Namaste and Madeline Kahn

I started a yoga class last Thursday. Apparently the thing to do after yoga is to offer "namaste" to your instructor. Namaste, to save you the click, means, "I honor you".

The problem is the fake Steve Jobs blog. Written by a business reporter, FakeSteve channels all things Steve Jobs. It's pretty funny, especially if you're a Mac fan. Fake Steve offers a 'namaste' to anyone who amuses or assists him. So, the when the yoga instructor tells us of the practice of offering honor to her and to each other, my mind goes to fake Steve and away from the moment.

It's the same problem I had trying to watch Marlene Dietrich after first seeing Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles.

Fear is not a virtue

http://catherinedevlin.blogspot.com/2010/01/fear-is-not-virtue.html

"I finally understand Al-Qaeda's master plan, and it's freakingbrilliant. Resenting American technological dominance, they have found a way to end it, convincing us to semi-criminalize technical curiosity and thus lobotomize our culture. I'm just surprised that we're choosing to participate in the plan. I thought we were on opposite sides?…
….
Fear is not patriotic. Fear is not a public service. Fear is not a virtue."

CrashPlan is a good backup solution for Mac users

Last November I wrote up my current back up solution.  I pointed out that my attempt at using the cloud to backup, via a service called Mozy, hadn't worked.  My problems included a memory leak (the client ended up taking almost a gig of real ram) and the speed of initiating any user action - configuring backups or launching a backup for instance, was painful. Mozy also sucks a huge amount of computer processing, making the backup process more involved than it has to be.

I wanted a hands-free off-site backup solution and towards the end of last year, I signed up with CrashPlan. My experience has been great; it doesn't monopolize memory or cpu time. And, it's easy and quick to configure.

They're offering unlimited backup for personal use for $54 a year. You install their software, specify which files you want backed up and you're off to the races.

Most internet providers throttle upload speed (i.e. uploading files to the CrashPlan server can take a while, but it's your Cable/DSL provider's fault, not theirs.). So, for not a lot of money, CrashPlan will send you a hard drive and you can seed your backup and mail that back to them.   As it is, it'll have taken less than a month to get what I want backed up to them.

Unlike some of the cloud solutions, CrashPlan doesn't care what you send. Applications, movies, pictures, music, whatever is all fair game.

CrashPlan also offers some unique solutions. For instance you can designate a friends computer, which needs to be accessible via the internet, as a backup target. So, I could send a disk to a friend who would attach it to their computer and they'd host my backup, rather than CrashPlan.  Or you can designate another computer on your local network to receive your backup.

You can also backup using the CrashPlan software to a local drive, although, I'm not sure why I'd do that, since Time Machine is such a great local solution.

They sell a software update   - CrashPlan+,  which is only minimally more useful, especially for the cost, but the promotion I took advantage of threw it in for free, so I didn't have to decide. 

My First Rock Concert

A current meme in the social nets has people reporting the first rock concert they attended. 

I honestly don't recall mine. Dad worked at the University Union in Bowling Green, which had shows in the ballroom*.  Dad would frequently work the sound at the shows.

Groups like Three Dog Night and The Association (yes, I'm that old.) would come through. I remember getting a drum stick after the Three Dog Night show. I also saw Louie Louis (yeesh) Armstrong in BG.

Maybe the first one I got myself into was a Harry Chapin concert, also at BG. Elton John came through around that time, but his current hit was a soundtrack for a chick flick called "Friends". I was too cool for that of course. But Madman Across the Water came out next and I was sorry I had skipped his show.

That's right, I went to see Harry Chapin, but was too cool for Elton John.

I'm pretty sure my brother's first concert was when I took him to see Bruce Springsteen at Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento. That's enough to spoil a person. A site I just found claims there were only 600 of us there. 

I took Lilah to her first concert, Alanis Morisette, at Cal Expo. One of the nicest venues I've been to, but alas, it was an outdoor theater and the neighbors brought it down. Molly thinks her first concert might have been U2, in 7th grade.

* The ballroom is now named after a colleague of my dad's, Dick Lenhart. The Lenharts were in my folks' will as the family that would get the four of us kids. That will was in effect until about the year 2000, or 27 years after we moved from Ohio. I offer that as an explanation for my own lack of enthusiasm in dealing with life's important paperwork.