Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Missing "data" and insurrection against the occupying powers

When computers invaded and conquered our planet late last millennium, they gave us the word “data” to ease our transition from evolved species to subjugated race.

“Data” sounds dry, perfunctory, replaceable. When I hear the word, I think of IBM punch cards from the 60’s.  Or a torrential bit stream flow of glowing green ones and zeros coursing through a fiber optic cable.

But as every inhabitant of the occupied territories of Earth knows, our memories, labors, thoughts and achievements have been broken down into “data” and stored with a great leap of faith by us on electronic media. Hopefully for all eternity.

But in the whirl-a-gig world of operating systems, “data” – let’s call it like it is: pieces of our life –sometimes gets around all existing safeguards and is accidentally erased in an unrecoverable way.

And then we discover how unrepeatable some events in life really are.

 Sure, business files can often be rebuilt with some success. All you lose is time, money and sometimes repute...or your job. But seize-the-moment creativity never seems to come together again in quite the same way. And getting photos back? You got a time machine?

 My subtle little insurrection against the “datatizing” of humanity is to install a software program that recovers all deleted files, makes them easy to find and gives me the ability to securely delete files I really want gone forever.

I had to look around for a good one. Check it out.

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