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.
