[Scribus] serious mac trouble

[Steve Herrick]

While I was doing some repairs to my Ubuntu machine, I decided to try
out Scribus on the Mac. It's pretty good, with a few glitches here and
there. However, then my Mac also started having trouble - hanging and
whatnot. I don't blame that on Scribus. However, after one
particularly traumatic restart, I discovered that my System
Preferences were largely reset, as were my preferences in Firefox and
several other apps. Meanwhile, my work in Scribus was completely gone
- both the original file and the .bak file were turned to gibberish,
as if they were binary files. I've looked them over in vim and several
other text editors, and there's nothing even remotely recognizable.
I've given up hope of recovering them, but can anyone at least explain
what happened?

Steve
--
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation
ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish
it.
- Alexis de Tocqueville