Stop stealing my stuff; my ever-increasing lowered belief in the average person's level of moral decency

Contents:

• The Story
• What to do differently?
• Recent history of crime
• I have a dream

The Story

Last night, my girlfriend and I left Oakland and headed to San Fran's Golden Gate Bridge.  Before heading out, we did our ritual:

• I stripped my wallet of its contents, only bringing ID and 1 credit card, in the event that it gets stolen
• Packed camera equipment in my non-descript hiking bag, as opposed to my obvious camera equipment bag -- to make myself less of a target
• Deliberately left 1 of my camera lenses at home, in case we get robbed I'll still have at least 1 good lens.
• She brought her mace key chain which was gifted to her by a friend as a "welcome to California" present

We are cautious with every step we take, warned by:

1. her roommate had recently been robbed at gunpoint at 10am
2. numerous similar stories from friends, wherein stabbings occurred

Everyone in The Bay seems to have a "when I got robbed" story.  Now, we have one too.

After seeing the golden gate bridge, we stopped at Burger King at 9pm for some grilled chicken.  It's by one of the main downtown subway stations which looks pretty ritzy and touristy in the daytime, but it's like a weird Cinderella story, for all of the daytime tourists magically turn into homeless people at sunset.  It's a very ghetto area.

Out of my peripheral, I saw 3 dudes waltz into the store.  One of them snuck up behind my girlfriend and hit her table w/ their hand.  We were confused what he just did, so we turned towards them, as if to say "What just happened?  Did you do something?"  They had turned away from us and were heading towards the exit while hiding their faces.

We instantly figured out that they must have stolen something.  Without knowing what it was, I grabbed/carried my camera equipment hiking bag in my right hand and sprinted down Market Street after them.  It was completely dark out, and I yelled "Thieves!  They stole my wallet!" in hopes others would help stop them.  I caught up with one of them as they split in a nearby park.  He looked 16-17 years old and said "I ain't got it" and patted his pockets to show.  I quickly left and started to pursue the other 2 but then realized I lost them in the crowd of vagrants which filled the park.  Passerbys then turned to me and offered to call 911 for help.

To make it worse, turns out, there were at least 7 nearby security guards and/or subway police officers (with cars) who offered no help during this, even though many of the store security guards watched me as I ran past their storefronts.  How could they not simply sack the thieves or make any attempt at all?  In Southeast Asia or Georgia, I feel there's definitely a higher chance someone would have done something.

Turns out, they stole my girlfriend's iPhone which was sitting on the table in front of her.

We called the cops 4 separate times, thinking Burger King's security camera would be useful.  To no avail, the police never showed up as we waited for them over an hour.

I am grateful though that 2 guys who witnessed this ordeal turned to me afterwards and immediately offered help by calling 911 on my behalf, helped pin down security guards (which unfortunately were of no use), and for walked back with me to Burger King as they cursed the thieves, lack of nearby help, and overall horrible crime problem.

What to do differently?

Sadly, SF police apparently never show up to thief incidents like these.  So, I keep replaying it in my head, wondering what I could have done differently.  I devoted 0 time to the one kid I caught up with.  Looking back, he was my only lead.  I couldn't have hit him:

• He looked 17ish, thus a minor
• I truly don't think he had the phone
• I had my expensive (25 lb) camera equipment bag in my right hand and wasn't even in a position to fight
• Most importantly, two wrongs don't make a right; more violence isn't the answer.  Violence is the problem.  Heck, even if if the above conditions were different and I did rough him up, that would likely make matters worse:
• His crew were likely watching me from the pool of vagrants 60 feet away (I didn't get a good look at their clothes and lost them in the bunch) and could have easily exacted revenge on me either there in the park are after following me back.
• Even if no harm happened to me, that would surely only further encourage the punks to carry knives and/or a gun -- being robbed via knife is a very common occurrence here already.

Recent history of crime

• August 27, 2013 (San Francisco): guys stole my girlfriend's iPhone

• June 1, 2013 (New Jersey): someone backed their car into mine in a residential parking lot, knocking out my headlight, denting car some, and didn't leave a note.

• December 23,  2012 (Boston Train Station): while washing my hands in the restroom, someone stole my messenger bag with laptop in it, despite my keeping and eye on it.  Sprinted out after them, security guards tracked him down and returned laptop.

• November 28, 2012 (Providence, RI): people broke into my apartment while I was away

• August, 2012 (Siem Reap, Cambodia): hotel staff stole my Kindle Fire from my luggage in room while I was away.

• May, 2012 (Boston): someone broke into my car, stole stereo, and stabbed the subwoofer because they were unable to remove it from my car

• February, 2012 (Boston): condo repairmen stole my GPS from my place while I wasn't home

I have a dream

You get the idea.  I've always been pretty minimal, but with these events, it's as if I have to be on guard of my items 24/7, yet most of these times there's nothing I could do to prevent it.  Having so many occurrences of thief definitely throws off one's concept of owning a product and oddly kind of reverses the stock one places in material possessions.

Imagine that you previously viewed semi-costly gadgets as being nothing too important, just a nice treat which if stolen is replaceable.  Yet, naturally over time, one starts to be on perpetual guard of any (e.g., one's wallet, phone, or laptop while in a library) out of necessity, or face being robbed.  This naturally then makes one redefine the stock placed on that material good.  It doesn't make me desire or love the item any more, it just creates an unhealthy level of awareness of having to protect your stuff.  One shouldn't have to worry about protecting everything and protecting themselves.

Since today is the 50th anniversary of MLK's speech, and since I'm currently staying on a street named after him, maybe it's suiting for me to proclaim a dream: I dream we could all live in a world/community where there was such an abundance of mutual trust, respect, and integrity that we wouldn't have to worry about petty thief, having to lock our homes at night, or having to buy security systems and insurance and on everything we have -- that we need not worry about the character of our neighbors, for we could rest assured and treat each other like our own brothers and sisters, as we live as if one big family.

Yea, the nature of humankind will never reach that equilibrium point, heh.  So, in the meantime, whenever I buy a house, I suppose it should just be a castle... with a moat.  And alligators.  And archmen.   Oh yea, and definitely a drawbridge for the moat.  It's not complete with a drawbridge.

Zeiss 100mm f2.0 ZE Makro-Planar: Initial Impressions

This summer, I treated myself to the Zeiss 100mm f2.0 ZE Makro-Planar Manual Focus lens.  This completes my "holy trinity" collection, as I have -- and absolutely love -- the Zeiss 25mm f2.0 and Zeiss 50mm f2.0, too.

As for my initial impressions of the lens:

Sharpness/Clarity:
It has state-of-the-art performance and is one of the sharpest lenses in the world.  This is one of the reason I was attracted to it.

For example, here is a photo that is completely unedited, sooc (straight-out-of-camera):

This image at full resolution is 5,616 x 3,744 pixels.

Did you happen to notice the bee in the center of the frame?

Just cropping the center, we get an idea of the sharpness of the lens:

I was roughly 5 feet away from the bee, yet without a tripod, I was able to get an in-focus shot which is clear enough to show tons of dust in the bee's wings!  This would even be a challenge for auto-focus lenses, especially in terms of yielding this level of clarity.

Color Rendition:
In short, I love the warm colors/temperatures that the Zeiss lenses tend to render.

Build:
The lens is entirely metal; no plastic, as is the case with all other Zeiss ZE and ZF lenses.  It feels like a tank and is heavier than Canon L series lenses.

Manual-Focus:
Aside from the price, for most people this is definitely the most off-putting feature of Zeiss ZE/ZF lenses.  I find that the lack of auto-focus makes photography more fun for me -- it makes me think about shots more, and it challenges me.  Sure, every once in a while I'll miss a shot, but I'm willing to make this sacrifice for all of the other benefits Zeiss lenses yield.

Nonetheless, I admit that this 100mm lens is more difficult to focus with than the Zeiss 25mm and Zeiss 50mm.  All 3 lenses have a very long throw, which is incredibly useful for manually focusing.  However, it's only due to the nature of the shots that makes the 100mm more difficult to focus properly.  For example, when shooting at 25mm, you are usually taking landscape photos.  Thus, it's easy to focus at infinity or near-infinity and have all of the landscape in focus.  At 50mm, you're often focusing on things up-close (a la macro shots) or landscapes -- pretty easy.  However, at 100mm, you're often focusing on things that are between 5 and 20 feet away, so you have a much smaller target/range for focusing properly.

Yet, the throw is buttery smooth, and it's enjoyable to use.  Plus, I've swapped out my internal focusing screen with the EG-S screen, which helps make focusing easier, and the Canon 5d Mark II allows for an focus-notification whereby the focus points light up and a beep will sound when I focus on something that is recognized as being in focus.  This helps a lot.

tl;dr
I love the Zeiss 100mm, it's insanely sharp, and I aim to use it much more than I was using my Canon 135mm f2.0L.

Digging through 11 years worth of backed-up computer files

I present to you some old, archived pictures from back in the day.  Yet, first is the back story:

Over the years, I've had many items stolen from me -- from my apartment being broken into, car broken into in LA and Boston, hostel staff in Cambodia, to dorm staff at MIT (yes, it was confirmed, and I was reimbursed).  I don't have many material possessions which would cause me to be upset if they were stolen, but one of them is my hard drives (i.e., my photos, videos, etc).

Photography is one of my biggest passions, and I go through great lengths to not only backup and organize on an OCD-like level, but I also even parannoyingly (paranoid + annoyingly) hide all of my external hard drives through my apartment, in the event that my place is broken into again.  By the next time I go to backup my files, it's usually like a nerdy Easter Egg hunt, as I've forgotten where I hid them.

I recently realized I've fortunately never lost any computer file ever since I started started college in 2002.  Yep, 11 years ago.  1.5 terabytes.  500,000 files.  19,000 folders.  It sounds nerdy, but since 2002 I have:

• every single photo I've ever taken -- 1st camera in 2005 (70,000 photos)
• every document I've ever typed (e.g., resume, draft of hand written love letters, journal entry, tax document, etc)
• every class assignment from every university I've attended (70 classes)
• every song I've ever downloaded
• every webpage I've ever made

Alas, after much deliberation, the organization is, as Outkast would say, so fresh and so clean clean.  Here's a glimpse into the 'pics' folder for 2012:

Having caved to the temptation to dig through my old photos and cringe-worthy text documents, I give you a sample:

Junior year at FIT (2005).  I look 13.

Junior year, I took my 1st flight ever.  Solo visited San Fran and Berkeley for Spring Break 2005.  Was getting world-renowned Stuart Russell to sign my AI book.  One's Spring Break doesn't get much wilder than that.

The SlackWear movement I created at FIT :-)

Hawaiian Luau at FIT (2005)

Hawaiian Luau at FIT (2005)

Olin, our engineering building at 2am (2006)

Pictured: Kazi.  We studied hard... (2006)

The signature sub for late night sessions (2006)

Good ol' Damian (2006)

Clearly not impressed with the sushi (2006)

All of us RAs.  Senior year, we've finally gone through puberty and are starting to look like proper to-be adults (2006)

I just wish I owned a camera before 2005.  This stuff is a goldmine.  And, despite how trivial some of the text files (e.g., notes, thoughts, letters) may seem, it's awesome to scan through some of the old stuff.  There are memories I had totally forgotten, moments of accomplishments, failures, happiness, and upsets that I can barely recall which at the time seemed so monumental, and they provide glimpses into a former self which has evidently slowly evolved over the years.

My point: backup everything!  Whether it's to the ever-elusive cloud or locally, imagine having such files when you have grand-kids.