NIck-
Just to tie two threads together (why not after all?), I'm just now
reading Russell's paper as produced for us by Owen, and I'm left with
the niggling feeling that they have a strong theoretical connection
between your (quoting Doug here) Big, Bold, Naive Question (implied if
not stated, "why can't I read my old e-mail?") and Complexity (the
nominal topic of this group?).
Your hard drive on your _Rainbow in the Attic_ (there's a title for a
book in itself!) contains a bit string (not all that long compared to
today's hard drive sizes) that has a certain amount of information.
Assuming no physical/magnetic damage to the platter(s) the problem of
extracting the information is "context", roughly in the same sense as
Russell's (in response to Kolmogorov Complexity measures and the paradox
produced by the Invariance Theorem). Since nominally your mail is in
clear ASCII text with (probably) even ASCII text
headers/wrappers/indices/etc. then *most* of the context is already
known (guessable/verifiable).
Mind you, I'm not offering to go dig out your mail for you, as I would
have done the same from one or another of my own _Digital Fossils in the
Basement_ (second in the series of books you just inspired). I'm just
introspecting (extrospecting, speculating out loud, expectorating?)
about the tie in and the possible reality of your point about "some
industry develop sometime of recovering old ..." coming true.
It seems quite possible that the biggest hurdle will the
physical/electronic/magnetic extraction, just as OCR problems went from
optical and algorithmic limits to "how fast and accurately can you turn
a page, load a book, pull a book from a shelf?" I got to see a
prototype of what *had to be* a pneumatic driven, high speed book reader
that was built for Google (Books?) by colleagues of mine (who were
under non-disclosure) and came to appreciate this particular reality
(so many books, so little time).
Maybe there will be an electromagnetic version of the relatively
inexpensive laser scanners of today (NextEngine) or DIY Structured Light
(ala Ambient Pixel) which can pull bits right off of platters without
spinning them up or removing them from their spindles and cases... at
which point the problem becomes a bit like OCR and the same kind of
"semantic" error correction that is helping Google Voice and I assume
Google Books to handle low fidelity data and/or recognize
format/indexing information (like chapter and heading titles, page
numbers, etc.)
This all ties back to the work I'm (re)discovering by our own Russel
Standish (putting another half-hitch in the threads being tangled here)
and his use of "Syntactic" and "Semantic" in relationship to *Emergence* .
I understand there are already people who consider themselves "digital
archaeologists", so this may not be so far fetched. As for who would
pay for such things, it seems like the "digital paparazzi" are good
candidates (as you imply with the Bill/Paula correspondences). In
today's technology, I would expect someone to find captured Skype
streams of virtual infidelities between people of such high profile!
No end of the fun to be had out there... be careful and keep a low profile!
- Steve
Steve,
I think the Rainbow is still in my attic in Massachusetts!
So, when you are getting together your Museum of Computer Arcania, you
can have it.
There's pretty much a decade of correspondence up there on disks that
nobody can read, any more. Good thing none of my students ever became
a president ... or was seduced by one. I lost another five years when
I got mad at Outlook and switched to Earthlink's */Total Abcess/*.
They announced one day that they weren't supporting it any more and
... that was that! Believe it or not, there was no way to bring those
files over into another mail program. Even Dot Foil couldn't do it.
What will be the computer equivalent of the Box of Lincoln's letters
uncovered in an old lady's attic in Peioria? Will an industry develop
some time in the future of recovering old cp/m disks at vast
expense? Bill's love emails to Paula Jones?
Nick
*From:*Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 05, 2013 9:10 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Arcane Points
Nick -
There have to be *some* APs in there for you... certainly your
reference to the old Dec RAINBOW kicked a few neurons loose. Samna
rings a bell, didn't they get bought up by Lotus? This kicks loose a
cascade of neurons around the whole spreadsheet legacy of
visicalc/123/improv!
Thanks, I'll be up all night dreaming pivot tables and projections of
OLAP hypercubes!
- Steve
How about A.P.'s for a word processor called Samna running on cpm
on a computer called a Rainbow? Had some features that Word has
yet to introduce.
N
*From:*Friam [mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*Steve Smith
*Sent:* Tuesday, February 05, 2013 1:40 PM
*To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
*Subject:* [FRIAM] Arcane Points
Robert -
Can I get some Arcane Points for writing my first _program_ in
ISO coded Atlas Autocode on an EELM KDF9?
Robert C
I'm not sure what is required for granting Arcane Points...
certainly, without help from Dr. Internet, I don't have a clue
about these referencesI
I suppose there is a "sweet spot" where *at least* one other
member of the group recognizes the reference... but obviously not
too many. And I suppose that only makes them Obscure, not Arcane.
Merriam Webster seems to distinguish Arcane from Obscure by
invoking an element of the Mysterious or the Occult. I think
there is an overtone of being therefore only known to "the
Initiate". I suppose all of our references to Obscure (or
Arcane) details is motivated by rememberances of our time as
"Initiates", sort of offering a "secret handshake" from an old
fraternity or childhood treehouse-club?
Let's see who has an EELM KDF9 in their cupboard or a reference
manual to Atlas Autocode in their bookshelf!
- Steve
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