There's nothing like a brush with hard-drive failure to make you contemplate your mortality.
Or at least, contemplate the ephemerality of all things digital.
I was pretty lucky. I'm fairly regular about backing up my files. When the big drive that holds my life's work started acting up, there wasn't too much on it that needed to be copied. But it was acting so erratically that it took me most of the weekend to dump that stuff onto other disks. And since I didn't have another big disk handy, now it's spread across thumb drives and other older computers.
I was nervous. I've been taking an awful lot of pictures lately, and I would have been devastated to lose them.
All those memories. All those experiences I walked past in a flash, and haven't had the time to look at and process yet.
So right now, my digital life is spread across a lot of aging, precarious hardware. Working from a backup drive connected over a creaky USB-2 connection is less than ideal as well. Each hesitation of the system has me wondering if this is the end. Clearly it's time to buy some new hardware and get the important stuff back in one place.
Clearly there are worse things that can happen. Like... whatever news this poor woman was reading as I walked past.
It's amazing, isn't it, how much the seminal events of our lives are mediated and shaped by our technology?
20 years ago, and she would have received this message on an answering machine, at home. 60 years ago, and it probably would have come in the mail.
When we are constantly connected to the entire world, we live more and more of our lives in public. And in the information age, the moments of those lives can last forever.
Or be lost in an instant, to a hard-drive crash.
What do you suppose she was reading?
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Perhaps she took a photo with you in it, as you did of her, and as you drew closer, the beard and pipe became more real, more threatening to her and she freaked out?
:)
This is a plausible scenario. Maybe I should lose the beard?
lol - at least you did not suggest losing the pipe - at least you have your priorities right
:)
Just thinking about it scares me. I am making the same face as girl in last pic.
Back up all your data - now!!!
Ok, this post convinced me to not check my messages in public lol. But in all the seriousness, for the last 6 months, I’ve been working on not being distracted by notifications and I consciously make myself check my emails and Steemit only when I decide to do it and during the time I set aside for doing it. Walking away from FB and IG completely, they’re just making me depressed.
I think that's a healthy approach!
Personally, I only check Facebook on my desktop computer at home. Keeping the messenger application off the phone makes such a huge difference.
I just followed your advice! Pressing that Delete button on my iPhone never felt that great before ;).
Congratulations! Enjoy the feeling of freedom!
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A very wonderful photography well published
Really nice article my friend
The data should be kept well