What would you save?
- Thread starter Bee
- Start date
I distrust clouds, having been part of one of the U.S. Navy's "cloud" data centers. There is also the impersonal nature of the cloud staff. That is good but bad at the same time. And besides, post-disaster, that cloud might not be accessible. People talk about the cloud as though it is some nebulous entity immune to harm. But no, doesn't work like that. Some years ago, perhaps six to eight years before I retired, I remember when floods took out the Navy's BUPERS (Bureau of Personnel) cloud outside of Memphis. They had a foot of water in the server room. No cloud. And two years after that, a really BIG storm went through Norfolk that took out the NEDC (Navy Enterprise Data Center) in that area - the northeast regional center. They were down for a couple of weeks and it was a nightmare getting that beast back on line. Oh, the servers were covered by their COOP (Continuity Of Operations Program) sites. But their records had to be recovered from remotely mirrored backups and those things are notoriously difficult to keep up to date.
I was making the assumption that the disaster was catastrophic. I like to think big! So, I was thinking of an asteroid collision that split the earth in two. For those reasons, I thought taking my smartphone would be pointless as all power would be down, which is normally the case in a post-apocalyptic world. Otherwise, I would take my smartphone since it has access to sentimental things.
I have a brick that was given to me for Christmas as a kid by my dad. My parents are re-married so I would alternate one year to the other. My dad wanted to get me a Sony Walkman (when they were new) but sent a gift card so I could pick out the one I wanted. The gift card was taped to the brick so I wouldn't guess what the present was. This brick has moved with me since my childhood home and stays in my garage on a shelf above my workbench.