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Archiving Digital Data an Unsolved Problem
mattnyc99 writes, "It's a huge challenge: how to store digital files so future generations can access them, from engineering plans to family photos. The documents of our time are being recorded as bits and bytes with no guarantee of readability down the line. And as technologies change, we may find our files frozen in forgotten formats. Popular Mechanics asks: Will an entire era of human history be lost?" From the article: "[US national archivist] Thibodeau hopes to develop a system that preserves any type of document — created on any application and any computing platform, and delivered on any digital media — for as long as the United States remains a republic. Complicating matters further, the archive needs to be searchable. When Thibodeau told the head of a government research lab about his mission, the man replied, 'Your problem is so big, it's probably stupid to try and solve it.'"
Since I shoot RAW, I also burn a copy of dcraw.c onto every disc - so even if the current platforms get lost by the wayside, there will be code to convert them still.
;)
Storage itself? Currently burning onto Delkin Archival Gold, storing cool and dark, and in two physically distant locations.
They're also stored on my harddisk, and the best are backed up onto a USB drive.
If it looks like the DVD-ROM drive is becoming obsolete I'll burn them on to whatever comes along next.
If you're truly paranoid you can always print them on archival quality paper using pigment based inks
Sure it is, it means without lack of regard. :-P
republic (plural republics)
1. A state where sovereignty rests with the people or their representatives, rather than with a monarch or emperor; a country with no monarchy.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/republic
No. he said "X never, ever marks the spot.' and then later, 'X marks the spot.'
Personally I think it's wonderful that the Romans were so kind as to give us such a great plot device.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Orwell's beliefs about the control of the past, including the recent past, also derived from his experiences in the Spanish civil war, where he found that "no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain for the first time I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts." http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p--9_Bennett.html Just a point on your side...