Don't Mess With My Laptop

A thief learned that it is not smart to try to separate a law student, especially a first year, from his laptop. The story is here. While I appreciate the student's panic at the thought of losing his laptop (it contained four months of work), I wonder why he hadn't backed up his work. This is the same qustion I ask myself when the occasional laptop goes missing from the library where I work. Students are sometimes remarkably casual with expensive objects on which they have become dependent.