be harmful to the
| individual in the long term, and thus have a negative
| effect on their close circle, the healthcare system, and
| potentially society, but which are socially acceptable
| and so remain.
|
| e.g.
|
| Alcohol is worse than no alcohol, for many reasons.
|
| Smoking cigarettes, obvs.
|
| Eating meat is worse that not eating meat.
|
| Doing woodwork without breathing protection may damage
| your lungs.
|
| Cleaning with spray cleaning products regularly may
| damage your lungs.
|
| Sun exposure increases your skin cancer risk.
|
| Running is more likely to cause arthritis than cycling or
| swimming.
|
| Loud environments may damage your hearing.
|
| Insufficiently frequent ejaculation may increase your
| risk of prostate cancer.
|
| Yes, I'm being deliberately absurd to make the point, but
| still: where, and how, to draw the line?
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| I don't think you have to be libertarian to think that there
| are responsible and better models for drug regulation in
| between the two extremes of being able to order it in huge
| quantities online and outright prohibiting it. As a
| recreational and responsible drug user, I think the current
| model is a violation of my right to call the shots on my own
| body and mind.
| anonym29 wrote:
| Some peoole beat their wives when they drink, so the state
| has decided that it is in everyone's best interest for
| alcohol to become illegal.
|
| Some people become unproductive and hurt themselves when on
| drugs, so the state has decided to enact a war on drugs.
|
| Some people injure themselves trying to procure abortions, so
| the state has decided no more abortions.
|
| Some protesters cause war recruiting efforts to struggle
| during Vietnam, which hurts soldiers already deployed, so the
| state has decided no more anti-war protests.
|
| Some people misuse privacy to commit crimes, so the state has
| decided that every citizen must be fingerprinted and put into
| a police database preemptively to prevent crime.
|
| Some people aren't productive enough and others are forced to
| pick up the slack, so the state has decided to humanely
| euthanize the disabled to protect workers.
|
| Trust the state, relinquish your freedoms, the state knows
| best and the state never makes mistakes!
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Some peoole beat their wives when they drink, so the
| state has decided that it is in everyone 's best interest
| for alcohol to become illegal._
|
| If anyone is curious about the history in the US, Ken
| Burns' doc (based on a book) is really good:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prohibition_(miniseries)
| root_axis wrote:
| This is just half a dozen examples of the slippery slope
| fallacy. You could make identically generic arguments for
| every good law that we all agree on. The specifics of the
| law in question are a required component of the
| conversation.
|
| > _the state knows best and the state never makes
| mistakes!_
|
| Nobody believes this. Everyone is comfortable with the
| risks of the state when it comes to rights and laws they
| believe should be enforced.
| os2warpman wrote:
| >and then posting essays on the sheer horror they go through
| when the drug leaves their system and they rebound.
|
| There are very few things, concepts, or sensations more
| annoying than a junkie telling everyone about what it's like
| to be a junkie.
|
| Listening to a fork-tongued megachurch preacher telling you
| you're going to hell while begging for money is less of a
| chore than some pothead wondering aloud if people see colors
| differently.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Do you mean you would prefer an intentionally harmful but
| pretending to be coherent speech to a less coherent but
| generally harmless one?
| narrator wrote:
| It's basically a legal benzo like Xanax. Witness the horrors
| over here: http://old.reddit.com/r/quittingphenibut
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Thanks. The extollation of it in the article definitely felt
| too good to be true.
| debarshri wrote:
| Side effects seem so crazy. Phew, pure horror.
| flotzam wrote:
| It's not a benzo, but it is a GABAergic drug. The ironclad
| law to avoid brutal dependency and addiction is to never take
| it more than once every 7 days, preferably less frequently
| than that. No redosing on the same day either. This means it
| will take a couple weeks to slowly find an effective dose.
|
| https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Phenibut
| tartoran wrote:
| What's the effect? Did you ever try it yourself?
| flotzam wrote:
| It really is a social anxiety off switch for me (once it
| fully kicks in after 5+ hours, lasting for about 24 hours
| before things slowly return to baseline). Alcohol in
| troubling quantities has that effect to a lesser extent,
| but of course it's sloppy as hell too and I hate the
| hangover. Not so with phenibut.
|
| That makes it tempting to use before 7 days have passed
| _just for this one social occasion_. Although committing
| to not do that has flipped the dynamic: Even after enough
| time has passed I 'm reconsidering, is today actually
| worth using it and being "blocked" for another week
| during which something more interesting might come up?
| Trying to make my occasional visit to normie vibe space
| count, it's kind of nice there.
| Liftyee wrote:
| It sounds too good to be true... article mentioned none of the
| side effects that other commenters had rightly pointed out.
| Otherwise I would actually be tempted, but there are no free
| lunches (especially when messing with your biology).
| theamk wrote:
| tl/dr how it was lost:
|
| > The last thing I remembered was leaving a party at my friend's
| cafe, very drunk.
|
| and how it was found:
|
| > I received a letter to my mailbox address in London. A man
| named Simon wrote: he had found my backpack and wanted to return
| it.
| rob_c wrote:
| For London that's a shock. Source lived their, had friends that
| lived there and had friends who studied there... And by there I
| mean 4 of 6 nominal zones connected by the tin can on rails
| known as the tube.
| dijit wrote:
| London is like three (or more) cities stitched together
| haphazardly.
|
| Lose your bag in Lewisham? Good luck.
|
| Lose your bag in the touristy districts (Westminster,
| Leicester Square)? It's possible, but I doubt it.
|
| Lose your bag in Clapham North or Kensington? You're probably
| fine.
| rob_c wrote:
| Couldn't finish. This is less about losing a laptop and more
| about comparing oneself to eccentric billionaires in the valley.
|
| For every jobs dying of vanity remember there's probably a
| thousand multi-millionaires living very happily making rational
| decisions.
| StrandedKitty wrote:
| > sleeping on phenibut is very restful
|
| Is this just you subjective experience or is it backed by some
| data or research? For me personally, sleeping after phenibut
| doesn't feel healthy at all -- in fact I often end up sleeping
| for 12+ hours unless I have something important to do in the
| morning, and it's extremely hard to get out of bed every time.
| ddtaylor wrote:
| I don't know if it compares to Ambien at all, but my wife takes
| that and every once in a while I take one to help get to sleep.
| It gets me to sleep and I stay knocked out, but a long 8 hour
| sleep with Ambien never seems as good as a "real" 5 hour sleep
| without it.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| i'm trying to figure out if the laptop and passport were still in
| the backback when found? I think so?!
| codingminds wrote:
| Based on this:
|
| > Simon gave my backpack back to me intact.
|
| I'd say yes.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| That reading skill you have is really impressive.
|
| I can't even imagine a world in which everybody could do it!
|
| (sarcasm intended for the grand-poster, not you)
| NamTaf wrote:
| I had my backpack - with (work) laptop, both passports, _wallet_
| , _house keys_ , etc. - stolen from a pub in Euston a couple of
| years ago. All that remained in my pockets was my phone & power
| bank, and airpods. It was stolen by a guy who went into the pub
| we were at, sat at an adjacent table, pretended to study the
| menu, deposited a dummy backpack to the communal pile under our
| table when we were standing to greet people, then picked up the
| heaviest one (mine) and walked out. Unlike the author, I wasn't
| black-out drunk, we were just distracted and someone was able to
| do a sleight of hand when we weren't paying attention.
|
| The author is _very_ lucky to get theirs back. I had to replace
| it all. As they say, replacing the UK one wasn 't too bad -
| though I hadn't been in the UK for 2 years by that point so I had
| to get extra guarantors to sign photos and write a declaration.
| The other one was a nightmare, and by pure luck the embassy could
| look up my last application and pull the birth certificate
| reference number for me. Again, 2 guarantors and I was very lucky
| to have a friend from that country visiting.
|
| I reported it as stolen, hoping that they'd steal the laptop and
| wallet and then ditch the rest. Unfortunately, either nobody
| found it or nobody turned it in. Of course, the CCTV that was in
| the pub was 'too blurry' to be of any use. CCTV has a funny
| tendency of being useless in that regard.
|
| In my case, I crashed at a friend's place that evening, and then
| went down to my local makerspace for lack of wanting to pay a
| locksmith PSfuckloads to unlock my door on a Sunday. By pure
| luck, there was a lockpicking nerd there and they came and
| slipped my door for me. Thankfully, that was enough to help
| offset a lot of the negativity of the whole affair. I felt like I
| got off lucky a bit, and didn't dwell so much on it as a result.
| robaato wrote:
| 20 years ago I had a somewhat similar experience - a pub off
| The Strand in central London.
|
| My bag/briefcase was under a (high) table, and in that case the
| pub was able to view CCTV and work out the guy who sat nearby
| and hooked his leg to grab my bag - while I was distracted.
|
| Luckily for me, while it contained laptop and passport, I got a
| call 20 mins later from my wife, who had been contacted by
| someone 100m away in a different pub. The thief had taken my
| bag with laptop, not realised there was also a passport in
| there, gone to another pub, stolen another bag, switched my
| laptop into said bag, and gone off. The owner of other lost
| laptop had found my (empty) bag/passport, rang my wife, and we
| met and at least I got bag (and passport) back...
|
| Net result, lost laptop, but not lost passport. Much less
| hassle, although still a wake up call...
| robaato wrote:
| As an aside, a friend in Tokyo only a couple of years ago
| suddenly realised he had lost his passport. A couple of hours
| of searching bags later, panic when he realised it was mid
| afternoon Friday, consulate was going to close soon, and not
| reopen until Monday - with his flight scheduled Monday early!
|
| Rang the consulate to ask advice: "oh yes, police station XXX
| rang us to report they had had your passport handed in -
| please go and pick it up!". So we did!
|
| Lovely country Japan in many ways! It had just dropped out of
| his bag onto pavement, been found and handed in...
| thevillagechief wrote:
| A smallish city in Pennsylvania. Dropped my wallet/id and
| work badge rushing to catch the bus to work. Someone picked
| it up, googled me, found an article from the local
| newspaper announcing my wedding, all with my home address,
| dropped the items in my mailbox and called my office to let
| me know. That was when I knew that my local paper still
| publishes marriages, divorces and bankruptcies, complete
| with all personal details. That was scary.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Names, addresses, and phone numbers use to be published
| and distributed for free. It was called a "phone book".
| ryandrake wrote:
| Wasn't the whole point of blanketing the country with CCTV to
| catch criminals? If it's too low res to even work out
| someone's face to the point where you can identify him, then
| what are all those cameras achieving?
| ajb wrote:
| For the pub, probably a discount on insurance.
| cjrp wrote:
| Yep, they're probably more interested in deterring
| burglars.
| lisbbb wrote:
| Anarcho-tyranny. It's not so much to catch the career
| criminals as it is to make sure that no political
| organizing can happen on any scale major enough to disrupt
| the machine. The criminals are encouraged in order to
| terrorize the public so that they beg for bigger
| government, higher taxes, and more centralized control
| structures. The elite running the show don't actually care
| about "little people." Any care that actually takes place
| is incidental, more up to the local constabulary or local
| officials who aren't completely on board with the bigger
| picture.
| baxtr wrote:
| _> had my backpack - with (work) laptop, both passports,
| wallet, house keys, etc. - stolen_
|
| I've made a similar experience a while back. Since then I've
| completely reduced the number of important items I carry around
| simultaneously in the same bag/location.
| crinkly wrote:
| Lived in London for over 40 years. Never let your stuff out of
| sight for a minute. My foot always goes through a loop on my
| bag. Had at least two attempts to grab it which was stopped
| dead by this. I use a knackered looking Osprey daylite plus bag
| which has straps around the zips that stops people casually
| having a go at it as well. Mostly no issues in the last 10
| years but I know people who are careless and have been done a
| few times.
|
| My general travel experience, outside the UK, is that if you
| dress down, use a knackered looking bag and a shitty no brand
| knackered phone case and people will leave you alone. Passport
| goes on you in a zipped inner pocket anywhere on the planet.
| Same with wallet, keys, anything. Never wear anything that
| indicates you have an iPhone worth nicking. Apple Watch /
| Airpods make you a target.
|
| Many people aren't travel savvy. It scares me.
| olalonde wrote:
| One thing that really struck me in Dubai: I watched a group
| of girls leave their designer purses and phones unattended on
| a table. They just left the coffee shop and came back over 10
| minutes later.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I was encouraged to leave my wallet and phone on the table
| of time out, while we went and got food. My friends
| rationale was: there are CCTVs everywhere and thieves are
| dealt with very harshly. So eff it
| firtoz wrote:
| In Dubai the punishment I'd expect to be much worse if you
| do end up getting caught stealing.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| From your and other comments in the thread, it sounds
| like the main deterrence then is 1) that it's likely
| you'll be caught and 2) that if caught, the punishment
| will be quite harsh.
|
| I wonder if the UK and other cities are struggling more
| with the first or second
| defrost wrote:
| I've travelled to a majority of countries across the
| globe (exploration geophysics, mostly in the air or deep
| backcountry, rarely in major cities) and Dubai is another
| city within a city location; two state; the rich are rich
| and have no need to steal, or are brazen about it, while
| the poor are segregated, curfewed and routinely
| castigated.
|
| These are not places were you want to fall the wrong side
| of the invisible barrier.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Theft is punished very severely there. Not worth the risk.
| codezero wrote:
| Glad to hear I'm not the only one who always has the loop
| around their foot! Minimal inconvenience for the potential
| loss.
| olalonde wrote:
| Just a heads up - there seems to be an issue with your HN
| account. Nearly all of your comments are showing up as
| dead.
| codezero wrote:
| Yeah I'm pretty sure I got limited because I said
| multiple stupid things, appreciate the heads up but I'll
| take my punishment :)
| clickety_clack wrote:
| You can't leave your comments out of your sight for a
| second around here!
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Wow, I have to say it's a bit crazy that you have to go
| through all this effort in what I think of as quite a safe
| city. I was recently in London for a week of meetings and
| someone said be careful about having your phone out in case
| someone snatches it but I thought they were being hyperbolic.
|
| Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime? I
| guess people think they can get away with it, but it feels
| like one of those creeping issues that might seem small at
| first but deters important activity (tourism, business
| relocation, etc.) longterm if not addressed.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Because the police don't care, and these crimes are
| generally impossible to solve.
|
| There are stories of people finding their stolen bicycles,
| motorbikes or cars, and when informing the police they're
| told to 'steal it back'.
|
| The phones thieves are generally youths riding around the
| city on electric bikes, fully balaclava'd up. There's
| little chance of catching them. Even if they were caught
| nothing would happen to them.
|
| London has apparently gone to shit since I lived there 5
| years ago.
| daymanstep wrote:
| > Why isn't there a bigger crackdown on such petty crime?
|
| Many reasons.
|
| 1. UK prisons are already overflowing. Even violent
| criminals like rapists and murderers are only serving half
| of their sentences. When there were riots recently the
| government had to let many criminals go early just to make
| room for rioters. There is basically no room for petty
| criminals. The police know this which is why they don't
| even bother arresting petty criminals since they will just
| be let go free anyway.
|
| 2. U.K. police has been underfunded for decades at this
| point. There were severe cuts under the earlier Tory regime
| and now under the Labour regime it continues to be
| underfunded with the police chief suggesting to cut the
| number of police forces from 43 to 12. At this point the
| police basically do not care about any property crime since
| they prioritize violent crimes (rightly in my opinion).
|
| 3. British legal system and British society in general has
| trends that favor increase in crime e.g. loosening of
| social controls (loss of social stigmas etc) increased
| movement, freedom of movement (people move around more
| freely instead of staying in the same village their entire
| lifetime) lack of tracking, lack of interest in tracking
| (e.g. London has about same number of CCTV cameras as China
| yet Chinese government is able to use its camera to track
| criminals much more effectively than the British).
|
| Could also talk about changes in society (loss of social
| capital aka Bowling Alone), increased immigration, changes
| in parenting (single parents etc) but those are topics of
| discussion for different time.
| nickjj wrote:
| > CCTV has a funny tendency of being useless in that regard
|
| I don't think it's safe to depend on this by default.
|
| I know a few business owners who have video (and audio)
| recording set ups in their business where 100+ customers come
| and go daily.
|
| There might be 6 motion activated cameras saving everything to
| a local box in the store. That box might have let's say 1TB of
| disk space. Even with motion activated cameras it could fill up
| in ~3 weeks to where it's no longer recording.
|
| Once it gets filled up, it gets permanently deleted with no
| backups. This could be a manual and adhoc process, it depends
| on the owner.
|
| I never had any say in how they operate, just repeating what
| I've heard and seen.
|
| This idea of trusting that companies record and save all
| interactions and calls indefinitely is no way something I'd
| trust for anything important.
| Someone wrote:
| > This idea of trusting that companies record and save all
| interactions and calls indefinitely is no way something I'd
| trust for anything important.
|
| In many jurisdictions, it is against the law to record and
| save all interactions and calls indefinitely.
|
| Often, law says you can only make video recordings for a
| given, legal, purpose. If the goal is to deter crime and help
| solve crimes, keeping recordings around for a few weeks is
| allowed, but keeping them forever typically isn't.
| cjrp wrote:
| I witnessed almost the exact same thing on an adjacent table;
| someone crouching down pretending to do their shoelaces for a
| suspiciously long time. Unfortunately I didn't click what was
| going on until after they'd left.
| chasd00 wrote:
| heh someone broke into a house i was staying at in Costa Rica
| and stole my backpack while i was working in the next room! I
| go back to get something and there's footprints in/out of a
| sliding glass door and no backpack. Fortunately, the only thing
| they got was my ADHD medicine. Sorta sucked for my employer for
| those 3 weeks I was without but it could have been much worse.
|
| Interestingly, i did my best to follow the footsteps which led
| to a trail that went up through the jungle. Maybe 100 yards up
| a hill there was a little spot that definitely looked well used
| by humans overlooking the house and straight through a large
| window. I suspect whoever it was had been watching us for a
| while and when my wife/kids left, leaving me alone, just walked
| in, grabbed the backpack and left. (wife was not pleased as you
| could imagine)
| brailsafe wrote:
| > Fortunately, the only thing they got was my ADHD medicine
|
| Good time to start binging Costa Rican specialty coffee. A
| liter a day keeps the ADHD at bay ;)
|
| (somewhat joking, milage may vary, real meds help, but
| coffee's good in high quantities in a pinch)
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| >A couple of years ago, I would have panicked at this moment. I'm
| pretty neurotic: my mind is constantly occupied with producing
| negative scenarios that "need" to be considered and anticipated.
| I eat myself from inside out with endless "what ifs", calculating
| worst-case scenarios and failures -- all that sort of thing.
|
| I can relate strongly to this. ADHD and OCD tendencies made
| leaving for even a vacation frustrating. I think part of that was
| growing up in a situation where losing something important like a
| phone or laptop was a financial hardship that meant real, lasting
| pain.
|
| Now, as I am older and more financially stable, I only really
| worry that I have my phone and wallet. And really I only need one
| of them. All of my IDs are scanned and backed up online. I just
| need a device and internet connection and I can recover enough of
| my life to get home, where I can get back on track and order new
| items. When going over our final leave-list, my partner and I
| typically just end with "and we have a credit card, so it doesn't
| matter if we've forgotten something".
|
| When traveling to more remote places with less of a chance of
| being able to replace a phone at short notice, I do bring an old
| phone as backup.
| et-al wrote:
| > I just need a device and internet connection and I can
| recover enough of my life to get home
|
| How do you deal with 2FA? Do you memorize a few of your backup
| codes?
| haiku2077 wrote:
| I use 1Password as my 2FA app. They have a recovery kit you
| can print out and store in safe places, or if you have a
| device that you've previously set up, you can authenticate to
| your vault.
|
| https://support.1password.com/emergency-kit/
| skrebbel wrote:
| Not GP, but my solution is to just not use 2FA if I can at
| all avoid it. After all, 2FA is 99% security theater anyway (
| _if_ you have a randomly generated unguessable password in a
| decent password manager).
| Beijinger wrote:
| Very true. I would love to get an YubiKey. But if I set up
| everything with this and I lose it abroad, then I am f...
| Could get two and have one FedExed to me if SHTF, but I
| think I pass.
| justinc8687 wrote:
| I use the technique of taping a microsd card with copies of
| my passport, credit cards, 2fa backup codes, etc, encrypted;
| along with a $100 to the bottom of my insole inside my shoe.
| Put them in a little "crack sized" ziplock, add lots of
| gaffers tape (so if you take the insole out it's not obvious,
| plus makes it a bit waterproof) and if I ever get mugged, I
| have enough cash to get a cab (or depending on where I am,
| pay a bribe) and then find a computer I can use to get my
| info and figure out next steps.
|
| Normally carry a yubikey with me (2, in fact, one on me, one
| in my big bag at my hostel / hotel). But if I get mugged
| between airport - hostel, then at least I have the shoe
| backup.
|
| A 3rd level is that my parents have a yubikey and 2fa backup
| codes for me. They dont have my passwords, but in a pinch, I
| can call them to read me a code.
|
| Very open to ideas on things to improve...
| nirv wrote:
| _> Very open to ideas on things to improve..._
|
| Grade 316 stainless steel SD cards by Lexar come to
| mind[1].
|
| [1] https://www.lexar.com/global/news/Lexar-Announces-
| Worlds-Fir...
| nickjj wrote:
| > I think part of that was growing up in a situation where
| losing something important like a phone or laptop was a
| financial hardship that meant real, lasting pain.
|
| The brain is interesting, that's for sure. Old habits and
| mindsets stick around a long time.
|
| I still write important things on paper like final destination
| addresses or reservation numbers because I don't trust my
| phone.
|
| When I went on a solo 2 week Euro trip to Portugal and Spain
| last year I had ~30 printed pieces of paper of reservation
| details / maps in my backpack just in case something happened
| with my phone. I didn't carry them all with me everywhere but
| as time went on in the trip, I brought the specific ones with
| me for that day in a day bag.
|
| I didn't plan the trip in too much detail, mainly just hotel
| reservations and high level bullets for things to do in the few
| cities I went to but having everything printed gave me peace of
| mind. I didn't have to use a single piece of paper in the end.
|
| It does make me think how much easier it would be traveling
| with a friend or partner because having 2 phones is a massive
| perk for redundancy.
| avh02 wrote:
| When i was single I used to pack a spare (smaller, older)
| phone on bigger trips, one would stay off in my
| daybag/backpack to be used in case something happened and my
| regular was in my pocket. Now, yeah, it's silly to pack it as
| my partner's is the backup.
| sixhobbits wrote:
| I have airtags in my backpack, briefcase, wallet, luggage and
| keys now. One of the best qol improvements I've done. I'm
| careless and forget stuff a lot and even just saving the few
| minutes it regularly took me to find stuff misplaced at home is
| great. It also let me recover my bag when I forgot it on a train
| (I watched it go to a holding station overnight and travel all
| over the country the next day, and could then anticipate where it
| would be and go take it back)
|
| I also have a similar experience to that described in the article
| (nearly 10 years ago, pre airtags) of having my wallet drop out
| my pocket while cycling in the Netherlands. A German couple found
| it and took it back to Germany with them as they weren't sure
| what to do. They found me on Facebook, asked if it was ok to take
| some cash from the wallet, and put it in the post back to me in
| NL.
|
| Coming from South Africa which probably has similarities to
| Russia in terms of return rates for lost valuable belongings it
| was quite a defining moment of "Europe" for me.
| libraryofbabel wrote:
| I have a similar story, one that also took place in London. I had
| my bag stolen from under a chair outside a pub near UCL. It
| contained various important things including my passport, a
| journal with about six month's of writing in it, critical notes
| for a project I was working on, etc. I was devastated.
|
| A week later I had mostly made my peace with losing all my stuff
| and was about to apply, for a new passport, when I received a
| very posh letter in the post with an imposing coat of arms atop
| it; it was from the Duke of Bedford's estate, which owns most of
| the land all around Bloomsbury. They told me they had found my
| bag in the locked garden in the middle of Bedford Square. The
| thieves must have thrown it over the railings, and fortunately
| there was a letter addressed to me inside it that gave away my
| address. I went to their very grand estate office to collect it
| and, amazingly, everything was still there, including the
| passport which the thieves apparently did not want.
| throwawayffffas wrote:
| See given this is hackernews. I was hoping for software bug
| shipped it to Saint Kitts or something, but was disappointed.
| hungryhobbit wrote:
| Don't do drugs kids.
|
| There, I just saved you from having to read the long ramblings of
| a drug addict who did too many drugs ... and lost his backpack.
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Honestly. When I was a kid 20 years ago backpacking around i was
| worried about this. Now I'm also worried about it but honestly
| there aren't very many issues. I've had temporary passports
| issued, cancelled cards, new phones setup on "new sims". One
| thing I did carry back then was keys. I don't anymore. The rest
| is just so easy to replace these days. My laptop is insured and
| so is my work one.
| jdalgetty wrote:
| Fun story
| MarkusWandel wrote:
| Super entertaining read, in exactly the way that LLM-generated
| pablum isn't.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Alcohol makes my stomach very upset, perhaps because I can't
| burp.
|
| Stories like this make me thankful that it is very painful for me
| to drink more than 2 beers, even though I very much enjoy beer.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| You can't burp?
| munificent wrote:
| "Abelchia" is the charming medical term.
|
| Interestingly, there is a relatively new treatment for it
| that involves injecting botox into the cricopharyngeus
| muscle. While the botox wears off relatively quickly, in many
| cases the cure is permanent.
|
| It's like the muscles needs to learn how to relax and once
| they have, they retain that capability.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Yeah, I found out about that recently after a very painful
| plane ride. I periodically see an ENT, so I'm going to ask
| about it the next time I go.
|
| BTW, my current trick is to basically (almost) trigger
| myself to vomit. The burps come out but everything else
| stays in.
| gumboshoes wrote:
| This is a dream I have a few times a year. The panic! The horror!
| Everything gone. Just the feeling of personal loss and
| devastation every time I have the dream.
| kshacker wrote:
| Story of a recovered passport - no alcohol and 21 years back.
|
| Was visiting Toronto labor day weekend 2004 with a freshly minted
| green card and India's passport with family (wife+2kids). Was in
| Eaton center, we were trying to take a train/metro to somewhere,
| kept my waist pouch (that I used those days) on top of the
| stroller's canopy to pay at the ticket counter and when I was
| done, of course the pouch was not there.
|
| The realization of theft was immediate. I could not have dropped
| it earlier since I just took the money out. It disappeared in the
| last one minute. BTW, not just the pouch, even the wallet was
| gone as I had taken only the cash and put everything on top of
| the stroller's canopy. Wallet, Passports, Green Card - all gone.
|
| Talked to the Mall security, they did not do much except write a
| report and make me call credit card companies to cancel the
| cards. Then went to police, but police said they can not do
| anything without an ID and asked me to get an ID (temporary or
| whatever from my embassy). Of course it is a Sunday and the
| embassy is closed. Could go back to hotel, still had access to
| rental car (that we decided not to use for this trip), but that
| was it. Tried to think through this but nope - this was so
| unchartered I did not know what to do. What will happen to work,
| how will I get passport, how will we get green card reprocessed,
| how will we pay the hotel (since the cards were canceled) -
| complete (but not visible) panic.
|
| Thankfully my company had offices in Toronto, so found some
| connections and trying to talk to them on what will happen if I
| got stranded in Toronto like this. They started looking into
| this.
|
| Also talked to my landlord back in US and ask him to be prepared
| to go to our apartment and pull out the green card files. Told
| him I will call back if I need help.
|
| By now it is 2+ hours. We are walking back to Hotel, and I get a
| call (thanks cellphones) from someone saying they found my pouch
| with passports. It appears my checkbook was also in the pouch and
| that had my phone number. They are not nearby - "oh I found it on
| the train as I was leaving" and now you will need to come here,
| about 45 minutes west from there. I say sure I will be there as
| soon as I can. I call my company's contact and they provide me an
| escort since it was an unknown area to me (and them). I get the
| car, my wife does not want me to go alone so it is all of us, we
| pick up my "colleague" from his home, and land up at the place we
| were asked to.
|
| Thankfully a person comes down from a tall building and hands me
| the bag. The bag had 300-400 when I lost it, but now it is just
| 20 bucks. He says that's how it was. And then he asks me for a
| finders fee - I give the 20 bucks to him, and move on.
|
| Except the money, got back everything else. Phew.
|
| [ Edit - Trying to remember the scenario more since I came back
| here to respond to a question. My wallet was definitely gone. How
| did the mall security get me to cancel the cards? As I recall, we
| called 2 credit card companies ... and canceled those cards based
| on the social, but at that point I was sure the mall security was
| not going to help, so I said those were all the cards I had and
| left from there. ]
| em-bee wrote:
| _police said they can not do anything without an ID and asked
| me to get an ID (temporary or whatever from my embassy)_
|
| that makes no sense. in order to get a new passport/ID, even a
| temporary one from the embassy of my country i need to have a
| police report and my birth certificate (which could take time
| to get). in other words, police needs to act first. sounds like
| that cop had no clue.
| kshacker wrote:
| I hear you but 1) this is decades back and my best memory -
| we did walk out of their building without results (or a
| report), 2) how does a cop verify the veracity of someone
| random claiming to have lost all forms of identifications. I
| think I should still be able to get a report "random joe says
| he lost his passport. This is report #987654321", but it did
| not happen then.
| em-bee wrote:
| _how does a cop verify the veracity of someone random
| claiming to have lost all forms of identifications_
|
| they don't. but if the police is not willing to help you
| get your stuff back then whats the point? but even if they
| can't do anything, one point is to create a paper trail. i
| mean, even if you lost your passports, or, say they got
| accidentally destroyed, you would still file a police
| report just to document that fact. i am not trying to pick
| on your memory, but that they didn't let you file a report
| is highly unusual, and it can't be your fault.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It used to be somebody would slip you a Rohypnol and roll you.
| Now you slip yourself a Phenibut and get rolled.
|
| I wouldn't characterize Phenibut as a "nootropic" as it's
| arguable that such a thing (nootropic) exists. I'd say it is
| "Russkii for Valium".
|
| When I was in college there were forums like "alt.drugs" where
| people shared stories like "I smoked weed and had a lot of fun"
| and Erowid was like that for a while but pretty soon it was full
| of stories that the Partnership for a Drug Free America couldn't
| have made up, often people who took way too many downers and got
| into trouble.
| ltbarcly3 wrote:
| TLDR; He got blackout drunk and left it.
| abetancort wrote:
| Deserved to loose everything.
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