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- We cracked the encoding on the artifact - What did you find? What was in the vault? - We think it's... code. Software code. Early 21st century. - Code from

- We cracked the encoding on the artifact - What did you find? What was in the vault? - We think it's... code. Software code. Early 21st century. - Code from the early web? This could be historic! What's in there? The google algorithm? The code for the iphone? - Not that we've found - Twitter? Does it have Twitter? Imagine if we found the code that contains the bug that caused world war three! - No - Then what is in there? - Just... tools, mainly. Manual tools from when people used to write software by hand. - Really? Why do you think they archived those? - I don't know. Maybe they thought they were clever? - Maybe it's not actually an archive. Maybe it's just a garbage dump. - You think everything we dig up is a garbage dump. - It usually is! - True. But look, we did find one artifact that's interesting. It's called 'react'. It appears to be an object of veneration. A lot of other things reference it. - Are you saying this may have served some sort of ritual purpose? - It's possible....

chrisseaton 6y ago
> Maybe they thought they were clever? ... Maybe it's just a garbage dump. This is a really nasty, snarky comment. Deriding people who try to build things and talking about their work as garbage. There's lot of software we wish we had access to now from the past, but we don't because people had the same attitude as you.
- eindiran 6y ago
  It is a joke about the tendency of archaeologists to classify everything they find as being either part of a garbage dump (aka a midden[0]) or as some variety of religious artifact [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden [1] See discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ritual#Material_correlates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ri...
- pow_pp_-1_v 6y ago
  Come on! Don't be so touchy-feely. Take it for what is - a lighthearted joke.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Maybe they thought they were clever? ... Maybe it's just a garbage dump. This is a really nasty, snarky comment. Deriding people who try to build things and talking about their work as garbage. There's lot of software we wish we had access to now from the past, but we don't because people had the same attitude as you.

eindiran 6y ago
It is a joke about the tendency of archaeologists to classify everything they find as being either part of a garbage dump (aka a midden[0]) or as some variety of religious artifact [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden [1] See discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ritual#Material_correlates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ri...
pow_pp_-1_v 6y ago
Come on! Don't be so touchy-feely. Take it for what is - a lighthearted joke.