No doubt the response to this week’s Rip of the Week will be: why in the world didn’t this man back up his data!?

And he is a scientist, in fact.

While it’s very obvious now, with that perfect hind sight, that backups are rather important, we see week in and week out that few people seem to get the message.

3 News in New Zealand reports (thanks to Redemtech once again) that a scientist there offered up to $1,000 for the return of his stolen laptop and hard drive, containing about seven years’ of botany research–70 GB of precious data, apparently not backed up.

He didn’t have MyLaptopGPS, either.