7 ms·

I suspect something like: > It is unknown what the vast majority of humans did during this period. (because all of our facebooks, twitters, hn comments, softw

I suspect something like: > It is unknown what the vast majority of humans did during this period. (because all of our facebooks, twitters, hn comments, softwares, etc are not physically tangible artifacts and will [hopefully] be lost in time)

have_faith 9y ago
We will rely on folklore and word of mouth again. > tell us again grandma about this "key-board" you had to smash your fingers into to speak to someone
- amputect 9y ago
  In the time of the aspect book and the many small birds, the word piano was the primary means of communication.
  - have_faith 9y ago
    Word Piano is a great phrase.
gozur88 9y ago
Every time I buy a new computer I find the old hard disk fits in its entirety on the new one, leaving me with plenty of space to spare. I think I have four or five generations nested into the current one. I suspect storage will remain cheap enough most of these artifacts will survive, but it's going to be very difficult for future researchers to get a good idea of what 21st century life was like because the crap to content ratio is so high. Sorting through all those kitten videos and posts hardly anyone reads today will probably be more expensive and time consuming than it's worth.
- mod 9y ago
  Eventually you'll lose your drive, and therefore data if you don't backup. In 58,000 years none of the data would be intact if not through pretty extreme efforts to preserve it. I guess maybe we'll find ways to encode data onto physical media, but I don't think my facebook (or HN) posts are going to make the cut.
  - tryingagainbro 9y ago
    >> "Eventually you'll lose your drive, and therefore data if you don't backup." True, but someone will come up with a "databank" of sorts. Who knows, we might backup on DNA or space, as in cosmos. Is what we type right now escaping in space like TV transmissions? Any physics major here?
    - Retra 9y ago
      Some of it goes into space (if it's transmitted the right way), but most will be drowned in noise. None of that matters though, since you can't get in front of the outgoing signal to receive it at a future date. It would have to be reflected, which would also introduce a large amount of noise.
      - tryingagainbro 9y ago
        Thanks makes sense. We see what is coming to us, and maybe nothing will be reflected considering expansion and all. BUT it is out there and an advanced civilization might figure it out (not that they might need it but curiosity)
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    This is a lot of people losing their drivers in a relatively short time. No generation had a life so well preserved as we have. Whatever we can reconstruct about previous generations lives, future archeologists will get hundreds of times more.
  - Waterluvian 9y ago
    One day we will have cheap, reliable, ubiquitous digital storage that we don't even think about. Future archaeology will be about digital spelunking and untangling of massive amounts of data that isn't properly catalogued or given context.
- ksk 9y ago
  I wonder how much of this information will be freely-exportable and copy able in the future. Or will we be stuck in "app silos" where all your information is tried to the App's data store and you can't get at it. If I'm using instagram for all of my pictures, will I always be able to take them with me when I migrate to a different platform/device?
- twobyfour 9y ago
  And how much of that data is in outdated formats that it's now almost impossible to read? If I could still find my middle school papers written using WordPerfect 5.1 or MS Write, and if the floppies were still legible, would I be able to open them in software that runs on my current operating system without emulation? How long would it take to find something to read them with? And that's with very common software from only a quarter of a century ago! Heck, I've got files written in niche Mac OS X software from less than a decade ago that probably can no longer be read on a computer manufactured this year.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    Thats precisely why we should only use Free and Open document formats. They have a much higher likelihood to make it in the long term.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      In the long term of tens of years, MAYBE that helps. My guess is that ODF, for instance, will be harder to find readers for 50 years from now than DOCX will. In the long terms of tens of thousands of years, the chances anyone will be able to read any of them in any way are vanishingly low. Even if the media are intact (which is an incredibly low probability) and even if hardware were developed to read the media, all that's going to come off the media are ones and zeroes that represent a document format wrapped around an encoding that represents a dead language. OK, maybe plain text ASCII could be decoded by cryptographers highly familiar with Ancient English. You might look up the Long Now project and how they're thinking about communicating 10,000 years into the future.
      - ekianjo 9y ago
        > In the long terms of tens of thousands of years, the chances anyone will be able to read any of them in any way are vanishingly low. Even if the media are intact (which is an incredibly low probability) and even if hardware were developed to read the media, all that's going to come off the media are ones and zeroes that represent a document format wrapped around an encoding that represents a dead language. Sorry, but if there is any kind of document specification left, it should be trivial for whoever is left then (as long as they can grasp our 21th century plain language) to recreate a reader for an old format. With proprietary documents, that is just never going to be possible.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  That hard drive storage expansion you have experienced in the past few times is not sustainable. Hard disk platters are reaching a limit. SSD could beat that but they are way more expensive than HDD for the same storage space.
  - ddnb 9y ago
    And this spot in time is where history will end? SSD is at this time more expensive, storage expansion will go slower until the next breakthrough.
- gehwartzen 9y ago
  Instead of being versed in soil strata classifications and tool markings I suspect the archeologist of the 22nd century will be taught old compression systems and methods of connecting IDE cables to quantum machines.
Retra 9y ago
It is still better than the word-of-mouth of most of our ancestors. Our actual computer equipment will be fossilized quite well in landfills, hopefully.
izzydata 9y ago
It will appear that the vast majority of humans did nothing other than waste away their lives in virtual spaces.
8ytecoder 9y ago
That's raw information. We do not know about past centuries because we had access to letters written by common people - while that helps it doesn't give context. That's where books come in. Author take the everyday noise, find meaningful patters and add context and explain away why things are the way they are. These books are what will guide our future generation on our way of life.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  These books are becoming more and more "electronic-only." A quick survey of my coworkers shows that I'm the only one who still reads paper books. I hope I am wrong.
  - dom0 9y ago
    I just finished building a new book shelf!
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    You are not the only one. And some regions of the world, like Japan, heavily prefer physical books to digital ones.
- ecshafer 9y ago
  Except diaries and letters are Considered some of the best and most useful artifacts, as they give an insight into the on the ground thinking, and minute details of life in the past.

have_faith 9y ago

We will rely on folklore and word of mouth again. > tell us again grandma about this "key-board" you had to smash your fingers into to speak to someone

amputect 9y ago
In the time of the aspect book and the many small birds, the word piano was the primary means of communication.
- have_faith 9y ago
  Word Piano is a great phrase.

gozur88 9y ago

Every time I buy a new computer I find the old hard disk fits in its entirety on the new one, leaving me with plenty of space to spare. I think I have four or five generations nested into the current one. I suspect storage will remain cheap enough most of these artifacts will survive, but it's going to be very difficult for future researchers to get a good idea of what 21st century life was like because the crap to content ratio is so high. Sorting through all those kitten videos and posts hardly anyone reads today will probably be more expensive and time consuming than it's worth.

mod 9y ago
Eventually you'll lose your drive, and therefore data if you don't backup. In 58,000 years none of the data would be intact if not through pretty extreme efforts to preserve it. I guess maybe we'll find ways to encode data onto physical media, but I don't think my facebook (or HN) posts are going to make the cut.
- tryingagainbro 9y ago
  >> "Eventually you'll lose your drive, and therefore data if you don't backup." True, but someone will come up with a "databank" of sorts. Who knows, we might backup on DNA or space, as in cosmos. Is what we type right now escaping in space like TV transmissions? Any physics major here?
  - Retra 9y ago
    Some of it goes into space (if it's transmitted the right way), but most will be drowned in noise. None of that matters though, since you can't get in front of the outgoing signal to receive it at a future date. It would have to be reflected, which would also introduce a large amount of noise.
    - tryingagainbro 9y ago
      Thanks makes sense. We see what is coming to us, and maybe nothing will be reflected considering expansion and all. BUT it is out there and an advanced civilization might figure it out (not that they might need it but curiosity)
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  This is a lot of people losing their drivers in a relatively short time. No generation had a life so well preserved as we have. Whatever we can reconstruct about previous generations lives, future archeologists will get hundreds of times more.
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  One day we will have cheap, reliable, ubiquitous digital storage that we don't even think about. Future archaeology will be about digital spelunking and untangling of massive amounts of data that isn't properly catalogued or given context.
ksk 9y ago
I wonder how much of this information will be freely-exportable and copy able in the future. Or will we be stuck in "app silos" where all your information is tried to the App's data store and you can't get at it. If I'm using instagram for all of my pictures, will I always be able to take them with me when I migrate to a different platform/device?
twobyfour 9y ago
And how much of that data is in outdated formats that it's now almost impossible to read? If I could still find my middle school papers written using WordPerfect 5.1 or MS Write, and if the floppies were still legible, would I be able to open them in software that runs on my current operating system without emulation? How long would it take to find something to read them with? And that's with very common software from only a quarter of a century ago! Heck, I've got files written in niche Mac OS X software from less than a decade ago that probably can no longer be read on a computer manufactured this year.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  Thats precisely why we should only use Free and Open document formats. They have a much higher likelihood to make it in the long term.
  - twobyfour 9y ago
    In the long term of tens of years, MAYBE that helps. My guess is that ODF, for instance, will be harder to find readers for 50 years from now than DOCX will. In the long terms of tens of thousands of years, the chances anyone will be able to read any of them in any way are vanishingly low. Even if the media are intact (which is an incredibly low probability) and even if hardware were developed to read the media, all that's going to come off the media are ones and zeroes that represent a document format wrapped around an encoding that represents a dead language. OK, maybe plain text ASCII could be decoded by cryptographers highly familiar with Ancient English. You might look up the Long Now project and how they're thinking about communicating 10,000 years into the future.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      > In the long terms of tens of thousands of years, the chances anyone will be able to read any of them in any way are vanishingly low. Even if the media are intact (which is an incredibly low probability) and even if hardware were developed to read the media, all that's going to come off the media are ones and zeroes that represent a document format wrapped around an encoding that represents a dead language. Sorry, but if there is any kind of document specification left, it should be trivial for whoever is left then (as long as they can grasp our 21th century plain language) to recreate a reader for an old format. With proprietary documents, that is just never going to be possible.
ekianjo 9y ago
That hard drive storage expansion you have experienced in the past few times is not sustainable. Hard disk platters are reaching a limit. SSD could beat that but they are way more expensive than HDD for the same storage space.
- ddnb 9y ago
  And this spot in time is where history will end? SSD is at this time more expensive, storage expansion will go slower until the next breakthrough.
gehwartzen 9y ago
Instead of being versed in soil strata classifications and tool markings I suspect the archeologist of the 22nd century will be taught old compression systems and methods of connecting IDE cables to quantum machines.

Retra 9y ago

It is still better than the word-of-mouth of most of our ancestors. Our actual computer equipment will be fossilized quite well in landfills, hopefully.

izzydata 9y ago

It will appear that the vast majority of humans did nothing other than waste away their lives in virtual spaces.

8ytecoder 9y ago

That's raw information. We do not know about past centuries because we had access to letters written by common people - while that helps it doesn't give context. That's where books come in. Author take the everyday noise, find meaningful patters and add context and explain away why things are the way they are. These books are what will guide our future generation on our way of life.

craftyguy 9y ago
These books are becoming more and more "electronic-only." A quick survey of my coworkers shows that I'm the only one who still reads paper books. I hope I am wrong.
- dom0 9y ago
  I just finished building a new book shelf!
- ekianjo 9y ago
  You are not the only one. And some regions of the world, like Japan, heavily prefer physical books to digital ones.
ecshafer 9y ago
Except diaries and letters are Considered some of the best and most useful artifacts, as they give an insight into the on the ground thinking, and minute details of life in the past.