Why computers are evil.

So I have all of my dissertation chapters in separate files. Multiple versions of them, because I am paranoid about losing them.

Last week, as I crowed on the website, I combined all the chapters into one long master document, with the intent of working on that one for the edits I'm on now. I added all the relevant graphics & tweaked them to get them aligned properly, with captions and stuff.

Yesterday, working on the printout of the dissertation, I realized that chapter two's printout was from an earlier version of the chapter. No big, right? I went in, copied the correct version and pasted it to the master document. As I was saving it, the program crashed on me.

The file is still there, all 19K of it. But I can't open it. It's dead as far as I'm concerned. And since I just did the work last week, the last day I worked on stuff before yesterday, I hadn't yet made multiple copies of the complete file.

It's not a big loss... I still have all the chapters that went into the master. It's really only a full day's lost work.

But damn if it doesn't suck.

I know these things happen. In my Master's Thesis I had three small graphics (compared to the dozens I have in this work.) It crashed a few times on me then. So I know to have multiple copies. I need, in fact, to have a couple of copies of the master document without graphics in it. Which I will do. But the way it works, see, is the documents you back up never crash. It's always that one that you didn't quite get to that screws up.

Computers, which really do make our lives better in so many ways, are evil incarnate. They sucker us into needing them and then they screw us over.

Not a bit setback, but a huge, curse word yelling, screen whacking, I hate computers kind of moment.