Tumblr Using Amazon S3

Apparently Tumblr uses Amazon S3 for hosting content. Viewing an image on their site recently gave me a URL of:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_XXX.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=XXX&Expires=XXX&Signature=XXX

As opposed to the URLs you normally see when viewing an image on Tumblr:

http://XX.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_XXX.jpg

The original URL is now giving me an "access denied" XML response but there are a bunch of references to it to be found on google. It's also worth noting that the XML response is the same for broken links regardless of which of the two previous URL formats you use. The s3 URLs appear to have been in use since at least 2009 (from some of the googlebot's crawl dates).

I found this interesting because I didn't see any prominent references to S3 storage on any of Tumblr's user agreements or staff blog. As more companies move to cloud storage solutions, users need to be more aware of where their information is going. What additional policies or user agreements, if any, are implied when your data is stored on Amazon? Is information passing country borders and subject to new laws?

On another note, while searching for more about this, I found this article mentioning a leak of Tumblr's API credentials, including their S3 clusters.

Vampire Crabs

A couple weeks ago, my girlfriend and I purchased a trio of Vampire Crabs from a local pet store (Preuss Pets, for those in the Lansing area). They had a sale on 10 gallon aquariums for $10, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity. We had been discussing getting some type of crab for a while, as we wanted to set up a sweet aquarium landscape. Land crabs and brakish/saltwater crabs seemed like too much maintenance for us, but then we got lucky when we spotted these guys. The important thing is that we can now officially tell the world: we have crabs.

We were given a care sheet about them and did some internet homework about 'em here and here. They're fairly easy to care for and are pretty social guys. We decided to name ours after some of our favorite black metal icons (Euronymous, Quorthon, and Count Grishnackh). Plans are currently in the works to pick up another few of them, too.

Vampire crabs are brightly colored freshwater crabs that require a good mixture of shallow water and land. They're pretty small guys, only about an inch or two across, and stay pretty small. Although they're not very territorial (~6 can live the good life in a 10 gallon), I have witnessed a pair of them slap-fighting over a hiding spot. Kids are so cute at that age.

Speaking of which: they like hiding and are somewhat nocturnal. Although Vampire Crabs do come out during the day, they seem far more active in a warmer dusk setting. A nice LED lamp will help them feel at home. Ours have been doing fine at room temperature (around 75f).

Although scavengers, our crabs seem to be picky eaters. Meats and fish food pellets seem to be favorites. It's also worth noting that they do not hunt or bother most aquarium mates. Ammonia and nitrate levels in their water need to be kept low, however, so watch out for any rotting food they've tried to hide. Certain plants can help with this (cryptocoryne species, anubias, java ferns/moss), otherwise clean out the tank a bit every week or so.