Re: Media mortality (< facing your own mortality)

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 10:50 AM,  <li_sasxsek@...> wrote:
>  there's always the option to print out
> material that is digitally stored so you don't lose hardcopy
> ability.
Right.  The only point Tristan and others were making in this thread
is that folks who care what happens after they're gone NEED TO DO
THAT.

It doesn't matter that there are a gazillion benefits to digital
storage - nobody was disagreeing there. Of course there are; that's
why everything is stored that way now.  But hardcopy can be deciphered
centuries hence even if people have lost the encryption keys - heck,
encryption algorithms - and format specifications needed to make sense
of a DVD (assuming that the data is even still viable and they even
recognize that a DVD contains information in the first place).

I have stuff still on 5.25" floppies, too - including my first random
vocabulary-generator program for the Commodore.  Ironically I've lost
all the copies I made at various times onto various PC hard drives,
but the original floppies are still there...
--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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