This is a real problem for digital photography. Kodachrome slides and black and white negatives have an expected life of hundreds of years if stored properly, but digital files must be transferred from hard drive to hard drive, and if the software changes significantly, they are lost. Moreover, there appears to be such a thing as "CD rot," where cheap CDs become unreadable after relatively short periods of time. I am keeping my thousands of slides and negatives, and may, if I have the time, start learning how to coat glass plates.
On Sep 22, 10:55 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]> wrote: > Yep I'm with you. We now have lots of internet resources, The > Guttenburg Project etc.. and I envisgae many more of the same. > > On 22 Sep, 15:24, Lonlaz <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I don't think it would be a problem for future humans (or aliens) to > > be able to retrieve and playback digital data. Hobbiests/hackers do > > this sort of thing in their spare time for fun, an archeologist from > > 4200 AD should have no problem. As someone mentioned, it remains to > > be seen if much will be able to survive. Will harddrives and flash > > disks be salvagable? > > > Is this dilemma much different from our current situation? How much > > day to day information is not available to us from times of > > antiquity. Sure, we have the things that are carved in stone, and > > written on papyrus stored in ideal conditions. This, of course leaves > > out anything that may have rotted/disintegrated, any oral traditions, > > anything written in sand. How can we know how much we don't know? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
