World Backup Day

Was yesterday, the 31st of March.

http://www.worldbackupday.net/

I heard about it today from Slashdot.  With characteristic chauvanism, Slashdot announced that it was “today” — by which they meant, of course, that remnant of the 31st of March that still lingered on one edge of the globe.  Arguably, “it’s an American site and they should use American time (units, etc.)”.  I’ve never had much patience for that argument, and it is especially weak in this case:

• It’s an announcement of an event: in the presence of time zone complications they should err on the side of announcing it in advance rather than too late.
• It’s World Backup Day — the thing they’re announcing is explicitly international.
• Slashdot is “news for nerds”, and nerds should take some pride in not fitting the stereotype of profound geographical ignorance.
• Slashdot’s audience is international — only 39% of traffic comes from the United States.  If anything, that’s less than expected: the USA accounts for 65% of native English speakers.  (It does admittedly hold only 27% of all English speakers, but I’d expect a high-tech first-world country should have more nerds per capita than average.)

It’s really my own fault for relying on the media to tell me what’s happening…  /rant ;-)

But enough procrastinating.  It’s time to actually back things up!