If you’re sensitive to tech disasters, you might want to look away now: A recent Reddit thread tells the story of an unfortunate user who found 30 years of photos and work locked away and inaccessible in Microsoft OneDrive.

The individual made use of their cloud storage account to consolidate files from various hard drives, which had to be discarded due to a move. The plan was to then move the files back from OneDrive to new hard drives, but before the user was able to do this, their account was locked by Microsoft—without any reason given.

It’s still not clear why the account was locked or why Microsoft has so far ignored the user’s appeals to restore access, but it’s a warning to the rest of us—and a reminder to put a few basic protections and precautions in place.

Keep Multiple Backups

It used to be a truth universally acknowledged that data wasn’t properly backed up until it was backed up twice, in two separate locations. You can copy your important files to an external hard drive, but if it’s in the same room as your laptop, then theft, fire, or flood can wipe out both copies at the same time.

Today, having two backups of everything—so three copies in total—might seem excessive, as cloud storage services so rarely go down. We’ve all become used to the idea that the data we’ve logged with Microsoft, Google, Apple, or other providers is always going to be available, so we don’t need to worry about it.

A series of shallow grooves line either side of the case’s bottom half. These seem to mimic the side sculpts of some limited-run custom keyboards, and they have a functional purpose, making it easier to lift the keyboard. The design is mirrored in the aluminum knob in the top right corner, which has a similar motif. I really like that these designs are not only ornamental but actually have a functional purpose during regular use.

Going further into the aesthetic choices of this keyboard, it loses me a bit with the keycaps. I’m not a big fan of the camouflage design. The shapes don’t always line up across keycaps, and it overall seems tacky. However, the print quality is top-notch, with no fuzziness or discoloration, consistent even along the keycaps’ sides. Because the keycaps are white with multicolored printing on top, the RGB lighting is able to bounce between the white plastic plate and the white undersides of the keycaps, appearing brighter and diffusing more evenly across the keyboard.

With a polling rate of 1,000 Hz (meaning the keyboard sends 1,000 messages to the computer every second), the DeltaForce 65 feels snappy and responsive. This combines with the relatively light Gateron Red switches to make a keyboard that’s effective for gaming while still being comfortable to type on. It doesn’t compare to high-end gaming keyboards with Hall effect switches and 8,000-Hz polling rates, which are going to be faster and more customizable, but for casual gaming, it’s more than enough.

The compact size of the keyboard is ideal for gaming, saving a significant amount of space compared to a full-size keyboard. This allows for more mouse space and lets your hands sit closer together for more rapid movement between the mouse and keyboard. To make up for the loss of the function row up top, you can hold the FN key and press the corresponding number key (i.e., FN+1 = F1), and the FN key can be used with some other keys for the Home, Pause, Print Screen, and other removed keys. The knob in the top right is easy to reach and has a satisfying notchiness to it. It’s programmed to adjust volume by default, but can be remapped to nearly anything else.

Software Quirks

As far as programmability, VIA is the star of the show here. The DeltaForce65 uses an open source system known as QMK for its programmability, and VIA is an in-browser interface based on QMK that allows for seamless, rapid customization of the keyboard’s layout. The system is incredibly powerful and intuitive to use, and a common capability of many modern mechanical keyboards.

Call it the China power paradox: while Beijing leads the world in renewable energy expansion, its coal projects are booming too.

As the top emitter of greenhouse gases, China will largely determine whether the world avoids the worst effects of climate change.

On the one hand, the picture looks positive. Gleaming solar farms now sprawl across Chinese deserts; China installed more renewables last year than all existing US capacity; and President Xi Jinping has made the country’s first emissions reduction pledges.

Yet in the first half of this year, coal power capacity also grew, with new or revived proposals hitting a decade high.

China accounted for 93% of new global coal construction in 2024, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clear Air (CREA) found.

One reason is China’s “build before breaking” approach, said Muyi Yang, senior energy analyst at think tank Ember.

Officials are wary of abandoning the old system before renewables are considered fully operational, Yang said.

“Think of it like a child learning to walk,” he told AFP.

“There will be stumbles—like supply interruptions, price spikes—and if you don’t manage those, you risk undermining public support.”

Policymakers remain scarred by 2021–22 power shortages tied to pricing, demand, grid issues and extreme weather.

While grid reform and storage would prevent a repeat, officials are hedging with new coal capacity, even if it sits idle, experts said.

“There’s the basic bureaucratic impulse to make sure that you don’t get blamed,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA co-founder and lead analyst.

“They want to make absolutely sure that they don’t block one possible solution.”

Grid and transmission

There’s also an economic rationale, said David Fishman, a China power expert at Lantau Group, a consultancy.

China’s electricity demand has increased faster than even record-breaking renewable installations.

That may have shifted in 2025, when renewables finally met demand growth in the first half of the year. But slower demand played a role, and many firms see coal remaining profitable.

Grid and transmission issues also make coal attractive.

Large-scale renewables are often in energy-rich, sparsely populated regions far from consumers.

Sending that power over long distances raises the cost and “incentivizes build-out of local energy capacity,” Fishman told AFP.

China is improving its infrastructure for long-distance power trading, “but it’s definitely not where it needs to be”, he added.

Coal also benefits from being a “dispatchable resource”—easily ramped up or down—unlike solar and wind, which depend on weather.

To increase renewables, “you have to make the coal plants operate more flexibly… and make space for variable renewables,” Myllyvirta said.

China’s grid remains “very rigid”, and coal-fired power plants are “the beneficiaries”, he added.

‘Instrumental’ economic driver

Other challenges loom. The end of feed-in tariffs means new renewable projects must compete on the open market.

Fishman argues that “green power demand is insufficient to keep capacity expansion high”, though the government has policy levers to tip the balance, including requiring companies to use more renewables.

China wants 3,600 gigawatts of wind and solar by 2035, but that may not meet future demand, risking further coal increases.

Still, coal additions do not always equal coal emissions—China’s fleet currently runs at only 50% capacity.

And the “clean energy” sector—including solar, wind, nuclear, hydropower, storage and EVs—is a major economic driver.

CREA estimates it contributed a record 10% to China’s gross domestic product last year, and drove a quarter of growth.

“It has become completely instrumental to meeting economic targets,” said Myllyvirta.

“That’s the main reason I’m cautiously optimistic in spite of these challenges.”

© 2025 AFP