4 ms·

This assumes someone will back it up, re-archive it as storage technologies/costs change and then remember how to decode it that long from now.

talmand 11y ago
My thought on that is if it becomes that big of a deal to maintain then we likely have bigger issues to deal with on societal level, such as end-of-society type things. Changing archival methods during analog times might have been troublesome, but it has to be getting easier. Hard drive technology can change dramatically but if it interfaces with my current computer then copying files over to it will be trivial.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Who is going to pay for it? Who is going to care enough to archive digital artifacts? The Internet Archive is having trouble with their task. Who is going to make sure Grandma's iPhoto album is archived? Things can be put in a box and forgot about for 90 years. Files on digital media probably won't last that long.
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    You almost answered your own question: the Internet Archive already has a lot of stuff, and with more resources, we could do even more. And yes, there are people uploading Grandma's photos already... even home movies. Great stuff, send more!
  - talmand 11y ago
    Seems Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and many others are solving your online storage dilemma as we speak. Of course, there is the question of how historians shall gain access to all that data originally stored for people would be dead by then. I think a law about releasing private data to the public domain after a certain period of time after a person's death, if no living relative to claim it, should be considered. Also, over time storage has just been getting cheaper and cheaper. When I started with computers I couldn't dream of storing the amount of data that I currently store on my phone without thinking twice about it.

4 ms·

This assumes someone will back it up, re-archive it as storage technologies/costs change and then remember how to decode it that long from now.

by fucking_tragedy 11y ago

talmand 11y ago
My thought on that is if it becomes that big of a deal to maintain then we likely have bigger issues to deal with on societal level, such as end-of-society type things. Changing archival methods during analog times might have been troublesome, but it has to be getting easier. Hard drive technology can change dramatically but if it interfaces with my current computer then copying files over to it will be trivial.
- fucking_tragedy 11y ago
  Who is going to pay for it? Who is going to care enough to archive digital artifacts? The Internet Archive is having trouble with their task. Who is going to make sure Grandma's iPhoto album is archived? Things can be put in a box and forgot about for 90 years. Files on digital media probably won't last that long.
  - greglindahl 11y ago
    You almost answered your own question: the Internet Archive already has a lot of stuff, and with more resources, we could do even more. And yes, there are people uploading Grandma's photos already... even home movies. Great stuff, send more!
  - talmand 11y ago
    Seems Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and many others are solving your online storage dilemma as we speak. Of course, there is the question of how historians shall gain access to all that data originally stored for people would be dead by then. I think a law about releasing private data to the public domain after a certain period of time after a person's death, if no living relative to claim it, should be considered. Also, over time storage has just been getting cheaper and cheaper. When I started with computers I couldn't dream of storing the amount of data that I currently store on my phone without thinking twice about it.