Back It Up Back It Up Back It Up

Posted on by in General

I have terrible backup habits. Most of my important documents are synced using dropbox. But for the past few years, my photography strategy has been to back everything up every few months on an external hard drive, then put it in my desk drawer. If I were ever robbed, or if my house were to burn down, I’m pretty much screwed. Being on the other coast for the Summer, I’ve recently been more aware of the fact that I could easily lose quite a bit if something happens to my computer (my backup drive is still in Boston). So I decided to try backing up everything online. I gave the Backblaze free trial a shot and hated it. I didn’t like the

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The New Standard?

Posted on by in Current Events, Technology

Could Twitter become irrelevant? Ezra wouldn’t lose any sleep: Farhad Manjoo thinks that Twitter should allow 280-character tweets rather than 140-character tweets. I think everyone should just move to Google+. The 140-character limit is Twitter’s most obvious feature, and so it’s understandably assumed to be a major part of its success. And maybe it has been. But I think it’s at least as likely that Twitter improved on Facebook by realizing that the circle of people you want to follow and the circle of people who want to follow you are not necessarily the same but has been hindered by the 140-character limit, which makes most tweets uninteresting and renders it impossible to have real conversations. I was optimistic about Google+ from the

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Into the Sky

Posted on by in Current Events

With the shuttle mission era officially over, there’s been lots to read about flying. Here are a few articles and posts I enjoyed: 1. Google’s race to the moon: a bigger X prize 2. I love this picture of the shuttle over the Bahamas 3. Popular Science on the future of flying, circa 1926 And this picture of the shuttle’s plasma trail during its final re-entry, taken from the International Space Station, is just plain crazy:  

Russian River Blind Pig IPA

Posted on by in Beer

There’s lots of great beer on the west coast. There are craft breweries just about everywhere. And most bars seem to go out of their way to keep a bunch of rotating taps for these smaller guys. I’ve been meaning to write more beer reviews, but just haven’t been able to find the time. So here’s a long overdue hat tip to the Russian River Brewing Company. I tried their Blind Pig IPA at Pi in the Mission a few weeks ago, and it was the best IPA I’ve ever had. I actually don’t have much else to say. You just need to try it. It was hoppy but balanced. Strong and refreshing. It worked really well. I wouldn’t change a thing.

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Some Good Reads

Posted on by in Links

1. Ezra Klein: The case against nominating Elizabeth Warren 2. James Fallows: Phew! Another Threat Not to Worry About (Spying from Above Dept) 3. Flying Planes!

Big Sur

Posted on by in Photography

Over the weekend I took a day trip to Big Sur to do some hiking. The yellow flowers scattered across the landscape were spectacular. Here are some of the highlights: