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Rosetta Disk Designed For 2,000 Years Archive
Hugh Pickens writes "Kevin Kelly has an interesting post about an archive designed with an estimated lifespan of 2,000 -10,000 years to serve future generations as a modern Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta disk contains analog 'human-readable' scans of scripts, text, and diagrams using nickel deposited on an etched silicon disk and includes 15,000 microetched pages of language documentation in 1,500 different languages, including versions of Genesis 1-3, a universal list of the words common for each language, and pronunciation guides. Produced by the Long Now Foundation, the plan is to replicate the disk promiscuously and distribute them around the world in nondescript locations so at least one will survive their 2,000-year lifespan. 'This is one of the most fascinating objects on earth,' says Oliver Wilke. 'If we found one of these things 2,000 years ago, with all the languages of the time, it would be among our most priceless artifacts. I feel a high responsibility for preserving it for future generations.'"
With the way things are going very soon the Bible will be the only book that's out of copyright....
Cruise TT
This thing will end up in 2000 years on someones altar as they make sacrifices to some weird god thinking it's a source of untold power. Then some nut with a hat and whip will come along and steal it for a museum only to have it end up on a coffee table somewhere.
Or...
2000 years from now some primitive creature will be trying to crack some kind of nut for food and end up using this as a fancy nut cracker.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
That's a lot of Phil Collins - three Genesis albums!
Surely a greater variety would have given a broader view of our world! Maybe some Elton John, and Boney M at least!
you start simple and work your way up from there...
MP3 Search Engine
To give an idea of how embarrassing this will be, think of it like this: Bible-thumpers are the old Trekkies.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
replicate the disk promiscuously
Only nerds too long in their basements would use this kind of terminology !
The rest of us would say "make a lot of copies".
What other texts do we have that has a similar chance of surviving? There are a lot of texts that are revered to some extent
the man pages for emacs?
This sounds great. Now we need one with a copy of Wikipedia on it, so that all human knowledge can be preserved as well.
Permission from who? The Illuminati?
Do you have their email address?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd just send them the url to xkcd. Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.
You are welcome on my lawn.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health, and the preservation of their language, what have the Romans ever done for us?
"Emit gas from your third thoraxial smell-sac. Retract the parietal spikes in your stomach, and slightly part your mandibles. Now declench both dorsal sphincters and force the gas out by pushing into your abdomen with your tarsal claws. Make sure to close your nasal glands if the listeners hide is not resistant to corrosive acid. A smile is always free."
No, vi.
The translation of the Bible is actually useful. 2000 years from now with zombie hordes roaming the earth and humanity scattered and hiding, it will be very helpful to know who was Zombie-0.
That's a ridiculous comparison. The bible is fictional.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
That's why you would hide it in an intuitive place. In the middle of the biggest crater on the moon, for example, inside a big, obviously artificial thing. A black monolith, say.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Speak for yourself, man, all the geeks in us already found a better way long time ago. We store our important stuffs for long term archival in newsgroups.
Why not include the tool to read the document with the document?
That's how they make their money! It's brilliant! Give away the media for free, then in 2,000 years, sell the 500x microscope "readers" for a *huge* profit! Just make sure the teaser text and critical reviews are readable by the naked eye.
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
Ed is the standard text editor.
You'd know that information replication can lead to viral outbreaks of learning, unplanned knowledge, and not voting Republican.
http://goatse.cz/
You nerds love it!
Says the guy who has goatse bookmarked.
The problem, as usual, is in the presentation bias.
I got myself a copy of this rosetta thing and well, see for yourself:
Sad.
"All power to the engines". - Come on, brush up on your Futurama!
Jonathanjk.com
...and how would that show we are not superstitious? Can you imagine what sort of picture a future archaeologist would paint of our society using Harry Potter as a basis? Mind you the "historical" re-enactments would be fun to watch.
Yeah, we allowed idiots acess to the internet.
Or are you you arrogant and ignorant as to believe the only things that have so influenced mankind have only been produced within the last century?
Oops, did somebody shit in your cereal this morning?
Sorry. I get confused in the morning sometimes, I guess I found my way into his kitchen by mistake.
I'll try to avoid further kitchen-defecation.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...