Analog Backup

One thing we have learnt during the digital era is that digital information can easily become inaccessible of permanently lost. Of course the internet is redundant enough to keep going - information is copied in many places, but that still poses the risk of "it all" going down at some point.

It seems we have already gone past the point of no return. By that I mean if all the digital information is lost (say due to a catastrophic event like a huge electromagnetic pulse (EMP), the entire civilization is endangered.

But back to much personal and everyday practical things to worry about - making local static copies of "information services", or even analog copies - makes sense.

One example are flight boarding passes. Typically they are present in an airline app, and yes, it is convenient (and no longer "cool") to have the pass in a phone. But things may go wrong, and guess what - the pass may just disappear from the airline app. This happened to me repeatedly on a frequent USA to Poland route via Germany, I typically start with a United flight either to Frankfurt or Munich and then continue on a Lufthansa flight to Poland. The check-in is in the United app which issues boarding passes for both flight segments. Then I land in Germany and guess what - the 2nd boarding pass vanishes. Of course it can be restored in a paper form when you have time to line up to a transfer desk. But if your layover is short, the missing boarding pass may become a problem.

A solution here (which I have now implemented as part of my travel routine) is to take screen shots and save the boarding passes as photos. Being static images they are no longer prone to bugs in airline apps and they work equally well at a gate - the scanners accept them. Of course assuming your phone is charged (that part becomes easier now as charging ports are really ubiquitous) and working (that sometimes may catch you by surprise). So a tip from a frequent flyer: have your boarding passes printed.

Another routine I have developed when bing on time (such as an early morning flight) is to use an analog alarm clock. I bought a cute folding one on eBay many years ago and I use it whenever the slim chance of the phone's alarm clock failure may have dire consequences. A phone may just die or the software may decide not to work this one time or the ringer may be muted or whatever... The analog alarm clock is way less complex and chances it will fail are much smaller. Also the sound it makes would easily wake up a dead.

Finally there is this whole concept pf digital memories - photos, videos etc. So easy to make and share. But still making paper prints and albums makes sense. Even if to satisfy the nostalgy. But that is probably for a separate blog.