In the distant future, when we look back on scattered social media caps, we will regret that the date of posting is not shown. Like scattered pages from books unknown, page numbers elided.
The fun thing is that none of this stuff is going to survive long-term at all. Databases are backed up onto forms of media that have a very short lifespan. Only material that is endlessly copied forward (like DNA) will still be around, and nobody is going to pay for that kind of archiving, at least not for the generally trivial bullshit that comprises social media. FWIW this fact make me happy.
As civilization has progressed, we’ve done more and more writing and record keeping and done so an less and less durable media. From stone to clay to papyrus/parchment to paper to film to digital media.
I feel like there needs to be some kind of write once media that’s extremely durable and reasonably dense for digital data specifically for long term archival purposes. What’s the digital equivalent to carving something on a stone tablet, that a thousand years from now despite age and weathering could be dug up in a field somewhere and still hypothetically be at least mostly readable?
If you want reliable media to last on a timeline relevant to our lives and even several generations, look into M disc blurays. Though, similar to dual layer dvds back in the day, it’s much easier to find a writer than the media itself. But it claims lifespans of centuries to millennia rather than decades usually associated with other disc media. They are actually etched instead of just using some fancy ink. Readable by normal drives, too. It’s just on the writing side that you need one that can specifically handle M discs. It also supports multi-layers, but those are even harder to find and get pretty pricey.
Still not likely a way to pass information ahead to civilizations even tens of thousands of years away, and even before they break down, a new civilization would need to figure out how to read and interpret them (when we had trouble reading hieroglyphs from known civilizations that we could read directly with our eyes).
But at least they should be relatively safe to write, verify, then forget about for a few decades until you find them and want to take a walk down memory lane. Assuming you can still get a bluray reader at that point, or held on to one. Pack them together and future you or your heirs might be grateful.
In the distant future, when we look back on scattered social media caps, we will regret that the date of posting is not shown. Like scattered pages from books unknown, page numbers elided.
The fun thing is that none of this stuff is going to survive long-term at all. Databases are backed up onto forms of media that have a very short lifespan. Only material that is endlessly copied forward (like DNA) will still be around, and nobody is going to pay for that kind of archiving, at least not for the generally trivial bullshit that comprises social media. FWIW this fact make me happy.
I randomly download scattered memes that I will want to repost endlessly in the future. I assume other people do the same.
As civilization has progressed, we’ve done more and more writing and record keeping and done so an less and less durable media. From stone to clay to papyrus/parchment to paper to film to digital media.
I feel like there needs to be some kind of write once media that’s extremely durable and reasonably dense for digital data specifically for long term archival purposes. What’s the digital equivalent to carving something on a stone tablet, that a thousand years from now despite age and weathering could be dug up in a field somewhere and still hypothetically be at least mostly readable?
If you want reliable media to last on a timeline relevant to our lives and even several generations, look into M disc blurays. Though, similar to dual layer dvds back in the day, it’s much easier to find a writer than the media itself. But it claims lifespans of centuries to millennia rather than decades usually associated with other disc media. They are actually etched instead of just using some fancy ink. Readable by normal drives, too. It’s just on the writing side that you need one that can specifically handle M discs. It also supports multi-layers, but those are even harder to find and get pretty pricey.
Still not likely a way to pass information ahead to civilizations even tens of thousands of years away, and even before they break down, a new civilization would need to figure out how to read and interpret them (when we had trouble reading hieroglyphs from known civilizations that we could read directly with our eyes).
But at least they should be relatively safe to write, verify, then forget about for a few decades until you find them and want to take a walk down memory lane. Assuming you can still get a bluray reader at that point, or held on to one. Pack them together and future you or your heirs might be grateful.
Even some articles or blogposts are without publish date. This should be illegal.