Wednesday, October 28, 2009

computer brain death

I've been struggling to get my computer back up to speed for awhile now. Though successfully using a Linux drive to get online, I haven't been able to get my own system to work decently without a lot of annoying pop ups, messages and warnings. I've gone the usual route with this--taking it in to be repaired, finding that the repair didn't really solve anything, and so trying to decide what to do next. Lately, though, I haven't even been able to get in to anything. So last night, I just went for broke and reinstalled the hard drive.

This meant that a lot was lost.

I retrieved and backed up a lot of my documents,and since most of it was backed up anyway, I'll probably have some version of most of it somewhere. I'm a little sad to realize that most of my downloaded email is gone, but the fact is, all this has happened before.

So the relation to this blog is? Well, I'm kind of struck by the difference between how we, or at least many of us, save paper documents, and the way we save electronic ones. I suppose it will reveal me as very old school to say that I don't ever really throw away letters, but I have witnessed two wholesale clearances of computer memory with sadness, yes, but basically with a shrug. Yet I still have all those old faded letters.

It's interesting to me how we have consigned some of our essential recordkeeping, which is in essence a memory sort of job, to an unstable constantly self-revising electronic system. There is already much that I saved, ie, remembered, to technology that no longer works on my system. It doesn't mean I can never get at it--it's just that I can't do that easily.

I'm on the brink of doing a month long writing challenge through Nanowrimo.org. The founder of this venture, Chris Baty, just had his hard drive inexplicably die mere days before the big event, leading him to remind participants to back up their data and not rely on luck or chance to do so.

I'll close with two observations. One is that electronic "memory" tends to be very black and white. It either works or it doesn't. You can't "remember" lost data by trying harder to remember it. Basically, you only have the option of trying the equivalent of expensive brain surgery to retrieve it. And like brain surgery, the result isn't guaranteed.

The second is more related to memory--our memory--itself. I'd love if anyone cared to comment on a different take on this, but for me, when it comes to informational data, nostalgia is overrated. I hold on to a lot of this stuff, don't get around to deleting a whole lot of email, except for the obvious junk. But if the fates decide to take it away from me, after a bit of regret, I find I don't miss it all that much. From this I conclude that online data is different because it is just digital. Souvenirs of the past may need to be just a bit more material to be missed much.

Or so say I.

11 comments:

  1. I've read musings about what reliance on electronic storage means for preservation of vital records for the future. On the one hand we can preserve communications and other records to a degree unprecedented in human history (meaning ample emplyment for archivists in future centuries, perhaps). On the other, these records are unprecedentedly fragile and vulnerable.
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  2. I don't think I mentioned in this post that I heard Margaret Atwood in an interview with my friend Rick Kleffel where he was talking about the obsolescence of floppy discs, and she said, well, if you want a really scary thought, think about how a large solar flare could simply erase all electronically stored data.

    Yikes.

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  3. My fellow Canadian was a step or two ahead of me, but yes, that's the sort of thing I had in mind.

    Data Death is a good title for something, isn't it?
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  4. Peter, save up these titles and the vague plot ideas that go with them for the year you can do Nanowrimo instead of traipsing about foreign climes.

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  5. I wish I could work my way up to vague plot ideas. I did spend the first two days of Bouchercon amusing everyone around me by coming up with titles.

    No foreign climes for me this time. I have axed the Sicily trip and will instead speand a few days in Houston and then a few more and Murder and Mayhem in Muskego -- efforts to recapture that old Bouchercon magic.

    I think it's my looming deadlines that will keep me out of Nanowrimo this year, though, not the travel.
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  6. Peter, I think the difference between you and me is that you are not willing to bother writing 50,000 words of pure drivel and I am.

    It looks like I'm making the attempt this year, though midnight hasn't hit yet, and I don't even have a title, much less a plot. But I do have a friend here who wants to try and wants a friend in the process. This more than anything else is what is making me go for it. I am not full of enthusiasm this time around. Still, enthusiasm isn't everything.

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  7. Having a friend to go through it with you could be a great help. I will have to overcome my unwillingness to write drivel if I am ever to write anything on a large scale. The organizers of Nanowrimo come write out and say: "You will write loads of crap!" and recognizing that is good.

    But I relaly do have deadlines to meet in November. Maybe I'll make my own Nanowrimo later. I'll call it Petnowrimo.
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  8. People do actually do other wrimos in other months, because November is not the most ideal time for some. Actually, I don't think it's the best time for anyone, but there are degrees and then there are degrees.

    Anyway, if I see some sort of notice on the forums of another, I'll let you know.

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  9. Thanks. I might even be able to push myself on my own, though. I am a font of quips, jokes and clever set-ups. I'm not so good at going beyond that and making stories, though, possibly because that takes work.
    =============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

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  10. Well, not to beat this thing to death, but the great beauty of Nanowrimo is that you are going for word count, which is quite liberating. So you can use all your jokes, quips and set-ups, and then with, say, 45,000 words to go, you have to reach for something more. You just get a raw batch of something, but you'll find great, unexpected things in it. I think the process is this very felicitous blend of it doesn't matter at all, and it matters tremendously. Which of course is all any writing process ever really is. You could write Ulysses and the vast majority of the world Does Not Care.

    Still worth doing, though.

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  11. By all means, keep beating this thing to death. It may finally get me started.

    I don't know if I have 5,000 words' worth, though. My three best titles froum Bouchercon were 7, 2 and 4 words.
    ==============
    Detectives Beyond Borders
    "Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
    http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete