5 ms·

This type of 'discovery' won't be possible with the next generation as the digital version of that would be locked on some media (possibly encrypted) somewhere

This type of 'discovery' won't be possible with the next generation as the digital version of that would be locked on some media (possibly encrypted) somewhere forever.

swalls 6y ago
Good. Just because someone died, doesn't mean their personal writing belongs to you.
- syshum 6y ago
  it is only good if that was the intention of the descendant, unfortunately we as a culture do not properly plan for death there for I can see a huge amount of data being lost even if the descendant wished for their family to see the data. (or did not have a strong desire for data to die with them)
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Yeah, I wonder how many people share their passwords with their loved ones while they’re good and healthy, but disaster can strike anytime. Im thinking of an idea for a service to ping one every 6 months and if no answer is given back in another 6 months, then to allow a designated person to have all pasawords and keys. Some kind of digital will executor or something of the sorts
    - bennyp101 6y ago
      Mine is in a safety deposit box, in 3 envelopes. Each has instructions and part of my private key that can be used to decrypt my files and passwords. Also has the password to my yubikey - which also has the private key on it. Only myself and my wife have access to said box, so if I die, then she can get to all my stuff, if we both die then the kids can get to stuff.
    - astura 6y ago
      No judgement here, just out of curiosity, why? Why do you want your heirs to access your accounts? For what services? What's sort of data is in there?
      - hyperman1 6y ago
        My brother died unexpectedly in his 30s, after years living and studying in another country. Some things: I hope we found every relevant friend and invited them to the funeral. But as he travelled a lot, they are all over the planet, and the chance we found them all is basically zero. The only reason we found out about his first serious girlfriend was because he told about her a week before on the phone. We went to his country, hired a van, stuffed cleaned out his apartment, cancelled every service we found out, then went back home. We presume everything settled, but you have to know about a service to cancel it. I hope whoever hired his house did not get too much trouble with angry debtors and such. We found out about sides of him we never knew about. There might be other things, we'll never know. This is very hard for my parents. Some unscrupulous companies read obituaries and send a bill. Really. We had 2 companies billing him for services never delivered, just hoping the heirs would pay them. We did not manage to enter his gmail account. Google did not grant us access even when presenting a death certificate. They suggested we contacted an USA judge, and required everything done according to USA law, even if everything relevant happened in the EU. I still feel bitter about their total lack of sympathy and cooperation.
        Sunspark 6y ago
        I don't know that you should feel bitter. If the situation was reversed, would you be ok with people going through your personal correspondence?
        hyperman1 6y ago
        I assume it depends upon the person. For me: If I am dead, why not. Our main purpose was followiup of whoever would mail him, just as would happen with physical letters. We did in fact have access for a few hours by using his cell phone, for which he gave us the pin code. But moving the phone to another country triggerred some safety mode and Google wanted the full password. Trouble with Google was: They agreed we had right for access. But their process was built with the assumption that only people in the USA could die.
- tartoran 6y ago
  There’s a good and a bad in it. But a lot of good stuff came out from people who died, great stories, artworks and so on. Why would it not be a part of the cultural treasure?
- archontes 6y ago
  That's exactly what someone dying means. Their possessions pass to their heirs.
- vlunkr 6y ago
  Exactly, they belong to the good folks at facebook. On a serious note though, I think most people write journals with the intent of passing them down.
- nirav72 6y ago
  So are you saying an heir has no right to his/her grandparents writings?
- astura 6y ago
  Legally, this is incorrect, all possessions are passed onto heirs when one dies, which includes papers/writings/recordings. Heir(s) become the new legal owner and may do whatever they wish with the documents. It can arguably be morally questionable to read and/or publish some writings if the author wrote them with the intention of keeping them private forever. Of course, if the deceased doesn't tell you you'd have to guess. At the same time the person is dead so you can't exactly hurt their feelings, and presumably they knew the risk of writing something down is that we it might be read by the non-intended audience. Though you can hurt the feelings of other people who know the deceased and/or have a vested interest in controlling their legacy. You might also hurt people who are the subject of those writings. I think I understand what you mean though, with digital assets one can actually prevent private writings and thoughts from being read by others after death, if that's what the author actually desires, in a way you really can't do with physical assets. This is arguably good as it better honors the wishes of the deceased. However, in this case this is a memoir, which are generally wrote to be read. I'm with you though, I want my thoughts to die with me.
rightbyte 6y ago
Ye and photos will be gone too ... I buy printed photo books to at-least try to keep some pictures.
astura 6y ago
Oh, stop, the vast majority of people of any generation don't write memoirs to be discovered in the first place. What I suspect is most typical? - My grandfather on my dad's side was illiterate and my grandma (his wife) is barely literate, so I don't think she'd ever write down anything more than a grocery list. Beyond that, if someone wants you to have/read something, they'd give it to you. If someone encrypts their writing or puts it behind a login, it's because they don't want you reading it.
- syshum 6y ago
  Well that is not actually true for at-least 2 reasons 1. There are many things I do not want my family to access to today while I am alive, but wish them to have access to them if I were to die. My password vault as an example, they will need access to that to close my estate more easily 2. Many programs by default today have some kind of strong security, simply enabling this security by default to keep unwanted third parties out does not necessarily mean I want to also lock out my family. I many not want the PUBLIC reading it but that is different than not wanting family to read it. It also could be related to #1
  - kortilla 6y ago
    You don’t log in as a dead person to close an estate (at least in traditional US financial institutions). There is a process specifically for this and having an account password isn’t helpful.
    - throwawayboise 6y ago
      Yep, been through it twice. Order plenty of official copies of the death certificate, you'll need them.
    - syshum 6y ago
      You assume that the only thing in the password vault is the password to the banking website? Which could not even be used to close my account even if I was the one requesting it and/or you assume the only thing of value after a person is dead is the details of the financial institutions both of which are flawed and erroneous assumptions
cableshaft 6y ago
I did write a physical journal for a couple of years (and tried to start last year again briefly), but it just takes so much time compared to digital. The year I wrote all digital I spent half the time but more than double the detail and word count (like the difference was ~45,000 words a year versus ~123,000 words a year). For the physical one I would spend up to 90 minutes a day sometimes (I can write 2-3k for a single day sometimes) and have terrible hand cramps afterwards. And also as a safety measure I ended up transcribing the physical version to digital anyway. Most of it is notes in regards to studying and coming up with my game designs, but there are also personal life events and last year, some pandemic commentary I included in part just to document parts of this crazy period of time I lived through. 2020 was actually a bad year for writing though, and I only wrote about 47,000 words total last year (and 2021 even worse, I've still only written a couple of entries for this year). Pandemic screwed up my morning 'Go to Starbucks and write in the diary while drinking coffee' habit. But one thing I'm planning to do for the digital years is to (eventually) print out a copy via Lulu or something, so there's still a physical copy somewhere. Also my digital version is in Markdown plain-text on my Dropbox, so it's in the cloud and on every computer I've got. Also eventually I'll probably burn that plus some video/board game files onto a gold archive disc, so it will have a decent chance at still being readable 100+ years in the future, assuming there are still means of reading optical discs.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Yes, having a phisical version is worth it. Reading your writings in a nicely bound Lulu book should elate you, you might even get a new perspective on your ideas. I am a painter and have lots of little format paintings but never had a show nor seen them on a wall and am not intending anytime soon, Id rather spend that time and energy on actual painting. However, I really want to print my works in Lulu books, on volumes by year or some thematic thing. Choosing and picking is keeping me from actually doing it so am looking to pay someone to do it for me.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  People in the past just spent more time doing fewer things. Today we feel rushed in everything we do so we can get on to the next thing. Also, a well considered 45,000 words might be better for the long term than 123,000 words that are stream of consciousness. A lot less to read later, if nothing else.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
satysin 6y ago
I keep a daily journal using the Day One app. [1] It has a nice feature to print-to-order a physical book of your entries. I have done this for a few "collections" of entries such as birthdays, weddings and other special/big events per year. And of course I regularly export my entries to PDF and text files which I keep backed up in several places. While not fool proof I believe it is enough to ensure it is all available if I were to suddenly die tomorrow. Perhaps a few recent entries might get lost if they cannot access the most recent entries locked in Day One but the vast majority should remain. Obviously I don't know if any kids or grandkids (if I have any one day) will ever read all I have written but it will at least be there should they want to :) I don't journal for them though. I do it for myself. Day One prompts me each day to review past entries for the day which I love. I also like to sit down from time to time and read back to past memories. It is full not just for writing but photos, videos, news articles, conversations I've had online, voice memos and a whole bunch of other things. Obviously the videos and voice recordings are not possible in the printed versions but they are all exported and backed up. If anyone reading this is thinking of keeping a journal I can't recommend Day One enough! It is one of the few apps I don't mind paying the yearly subscription for which says a lot as I detest subscription apps generally. [1] https://dayoneapp.com/ https://dayoneapp.com/

This type of 'discovery' won't be possible with the next generation as the digital version of that would be locked on some media (possibly encrypted) somewhere forever.

swalls 6y ago

Good. Just because someone died, doesn't mean their personal writing belongs to you.

syshum 6y ago
it is only good if that was the intention of the descendant, unfortunately we as a culture do not properly plan for death there for I can see a huge amount of data being lost even if the descendant wished for their family to see the data. (or did not have a strong desire for data to die with them)
- tartoran 6y ago
  Yeah, I wonder how many people share their passwords with their loved ones while they’re good and healthy, but disaster can strike anytime. Im thinking of an idea for a service to ping one every 6 months and if no answer is given back in another 6 months, then to allow a designated person to have all pasawords and keys. Some kind of digital will executor or something of the sorts
  - bennyp101 6y ago
    Mine is in a safety deposit box, in 3 envelopes. Each has instructions and part of my private key that can be used to decrypt my files and passwords. Also has the password to my yubikey - which also has the private key on it. Only myself and my wife have access to said box, so if I die, then she can get to all my stuff, if we both die then the kids can get to stuff.
  - astura 6y ago
    No judgement here, just out of curiosity, why? Why do you want your heirs to access your accounts? For what services? What's sort of data is in there?
    - hyperman1 6y ago
      My brother died unexpectedly in his 30s, after years living and studying in another country. Some things: I hope we found every relevant friend and invited them to the funeral. But as he travelled a lot, they are all over the planet, and the chance we found them all is basically zero. The only reason we found out about his first serious girlfriend was because he told about her a week before on the phone. We went to his country, hired a van, stuffed cleaned out his apartment, cancelled every service we found out, then went back home. We presume everything settled, but you have to know about a service to cancel it. I hope whoever hired his house did not get too much trouble with angry debtors and such. We found out about sides of him we never knew about. There might be other things, we'll never know. This is very hard for my parents. Some unscrupulous companies read obituaries and send a bill. Really. We had 2 companies billing him for services never delivered, just hoping the heirs would pay them. We did not manage to enter his gmail account. Google did not grant us access even when presenting a death certificate. They suggested we contacted an USA judge, and required everything done according to USA law, even if everything relevant happened in the EU. I still feel bitter about their total lack of sympathy and cooperation.
      - Sunspark 6y ago
        I don't know that you should feel bitter. If the situation was reversed, would you be ok with people going through your personal correspondence?
        hyperman1 6y ago
        I assume it depends upon the person. For me: If I am dead, why not. Our main purpose was followiup of whoever would mail him, just as would happen with physical letters. We did in fact have access for a few hours by using his cell phone, for which he gave us the pin code. But moving the phone to another country triggerred some safety mode and Google wanted the full password. Trouble with Google was: They agreed we had right for access. But their process was built with the assumption that only people in the USA could die.
tartoran 6y ago
There’s a good and a bad in it. But a lot of good stuff came out from people who died, great stories, artworks and so on. Why would it not be a part of the cultural treasure?
archontes 6y ago
That's exactly what someone dying means. Their possessions pass to their heirs.
vlunkr 6y ago
Exactly, they belong to the good folks at facebook. On a serious note though, I think most people write journals with the intent of passing them down.
nirav72 6y ago
So are you saying an heir has no right to his/her grandparents writings?
astura 6y ago
Legally, this is incorrect, all possessions are passed onto heirs when one dies, which includes papers/writings/recordings. Heir(s) become the new legal owner and may do whatever they wish with the documents. It can arguably be morally questionable to read and/or publish some writings if the author wrote them with the intention of keeping them private forever. Of course, if the deceased doesn't tell you you'd have to guess. At the same time the person is dead so you can't exactly hurt their feelings, and presumably they knew the risk of writing something down is that we it might be read by the non-intended audience. Though you can hurt the feelings of other people who know the deceased and/or have a vested interest in controlling their legacy. You might also hurt people who are the subject of those writings. I think I understand what you mean though, with digital assets one can actually prevent private writings and thoughts from being read by others after death, if that's what the author actually desires, in a way you really can't do with physical assets. This is arguably good as it better honors the wishes of the deceased. However, in this case this is a memoir, which are generally wrote to be read. I'm with you though, I want my thoughts to die with me.

rightbyte 6y ago

Ye and photos will be gone too ... I buy printed photo books to at-least try to keep some pictures.

astura 6y ago

Oh, stop, the vast majority of people of any generation don't write memoirs to be discovered in the first place. What I suspect is most typical? - My grandfather on my dad's side was illiterate and my grandma (his wife) is barely literate, so I don't think she'd ever write down anything more than a grocery list. Beyond that, if someone wants you to have/read something, they'd give it to you. If someone encrypts their writing or puts it behind a login, it's because they don't want you reading it.

syshum 6y ago
Well that is not actually true for at-least 2 reasons 1. There are many things I do not want my family to access to today while I am alive, but wish them to have access to them if I were to die. My password vault as an example, they will need access to that to close my estate more easily 2. Many programs by default today have some kind of strong security, simply enabling this security by default to keep unwanted third parties out does not necessarily mean I want to also lock out my family. I many not want the PUBLIC reading it but that is different than not wanting family to read it. It also could be related to #1
- kortilla 6y ago
  You don’t log in as a dead person to close an estate (at least in traditional US financial institutions). There is a process specifically for this and having an account password isn’t helpful.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    Yep, been through it twice. Order plenty of official copies of the death certificate, you'll need them.
  - syshum 6y ago
    You assume that the only thing in the password vault is the password to the banking website? Which could not even be used to close my account even if I was the one requesting it and/or you assume the only thing of value after a person is dead is the details of the financial institutions both of which are flawed and erroneous assumptions

cableshaft 6y ago

I did write a physical journal for a couple of years (and tried to start last year again briefly), but it just takes so much time compared to digital. The year I wrote all digital I spent half the time but more than double the detail and word count (like the difference was ~45,000 words a year versus ~123,000 words a year). For the physical one I would spend up to 90 minutes a day sometimes (I can write 2-3k for a single day sometimes) and have terrible hand cramps afterwards. And also as a safety measure I ended up transcribing the physical version to digital anyway. Most of it is notes in regards to studying and coming up with my game designs, but there are also personal life events and last year, some pandemic commentary I included in part just to document parts of this crazy period of time I lived through. 2020 was actually a bad year for writing though, and I only wrote about 47,000 words total last year (and 2021 even worse, I've still only written a couple of entries for this year). Pandemic screwed up my morning 'Go to Starbucks and write in the diary while drinking coffee' habit. But one thing I'm planning to do for the digital years is to (eventually) print out a copy via Lulu or something, so there's still a physical copy somewhere. Also my digital version is in Markdown plain-text on my Dropbox, so it's in the cloud and on every computer I've got. Also eventually I'll probably burn that plus some video/board game files onto a gold archive disc, so it will have a decent chance at still being readable 100+ years in the future, assuming there are still means of reading optical discs.

tartoran 6y ago
Yes, having a phisical version is worth it. Reading your writings in a nicely bound Lulu book should elate you, you might even get a new perspective on your ideas. I am a painter and have lots of little format paintings but never had a show nor seen them on a wall and am not intending anytime soon, Id rather spend that time and energy on actual painting. However, I really want to print my works in Lulu books, on volumes by year or some thematic thing. Choosing and picking is keeping me from actually doing it so am looking to pay someone to do it for me.
throwawayboise 6y ago
People in the past just spent more time doing fewer things. Today we feel rushed in everything we do so we can get on to the next thing. Also, a well considered 45,000 words might be better for the long term than 123,000 words that are stream of consciousness. A lot less to read later, if nothing else.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

satysin 6y ago

I keep a daily journal using the Day One app. [1] It has a nice feature to print-to-order a physical book of your entries. I have done this for a few "collections" of entries such as birthdays, weddings and other special/big events per year. And of course I regularly export my entries to PDF and text files which I keep backed up in several places. While not fool proof I believe it is enough to ensure it is all available if I were to suddenly die tomorrow. Perhaps a few recent entries might get lost if they cannot access the most recent entries locked in Day One but the vast majority should remain. Obviously I don't know if any kids or grandkids (if I have any one day) will ever read all I have written but it will at least be there should they want to :) I don't journal for them though. I do it for myself. Day One prompts me each day to review past entries for the day which I love. I also like to sit down from time to time and read back to past memories. It is full not just for writing but photos, videos, news articles, conversations I've had online, voice memos and a whole bunch of other things. Obviously the videos and voice recordings are not possible in the printed versions but they are all exported and backed up. If anyone reading this is thinking of keeping a journal I can't recommend Day One enough! It is one of the few apps I don't mind paying the yearly subscription for which says a lot as I detest subscription apps generally. [1] https://dayoneapp.com/ https://dayoneapp.com/