Writer THOUGHT he had hurricane-proofed his fiction

  • Thread starter Thread starter higgins
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higgins

For all the talk and obsession about backups around here, this is an
object lesson that you need to KEEP YOUR BACKUPS OFFSITE.


Words Can't Describe
What Some Writers
In New Orleans Lost

Literary Figures Wrack Brains
To Recall Poems, Stories
Destroyed by Hurricane

....The New Orleans man saved his manuscripts four ways -- paper, hard
drive, diskettes and a flash drive -- and boarded his home against the
wind. But when he evacuated, he left his papers and computer equipment
on tables and bookshelves, not nearly high enough to withstand the 11
feet of water that engulfed his house.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB113081400085284961-lMyQjAxMDE1MzAwMTgwMTE0Wj.html
 
For all the talk and obsession about backups around here, this is an
object lesson that you need to KEEP YOUR BACKUPS OFFSITE.
Click to expand...
It's a shame - simple data like manuscripts, and even scans of his
hand-written stuff, could easily have been uploaded to a 'net account.

Most people have no idea just how fragile their data is.

************
One Art - Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
 
It's a shame - simple data like manuscripts, and even scans of his
hand-written stuff, could easily have been uploaded to a 'net account.

Most people have no idea just how fragile their data is.
Click to expand...

I was thinking more on this, and decided that you could flood-proof
data pretty well by sealing the disks into heat-sealed bags, or
multiple ziplocks if you didn't want to go the heat-seal route.
 
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