so years of work to find the cure for cancer is on a white macbook and the guy didn't backup it? yeah right.
If you've ever worked in an academic environment you wouldn't find this story hard to believe.
Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
11–20 of 81 posts
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#12So _this_ is why cancer hasn't been cured yet. Gotcha.
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#13I find it hard to believe that someone with the possible cure to cancer wouldn't bother backing it up. If this is legitimate, I think it's beyond irresponsible. Also, why such a minimal reward?
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#14That's grossly negligent behavior on her behalf. Family pictures, unpublished novel and a gigabyte of emails? Fine. But research data that only exists on one consumer-level machine? Work that was financed by her employer and various other organizations? Holy shit.
Surely it's grossly negligent behaviour on her employer's behalf?
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#15Mozy, anyone?
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#16The reward is only $1,000. While their research may have offered some interesting insights into cancer, they clearly didn't have an absolute cure (for prostate cancer, which is mentioned in the article). If they had a real cure, then around this moment Merk would step in and offer a $10,000,000 reward for the return of the laptop, in exchange for the right to commercialize the technology.
I've several friends who have pursued biology in universities. They could claim that their laptops have data offering possible cures for diabetes, high blood pressure and AIDS. This is the kind of thing they will talk about when we meet for lunch. I realize, of course, that they are not on the verge of a genuine cure. But occasionally their research offers an important new insight. I sense that these researchers, in the story, had info at that level.
Otherwise, the reward would be more than $1,000.
I do think the university should do more to help researchers manage their data.
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#17Not really, but kind of... the person doing Cancer Research (or other work that is socially/culturally critical to the world) who did not back up their data should be held criminally responsible.
Not so interested in the punishment as the (possibly non-existant) deterrent effect such laws/prosecution would have. It's fucking ridiculous that in 2011 people are still not backing up their data.
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#18Time Machine. It works.
Flux capacitor + 1.21 gigawatts? Delorians are getting hard to find, though.
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#19People need to learn the basics of working with a computer . I can't imagine working for years on an important project without any backup system whatsoever. Getting your computer stolen is only one of the tens of the possible scenarios of things that could happen.
> I can't imagine working for years on an important project without any backup system whatsoever. I've "worked with computers" since I was a teenager, but for a long time I didn't make backups even though I knew it was something I should have been doing. It wasn't until I actually had a hard drive crash on me that I got backup religion.
I'm in the same boat (still am). I hardly ever back up my data.
My employer though, uses source control rigorously and makes deployment and usage of those tools dead easy. We also have folder redirection possible if you wanted to make your "My Documents" folder available (and backed up automatically) on the network. There's SharePoint too, but sometimes it's a PITA.
My hypothesis is this: Given OU Medicine's student computer requirements [1], I'm betting that these researchers just didn't have the patience or knowledge in integrating a Mac into their Windows-centric network.
Re: Stolen laptop contains cancer research data
#20The reward is only $1,000. While their research may have offered some interesting insights into cancer, they clearly didn't have an absolute cure (for prostate cancer, which is mentioned in the article). If they had a real cure, then around this moment Merk would step in and offer a $10,000,000 reward for the return of the laptop, in exchange for the right to commercialize the technology. I've several friends who hav…
The idea that a "cure" for any type of cancer would only be on one laptop is absurd. It may work in a movie plot, but in real life, no way.
At best it would have info on how to possibly, vaguely minimise the suffering in some situations. Cancer is not something that one brilliant researcher can "cure" alone.