Re: The Surgery - What Happened

In article <fg6257$6mq$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Keith F. Lynch <kfl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
David V. Loewe, Jr <daveloewe@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
As most of you know, I underwent surgery for neuroendocrine tumors
arising in the pancreas on September 27th.

I'm pleased to hear the surgery was a success. I hope you have
medical insurance -- it sounds very expensive.

I had quite a bit more written (several times), but a series of
brief weather related power outages have wiped out several attempts
at elaboration.

Yet another advantage of a shell account. If my power were to go out
right now, and my UPS were to simultaneously fail, I wouldn't lose a
single keystroke. Everything I've typed so far would patiently wait
for my return on Panix's RAID disks.

If I were to type more than a few screenfulls, and decide not to send
it until later, as a precaution I'd back it up to a different ISP,
a thousand miles from Panix, so that I wouldn't have to spend ten
minutes retyping it if New York City got nuked.

If only I could back *myself* up, in multiple locations. Messages
like yours remind me of the fragility of life.

ObSF: Vance's _To Live Forever_, wherein people who win
immortality get a stable of clones of themselves, who lie about
in tanks getting periodic memory backups till they're needed.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx
.