Only in Italy!

I had an appointment at the Genius Bar for help with storage in my laptop/external hard drive. It won’t surprise you to learn that I take so many photos and videos that managing them is a huge headache and as I move into creating longer videos, it’s only going to get more dire.

So I went, got a great “genius” and he helped me. When I explained what my issues were and how I wanted to move my images and videos off my computer, but to store them safely with quick access, he opined:

Nothing in this world is safe. If I needed to have a safe storage, I needed more than external hard drive, maybe several more because “anything can happen.” Something could, he continued, get stolen or damaged and the. Then where would I be!

I protested a bit and he continued. Italians, he said, invented the world’s first back-up.

I took a second to catch up.

It was the medieval monks, he expounded, working away as scribes in monasteries, that made (sometimes multiple) copies of ancient texts. Ok, I said, I follow.

And still, he said, the world lost Aristotle and Sophocles because despite multiple medieval back-ups, they all were lost.

I don’t know if I caught all he was saying but that was the gist of it. I don’t know if factually speaking the world lost Aristotle and Sophocles, but I knew what he meant.

What, I replied, are you doing in an Apple Store. You should be teaching at a famous university!

He was planning on it, he replied. In a month he’s changing jobs.