$ hexdump -v -e '"(byte)0x" 1/1 "%02X" ", "' image.png

This will spit out something close enough to Java or C++ source code that you can mostly copy and paste it.

Now, the smart thing to do would have been to keep doing this until the bottle was empty, then throw it out. But no. I just had to look it up on the web. Turns out Moutai is hard to get here in the United States. Moreover, a 15-year-old bottle is going for $450. Mine is 16 years old, and until recently was unopened and in perfect condition.

Whoops.

One ounce heavy cream, well-refrigerated
One packet Splenda
Half-teaspoon of cinnamon

Pour cream in a glass. Then pour in the other ingredients (the order is important to avoid bunching at the bottom of the glass). Using an Ikea frother, mix for a couple minutes until the cream sets. Eat with spoon.

Serves one.

Notes: try with cocoa (though that increases the carbs) unless you're about to go to bed. By happy coincidence, cinnamon is supposedly good for regulating blood sugar, though that's hardly a universal belief, and overdosing on the coumarin in non-Ceylon cinnamon can mess you up.

It took a couple angry searches on the web for me to realize the set was counterfeit. It's apparently a common problem with this set. Not surprising in retrospect; it overpriced and limited-edition, but missing anything to make each copy unique. Valuable and easy to duplicate -- a great combination for counterfeiters. Fortunately, Amazon's third-party seller guarantee protected me, and the mortified (genuinely, I suppose) seller refunded my payment with little prodding. I refused to mail back the set; I'm pretty sure that knowingly dropping counterfeit goods into the U.S. Mail is not a smart idea, regardless of intent.

Just a couple days ago I got a real set, directly from Amazon. As I said earlier, the real set is overpriced, but I'll admit that it's pretty much as nice as I'd hoped. Still, I think the limited-run idea was poorly executed. If they're going to charge $200 for 13 CDs and some cardboard, why not charge $1,200 and include an individually-numbered certificate of authenticity with Paul and Ringo's original signatures?

First, what to save. The short answer: everything and then some.

Why everything? Because it's cheaper than picking and choosing. My entire collection of Apple ][ disks, converted to 143KB disk images and compressed, came to 1.7MB. Even at the time I archived those in the mid-1990s, that would have fit on two floppy disks for a total cost of less than $10.00. Today the economics are a little different, but still, a one-terabyte external hard drive costs $90.

What does "and then some" mean? It means don't just save the TurboTax file; also save a PDF of it. Think about why you might want to look at a 2010 tax return in 2025. Is it because you have a computer with TurboTax 2010 installed and were feeling like editing your old tax return for old times' sake? No, it's because you're running for Congress and have decided to publish your old returns during your campaign. You're much likelier to need to read an old document than to edit it. Save a format that makes it easy to read.

"And then some" also means converting certain physically represented information to digital. Example: take a picture of the CD-ROM case with the serial number, and put the JPEG in the same directory as your files. The picture's usually enough to prove ownership of software, and if you ever have to reinstall TurboTax 2002 to get the IRS off your back, it'll be nice to know what to do when the license-key installer dialog pops up.

Next, which archival format? I like containers rather than individual files. On Windows, that's .zip. On Linux, it's .tar. On a modern Mac, .dmg. These containers are designed to survive transmission over networks, to move easily from an obsolete medium to a modern one, and to preserve metadata. I've witnessed the grief of helping a friend recover an old Mac file, only to find that the resource fork was gone. I've personally needed to know the last-modified date of an old file because that date was more significant to the file itself, and discovered to my horror that the date was today. Stick your old files in the proper container and take reasonably good care of the container, and you'll get them back out again exactly the way they were put in.

Which file format? For files that already exist, don't change them. But going forward, pick formats that are (a) open or ubiquitous, (b) understood by non-DRM applications. Examples:

• Plain old text files. As is customary, Apple will someday invent another new character for line endings, but otherwise text files are universal.
• High-resolution, lossless TIFF for scans of old photos. High-quality JPEG is probably OK for photo scans, too, depending on how important they are.
• PNG for static graphics. The only example I can think of is Eagle PCB files.
• WAV for important audio like the cassette tape of your dad interviewing his mom when she was 90 years old. But also make an MP3 so you can easily email the interview to your kids.
• PDF for final versions of electronic documents (see above), and EPS for vector graphics. Both these are proprietary, but enough open-source viewers exist that they're unlikely to be unreadable in the future.

Obviously, it's only an educated guess which file formats will be readable decades from now. But ASCII, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, WAV, MP3, and PDF/EPS are good bets for today's documents.

So we have our entire life's Word documents rendered to PDF and stored in a zipfile. Which medium should we use? Two answers, depending on size.

For small file collections (10GB or less) I'd love to recommend CD-R or DVD-R if my personal experience with their longevity weren't so poor. I'd estimate 50% failure rate for well-stored CD-Rs over 10 years old. Moreover, computers with no moving parts are becoming common; in ten years, perhaps a CD-ROM reader will be as rare as a floppy drive is today. (Update: some have pointed out that the demise of any computer medium won't happen suddenly, and that there will be time to migrate data stored on old media, which is why the CD-ROM obsolescence argument is weak. I agree in principle. In reality, stuff gets put on shelves and discovered years later. Moreover, we're talking about personal files, where the hassle of tracking down a friend with an obsolete reader might be a high enough barrier to recovery.)

That leaves USB drives and SD cards, and I'll pick SD cards, even though they're a little more expensive. Two reasons. First is reliability. I've found SD cards to be more reliable than USB drives, which makes sense because SD cards usually store the only copy of pictures taken on digital cameras, meaning failure is potentially devastating, and USB drive files need to last only long enough for a sneakernet file transfer, meaning failure isn't a big deal. The second reason is form factor. SD cards are uniform and stackable. (Update: there are questions about flash memory longevity. The point is that if the medium is rewritable, then for archival purposes it has failure built into the design. Might make more sense to make multiple DVD-R copies and store them in different places.)

For big file collections, I'd buy an external 1TB hard drive, fill it up, and put it away. I know that hard drives have lots of moving parts, but they're well-sealed inside their cases, and I've personally had great success getting data off hard drives last used nearly 20 years ago.

What about online storage? Nope. I haven't yet found a consumer storage service that has a WORM (write-once, read many) philosophy about storage; it's too easy for me or a mischievous web weenie to issue a command that erases either my files or my entire account. And any software-as-a-service relationship (including any DRM purchase) is effectively a lopsided, eternal contract with a company. They can change the terms of that contract any time, and if the company goes away, it's likely your files will, too. I love Gmail for the service they provide, but I don't expect them to be my email archiving solution.

Should you encrypt your local backups? Several reasons why I say no. First is that I don't want it; if I die, I do want my wife and kids to be able to intelligently dispose of this stuff. Second, I don't need it; nobody cares about my personal data except me. Third, I can't follow through: either I'll forget the passphrase (or forget to divulge it on my deathbed), or else I'll keep it written down next to the SD cards, in which case it's no more effective than physical security of the SD cards. Your opinions may differ on this one, but let me ask: if your files are so important and secret, how come you don't back up or encrypt the files on your computer today?

And finally, in spite of all this carefully reasoned advice, consider throwing it away instead of saving it. If you don't, your future heirs will have to when you're gone. I admit that it's cool to know that I could call up my high school freshman year book reports on a moment's notice, but I doubt I ever actually will. I don't want to be featured on the digital version of Hoarders in 40 years, after all.

So that's what I did. The chimes played and the smiling Mac appeared on the screen. The clock battery had died, but otherwise it was working like the day I'd last shut it off. My work was all there in Nisus Writer and ClarisWorks formats, patiently waiting 13 years for me to resume. On one of the unlabeled 3.5-inch floppy disks was a series of .DSK files. Those files were images of 5.25-inch Apple ][ diskettes. I downloaded an Apple ][ emulator and was soon running the Applesoft BASIC and 6502 assembly programs I'd written when I got my first computer at age 10.

I have a recurring dream where I'm in a house where I lived long ago. It's just as if it had remained abandoned since the day I left; it's dark and filled with cobwebs, but otherwise the furniture is still there. These dreams always have the effect of compressing time. I remember old situations so vividly and freshly that my mind thinks hardly any time has passed. Exploring this old Macintosh and Apple ][ was the same experience, but without the cobwebs, because digital files don't age. My programs from decades ago ran just as well as they did back then.

The time-compression effect was as strong as the files were perfect. It transported me to the room where my family kept the Apple. I felt the pattern of the carpet and the texture of the walls. I smelled the slightly musty air. I felt the resistance of the door and the momentary change in air pressure as I opened it. I was ten years old again. Woz hadn't yet crashed his plane, Steve Jobs hadn't yet met John Sculley, and Microsoft wasn't yet the enemy because they didn't sell operating systems.

It's tempting to dive deeper. There are "Classic" Mac websites. Apple ][ fan clubs are still going strong. eBay stands ready to help me complete my retro hardware collection. But I wouldn't really be reliving old memories; I'd be replacing them with new ones. Today, if I close my eyes and think hard, I can still evoke the sensation of pure wonder I felt when, as a child, I first ran Bob Bishop's magical "APPLE VISION" program. But I'm sure I could replace that memory with a jaded "my, how far we've come" chuckle if I loaded up the dancing man in the TV set today.

I chose to keep my memories, not make new ones. I copied my old personal files to a fileserver, then wiped the Macintosh's hard drive and packaged it up to sell on eBay. The hardware is gone, and only the software remains.

I happen to have some incredible Cinema 4D models supplied to me by a talented artist, which I could use as a starting point. So I'm tempted to buy it and start there. But I've also admired POV-Ray's galleries for years, and I'm sure it could also do what I want.

Should go the commercial, proprietary Cinema 4D route, or open-source POV-Ray, or something else entirely? I'm sure there are a thousand right answers to that question, so I'll try asking differently. Given that I have an attention span of maybe a weekend and virtually no 3D modeling experience, which toolset is most likely to give good short-term results?

I wrote a 99-cent casual iPhone game called Teragati, and last night it was approved for sale in the App Store! Please head on over there and buy it now. It's just 99 cents, it takes a few moments to learn, and typical games last only about a minute. It's a perfect way to spend time waiting in an ATM line.

If you like the game, please rate it in the App Store (5 stars, please!) and write a brief review. If you don't have an iPhone, please tell someone who does.

http://bit.ly/a2b6Qo

Thanks!

Your body wants to be a certain weight (called the "set point"). Normally your body handles all the food you eat by adjusting its metabolism to burn more or less energy, and by adjusting your appetite to make sure you eat more or less in the future.

Refined carbohydrates and sugar confuse this system. They stimulate production of insulin, which forces your body to store blood glucose as fat. Your weight increases, even above your set point.

Because what you ate got stored as fat rather than being used as energy, your body starves. Metabolism slows down, and appetite increases, just as it would in case of real malnourishment.

Eating carbohydrates and sugar puts you in a weird situation. On one hand, your body thinks it's starving, so you're hungry all the time and you're sedentary and listless. But on the other hand, your body is constantly being ordered to stockpile nutrients, so you're piling on fat pounds. And to make matters worse, you might get type-2 diabetes, heart disease, or even cancer (which it turns out seems to thrive on insulin).

Side note: all that research about how dietary fat makes you fat and causes heart disease? Turns out it was misrepresented, misinterpreted, or contradicted by better research.

Conclusion: avoid refined carbs and sugar. Do so and your body will return to its set point. As a bonus, you'll be less likely to get diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

Other experiments I've tried along the way:

• A preheated iron pan that you then stick in the oven. This did cook the dough, but the crust had no crispiness.
• Quickly browning the round in a pan, then sliding it right onto the rack in the oven. This might have worked, but I was never able to transfer it without ruining it.
• Cooking the crust almost all the way through in a pan, then putting on the toppings and broiling briefly in the oven. This was pretty good, but it was a lot of work (stretching the dough, then stopping to cook, then returning to ingredients, then cooking again), and it was very hard to get it consistently crispy; I often burned the bottom of the crust.
• A pizza screen. This was close, but the screen seemed to deflect or absorb too much heat, and I could never get the crispiness I wanted. Cleaning the screen was a nightmare.
• A cookie sheet. Easy but awful crust.

I never tried a pizza stone. From product reviews on Amazon, they never seemed to last more than a couple dozen uses, and they're expensive to buy and to ship. Also, success with a pizza stone seems to be entirely dependent on how close you can get your oven to 1000 degrees, and my 1950s electric oven is nowhere near competent for that task.

Next mission: a good, easy-to-make sauce. I'm currently using plain old spaghetti sauce, which costs less than store-bought pizza sauce and tastes just as good, but it doesn't have the bright taste of tomato and basil that I love on a good pizza.

She was here, however, he was there.

This is a run-on sentence. The comma before "however" should be a semicolon. It would also be OK to have "however" start a new, second sentence. I'm pretty sure that "however" is an adverb in this sentence, but I've been using it as some sort of magic conjunction that has special punctuation rules.

She believes he is there. Which is true.

I've always thought the second sentence was a sentence fragment, and if I were editing someone else's text, I'd dutifully change the first sentence's period to a comma and combine the two. I think I thought this because I looked at "which" as a conjunction. But "which" is a perfectly good pronoun, and it can be a perfectly good subject of a sentence.

• Hacker Dojo: Mountain View, just a couple exits south of Google. Pros: it's built specifically for people like me. It's inexpensive ($100/month) when compared to a real office rental. Quiet. Good internet. Lots of parking. Python/Django questions can be answered immediately by simply speaking them loudly enough for people around me to hear. Good community. Reportedly kid-friendly if I want to stop by on the weekends and happen to have the kids in the car. Cons: because it's on the opposite side of Google from my home, morning traffic is horrendous. Currently opens at 10am, which is late for me. The history of the building (former stained-glass factory) causes me to expect the bong to be passed around to me any minute now. Very cold in the morning.
• TechShop: Menlo Park. Pros: Feels like I'm 40 minutes into a Star Trek TNG episode (sample dialogue from neighboring workbench: "Dude, I totally ordered a sensor bearing, but when it went into its return arc...."). Good commute. Endless take-a-penny-leave-a-penny parts bins so I can finally empty my home closets of junk from projects past. Various pint-sized robots around me provide inspiration for video-game themes. Same price as HD ($100/month) if I pay a year in advance. Cons: As a software guy who neither builds animatronic handbags nor wishes to add jet propulsion to his commute car, I feel out of place here. Earplugs generally required to get any work done. Like HD, chilly in the morning. Free popcorn is not seasoned. Kids below age 12 are absolutely prohibited for insurance reasons. Constant risk of suffering injury from neighboring projects.
• Local public library. Pros: Free (pro because it costs me nothing). Reasonably functional internet. Cons: Free (con because money no longer has filtering effect). Doesn't open until 11am, so I've never actually been there. If I visit the bathroom, my computer will be either stolen or used to view porn. Borrowed books must be returned in two weeks.
• Local coffee shop. Pros: Lets me pretend I'm 22 years old again. Cons: No free internet. Unless I'm drinking 16 ounces of coffee every 20 minutes, I'm not truly welcome there. Too many overheard conversations that make me want to get up as a self-appointed Angel of Darwin and strangle the participants.
• Google parking lot. Pros: Free internet. Chance of being invited to free lunch. Cons: Risk of heat exhaustion if I don't roll down the windows.
• Real rented office. Pros: It's my place. Cons: Expenses likely to outweigh revenue. Overkill for one person.

Have I missed any other candidates?

I suspect part of my cable bill pays Comcast employees whose sole job it is to meet regularly in committee and institute inscrutable changes to my bill. The tools of their trade are probably dice and a Ouija board. It's annoying, but I suppose I'm supporting the economy by keeping them employed.

If anyone has an explanation why there is so little slack in Comcast's finances that they really must make pricing adjustments of as little as 0.02% about every two months, I'd appreciate hearing it.

Like many of my generation, I've complained bitterly about how modern Lego sets are full of special-purpose blocks that can be assembled exactly one way, versus the old sets that were just a bunch of red, blue, yellow, and green rectangles that forced you to use your imagination to make anything. I figured it was a ploy to sell more distinct sets to a single kid, rather than just hoping the kid would want to grow his or her collection of abstract blocks. I think this is true, but recently when a catalog arrived in the mail for my son, I realized another reason why Lego had to go this way.

The Spongebob Lego contest sought Lego creations that looked like Spongebob characters. And wow, the winners were frickin' HUGE. It's a simple question of resolution. When you have a "pixel" that's at least a half-inch across, any expressive artwork is going to end up a couple feet across, not to mention unwieldy and expensive.

So when the Lego guys wanted to get into branded stuff, they probably tried building a Darth Vader out of regular blocks that was only a few inches tall, and it ended up looking like crap that even George Lucas would have rejected. They really had no alternative but to cheat by manufacturing a few special-purpose blocks to build a model that was both small and instantly recognizable. Scale that across a complete set and you end up with what we have today.

My objection stands: it sucks that my kids want more and more Legos rather than thinking of new ways to assemble the sets they have. But I am no longer sure that the Lego guys intentionally betrayed their original mission to sell sets of building blocks. Instead, I think it was fallout from a different decision (to get into branding) that happened to align perfectly with their goals of selling more stuff.