2 == 1 && 1 == 0
Backup, backup, backup.
There is an axiom amongst IT pros: Two is one and one is none. 2 == 1 && 1 == 0
Translation: back up your data! Because if you have data in only one place, that data is incredibly easy to lose. For instance, let’s say your photo library is only on your computer. If that computer dies, your photos are gone. But if you back up that data to an external hard drive, you can restore those photos even if the computer dies.
But what if your house burns down, destroying your computer and your backup drive? In that case, your photo library is still gone despite backing it up. Sometimes two isn’t enough. That’s why it’s good to also have an off-site backup, like a cloud service or an off-site hard drive.
But the 2 == 1 && 1 == 0 formula applies even to physical items, and I’ve had a couple of recent experiences that drive home the point.
Back up your glasses
A few weeks ago, my wife was packing up our car to leave a relative’s house. I set my glasses on the tailgate of our Honda Pilot as I was doing other things. When I was finished, I went back to get my glasses, except they weren’t there.
“Honey, have you seen my glasses?”
“Yeah, I broke them.”
“You what?”
“I closed the tailgate on them. I didn’t know they were there. Guess I’m driving.”
And boy, did she ever break them! One lens remained intact, but the other one was totally gone, and the frame was bent in such a way that made them unsalvagable.
If you don’t need glasses, lucky you. Losing your glasses even for a minute is terrifying because it basically renders you blind. At least in my case, because my vision is terrible.
I didn’t have a spare pair in the Pilot, so I rode home in the passenger seat with my busted glasses. Also, I had to pick up food and run into Dollar Tree for an errand… looking like a hot mess with my busted glasses.
Thankfully, the folks in Dollar Tree didn’t give me any funny looks or ask questions. Dollar Tree won’t judge you.
Also thankfully, I had some old pairs at home. I never get rid of old glasses for just that reason. Unfortunately, the prescription was just slightly off, so after a few days, I had a splitting constant headache from eyestrain.
I wish I could recommend a bulletproof set of frames, but I haven’t found a pair of glasses I can’t mangle, at least in the civilian world. Probably the most durable frames you can find are the classic S9 spectacles that were the standard issue in the US military for decades. But you don’t want to wear them.
The other name for the S9 spectacles is BCG. In civilian speak, that’s Birth Control Glasses. Because they’re the biggest, thickest, dorkiest glasses you have ever seen. Even photos don’t do their absolute dorkiness justice.
What makes the BCG S9 so amazing, beyond their ruggedness, is the capability to transform any man into Steve Urkel. I don’t care how sexy he is—Chris Evans, Brad Pitt, Idris Elba, Jason Momoa, and Leonardo DiCaprio would all look like Pat from Saturday Night Live wearing these things. Truly a miracle of modern materials… and modern art.
Besides, you could lose the stupid things anyway. So my suggestion is to stock up on lots of cheap pairs of glasses in your current prescription and stash them everywhere: your home, car, office, bug-out bag, tree stand, igloo, or wherever. Zenni Optical is great for this.
If you have an FSA, ICHRA, or some other “use it or lose it” annual healthcare fund, now is the time to spend that cash. A great excuse to stock up on glasses, medicines, and medkits.
Back up your freezers
When you have several hundred pounds of meat and bags of vegetables harvested from a grueling summer of labor, the last thing you want to hear is, “The freezers aren’t working.”
We have three standalone freezers: one standup freezer in the house, and in our building we have another standup freezer and a chest freezer. Neither freezer in the building was working. Everything had thawed, but at least was still cold.
I immediately went into troubleshooting mode. We had some power supply flakiness lately, so I tried flipping the breakers. I then turned the freezers down as low as possible to force them to kick on. That seemed to do the trick: the standup freezer started humming and the chest freezer’s light was on.
And yes, it’s safe to refreeze meat. It’s not ideal, because you’re inevitably going to get some frost burn, which leaves a funky flavor. But usually, you can rinse the frost crystals off and everything tastes fine. Or just season the hell out of it like it’s Medieval times.
The next morning, I checked both freezers again. Good news: the stuff in the standup freezer was frozen again. Bad news: the stuff in the chest freezer was not frozen. So I moved as much as I could to the standup freezer.
We gave it a little time and kept fooling with the chest freezer, but after a couple of days, it was clear that stuff wasn’t going to freeze again. So my wife hauled the rest of the stuff to the house and crammed it into our freezer there.
The question remains: what happened to the freezers? The only thing I can figure is that it was a result of recent power grid fluctuations: brownouts and very brief power outages. Maybe there was a power surge that tripped the breaker and fried the compressor in the chest freezer.
Ideally, I’d get an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for the freezers, but my understanding is that the compressor takes too much power for that to be feasible. I’ll at least connect the freezers to surge protectors. I ordered this three-pack from Amazon so I have one for each freezer.
Unfortunately, due to these power fluctuations, I’ve had to buy a UPS for every cluster of electronics in my house. I highly recommend that you follow suit.
In any case, I was very fortunate my wife caught it in time, and even more fortunate to have extra freezer capacity.
Two is one and one is none. 2 == 1 && 1 == 0