5 ms·

Cheapest ? No. Most effective ? No. Most persistent ? No. They compare with disks but don't compare it with other materials such as marble.

debdut 5y ago
Marble reacts with almost anything, gold and nickel is the last thing to react. Elementary school chemistry: Gold is the least reactive metal
- human 5y ago
  This. And I always laugh when people say gold has no value. It’s literally the best metal known to mankind. The reason why it’s not used much is because of its price.
  - Smoosh 5y ago
    > It’s literally the best metal For some particular values of "best". As gold is rather malleable (soft), these plates would probably scratch easily.
  - bjowen 5y ago
    There’s a lesson here in what “value” means. But - try to handle some fine gold one day. It is lustrous, but also incredibly easy to dent - drop it and it’ll scratch like a 2010s-era phone. It is easy to work, but won’t hold its shape. If we had oceans of the stuff, we still wouldn’t use it to make a car or a laptop or a pistol or a building, it would take the place of lead in things like counterweights and radiation shielding, maybe home insulation or cooking foil, places where its softness and density aren't too much of a drawback but the low reactivity is beneficial.
    - human 5y ago
      Yes, of course, it’s not for all cases. One interesting thing though with gold is that it can be melted and reworked basically forever. This means that if you own gold today, your great-great-great-grandchildren could still be using it in 1000 years. This is not true of most materials. Gold’s value is basically the present value of all future uses.
- shakna 5y ago
  > Elementary school chemistry: Gold is the least reactive metal Yet another case of elementry school chemistry over-simplifying and getting things wrong. Silver and platinum compete with gold, even if you stay within the realm of elementary school definitions of metal.
  - patrec 5y ago
    Let me guess, you don't own any silverware?
    - shakna 5y ago
      I have both goldware and silverware. But that's pretty much irrelevant, as they're alloys. Platinum is the least reactive of the things people recognise as metals.
      - patrec 5y ago
        You're right that silverware will tarnish much more quickly because of the addition of copper (and possibly other metals) -- so a bad example from me. But whilst pure silver is much more resilient to tarnishing, it will still slowly tarnish because even normal indoor air is prone to contain trace amounts of gasses with sulfur like hydrogen sulfide, which will react with the silver. Whereas I don't think pure gold does. My guess would also be that most people who had school chemistry would order the silver, gold and platinum correctly in terms of their relative reactivity (and value) because this replicates exactly the order of fanciness of credit cards, record sales etc.
dn3500 5y ago
Marble is too soft. Granite is better. I've made arrangements for my most important personal data (full name, birth and death dates) to be engraved on a granite slab when I die. This slab will be physically arranged alongside others, one for each family member, showing the relationships among people. This will be set up in a special location set aside for that purpose, outdoors safe from fire and building collapse. I expect the data to still be readable hundreds of years from now.
- pstuart 5y ago
  Until the property gets developed a couple decades later and they "move it".
  - krasin 5y ago
    Egyptian pharaohs knew a solution to that problem.
    - b3lvedere 5y ago
      It seems the larger the size of your grave, the better it gets preserved. :) I wonder if Jezz Bezos will have build something that's even bigger than a pyramid or the Taj Mahal. Maybe he'll buy half the moon or something.
  - myth_drannon 5y ago
    Bring a bouldozer, load everything on a dump track and dump it in a nearby forest.
- valyagolev 5y ago
  are those things your most important personal data? if i cared this much i’d probably prefer to leave a sentence or two rather than my proper name…
- jaza 5y ago
  I can imagine that, in the near future, there will be headstones in cemeteries, with nothing on them except a QR code, which will require an app to scan, and a key to decrypt the data. I wonder what future civilisations - where smartphones and encryption algorithms have been long lost - will make of that? And we thought the Egyptians left us a tough one to crack!

debdut 5y ago

Marble reacts with almost anything, gold and nickel is the last thing to react. Elementary school chemistry: Gold is the least reactive metal

human 5y ago
This. And I always laugh when people say gold has no value. It’s literally the best metal known to mankind. The reason why it’s not used much is because of its price.
- Smoosh 5y ago
  > It’s literally the best metal For some particular values of "best". As gold is rather malleable (soft), these plates would probably scratch easily.
- bjowen 5y ago
  There’s a lesson here in what “value” means. But - try to handle some fine gold one day. It is lustrous, but also incredibly easy to dent - drop it and it’ll scratch like a 2010s-era phone. It is easy to work, but won’t hold its shape. If we had oceans of the stuff, we still wouldn’t use it to make a car or a laptop or a pistol or a building, it would take the place of lead in things like counterweights and radiation shielding, maybe home insulation or cooking foil, places where its softness and density aren't too much of a drawback but the low reactivity is beneficial.
  - human 5y ago
    Yes, of course, it’s not for all cases. One interesting thing though with gold is that it can be melted and reworked basically forever. This means that if you own gold today, your great-great-great-grandchildren could still be using it in 1000 years. This is not true of most materials. Gold’s value is basically the present value of all future uses.
shakna 5y ago
> Elementary school chemistry: Gold is the least reactive metal Yet another case of elementry school chemistry over-simplifying and getting things wrong. Silver and platinum compete with gold, even if you stay within the realm of elementary school definitions of metal.
- patrec 5y ago
  Let me guess, you don't own any silverware?
  - shakna 5y ago
    I have both goldware and silverware. But that's pretty much irrelevant, as they're alloys. Platinum is the least reactive of the things people recognise as metals.
    - patrec 5y ago
      You're right that silverware will tarnish much more quickly because of the addition of copper (and possibly other metals) -- so a bad example from me. But whilst pure silver is much more resilient to tarnishing, it will still slowly tarnish because even normal indoor air is prone to contain trace amounts of gasses with sulfur like hydrogen sulfide, which will react with the silver. Whereas I don't think pure gold does. My guess would also be that most people who had school chemistry would order the silver, gold and platinum correctly in terms of their relative reactivity (and value) because this replicates exactly the order of fanciness of credit cards, record sales etc.

dn3500 5y ago

Marble is too soft. Granite is better. I've made arrangements for my most important personal data (full name, birth and death dates) to be engraved on a granite slab when I die. This slab will be physically arranged alongside others, one for each family member, showing the relationships among people. This will be set up in a special location set aside for that purpose, outdoors safe from fire and building collapse. I expect the data to still be readable hundreds of years from now.

pstuart 5y ago
Until the property gets developed a couple decades later and they "move it".
- krasin 5y ago
  Egyptian pharaohs knew a solution to that problem.
  - b3lvedere 5y ago
    It seems the larger the size of your grave, the better it gets preserved. :) I wonder if Jezz Bezos will have build something that's even bigger than a pyramid or the Taj Mahal. Maybe he'll buy half the moon or something.
- myth_drannon 5y ago
  Bring a bouldozer, load everything on a dump track and dump it in a nearby forest.
valyagolev 5y ago
are those things your most important personal data? if i cared this much i’d probably prefer to leave a sentence or two rather than my proper name…
jaza 5y ago
I can imagine that, in the near future, there will be headstones in cemeteries, with nothing on them except a QR code, which will require an app to scan, and a key to decrypt the data. I wonder what future civilisations - where smartphones and encryption algorithms have been long lost - will make of that? And we thought the Egyptians left us a tough one to crack!