IWETHEY v. 0.3.0 | TODO
1,095 registered users | 0 active users | 0 LpH | Statistics
Login | Create New User
IWETHEY Banner

Welcome to IWETHEY!

New Digital dark ages
There's about 30 years of history that won't exist, because it was only recorded electronically, in formats that no one will be able to read any more.
--

Drew
New Ehh?
As compared to the previous era, when the VAST amount of any personal historical and corporate data is saved on various scraps of paper, easily lost, molded, burned, and destroyed?

We keep WAY more now than we did 30 years ago. And we still print and sign and notarise and file away or place in safe deposit box the really important docs.

I think you have an unrealistic expectation of perfect recoverability in an instant. How long did it take them to piece together the dead sea scrolls? How many other bits of information and historical record were lost over the years, and is the norm?

How many libraries of once off works have been burned over the years? Lots.

We now have much of the thought / supporting information in email trails that then produce a joint decision of the final doc that everyone else sees. In the past you'd NEVER have that info. So now, you want it ALL, FOREVER?

Just because we CAN have perfect digital recovery doesn't mean we WILL. In who's interest is it, and who is willing to pay for it?
New Longer term
Since you brought up the Dead Sea Scrolls, how much of what we currently record -- in any format -- do you expect to last for 2,000 years? Unless someone goes far out of their way to ensure longevity, we aren't producing anything that will last that long.

So no, I'm not looking for perfect recoverability. But I think most of what we "archive" isn't really designed to last more than 30-50 years. And don't say we keep the important stuff. Look at the problems people have establishing title in houses. Sure, that involves fraud, but good archiving requires good intent and good execution.
--

Drew
New house titles are managed thru tax stamps
to move title you need to go to the courthouse and record the transaction and pay the stamp duties. That document is filed sequentially with the book and page being entered into an index that describes the transaction, property and names involved. This stuff is digitally available but the original books have been kept back to pre-independence days in the original 13 colonies. In Louisiana title is murkier due to french book keeping and in new mexico some of the original spanish land grants were a tad murky. All of the rest of it was stolen fair and aquare and recorded as such.
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 55 years. meep
New Not much. Why should it?

Since you brought up the Dead Sea Scrolls, how much of what we currently record -- in any format -- do you expect to last for 2,000 years? Unless someone goes far out of their way to ensure longevity, we aren't producing anything that will last that long.


Pick a format and type of data since I'm not sure. Personal? Random crap on disks over the years. It dies when the disk does unless your kids are techs and cared.

Business? Depends on laws and cost of disk space.

Government? Lots should, few are willing to pay. Expect most of it to get bitrot since it is in large databases and will go poof when machines go away. Or off to tapes at Iron Mountain, never to be read again. So yeah, print your gov docs.

Things attached to emails? PDF is the norm right now, and that WILL last. You think sometime in the future we will lose the ability to read PDFs? No. The email system itself? Sure. In most cases there is lots of warning, and the ability to migrate to something else. If not, it's a backup issue, not archive.

A particular format associated with a particular device or software program? If you cared, you'd convert it to something else if you can, and not use the device or program if you can't.

Sure, I know vendor lockin. It's been dealt with for years. Someone chooses to lock in, they usually CHOSE it. The options are out there not to, it is up to the individual decision maker to choose one that fits their needs, not some generic desire to save everything forever.

f'ing packrat.

So please give me the particular issue and I'll try to envision, but until then not really sure if it qualifies for something to care about.

As far as title, as box said, this is pretty much a known issue with known solutions. But it is also one of the most argued and litigated one since the stakes are so high. As someone who JUST got our title insurance package 2 hours ago, and read it in detail (oh my brain hurts), I'm sure THESE docs will ALWAYS be available electronically.

Try something else. I'd suggest medical records, but then you'd know I'm setting you up.
Expand Edited by crazy May 3, 2012, 04:32:45 PM EDT
New Specifics are easy
I'm talking about history. No matter how much time people spend worrying about their legacy, history is mostly decided by people looking back, not people looking forward.

My point is, communication used to be mostly committed to physical media that had a usable lifetime measured at least in hundreds of years, if not thousands. Today? Most stuff disappears after a few decades. Unless, as you said, you take explicit (and costly) measures to roll it over for another generation. And like I said, we don't know what's going to be important to people in a hundred years.

One example from medicine: We want to know how many people died from a recently-documented condition, say lead poisoning from paint. We don't have hospital records -- any cases would have been diagnosed as something else -- but we do have diaries and news stories and incidental documentation we can use to make some estimates.

We have the historically important information by accident. The intentionally maintained records didn't have what we need. With magnetic media, we won't have accidental history any more. Only the stuff that was so obviously useful that it was worth the expense to preserve it.
--

Drew
New History (and Herstory) .. I believe you've got-it, overall..
'It' is indeed about keeping some pathways Open.. via intelligent >premeditation<
(however arduous: yet doable In Future IF.. someone wants that sort of info (enough!) for purposes yet unconceived.

Lead paint example is excellent; medicine is Such a reactionary pseudo-science.. and MDs are crammed full of latin names during that 4?-year cram-course 24/7.
(They end-up so often, >next< "diagnosing" some non-specific-itis == We Haven't a Clue, etc.)

[rhetorical question]
Even today: how l o n g shall. it. take. for the autopsy on the Greed Heads most directly-responsible for the Las Vegas Bets LOST??
--but *NOT* 'lost'* (in continuous profits) to the actual Perps whose arrant knavery merely enriched them further?
[/qed]

'Course they Own the mass media; wonder what-possibly that might have to do with ...?
the water-cooled shredders and other burials of incriminating evidence ... surely the macerating of important e-mails, docs etc. As we speak.

We are so corrupt that the micro-Cheney unit is irrelevant--we need the Mega-Cheney to capture the full measure of our lie-based self-modifying 'history' machine.

(Irrelevant to topic, of course: you speak of easing the work of cultural anthropologists yet to come; they concern themselves -hourly- with covering all the Greed-tracks possible.)
Immanent corruption in the species transliterates to guaranteed infinite loopholes in the fabrication of 'governance' rulez. Wash, rinse..
DAMN how we LIE/always Have Lied) to our kids. I recall this civics course..

No wonder there's an appetite for speed, coke, weed, etc.
ANYoldTHING to escape some/any! deep, emotional Awareness of the actual nature of today's maya.
[Thanx , Sanskrit!, for some timeless words with fucking-Clear Referents which can't be spun by your daily Masters of Cupidity]
==ie Don't even Try! Mr. Candidate Rmoney.. ... but you Will.

Rest Case: We're Fucked. Relax and enjoy the soap opera, though for you'unses with kinder?
sincere condolences, all things considered. Fortunately for them is that they have a great capacity for Hope, which is never a bad thing. The best shall carve out an oasis amidst the madness. It ain't Götterdammerung, by a long shot: that mindset is reserved only for those who expected continuing infinite Consumption of everything. Heh..

.hr

Law above fear, justice above law, mercy above justice, love above all.
     further to scary legacy system - (rcareaga) - (10)
         :-) It's good it wasn't paper tape from a teletype! -NT - (Another Scott)
         That was a WOW! -NT - (crazy)
         Digital dark ages - (drook) - (6)
             Ehh? - (crazy) - (5)
                 Longer term - (drook) - (4)
                     house titles are managed thru tax stamps - (boxley)
                     Not much. Why should it? - (crazy) - (2)
                         Specifics are easy - (drook) - (1)
                             History (and Herstory) .. I believe you've got-it, overall.. - (Ashton)
         thats a win, congrats! -NT - (boxley)

My pain became my strength I am reborn I'm deaf not dumb lest you forget.
51 ms