September's undergrowth

There is so much swirling in my head that I don't even know where to begin. One of my favoured tactics back in my working life was the 'clear the undergrowth' stage. This isn't procrastination, though it might look at it. Let me explain.

Imagine you have a task set for you. Big enough and complicated enough that you'll have to think about it, do things in the right order, check your interim results against both plans and reality, and document what you did so you can prove that what you delivered is what they asked for, whether they like it or not. Especially the not part. I've had to do that a few times.

I really, really disliked being interrupted in the middle of something, and that dislike has only grown stronger along the way. Maybe my brain is getting old and tired and doesn't switch between tasks very well anymore, or the buffer memory has become defective. Whatever. Distractions when I'm deep into something complicated just kill me. 

So what I'd do is double check my lists to make sure I'd delivered everything that was supposed to be delivered, that there were no smouldering embers ready to ignite my email inbox, that I had everything I would need for the upcoming task are near to hand, that all bio issues were taken care off.

And then I'd dive in, not to surface till it was done, or I was interrupted. I managed to train most of my bosses that if I was looking abstractedly at a whiteboard covered in little squares and arrows, and cryptic text notations, it was best to leave me alone.

Much of September has been distractions. The hard drive enclosure failure was a nasty surprise. However, a new enclosure, plus a bit of time carefully transferring the drives (there is no way I installed the drives in the old enclosure with the machine screws THAT tight!), plus a sweaty moment as the drives fired up, all equalled a newly functional RAID array, just as if nothing had happened. I think the new enclosure is quieter than the old one. 

Then there was the associated discovery that there are two varieties of Thunderbolt ports on Mac computers, and mine is old enough that it has the slower one. Oh well. Such is life. That just meant that buying a huge Thunderbolt 3 SSD as a back up drive was a bit of a waste, since the computer wouldn't be able to take advantage of the speed. I'll deal with the next computer and storage when I get there.

In the mean time, two inexpensive 5TB drives have arrived (Lacie Rugged, in the cute orange cases), and one of them is a complete back up as of last night. Now, I can hear the purists, but, but, what about fire or theft. Relax. While the two drives are currently sitting beside one another, there is a plan to move this one off-site, load up the other one, and swap them on a regular basis. (4.06 TB at 5 to 6 GB a minute. It takes a while, so it's been busy while I sleep.) Yes, yes, I know, Backblaze is only $5 a month, and I might end up going that way.

But, risk is everywhere. I ask myself three things to evaluate risk. What is the likelihood, what is the consequence, and what does it take to mitigate the risk? So, two examples. What is the risk of a giant asteroid striking earth and killing everyone during my remaining lifetime? The risk is insignificant, the consequences are catastrophic, and practically speaking there is nothing I can do about it. So I won't worry about it.

What about the risk of a hard drive failure leading to the loss of the digital versions of my photos? The risk is real. I've had several hard drives go bad and fail. The enclosure failed, meaning the data on the drives was stranded. You will have a hard drive failure sooner or later. (Don't play with it, just call iCube.) 

A quick search finds a Backblaze article talking about Annualized Failure Rates. If I understand the numbers correctly, and rounding a bit, if you had 100 hard drives running for a year, statistically speaking one of them is going to fail. So now I have a big 4 drive raid array, with one backup on a hard drive, and another backup on the way. Plus there are subsets of the data scattered across other drives and USB sticks, which ARE NOT a backup.  So the risk of losing it all is quite small, at least in the short term.

Now, what is the consequence if it all does go away? I'll be very sad, of course. But I do not currently have a business that depends on exchanging digital data for money. The consequence is purely personal, losing the tangible results of a great many enjoyable hours.

What can I do about it? Replicate the data out over a number of drives. At some point I'll get a big SSD drive and migrate the data there. One of the drives will live off site, and so reduce but not fully remove the risk of theft or fire. Yes, the nit-picky say, what if??? If the catastrophe is that big, I've got other things to worry about, like finding something to eat. 

There are circumstances I'd consider an automated off-site backup like Backblaze, and there are a few things to be aware of when signing up, but just now it seems like overkill.

Where was I? Oh yes, clearing the undergrowth. That damn iPhone. It kept getting more and more erratic. Finally I gave in. Telus gave me a deal where I promise to keep paying them for 2 years, and and I get a new phone, and my monthly bill goes down. It's still too much, but I'm distracted with other stuff right now, and didn't want to change phone ecosystems. So I'm up and running actually using a phone for some of the many purposes it's possible to use it for. I'll be looking at what the app world has done in the last few years. Any favourite apps you love? Tell me about them.

And I think that's enough undergrowth for anyone. I'll be diving back into some complicated work spreadsheets, probably later today, and deep into them tomorrow. In the meantime I've got a photo exhibit at the Glenbow to go to this afternoon put on my buddy the famous Neil Zeller.

The nightshade lilies are tough to get a good shot of, and I've been meaning to blog this one for a while.

Of the Day

Curtis

I snuck one in on him. Don't tell his agent.

Flower

With serendipity!

Michelle at the end of a long run July 2017, still smiling.

The red dahlias are still going strong.

A sunrise from July 2016.

White peony

Driftwood