[The] problem of long-term digital storage seemed a crucial hurdle for any civilization trying to act generationaly. How could a society think in terms of centuries unless there was a reliable way to transmit and store its knowledge over centuries? […] Norsam promised to micro-etch 350,000 pages of information onto a 3-inch nickel disk with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years.
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During a Long Now field trip to a southwest archaeological site, the idea of a modern Rosetta Stone came up — a backup of human languages that future generations might cherish. At a winter retreat in 1999, Long Now board member Doug Carlston suggested that for the parallel common text of this modern Rosetta Stone we should use the book of Genesis, since it was most likely already translated into all languages already.
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Following the archiving principle of LOCKS (Lots of Copies Keep ’em Safe) we would replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world with built in magnifiers. This project in long term thinking would do two things: it would showcase this new long-term storage technology, and it would give the world a minimal backup of human languages. We thought it might take a year to do.Long story short, it took eight years.
10,000 years from now surviving cockroaches will not care.
The expression ‘written in stone’ is exactly as it is for a very good reason!
The Rosetta stone survived for that aspect of it’s construction; everything else will likely turn to dust including this disc.
Having said that, the Rosetta Disc is a brilliant concept.
#1 – Religion is the reason only cockroaches will be left. It’s Muslims against Jews, Catholics against the Protestants and on and on. I like the idea of dead religions!
#3 Possibly. I anticipate that the probability of humans wiping ourselves out is very high within 10,000 years.
Considering the abilities of the few to cause catastrophic harm to many – just in the last 100 years, does not bode well for humans to make it through 10,000 years from now.
Religion oriented pissing contests is but one of several top root causes for self annihilation. The piss is getting more deadly every day.
#5 – Eric – I hope they get some other texts down the road…
Texts? Images and videos… I’m sure the porn industry wouldn’t mind having their stuff archived.
How can I (ego) save my data for 10,000 years?
You honestly think in 10,000 years someone’s going to have a CD-ROM drive laying around?
The Scientologists will love this.
I’m still trying to figure out how to get my thesis off tape cassettes from the ’80s.
Who thinks a civilization, a thousand years from know will be able to read a CD?
This is true if they are living in caves or living in space.
Project Guttenberg has it right — survivability demands simplicity.
Create a standard so simple that it can be machine upgradable to whatever new storage technology comes along. (Or downgradeable, if civilization collapses.)
>> Judge Jewdy
>> #1 – Religion is the reason only cockroaches will be left. It’s Muslims against Jews, Catholics against the Protestants and on and on. I like the idea of dead religions!
That’s right. The Atheists were so gentle when they ran governments under Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot.
They were so gentle when they tried to get rid of religion.
#11 – So what’s worse, merely killing the stupid or just brainwashing them, extracting money from them over time and molesting their children?
#11, you fail to see the difference between an atheist and a religion exterminator.
I wonder why it it round? Being round suggests that it be rotated in some way to be accessed. Also, it’s an inefficient and awkward way to compress graphic data that is displayed as linear. Why is it better than microfiche, which is cheaper and easier to duplicate (and renew) with simple technology?
11-I see you are continuing to link atheism with monsters like Stalin.
Stalin’s policies didn’t come about because of his atheism, it came about because he was a tyrant who believed his way was the only way that mattered (remind you much of Dumbya?)
The fact that he was an atheist had NOTHING TO DO with his policies of hate and destruction. It was simply a note on his biography.
But religious fanatics like you, desperate in your attempt to defame atheists, won’t let a little thing like the TRUTH get in your way, would you?
Nah.
Give that disc to a toddler and see how many minutes it will last.
If all you pessimists are correct, sentient cockroaches may very well appreciate this archaeological aid. This seems a fantastic idea. I hope they manage to get thousands of these discs made.
BTW – for those of you who wrote without reading first, the discs are NOT digital. They are good, old fashioned analog. The text is etched in miniature so small you need serious magnification to read it.
I do wish they’d found something better than Genesis to use but it’s a start.