Fallback...

An article worth reading, something I did not know about Palau, and in the it's not the heat it's the humidity zone (though in this case I don't think so)...

In Scott William's novel "The Pulse" there is a solar flare which plays havoc with electric stuff and things like computers and suchlike no longer work... Which includes GPS.

Think about that for a moment or two...

I know for a fact that I take GPS for granted and, I'm pretty sure, most of the folks reading this do as well. Most everyone I know accepts that a GPS unit, whether a little pocket model or a chart plotter, could go down so (GPS being cheap) we all tend to have backup units just in case.

Of course, no matter how many back up units you have will be of any use if the GPS system itself goes down.

Now, I'm sure you're saying that the chances of a solar flare big enough to take out the GPS system is a very long odds situation. Nothing to worry about there... Except people keep winning trifectas and I personally know a guy who has been hit three separate times by lightning. So, no matter how long the odds, stuff can still happen...

That said, I'm not real worried about solar flares as there are any number of much more possible scenarios where the GPS system could go down or simply be turned off...

Any system can go down. The bigger the system, the greater the chance that some kind of wonky element might morph into a total FUBAR situation.

Shit happens...

Which, I guess, is why you have that spare GPS unit just in case. Right?

The word for today is fallback!

Listening to Tony Joe White

So it goes...