Skip Navigation
James Fallows

James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May.
More

James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic. His latest book, China Airborne, was published in early May. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.
« Previous Fallows | Next Fallows » Email Email Print Print

Dead men walking, USB-stick variety

By James Fallows

Jul 3 2008, 7:04 AM ET

"In the midst of life we are in death," as the Book of Common Prayer puts it. Every faith has a way of conveying the same idea.

The technology world's version is the sad recognition that any device starts becoming obsolete the instant you buy it. But there perhaps should be a specific line or verse referring to USB sticks. I mentioned recently that one of mine (a PNY Optima Attache model) had survived a trip through the washer and dryer and still worked fine. Reader Gary Allen Vollink brings the unsurprising but sobering news that all is transience even with the hard silicon of USBs:

The corrosion starts once they get wet. There's no stopping it. It will die suddenly and unexpectedly. It will probably take between 4 and 8 weeks.
Sadly, I've done this with THREE already, and one of them was also an Attache. They all reacted - pretty much the same way.

That is -- back up your backup.

Book of Common Prayer: "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower." Tech world: "Back up your backup." It comes to the same thing.

Update: this does nothing about the human "in the midst of life" problem, but reader Matthew Wilbert reminds me that soaking the USB stick in WD-40 can do wonders against corrosion. "That's (more or less) why it was invented." FWIW.

Presented by

More at The Atlantic

Romney's Plan to Save Higher Ed: Let the Private Sector Handle It Romney's Plan to Save Higher Education
Mars and Venus Online: How the Genders Differ in Their Use of Social Networks Mars and Venus Online: How Genders Differ in Using Social Networks
'Men in Black 3': A Could-See 'Men in Black 3': A Could-See Film
Picture of the Day: The Bright, Burning Sun Picture of the Day: The Burning Sun
The '7 Dirty Words' Turn 40, but They're Still Dirty The '7 Dirty Words' Turn 40

Correspondents

View All Correspondents

The Biggest Story in Photos

The American West, 150 Years Ago

May 24, 2012

Subscribe Now

SAVE 59%! 10 issues JUST $2.45 PER COPY

Facebook

Newsletters

Sign up to receive our free newsletters

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

(sample)

James Fallows
from the Magazine

Obama, Explained

As Barack Obama contends for a second term in office, two conflicting narratives of his presidency…

Barack Obama

Facing huge risks and holding inconclusive intel, the president makes a gutsy call to take out bin…

Hacked!

As email, documents, and almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives moves onto the…