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Sasha Frere Jones has a problem...and NY Mag has a problem with how he's going about solving it. The New Yorker music critic's files, photos and memories have been imprisoned by the evil LaCie 1TB, and the bail is a hefty $5K. He explains on his blog:
Several years' worth of photos I took with my Canon PowerShot S400—every photo taken between October 2003 and December 2005—are trapped inside a LaCie 1 TB enclosure that has, like all my other LaCie drives, failed. A very friendly firm called DriveSavers is going to retrieve my photos. It is going to cost $5000. I don't have $5000. I know—fancypants New Yorker writer, what the fuck, etc.
New York Mag drops their two cents in his collection jar:
He offers a "disclaimer":I know—fancypants New Yorker writer, what the fuck, etc.
Let us fill in the etc. for him! Isn't it a tiny bit unseemly for a writer in such a position of privilege to go hat in hand to his readers? We're especially fond of this note:
(I will not send individual thank you notes but will post an honor roll when we've reached the finish line. Thank you, though, to those who have already pitched in.)
So don't expect personal thanks, but if you're the kind of person who's excited to touch the hem of a New Yorker writer — and be publicly associated with him, right there on his own Web page! — by all means, contribute away.
So, manners aside, does S/FJ have a right to ask his readers for money? Why not, it's on his personal blog, and it's not like he's asking readers to pay his salary. He also adds that if you don't donate, he "will love you all the same." And since we've been hearing a lot about these LaCie's acting up (and with such an expensive fee to fix the problem) - maybe someone can drop a tip as to a good alternative...
Update: S/FJ has now gone on hiatus!
Photo via author photo's flickr.
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I'm guessing he's a Mac user.
Perhaps getting PC may of helped or at least a brand name more know for PC hardware instead of Mac hardware.
If he really doesn't have $5k available, that's really sad. I make less than $30K a year and have that much in my savings. I learned the hard way to always have an emergency fund.
He probably makes more. but then I don't have the "writer music critic" lifestyle.
This was on Gawker last week. Much scorn was (rightfully) heaped upon the SFJ. Also, his photos suck.
Rule number one with digital photos: always back up to a CD/DVD/off site storage/Flickr/etc. in case the hard drive goes kaput.
Rule number one with money: have a savings account, make regular contributions every month.
if he has a warrenty lacie is repsonsible.
rule number 1 with electronics: always buy the extra insurance.
rule number 1 with files: always back em up on another external or cd/dvd.
rule number 1 with money: SAVE IT! just a little bit each week will add up fast... ING has a great starter-savings plan: 4.5% interest on any amount. i hate people who say they have nothing left over to save. if you can buy beer, weed and coke, you can save.
#1: MAKE BACKUPS
#2: dont use shitty no-name external harddrives
#3: RAID
#4: MAKE BACKUPS
thank you.
Yes, of course LaCie only makes CD-RWs and external HDs that work only with Macs.
And clearly you know nothing about technology, so please just shut the fuck up now.
Asking strangers for money - especially if you have a professional public persona - and even moreso when it's for vanity purposes, is unbelievably tacky. I don't often use this word because it's so hackneyed, but what a complete and utter douchebag.
I hope he gets his photos retrieved then his PC/Mac dies.
Asshole.
Forget about asking for handouts, I'm still upset that Sasha Frere Jones isn't the black woman of French descent I always assumed him to be.
This sucks. I had so much respect for her.
@mac makkie,
umm...sigh....lacie is an independent hdd maker and their stuff runs on both pc's and macs. so whether if he used pcs or macs wouldn't have made a difference. and the hdd is not mac hardware. it's lacie hardware. if you're going to hate on macs, please do so when appropriate.
that being said, not backing up was pretty stupid, especially when he had so much stuff on just one device. hard drives aren't dependable and they fail alot. if CD/DVD's are practical because of the data size, then you should have a RAID solution.
[7]
I had the exact same image in mind.
i have a lot of bills. please send me money.
5000 should do it.
thanks.
You know, morons, maybe people have other financial and life obligations that don't allow you to empty your savings and drop $5k on data recovery. You make $30k and you ahve that much saved? Okay, do you have a car? Do you own your apartment or rent? Do you have kids? Do you have doctor's bills that aren't covered by insurance? Are you a caretaker for elderly parents? Do you send money to less-fortunate relatives?
I mean, c'mon, you think Sasha Frere-Jones blew his extra cash on beer, weed and coke? My god, your world view is limiting beyond belief, and this will be one of those moments where I stop reading Gothamist for a few months.
Yes people save for emergencies but I doubt ANY of you wise-asses commenting here on the superiority of PC vs. Mac (IRRELEVANCE ALERT) have $5k that you could drop TOMORROW on DATA RECOVERY. In fact, I doubt any of you actually back up your freaking data to a flash drive, even.
fuck this douche-twat. make backups, and if you don't, don't fucking cry to anyone else about how unbelievably ignorant you are. i hope nobody sends him a dime.
Sucks to be him.
Agree with #12, this guy doesn't deserve a penny. I can give you a thousand better causes to donate money. This is almost as bad as "Save Screech".
lol @ sfj "fan".
somehow i think that is the real sfj.
maybe just to prove a point you could donate the 5000 to yourself anonymously just to show everyone how devoted your fans are.
I've got a couple of lacie drives and they haven't failed me... yet...
The question is not if they're going to fail, but when, so back up... that also means all your illegally downloaded mp3s and porn.
To matty... only $5K?!?!? wow, you're my hero!!!
um.. yeah... i do use flash, but for transport only. i also use my Ipod for transport.
i use lacie for desktop backups and also dvd for further backups. i'm waiting for the price of blu-ray to come down a bit so i can use high capacity dvd's as backup. (knock on wood) but i have had no issues with lacie. i have had my drive for 3 years with no problems. it's best not to use the desktop version for transport.
as for this guy asking for donations? it's not a donation. a donation goes to a good cause to help other people or an organization etc. he's asking for people to basically help him for his stupidity in not saving money.
i have a lot of bills as most of you... mortgage, meds, etc etc... i still put money away.
even if you put away $200 a month at a 4.5% rate in 5 years you'll easily have over $13,000.
He's totally a mac user. Only mac users buy lacie drives even though they have an abominable track record. Why? They look good.
As with 7 and 9, I had always assumed Sasha Frere-Jones was a black woman. I guess that just proves the old adage about making assumptions.
This has nothing to do with Mac vs. PC. Always keep your data in at least two places. I always buy at least two external hard drives (preferably not from the same manufacturer - if one goes, there's a higher likelihood that another made at the same time will die soon after), and run a synchronous backup between the two. Lots of programs will do it, many of them available for free.
Upon taking a look at the LaCie 1TB, it appears he was going for style instead of being practical.
I picked up a 3.5 inch USB 2.0/FireWire hard drive enclosure from CompUSA for $50, an 160 GB IDE hard drive for around $50, put it together in about three minutes, formated the disk for Windows/NTFS which can also be read by Macs. It may not be as pretty or stackable, but practical and gives me the ability to use it with both Mac and PC with out any worries about proprietary component nonsense and I can stick the hard drive in the computer if I feel like it or daisy chain another one with an even bigger hard drive to it.
The technically illiterate wind up paying and I still have no sympathy for anyone who hasn't backed up their data. It is not hard - just get a stack of DVDs for under $20 and burn baby burn.
yeah: i bought my lacie for the looks. it's a metal box with an orange light and a firewire port that sits in a drawer with cedar sticks (to keep it dry). sure.
perhaps you lacie haters can dirct the group to a superior external hardrive that you prefer with a link...
Crap! Another crappy story from the crappiest gothamist contributor about a crappy writer who obviously doesn't know crap about file storage.
Limit Jen Carlson to "Pencil this in" it's the only thing she does well!
BTW: I hope this guy doesn't get any money. What a loser!
I may be showing my age, but, to the poster above, I remember when Macs didn't "look good". Believe or not, youngster, they started out as small beige boxes, just like every other PC.
Good design is a sign of intelligence to the end user, not some point towards an inner deficiency or superficialty. Perhaps a little reserach folks, before making sweeping statements that have no basis? Anyway, "tt", you've now been taken to school, so class is dismissed.
That said, Porsche (the suto-maker) makes an incredbily small, powerful USB drive that's also affordable. I higly reccomnend it.
Oh yeah, when I finally bought an external unit for backup last year (Western Digital "MyBook," so far so good and yes it's cute) I read the reviews on the so-called LaCie. SFJ is a fool's fool.
As far as my mental picture goes, black yes, female no. I thought you could tell from the writing that he was a he. My wife didn't agree, though.
>That said, Porsche (the suto-maker) makes an incredbily small,
>powerful USB drive that's also affordable.
The drives that you refer to are a LaCie product.
www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10558
www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10383
When my Lacie drive at work crashed I took it apart to see if I could pop the individual drive in the case into my computer, and oddly enough they were Western Digital 500GB drives. I guess Lacie just makes the enclosure and the (faulty) firmware. Just though people might find that interesting. Also, SFJ's picture suck! That's what we should all be talking about here.
i am guessing SFJ is not a computer whiz by any means (if you are, my bad). I guess it depends how bad the damage/corruption is. Worse case, they would have to dismantle the hard drive and recover the data platter by platter, which could explain why they are charging so much. Have you tried using off the shelf data-recovery software? What do you other techie friends say about your situation?
i am guessing SFJ is not a computer whiz by any means (if you are, my bad). I guess it depends how bad the damage/corruption is. Worse case, they would have to dismantle the hard drive and recover the data platter by platter, which could explain why they are charging so much. Have you tried using off the shelf data-recovery software? What do you other techie friends say about your situation?
i am guessing SFJ is not a computer whiz by any means (if you are, my bad). I guess it depends how bad the damage/corruption is. Worse case, they would have to dismantle the hard drive and recover the data platter by platter, which could explain why they are charging so much. Have you tried using off the shelf data-recovery software? What do you other techie friends say about your situation?
Who cares what brand drive it was -- the fact is he had numerous drives by the same manufacturer and they all failed and even those his whole livelihood depends on his files he still didn't back them up. So he's a dummy.
So he claims that "in his experience," LaCie drives fail. Is he talking about just this one experience? If he is, then he isn't much of an authority on LaCie. If he isn't, then why the heck did he buy LaCie again after having problems before? Why did he stripe the drives? For storing music and photos, there's really no reason to run a RAID 0 since you don't need high speed access. RAID 0 is well-known to be more sensitive to failure of any single drive.
Surely the New Yorker has some kind of IT staff that can offer him some assistance.
I bought some bass gear from him off of Craigslist a few years ago. He's got at least one kid and I'm pretty sure he owned his place. He's more than likely got quite a few bills to pay every month. Did not at all seem like the type blowing it all on drugs etc.. Kindergarten tuition, maybe.
@#11: "...I doubt ANY of you wise-asses commenting here have $5k that you could drop TOMORROW on DATA RECOVERY."
Uh, I think that's the point, Einstein. If it happened to us, we'd just kick ourselves, cry and move on. But, Mr. SF-J can't just do that. No, he's got to beg complete strangers for it, people that, no doubt, make a whole lot less than he does.
I'm really fond of the Western Digital=drives. I can't post links but I've had very good luck with them.
Western Digital make good, dependable drives. I also like Fujitsu.
ephemera you dumb nut muncher. I cut my teeth on the Apple ][ coding directly in machine language. I've owned almost every Mac since then including the disasters like the Lisa and cube. I only buy Macs. Read my post again and you'll realize I take issue with Mac owners not Macs. You can go back to your nut munching now scrotum face.
This must be some kind of hoax. There is no way this music writer - as pretentious as they come - is serious about collecting this money. If it is true that he has no savings and owns his house ... has he heard of borrowing against the collateral?
But I think it's a clever test by this clever writer to see what kind of response he gets. I hope not one sucker bought into this. Then again, there's at least a boatload of suckers born every day, so there you go. I'm sure some suckers have sent money his way. I pity them, and I pity him.