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Thanks For the ... Eight-Track, Uncle Alex
Uncle Alex writes "My niece just turned one year old and her parents have asked that, instead of the usual gifts, we each contribute something to a time capsule to be opened on her 17th birthday. Multiple members of my family want to contribute digital data — text, video, music files. They came to me (the closest thing to a geek our family has) wondering: what's the best way to save the data to ensure she'll actually be able to see it in 16 years? Software might be out of date, hardware may no longer be used... any suggestions?"
The only problem might be the hardware, but hell, you can keep the media on some unused computer/server which will be available for only that purpose. Backup the files regularly via FTP to some other remote system (just in case). When hardware changes, just move the media to a new computer in the period of transition.
I have a lot of data/programs from my old DOS days in the 80s that I still can access using emulators. Old floppies won't fit in my floppyless computer but I have copied them to my HD since ages back.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Just print the text, get the tablature or sheet music for any songs and print a booklet of screencaps of the videos so that she can flick through them to "animate" them. Put it all in a dry environment and it should be fine until it is opened, and you can guarantee the required technology is still available!
16 years isn't such a long time, but just to be sure, put a netbook inside the capsule. Make sure it can run on external power alone, and remove the battery.
Get a plain writing book with acid-free paper and each write a personal story, message, commentary etc. Attach photos on stable stock paper together with personal items such as a slip of wallpaper or slither of wood etc. from her first bedroom, a dried flower from the garden, small items that conjure up the day/year she was born etc.
Store in a sealed box in a dry, safe, dust-free environment
Much more unique, personal and tactile. /Even geeks need to know when to stop
AT&ROFLMAO
Physical objects should go into the capsule, not data. The reason we do that is because it's difficult to keep archived objects pristine and from getting lost. With data, you can store it in multiple places and always retrieve a bit for bit exact copy. Not so with physical objects.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Write it down.
I can still read a book a hundred years old, I can't read a C64-floppy twenty years old.
I think a USB mass storage device will probably be quite safe, given that RS-232 and IDE are still fairly common despite being far more than 16 years old.
USB mass storage devices have pretty much entrenched themselves in the modern day psyche as the de-facto replacement for the floppy disc.
My guess is that even if we are on USB 5.0 or whatever by then, there will still be some form of backwards compatibility in place (cf the b/c employed in USB 3.0).
Online storage may be ubiquitous in 16 years time, but there will always be computers without access to the internet somewhere in the world, for whom removable storage will be a necessity.
"Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?"
Why bother finding a medium and risk damage to it? Just upload your content somewhere (or multiple places) it can't get lost. Or have the waybackmachine archive it. Then put the link(s) on a piece of paper, laminate it and you're good to go.
Since you mention photos and music, why don't you just bundle the necessary hardware : you could put all the music and audio in an mp3 player, the photos one one of those digital frames, or just get an archos or something that does it all. I don't think it should be too difficult to find a correct power source in 16 years. Though obviously, if you want to be able to retrieve the data from the hardware, as opposed to just playing / watching / ... it, that would be more difficult.
... I wouldn't want to lay money on the electronics still working in 16 years time (gone off electrolytic capacitors being the most likely) and thats before you have to worry about the mechanical components of the hard drive seizing up through lack of use not to mention the data becoming corrupted as the magnetism on the disk slowly changes. And similarly even if you use a netbook with an SSD theres a good chance it would have lost or corrupted enough data by then to make it crash prone or even unbootable.
...are fine for text if you don't want to use pen and paper (or can't remember how). You don't even need a machine to read punch-cards - you can do it by eyeball pretty easily though it might take a little while...
Open an account for her right now and place the username password combination in the time capsule. Once 17 she will then be able to ask slashdot how to read all the ancient media and have a geekish low account number when viewed fro 16 years into the future.
better yet, upload all the data to Google and store only the (randomly generated) password to the account in the capsule.
weinersmith
Then it should be stored redundantly in several locations, online and off-line and should be checked at several points.
An actual time-box is not a good idea at all since all tech has a risk of going bad even if not used.
For the data format: stick to documented standards. ASCII or UTF-8 Unicode will do great for the text of a document; (X)HTML is likely to be available too; PDF maybe. For pictures I'ld bet on JPEG or an uncompressed RGB format, for moving images on MPEG2. There is nothing wrong with storing files in multiple formats for redundancy.
The medium is another issue. Would a CD-R be readable after 15 years? A CD-RW may be more reliable, but can you find a CD-ROM player at that time? A USB stick or SD card are "new" media where readers are likely to be available, but little is known about long-term data persistence. Having a backup of the data on an actively backed up computer does not sound like a bad idea at all.
Summary: with more baskets, the likelihood of remaining eggs increases.
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
If stored properly, I would expect a conventional 'archival grade' DVD to be readable - at least have recoverable data - in that time. However, in 16 years few teenagers or even private households will have any use or exposure to physical media of any kind - blue-ray, DVDs and CDs relics of pre-wired times on par with 78rpm discs and dead sea scrolls. Only greybearded nerds and specialty data recovery / conversion places will probably even have operational, attached optical drives. Teenagers certainly won't. The 2025 equivalent to cellphones and cloud services will cover all their data access needs. But - it will be possible to find a data conversion place in a nearby stripmall that for a modest charge will copy contents of optical media to your account. Expect intellectual property zombies to have agents monitoring such recovery processes and possibly interfering with any licensed content you might choose to include.
x86 emulator to the Apple IIc, then put one in the box. It's the only way to be sure.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Well, think what was around 16 years ago (1993) and project forward:
The compact disc had been invented for a little over 13 years and was still going strong (and would do until five-ten years after that).
Thinkpads were available with CD etc. (although we're talking 486's here because the Pentium was JUST coming out)
So if you dug up an old 486 with some CD's now, how hard would it be to get running? How hard if your particular units didn't work? Not very.
Now project 16 years into the future - buy yourself some *new* reliable technology (CD was in its infancy as a computer format in 1993). Make it as standard and popular as possible. Throw in a device that's still likely to be passed around on second-hand websites like eBay just in case. Hell, I can still buy ZX Spectrums for little more than a few dollars, and that was 25 years ago. Hedge your bets... use a Blu-Ray AND DVD for everything you want to put in there. Throw in some Windows / Linux / Open Source / freeware to read the data (don't do a BBC Domesday project and have to decode the software as well as find the hardware).
If you wanna be ultra-sure... throw in a Gumstix or something small and capable of playing the media (you could use USB memory in this case, or CompactFlash or similar). Hardware easily survives 16 years if you look after it or don't touch it. The data media may not (especially writable media) so project it forward with each transition of your own personal data.
And most importantly - backup, backup, backup. Include *two* of each device, and two copies of the data in two different media, on two seperate discs/flashs and keep a copy on your home machine to "upgrade" to the next new format.
Yeah, and there's absolutely no chance that google won't exist in 15 years....
Manuals are your last resort only
You guys do realize that 3.5 inch floppies have been publicly available for 22 years right? And the USB devices for 13 years? Even if you used a floppy it wouldn't be *that* hard to access in 16 years, and the USB standard isn't exactly on its way out at the moment.
It always amazes me how pretentious geeks can be, assuming all the technology of today will be some sort of arcane relic mere months or years from now.
Recently it was mentioned on a documentary I've seen: 10,000 years of evolution, and the best thing to conserve information we came up with was stone tablets.
It's unfortunately true. The more sophisticated our means of storage are, the more brittle and frail they are. Essentially, you would have to bury not only the medium but also the means to play them back. The tricky part is finding out "where to stop".
"Thanks for the 8track" was a quite good tagline for this problem. 20 years ago, an 8track would have been the thing to store information on. Today, you would have a hard time finding a player. And the problem gets worse with every year. Magnetic tapes, VHS or Beta, dominated the video market for over two decades. DVD didn't dominate for one. BluRay is probably going to be replaced before long. The time between generations of players is shrinking quickly. Soon we'll see, if you're not an early adopter, you're already lagging a generation behind.
The most sensible way, and a worthy geek project too, would be to create a playback device made entirly from standard off the shelf parts that you may sensibly assume to be still available in a few decades, put the packing list along with the content you want to preserve into the box and make sure you also store your content in a way that survives the test of time.
You only have to bridge about two decades. It would be a very interesting project to try something like that with the goal to make information last millenia.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
text, video, music files.
Use the most popular media formant. I.E. DVD's. And not data DVD's, standard encoded DVD's that can be played on any walmart DVD set top box. The sheer millions of them around will assure something will be around or able to to be bought used super cheap to watch the Video and Music files. The trick is you'll have to order a pressed DVD, not a burned one, to make sure it will last that long. You can easily store Text on their too. Granted it would be in image formant, hard to transfer, but for a birthday gift it's fine.
As odd as it may sound, this may be one of the more sophisticated ideas.
Yes, many services fold over times. Just use all of them. At least one will probably survive. It might pay, though, to keep monitoring such services and move the data if you happen to run out of backups. But that, essentially, perverts the idea of a time capsule. The interesting part of opening such a thing isn't just the old info, it's the very idea that these old parts have been sitting there for years/decades, untouched and stored.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The data density is pretty low, but it's awfully durable.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
USB is like... the best standard ever. Just have everyone throw everything on a flash stick. In 16 years, if there is not just yet another faster version of it that is backward compatible with all the old ones, then you can personally come over here and slap me with a rolled up newspaper.
.jpg, .mpg, and .mp3 ever not being supported. Those are standards which are also more likely to be updated than ditched, I think.
The files are a little tougher, but it's hard to imagine
just carve stuff on a piece of gold and use the cravings for cheesecake! Your niece will thank you for it trust me!
of course not. gods are eternal.
weinersmith
My impression is that build quality on 1987 386s was better than on current equipment. In particular, grandparent's comment about electrolytic capacitors points to major quality issues they've been having recently.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
"what's the best way to save the data to ensure she'll actually be able to see it in 16 years? "
You're missing the real point of his question. I think he's really asking how to make his Time Capsule zombie/meteor/nuclear bomb-proof.
And divorce-proof.
"Oh darling, when you were just twelve months old your mother and ... Damnit! If it wasn't for you I'd have never had to get married to that ... $%^#&#@%$".
I still have music CDs that I purchased in the 1970's that are still usable :)
1982 at the earliest.
But there is a difference between a pressed CD - which can last for a very long time - and a CDR which decays surprisingly quickly.
Unfortunately there is a difference between CD-R's and pressed CD's. The best Idea would probably be to keep the data redundant on multiple CD-R's (from different manufacturers) and other media like USB sticks (as some already mentioned). If you can, check for integrity every 5 years or so even if that kind of destroys that "time capsule" -idea.
So he could have used CD 17 years ago.
Will CD ( for data storage ) really be readable in 17 years ?
I tend to agree with other poster - the mainstream equivalent of the CD in 92 is probably the USB drive.
Mainstream enough yet not old enough to survive a few more years.
Also there is a big difference between commercial CD and burned ones.
I did the exercise a few years back and I already had to try a few computer before being able to read the backup made circa 2000.
That's impressive considering the first CDs were only available in 1982 or 1983. Must've been a pre-order...
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
I still have music CDs that I purchased in the 1970's that are still usable :)
A pretty good trick since they weren't commercially available until late '82 :)
The most sensible thing would be digital files, with a maintenance schedule -- migrate to a new medium every so often.
However if the requirement absolutely requires that a physical medium is locked up or buried for 17 years, then I'd go for analogue media with tangible encodings:
It may not be easy to play the vinyl or the 8mm film in 17 years -- but it will be possible, and decay is less likely to be catastrophic.
Beam the messages into space and just assume there will be faster then light travel by then.
What you ought to do, is get a decent (but definitely used) computer that has all the multimedia capability to play the disks / files / whatever you are storing. Complete with operating system and necessary software. It sounds like overkill, but it's pretty inexpensive these days, especially used.
Just make sure you put it all (computer AND media) in a consistently cool, dark, and dry place. Temperature variations and strong light are the most likely culprits for ruining media (and anything else, for that matter), so bury it all somewhere deep, in several nested vacuum packs, and with plenty of silica gel to keep it dry.
CDs and DVDs have been proven to be unreliable, electronic devices won't last that long, paper is prone to water ingress, so go back to ancient tech which you know survives... its the only way to be sure.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
I would include a player for any media you have. I am still trying to cope with all my Mom's trays of slides...Oh, and make sure you include descriptions of the participants, I have a lot of old slides of people I presume are cousins, but I am not sure exactly who they are....
Encrypt it with something which will still be well-known in 16 years - AES-128, for example - and put the key in the time capsule (pencil on paper then laminate; or stamp into metal) along with some copies of media. Keep some encrypted copies out of the capsule and use them for regular integrity checks and duplication.
... make sure that anything that uses batteries has the batteries removed. Otherwise you'll likely find ruined electronics in 16 years from leakage.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I guess that electricity is still avalible in 16 years.
I guess that people can read datasheets.
I guess people still remember the binary system.
Then, keep it simple: Use a EPROM-chip with paralell address, paralell data. Print the datasheet for the chip on paper and a description of the file system. (Design one simple by yourself, or use tar and print it's specification).
Worst case: They have to get someone to design the hardware themselfs... I could build a reader for that here with a small microcontroller in 30 minutes. It's really simple actually...
But use it just as an option if some other more modern techonology fails, like USB flashdrive... Redundancy...
Clearly you need to include some sort of hand cranking device... Just in case civilization collapses and the electrical grid was taken out and they need to repopulate the world with little Billy from next door.
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
Bad idea.
Data on USB sticks decays in several years.
They will be retro hip again.
As I understand it, microetched stone tablets are being researched as the most effective long term storage medium, of course it might be a bit difficult to read...
It's not that hard to find working equipment from 1993 today. I suspect it will be pretty straight forward to read a CD-RW or USB stick. Not convinced that 16 years is a short while, how about this? Fry's still sells floppy disks for some bizarre reason.
Maybe pack a small computer (take the 3V coin cell out) would smooth things along. Although should be easy enough to find on a classified ads (if craigslist is still around) or online auction (if ebay didn't collapse under its own stupidity by then). HDMI should still be easy to find 16 years from now, so you might consider paying a DVI to HDMI cable (DVI will probably be replaced with a new connector in a matter of a few years) assuming that small computer has DVI (eeebox? a bit slow might be an embarassment to show a future generation). I would avoid VGA, likely video and computer equipment of the future won't muck with analog. It's cheaper to dump analog support and go pure digital from a manufacturing point of view than support both.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
20 years ago, an 8track would have been the thing to store information on.
20 years ago CDs were almost 10 years old, and 8-track was already "20 years ago, and you'd have a hard time finding a player".
If you want to preserve digital data, post it online. Give the files some whacky, unique keyword that she can search for when she is 17. Put the keyword in the box. Once stuff is on the net it never seems to die. Everybody's ancient USENET posts are still available. And somebody else is responsible for updating the storage medium occasionally.
Computers obey me.
p.s. do not forget the treasure box for physical things and old toys. We have there everything, from positive pregnancy test, through first hair cuts, feet and hands copies, etc.
God's gift to chicks
"My impression is that build quality on 1987 386s was better than on current equipment."
Indeed they were. Back in those days a PC was an expensive business item as was built accordingly. These days they're just disposable commodity items built to a price. Expecting them to function perfectly in 16 years time is IMO a touch optimistic.
Encode all data as 2D images and print them. Also print the algorithm for decoding the data (in plain text).
If your niece isn't geeky enough to scan the images and implement the decoding algorithm (in some cool futuristic language), she doesn't deserve any presents.
"For my clients, I always suggest the use of stone and / or clay tablets for all mission critical data archive projects, regardless of size or scope. Bablyonian and Greek models of data retention from as far back as 4,500 years ago are (in many cases) superior to the models we commonly use today, with much of the physical media having survived electrical storms, tornadoes, floods, fires, and wars on every scale imaginable with a data corruption rate of zero and without the benefit of a climate controlled room, dedicated security staff, or even a closet for media storage. Imagine the elegance of a 84'3/4 STROM (Stone Tablet Read Only Memory) machine hooked up to your Slackware Archive server for performing restorations, and the ST Binary Writer you have networked to your backup systems and kept physically over by the quarry... nice! The TCO for slab is far less than that of tape archives, considering you can store the media in a pile of mud and hose it down when you are ready for a restoration."
M
Why not just pack an old 286 or 386 laptop (with AC adapter and no battery) instead of a new netbook? Old systems seem to last longer if properly stored. The hard drive will hold a lot less data, but you could pack multiple hard drives. Maybe even open the capsule every now and then to backup/restore the data just in case.
Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
Plural, as in two flash drives with the same contents (in case one breaks). .RTF, .JPG, .MP3 and .MOV files will all be legible in 2019.
Let's look back 17 years, to 1992. I was just starting college at Georgia Tech. I had a 12MHz 286 with a 40MB RLL hard disk, 360k and 720k floppy drives, and a CGA monitor. I did buy a brand new machine my first quarter - a blazing fast 386 DX-40 with 4MB of Ram, 1.44mb floppy, a 120MB hard disk, and a 800x600 super VGA monitor. it cost over $1000.
Most everything is still around: the Parallel IDE interface, the floppy drives, and the VGA connector. We've also had some new things: USB, Serial ATA, DVI, and so on, but if you had to find hardware that could read an old hard disk, you could.
The problem with the time capsule is... well... time. If you leave a hard drive to sit for 17 years, I doubt it would be able to spin up. I think the same would be true for just about any mechanical device.
How about non-volatile memory, like FLASH? Well, FLASH definitely has a finite retention period - usually 10 to 20 years, so even then you're taking a risk of losing data.
Optical disk? Well, now we're talking. Archival-quality media stored in controlled, ideal conditions will hold data on the order of 20+ years. It's the controlled, ideal conditions that make it tough. If exposed to heat, humidity, and temperature cycling, even the best archival quality media can be destroyed in a matter of months.
So, I think the best thing to do would be to maintain the materials unknown to the child until it is time to reveal the time capsule. Either that, or "dig up" the time capsule every few years and refresh the contents by replacing the media on which they are stored.
Have your presentation laser-etched onto gold plates, and include a gold record with etched instructions on how to create a device to play back the information! Then you can safely pass your time capsule down from generation to generation with no degradation of quality!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Here's an interesting idea I saw on TV once. You buy a set of clothes that would fit a 17 year old. Every year you take a picture of the child with the clothes. As they grow up, they'll get bigger until they'll finally fit in them. When the child turns 17, give her a photo frame with will cycle through the images and show how she has grown over the years. As for the time capsule, I'd have everyone put low cost items in the time capsule. Then, pool all the money you would have wasted on the outdated electronics and buy her some silver/gold coins. By the time she goes to college she'd have a nice sum of extra money to spend on a top-of-the-line computer. (Or mattering on the economy, a car!)
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Exactly what I was going to suggest. And, instead of bulky discs, get thumbdrives or SD cards. You can often get a 16 gb drive for $30 from the links on Dealhack or other such bargain sites.
Friends help you move... Real friends help you move bodies...
First as many others have suggested, you can store the information on a regular data storage device and store any further requirements for reading the data along with it. As long as the stored components aren't damaged you can read back the information. This way a large amount of data can be stored, but it relies heavily on the build quality of the components. Examples are usb sticks, cdroms etc.
Second, you could store the data in a simple format; store the specification of the format along with some information on how to build a device that can retrieve the information. Sadly the simpler the format is (and the simpler it is to make the playback hardware) the less data can be stored. Examples are vinyl discs (can be played back with a needle and a paper horn), 8mm video (needs only a light source, and something to wind the film with).
Combining the two options would be the best choice, if somehow we could design a simple machine that when built, could make a more sophisticated one that could in turn read the rest of the data. That way only a simple machine would have had to be described in some human readable language, and then built.
Have the reader inside. Put inside the capsule a small webserver with ethernet and wifi capabilities, to be connected on regular AC 110V. Ethernet is 30 years old and shows no sign of weakness. I bet that wifi will still work as well in 16 years. Make it a simple web/http/ftp server that allows connection, vizualization and download of the data. In 16 years, I don't know if you will use a laptop, a watch, a cell phone or a brain-plug to connect to it, but I am fairly sure that it will be able to connect with ethernet and/or wifi.
16 years seem short enough to me that one can use either hard disks or (good) optical discs to store the data. I would like to recommend SSD, but let's face it : we are not sure how well it ages.
I would personally go with two copies of the data stored on two different model, good quality HDs. That way, if one version gets corrupted, the other will work fine.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
What is writing? Encoding of information. Nothing else.
What is paper? An insufficiently dense medium for encoding huge volumes of data such as audio or video, even with a 75-square-inch block of QR Code on each page. Nothing else.
Reading the comments so far, I can only agree with a book being the winner. It has the additional advantage that it will probably be a museum piece by the time she gets to open it -- wait, I forgot that at least another 1000 guys will be doing the same after this slashdot post ...
If it had to be digital because of video, I would bet for a USB stick. In fact, I would even bet that by 2025 we will be using USB 10.0 or something ridiculous like that. There are few technologies that have a long life, but those which make it to that status do tend to last very long. Examples: ethernet, cd-roms, HFS harddisks. I count USB in that camp because of its versatility.
floppy disks! it might take a few dozen but those things always work!
Make sure you bury one barrel of oil with it.
It won't help you with the message, but should pay for 4 years at a moderately priced college.
Cruise TT
Get a new iPod touch, load it with all the media you want her to hear/see. Wrap it in three inches of duct tape so nobody runs off with the power adapter. NEMA 5-15 receptacles probably won't go anywhere in sixteen years.
Get a couple bottles of really good wine and store them carefully. You want at least two in case one of them turns bad (shit happens).
I recommend a good Bordeaux, (my favorites are Saint-Estephe). But really, any wine that ages well is going to be great after 16 years.
I agree with this. Put it all online somewhere and maintain it for 17 years. Really if you choose good formats for a website type of presentation, you might not have to do anything more than update the markup every 5 years or so.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
The kids around here are being told not to put anything on Facebook or Myspace, because it will last "forever", and embarrass and cost them jobs when they are grown up.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
i have an old stereoscope from the late 1800's or very early 1900's in perfect condition and a shoebox full of photos to go with it, i never had it appraised but i bet it is worth a few bucks.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
As a long time /. person I must say I am truly impressed by this thread. I was beginning to loose some faith.
The concept of a time capsule is fantastic. But to make it relevant to readers was genius. For the most part all responders are offering advice, constructive criticism and basically help.
17 years would appear to be a modest goal, however I'm fairly positive I have data on formats there is ZERO chance I can read. Even the simple floppy. I simply don't have anything that can read a floppy atm. So there is a two fold problem. 1. What data format will be readable in X years. 2. Will I be able to read format Y in X years.
This thread offers a ton of advice. Well done /,
My thoughts exactly.
Isn't this really just a folder labeled "Cathy's Time Capsule 25-8-2025"; you can zip it up when it's complete and give everyone a copy. If you have deep pockets, you can add video iPods for everyone.
Video is especially good, lots of "I was so skinny then..and had hair!"
If you have the need to write any software for this type of project, be sure to write it in COBOL. That stuff is gonna be around forever!
Take same measure as for last will.
And if you really want to save it in digital format - make agreement with notary to make every year copy of that CD/Disk/Whatever to DVD/Holodisc or whatever will be normally used that year. After 17 year you will end with 17 copies and few recent should be readable without problem. And you will have 16 backup copies.
My motherboard uses high quality capacitors that are made in Japan... But then again my motherboard is a high end $350+ core i7 motherboard.
Not everyone builds there computer to be disposable.
I love /. tags!
What?
you can avoid the "physical" issue by storing the media onto an online account:
- web space hosting these days is rather inexpensive, you will easily find something for less than $50/year
- this way you will only have to make sure that the file format is still readable in 16 years time (she's already 1yo)
Can I put a spell on those who can't spell?
Your wheels are loose and they're losing their grip, good you're there.
How do you get around the fact that Flash memory will self erase in about 7-10 years. You want him to store it in a liquid helium bath to slow the decay of the memory to extend it an additional 7 years to just make it to her 17th birthday?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Some friend of mine had a kid two years ago and what I gave him for his first birthday was a photo album (paper photos), with some texts in between, and also a mini CD-ROM with a text an a video (the "Wear suncream video") and the PortableApps version of VLC. I'm pretty sure in a couple of years he will be able to use it.
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55
(the closest thing to a geek our family has)
Don't flatter yourself buddy. And don't betray us either.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Why not bury it with a netbook or cheap laptop if you absolutely must bury electronics period? The 110V plug we use today will still be in use in the future. Make sure the battery has about a 15% charge, and all the "latest" updates...you'll be 100% golden and working when it's opened; just charge up the battery and voila, working system. I don't think HDD's wil degrade after 15 years of being unpowered will they?
I think this points out a pretty big problem with our civilization.
One of the things that have enabled past civilizations to endure and be remembered was their permanence. Every great civilization knew they were leaving a legacy for future generations to look back on. Think of how much we still know about the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. They made sure that everything that was important to them was recorded for posterity, and we owe a lot to them for that.
I laugh when people talk about digitally remastering music, movies, and books in order to preserve them. The Vatican is currently scanning their entire archive and saving it to digital media (CD-ROM). What's going to happen, though, when CD-ROM drives are no longer profitable to make because the next new technology has rendered them obsolete? What about when copyright holders or companies with exclusive rights to certain types of media go out of business? Just think of the effort involved to keep the data we already enjoy now up to date. How many times has the Beatles been remastered on new formats in the last 50 years? Just one generation of people who thinks of it as passe is enough for it to be lost forever.
So much of what is written now, including this, is only available on "the net" which is the most transitory medium we've come up with yet. How much of what is on the net today do you think will still be readable 100 years from now. Any of it? I still have a hard time getting to stuff from 10 years ago. And this is what is killing off our newspapers.
When our civilization dies off like all the others have, what will we leave behind? What will people of the future be able to learn from us? Are all the advances we've made in science, technology, engineering, medicine, being recorded in a way that will ensure permanence for the future? Or are we so focused on the short term in everything we do, that no one will even know we existed?
+++
NO CARRIER
I have no doubt in 16 years that you will be able to find CD readers, or DVD readers or, for that matter, 8-track players. (There is an active 8-track underground now, and they get players from somewhere.) They may or may not be common, but they will be available.
No, the real question is, whether your media will be playable. Will a particular CD-ROM or DVD-ROM you make last that long ? And the answer is - who knows ? It depends on your particular physical artifact. how it was made, how it is stored, etc. This is typically way longer than the manufacturers will guarantee.
My rule of thumb is that only data that is "live" will last. So, if you want this to last, burn some DVD's, and then give the same data to every member of the family who will take it, and tell them to put it on their hard drives and keep it there. And then, make a list of those people, and the file names, and put that list in your time capsule. If you do that, between the chance of your media being readable, and the chance of someone keeping that file for 16 years, you will probably be OK.
Let us know in 2025, OK ?
flash memory will not last that long, the charge will leak away... the drive will probably still be usable, but the stored data will have *gone away*
Chuck
Put it on a netbook, and throw in a PSU. AC Power has changed little in one hundred years; we'll still be using it in sixteen.
Use the wisdom of warren Buffet and invest the equivalent of whatever you guys wanted to buy for the time capsule. For guaranteed better results than anything else, invest in a low-fee S&P 500 mutual fund.
She'll thank you later :-)
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
My niece just turned one year old and her parents have asked that, instead of the usual gifts, we each contribute something to a time capsule to be opened on her 17th birthday. Multiple members of my family want to contribute digital data - text, video, music files.
Data doesn't go into time capsules. There's absolutely no reason why you couldn't share that text, video, or music with her at any point over the next 17 years. And she'll likely be exposed to it anyway... Music will be playing on the radio, books will be available, folks will share family pictures and videos...
It might make sense to include a photograph with a note on the back, or a couple-page letter to her... But you don't just stuff the capsule full of digital data. That stuff would be better archived on a live computer and updated over the next few years.
What you put into a time capsule are physical objects. Think back to 17 years ago... What would be more fun to stumble across - an mp3 of I'm Too Sexy , or a working minidisc player?
What physical objects are new/cool/important/meaningful right now, that may not be later? Maybe throw a pair of her baby shoes in there... Grab something small off your dining room table or out of your front yard... Maybe the cell phone you just replaced... A couple ticket stubs to something that just opened... Toss in a cheap mp3 player (something that takes disposable batteries, like AA/AAA) loaded with some current songs on it...
In 17 years, when she opens it, you'll be able to say "Those shoes were on your feet 17 years ago. I talked on that cell phone 17 years ago. That's what we used to listen to music 17 years ago." And she'll be able to pick the things up, handle them, feel them, turn them on, see how they worked, compare them to whatever is current. Instead of just firing up a home-made version of I Love the '80s
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
How much do you want to bet that I can produce an 8-track player within 24 non-weekend hours? One in good working order, even? It's not even difficult. (Actually, I think my dad still has one collecting dust in his room, but that's cheating. I see them at thrift stores and flea markets all the damn time.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Please note that many of these flash ROM solutions decay over time as the charge is lost. Ten years is often stated as the maximum.
The CD format seems to be the most durable, as I have ten year old CD-R's that are still readable. Many of my data DVD's, though, tend to be more sensitive to data loss.
Magnetic tape drives boasted that the information could survive over a century, but even today you can't find any commodity drives.
My advice would be to plan for a durable medium, and also that the medium will have to be brought to a special company to be transferred onto "modern" media.
Assuming the hard drive is still readable, at least she won't have to hunt down hardware and you can probably find a used one for $100. I've got 10 year old laptops that still work fine.
I fear for future historians, having to go through all these encrypted Blu-Ray movies as the only hard-format source of cinema from our culture. What will they do when the last licensed Blu-Ray player goes kaput? Hope there's a nice archive of keys just hanging around somewhere?
If you want to be sure that you can at least access the data, why not have everyone chip in for a tiny account at Iron Mountain. Companies entrust their data with them, as for playback, that's a little tougher, but I would guess that mp3 for audio, jpg for images should be fine, video might be a little trickier.
You have a source for that? Constant reading and writing can degrade flash memory, of course, but do you have any source that empirically proves that Solid State memory suffers from data decay over time? All I can find is hearsay and random forum guessing.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
The only "problem" with this is that it's far less "romantic" than having an actual physical capsule that's been stored away for all those years, completely untouched.
As for format conversions. Perhaps for small quantities, like sound or photo's, they could just be stored in a raw format (include a paper detailing the protocol). Movies will be a bit more difficult.
That being said, 16 years really isn't that long. I could still buy the same, working C64 setup I started out on 18 years ago. Windows 95 is about 14 years old, and you can still run pretty much any program on a modern Windows PC. Floppy drives are still supported by the OS. The CD-ROM was introduced in 1986 (23 years ago!) and probably is still the most common media format in use. As long as your media survives 16 years, it's a pretty safe bet you'll be able to read it in 16 years.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
And that's a Thordamned fact!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
the BEST way to store data is in human readable form....
technology comes and goes.... but, data stored optically, like... actually... optically as in slides.... can always be read.... as long as she;s not blind and has a light handy...
i've got stereo slides my grandparents shot back in the 50's... color 3d slides... (they left a few of the 3d viewers behind)
Put all the stuff on physical media, as suggested many times above. But in addition to this, put it on the net. Multiple times.
Make a "sarah'stimecapsule" email account on gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and whatever other free e-mail providers you can find. Write down the account info on a piece of paper that goes into the capsule; email all this data to all of these accounts. Mergers, buyouts, and business collapses may take some of these out, but if you have several then the chance of one of them surviving twenty years increases.
Upload it to places like rapidshare, filefront, sendspace, etc. Spend a few bucks to create an account on the service so it won't get deleted almost immediately. Put those URLs on paper too.
Post it to Google Docs, flickr, picasa, etc. Put the account info down on that paper.
Put it in "the cloud" a couple dozen times, in a couple dozen ways. Maybe one of them will survive. Maybe not.
And when you're storing the physical copy, be redundant as well - get a couple hard drives and throw it on there, burn it to DVD, Blu-Ray, maybe even CD if it's not going to fill forty of those. Drop it onto some USB memory sticks. Those all go in the capsule.
And if you really want to be redundant, get a netbook or laptop and put that in there too. You know it can read all these formats. Take its battery out, include the power brick. Set it up to boot with the appropriate reader programs right there on the desktop.
egypt urnash minimal art.
I know where to find several, but none of them are at brick and mortar retailers as new devices.
Luckily we have ebay.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Yeah, I can put my hands on an 8-track player and a stack of old radio shows on 8-track cassettes.
It's not that difficult. That said, I wouldn't want to be looking for a functional 5 1/4" floppy drive.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Yes. Flash memory cell is basically a capacitor, and it slowly leaks (because dielectrics are not perfect), no guesses here. Lifetime of data varies between 5 and 10 years.
I'm too lazy to google for papers, so here is the top search result:
http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/gonna-live-forever-flash-memory-slower-decay
Use same hardware as on Voyager space probes. They are designed to last tens thousands of years.
Except for maybe cheap DVD's. those are only expected to last 5-10 years. Probably the same for BluRay (although I wouldn't bank on that long term). Most magnetic tape should survive, I have 20 year old VHS tapes that still play, in fact I just converted wedding footage from 1982 last year, crappy footage but that was from the original equipment (not enough light), not deterioration. Throw in a camcorder, that should cover your. Or better yet, a hard drive media player, I'm doing all my digital archiving on hard drive now. The tv interface is not going to change in 16 years, and if it does then there will be adapters. Or at the least a coaxial equivalent terminal. Our tv sets run off of the same inputs as used in the 50's. If you really want a long lasting medium, may I recommend film. You should still be able to get 8mm film, I have some 8 and 16mm going back over 50 years, properly preserved there is no deterioration. Just include a small projector. Pictures on good quality paper also survive decades (not inkjet, get them professionally made). Or, you can always wait another year for the 1000 year archive dvd, throw that and a small dvd player in. Even if the format changes all you need is electricity.
Why not put a media player in the time capsule? a used IPOD or PSP? Put the media on the player and maybe a dvd as backup just in case the player no longer works. (Hardware can have a shelf life some times)
Here's a thought: Why not bury a laptop with all the data on it? That way you store the mean to read the data again, but maybe install a media friendly OS that you will be able to work 16 years from now (because computer interfaces will have improved SOOOO much by then you won'y be able to work Windows Vista).
You probably don't want to store the battery connected, I'm not sure..
...it's called a "book." Papyri and parchment has been found that are thousands of years old that are still legible - and that stuff was often rolled up and stuffed into a clay jar and tossed into a cave or tomb. Surely today's archival quality paper and hermetically sealing capabilities can leave us with books that will last for tens of thousands of years if not more!!! Be sure to include a key - translations in many languages - just to increase the likelihood that future archaeologists can use that to decipher this strange language called English. Good thing about books - since they can't hold as much info as CD's, hard-drives, tapes, etc - you get a lot more choosy about the quality of information that gets preserved so a lot of the rubbish is culled. A sim-card with dozens of pictures of baby Jane spewing crushed peas or wearing her bowl as a hat may seem... cute, but if you've seen one spewing or bowl-hat, you seen them all, so one picture will suffice.
Memorabilia from 16 years ago is going to be completely banal to a 17 year old. Think about memorabilia from 1992 being "opened" in a time capsule by a 17 year old today. Gosh, a VHS tape of "Unforgiven," and a tape of "November Rain" by Guns 'N Roses. This is not exciting.
Better might be to put in stuff that's 18 years old now. (That is, when she's seventeen, it will be from as long before when she is born as she is old). That might have at least a little bit of nostalgia value in 16 years.
File formats will be gone, of course, but in 16 years lots of people will still have 2009-vintage technology around, so she'll still be able to access it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Why don't you get a netbook or iPod touch? Put the charger in the capsule. No significant moving parts to break, just charge it up 17 years later and press the "on" button.
I'm a 2000 man.
I think you had it correct in the summery - go with analog mediums. The difference between analog and digitial is that while both deteriorate over time, if digital deteriorates, you are lucky if you get garbage bits (I have CDs which we recorded stuff off of our DV tapes just 8 years ago that I had to use a CD data recovery on, and parts of the data are just completely gone - I then had to take it into an AVI repair program to make something somewhat watchable). However, I got tapes that, while over 20 years old and the signal has obviously degraded greatly on, is still watchable.
That being said, your best bet is to probably use film. You will deffinately want to make sure its well sealed, and possibly even put a projector in the capsule.
Can data survive on CD-Rs and DVDs over that period of time? Yes, but you need to take precautions. Do some research and buy the best media you can. Make sure your burner is good (my burner just started going bad, and I thought it was bad media. Went through about 15 discs before it finally occured to me the burner was going out). Burn at the lowest possible speed. Also, if you are burning video, make sure to include codecs and viewers. You may also want to include a copy of an OS that they may have to run in a virtual machine, but probably not. I mean, 16 years ago, we had low quality AVI files usinc Cinepak and early versions of Quicktime, but you can still play those files in the newer OSes - WITH the right codecs. I got videos from the mid 90s I made that I can still play but I did have to do some serious hunting for the codec. Indeo 4 and Indeo 5 were great codecs back in the day.
Good luck, and let us know what route you decide to go.
Throw in a Net book with all the data you want and the power cable.
I would like to think that we will still have power outlets in 16 years.
"Voices In My Head" The Unauthorized Biography
Won't work. Hard drives won't last that long without movement/use, and flash drives leak charge over time. Any transient storage medium won't last that long.
You need something not sensitive to light, magnetic fields, and which doesn't rely on electric charges. So, I'd say to not bother with stuff you can do at home.
Go to a print house, where they can make actual pressed discs, and get your data actually pressed onto CD's or DVD's. Burning isn't the same thing, and won't last even if it's in the dark the whole time. A full out disc will last a long time, and the hardware to read CDs still exists today, even though the CD was introduced in 1982. It's a format with staying power.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
What's a "record player"? Is that like a "write reader"?
Buy the newest, most expensive removable media technology from Iomega.
... and with it, I mean the Torrent-URL, as well as a password you encrypt the data with, then post it up on several Torrent-Trackers under appropriate names (like "Angelina Jolie naked.avi" etc.) ... it'll most likely still be around for downloading in 17 years ...
How much do you want to bet that I can produce an 8-track player within 24 non-weekend hours?
I think you meant "can't".
I also think you missed the point of my message, or you should have been responding to the parent article instead of mine.
But just to close the loop, I suspect it would take me more than 24 hours to find a decent thrift store in this town, let alone a flea market. The last thrift store I was in they were in the process of throwing out every electronic device older than about a decade.
CD-RW is more archival than CD-R because it uses re-meltable metal instead of dye to hold the data. It's a good middle ground in terms of archival quality, and should last 16 years in dark cool storage pretty easily.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I would not only buy the media, but the computer as well. If you buy a cheap netbook, then you're sure she will have something to view the media on. And if it has SSD disk it will work in 16 years+. Have all the relatives store the stuff on usb disk and then pack it all air sealed.
Having read the bulk of the responses, and having been 17 ... seventeen years ago, I want to offer a tangential point:
Don't give it to her when she's 17. It will mean very little to her then. Give it to her at the birth of her first child.
Lots of redundant copies that the family moves from system to system over time will probably give you the best chance of recovery. You can maintain the time capsule effect by password protecting that zip file and putting the password in the time capsule (engraved on something) along with the other standard time-capsule type stuff. She'll have that file kicking around on her computer for years, driving her nuts while she waits to get the password. I like it.
As in Certificate of Deposit. Get one with a 17 year maturity date for about $1000 or whatever the minimum is. She will thank you with tears in her eyes when she finds out she can get that car or prom dress she was wanting (or if she's smart it will pay for college when her parents are broke from the 18 year financial cycle).
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Since the rest of your family is going digital, you should consider something timeless - such as an MRE and a Colt 1911 with a box of ammo.
maybe a book with photographs and plain text.
lots of people are correctly telling you that the media might not be readable in 17 years, either because it degraded or you simply can't find a drive to read it. Here's my suggestion: Get an Ipod. Take out the battery and replace it with an external battery pack that uses AAA or AA batteries. Store everything on it (which should nicely verify your mod works). Take out the batteries. Put the iPod with empty battery pack into a ziplock bag with some dessicant. Wrap that in a second and third ziplock (redundant seals). Heat sealed bags would be better than Ziplock, if you can do it. Place this in your "time capsule". For redundancy, throw in paper copies of the most important text(s) and photos, similarly protected. Seal it. There's a fair chance that the iPod will work in 20 years; but, there's no guarantee....
Register a URL specifically for her, and think up a login and password for it. Place the URL and login info on a sheet of paper placed in the capsule. Create a trust of 3 people to maintain the domain registration and to keep a copy of all the files stored and backed up. Once she turns 16, sign up for hosting somewhere, and set up a login page which gives her access to all the digital files. At this time you can convert the files to the format-of-the-day if needed.
If you do this, it should be secondary content. The main content of the capsule should be physical items and handwritten words.
Just use multiple ways. CD/DVD/BlueRay and a USB stick.
However making a book will be the nicest thing to get. Even for a geek. Or a box or something they can at least hold and is not digital.
Put a newspaper and a magazine in that box. Those will get a giggle when reading after 17 years. Not more then two. For the rest there are other means to get the information if you want it then.
Also a range of other items that you find important at this time. I would not go with photos as they can be shown much earlier as well. If you really want something technical in there, put in a used cellphone in there. It might not work anymore, but it will certainly be amazing to see a 17 year old cellphone. I would LOVE to be able to show an old Nokia now.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
don't forget to suck out all the air and replace it with Argon. it will keep the items inside from showing physical signs of age and will keep out condensation.
This is your best bet because it will show you cared... at some point in the past. You don't even need to put any money on it, just grab an empty one from Best Buy next to the counter. They leave them out there for just this kind of gift.
It will practically be a classic and she'll be legal to drive.
Luckily you dont have to go to a thrift store for an 8 track player http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m38.l1313&_nkw=8+track+player&_sacat=See-All-Categories that took 20 seconds. Also, 8 tracks were popular when I was a child, in the early-late 70's. Thats 30 years, not 16. In 17 years a DVD player or blu Ray will be fine. Get some archival quality discs and go to town.
I don't care if they are big or small, as long as they are "original equipment". I don't like after market modifications.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Why are you telling me this, it's this article that claimed 8-tracks would be hard to find.
I have some programs on punched cards that have survived from 1975. The printouts of those programs is faded but still readable.
I can still read (some of) my 8" floppies from 1978 the 5.25" floppies from 1984 and the 3.5" diskettes and I have copied the data onto my current PC (which is backed up on several different media). Many of those floppies had read errors after a decade of storage and the only way the data survived was because it had been copied onto newer media.
My e-mail from 1988-96 is archived on 9-track tape in an IBM format and while I do have source code to read on Linux alas I do not have access to a 9-track tape drive.
The colour photographs from the 70s have faded but my great-grandmothers monochrome silver halide photos from the 20s are still in perfect condition.
I suggest putting some photos in the capsule. Choose the oldest photo of a common ancestor, scan it into your PC (with offsite backup) and put the original in the time capsule (well sealed).
If, when I was one year old (1983), my uncle had put an 8 track in a time capsule that I could open in 1999 ....
I could have easily played it, since my dad still had his 8 track player. If he hadn't, I could have easily bought one at a flea market, or on that fledgling eBay service, or through a hobbyist magazine - maybe even at a secondhand music store.
I can't think of a single digital format from the past 20 years that is truly in every sense of the word "obsolete" and therefore unretrievable. They may be archaic, you may have to hunt a bit more with some technologies than others to get a working reader, call up some universities, some digital museums, libraries, hobbyist friends, but it can be done.
Even if it can't be done, the schematics for building a reader are out there somewhere. Things are still just made out of elements, aren't they?
16 years is a while, it's not THAT long.
A netbook with two spare drives containing mirrors of the main drive. Make sure it's not flash memory hdd. Remove the battery. Include only the wall wart. Make sure it functions with the battery removed and wall wart attached. (ask sales droid to demonstrate). Maybe even remove the onboard clock battery, and leave behind a photo/details of it. Just to be sure it doesn't leak and damage the motherboard.
Choose a netbook/device you think might have antique value in 20 years, and it might even turn out to be an investment to boot. Keep one of the two spare drives at a seperate physical location from where the netbook is stored. Safety deposit box would be good.
Slightly off topic, but speaking of safety deposit boxes -- VERY IMPORTANT -- you are NOT allowed access to a SD Box PRIOR to a will be probated unless you a) have the key ***AND*** you are on the list of people allowed to access the SD Box!!! So whether you found the key or not, if you're not on the access list and the will is in the SD Box, guess what?
No will for probate. You're fuxxored. ps: get a god damned will!! I'm shocked at how many people with kids don't have a will. Write one out in your own handwriting, a full page of paper. Doesn't even need a witness if it's completely in your handwriting. Do it now. Takes 15 minutes.
Hmmmm.
(( CKW goes to the next office over for 15 minutes with a writing pad ... ))
How old is Linker3000? Further, what is his native language and how sophisticated is your lexicon/grammar in that language?
Take off every 'sig' !!
[quote]I still am quite happy with almost a decade old machines[/quote]
Really? A decade? That's sub-1Ghz. That's two years prior to the release of Windows XP. What modern software are you going to run on a machine that old? At least DirectX was out then, so there exists some software from that era that will run on modern computers (although likely not Vista).
Buy her a Zune. Nobody uses them now and nobody will 16 years from now either.
This seems like a way for the parents to "get" some cool modern tech that they can use for the next few years and then "store" it for her 16th birthday.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
This summer, I went though some of my old floppies in a daring search for the shitty pen-and-paper RPG system I made when I was in the school, back around 1992-1993 (so here's your 17-year window). And surprise surprise, I found it! The files were in rather weird formats, though - but almost all file types I could open in current crop of software. (The vector graphics files had fared worst: I suppose the Arts & Letters Composer install disks are somewhere in the pile, but I doubt a Win16 application will work that well in recent Windows versions...) The new software doesn't preserve the formatting, though.
Yet, the best-preserved version of this shitty pen-and-paper RPG system is... (drum roll)... the one I printed on the dot-matrix printer. Surprise, surprise. Easily readable, perfect formatting, and even the made-in-two-minutes vector art is there right among my incomprehensible combat rules.
So go for printed format. These days, printing high-quality documents is easier and cheaper than back in 1992. As for computer-readable stuff, stick to standard formats. Every software package, codec or file format that is even slightly obscure these days and completely proprietary is going to cause problems. Speaking of the same bunch of floppies I went through to find this RPG, I honestly thought Microsoft Works and Windows 3.x Write files would be readable in future. "But it's made by Microsoft!" ...took until OpenOffice.org 3 to get support for Works files and Write is still unsupported. I suppose MS products still read them in one form or other. *sigh*
Let me add my voice to those who've suggested paper/print as the medium of choice for this type of project. I teach digital preservation at a library school, and one of the key points we make to students is that while it is possible to preserve digital information in the long term, doing so requires a much more active curation of the information than is necessary with traditional printed material. You can leave a book on the shelf for 15 years and come back and reasonably expect to find the book in usable condition. You can't make that assumption with digital information. Format, software and hardware obsolescence all conspire to make digital information unreadable unless someone is actively working to combat them. Time capsules guarantee that you can't engage in the necessary curation of the data. If I was going to try to do a time capsule approach anyway, I'd probably say get a cheap laptop and put all of the data and software necessary to view it on there, seal it up in a ziploc bag with a packet of desiccant, and pray that the thing boots up after 16 years. That way, you only have to worry about the hardware dying. If it lives, you'll have a complete environment for examining the data.
But if you're going to have a digital time capsule, why bury it? Why not just keep it in some password protected online file storage. Keep an eye on the company -- if they are going under, move the data to another online file storage company. When the person opens the physical time capsule, have inside it the URL and password of the online site. If you're burying said time capsule, that might be a bit tricky (since online companies come and go) but perhaps you can designate someone as caretaker and provide a name, relation, and current phone number (at the time) of that person in the capsule.
How about store the files on a Netbook or even a low-end Laptop, with backups on DVD including a live Linux distro. That way you only have to worry about electricity being available in 20 years, which is a safe bet as far as I see it. Though the this won't be so much as a time "capsule" than a bag, and will be heavy on the pocket too.
Pet peeve of *mind*???
Have two compartments in the time capsule. One is sealed, and the other has a slot or a door so you can add updates. Keep a copy of the digital files, and regularly write them to a recent media format. Actually, the time capsule should be in a safety deposit box, so all you really need are two Kevlar envelopes. Tape shut the primary capsule and leave the one with the digital updates unsealed. A month before her birthday buy a fireproof box of suitable size, transfer the envelopes into it, and seal it shut with colorful tape. Label the box to not open it before the target date. Let that box sit in plain view so she can build the memory of the gift and anticipate the opening. After the opening explain why there are ten odd objects, and that actually armed guards and sixteen inches of steel were protecting the gift. Oh.. 16 years... OK, not armed guards. Guards in powered armor with trafalgars.
To date, I believe cuneiform tablets have best stood the test of time, as far as a data storage media which does not quickly become obsolete.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Depnding on the amount of data you are storing, I'd store it redundantly: - CD (if it can hold it) - DVD - HD - Flash media....(maybe it will last longer than 10 years, who knows?) - an IPOD? Lets face it, in 16 years, Ipods will likely still be around. :)
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
Use something self-contained, like an iPod Touch or one of those digital picture frames. Or if you don't want to spill for some new device like that, get something that's already old.
I've got a laptop from around '96 or so sitting in a drawer. It's practically worthless. It has a 3.5" drive but no CD drive or ethernet port. But if I wanted to, I could still plug it in to an outlet and look at whatever stuff is on it, no matter what "modern" technology can and cannot read.
Store in a cool, dry location.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Create a gmail account, tell your family to mail the things there.
Bury the login, password.
Exception Duck - may or may not contain chicken.
I have a handful of CDs I burned back in 1995 that still work. I had a LOT of old backup and software CDs from the same time that I tried early this year and they still worked fine. I threw most of them out since most of the backups and all of the software were completely obsolete. It was cheap media (for the time), as well. CD-R holds up very well. The major enemy is handling the CDs roughly; since the data is typically actually stored on the label side (that is, on the shiny side, under the label), not in the center of the medium like DVDs, the slightest scratch, nick, or bubble in the foil under the label will result in loss of data.
Check the discs that have failed from so-called "bit rot" by holding them up to light - chances are the foil has been damaged. If that's the case blame your storage and handling methods; not the technology.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
You can bury any medium and a way to play it aswell, lets say, a cd and a disk man, as for music goes, or maybe magnetic tape and bet that some company will still have ways to read it, since its useful for backups. Depending on your budget there is a bunch of stuff you could bury to play the media you bury, or go for a top tech of nowodays wich should be partially old 10 years in the future,,,
12/21/12 is only 1213 days, 18 hours away.
Doc: Well here's the problem right here... "Made in Japan!" Marty: What do ya mean Doc? All the best stuffs made in Japan! Doc: Great Scott!
If you only have one media, I'd suggest a USB flashdrive formatted in FAT16 or FAT32, containing TXT, MP3, MPG, and M4V formats as they're all pretty well established standards.
It's hard to say if something can physically read USB in 16 years, but it was possible 10 years ago, and it's super abundant and well established now.
About a decade ago I started archiving stuff for long-term on ISO9660 CD-Rs in VCD format, and now it's hard to find anything that couldn't view them. Widespread MPEG standards seem to fare quite well - especially now that even set-top players can play them.
SD cards and the like will be obsolesced over time by smaller cards and different standards, but the basic USB flashdrive seems quite ingrained in every computer of decent power running any OS.
Thor doesn't damn. He smites.
So I think the word you're looking for is "thorsmitten".
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
on of them mini netbooks. That way, you don't have to worry about the hardware becoming incompatible. (The battery won't survive, but at least it should run with the AC plug connected.)
By paper, I mean punch cards.
I've got two in my basement. They're available if you really want one.
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
How about a box of resistors, capacitors, inductors and memristors?
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
what are you talking about?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1219598&CatId=76
In fact, there sin';t any format used in the last 17 years that I can't get at.
As much as people on /. like to think technology progress and changes at a phenomenal rate, that's not really true. What happens is core technology gets faster and bigger, but the core technology is still around. Or someone makes a tool to link modern technology with fading technology.
DVD in 17 years will still be usable, from a technology standpoint. from an aging standpoint, maybe not. Unless it is sealed well.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
How about a hard copy of one of the best preserved "time capsules" from the past?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book
Just watch the recursion.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Buy a crappy laptop or whatever off Ebay, and then install whatever programs you feel would be needed (something to read documents, something to play mp3s, something to play movies, etc etc etc), then put it in there with some dvds and cds full of whatever it is you need. I still agree with aforementioned comments that a time capsule should contain other physical objects though. Newspapers, magazines, trading cards, toys....things that may be worth something in the future (oil).
Defender of Microsoft and Communism!!!
USB isn't going anywhere fast, and even 16 years from now, the hardware will still be plentiful enough to ensure it's still readily available. The form factor may change, but the fact that everyone has a USB device of some kind (all with the same computer-side "A" connector) would ensure that even 16 years later, they'll still be on the front of at least some computers. USB has already lasted over 10 years in its current form... ;)
So that's a starting point. I'd say get yourself a high quality (read: lower capacity; look for a "single-level cell") USB Flash drive. Flash chips are used on all PC motherboards, even on the oldest (>10 year old) ones and they still work fine, so I don't think there'd be an issue with it losing its data over time. Try looking for a Flash drive with low capacity that claims high-speeds (the signs of SLC Flash), but stay away from cheap Chinese ripoff junk.
MP3 and JPEG have both stood the test of time - once again, they're both standards that are well over 10 years old (I think over 15, even). Your music and pictures would be safe with them. And, of course, TXT files are just plain ASCII data with no formatting, the de facto standard for storing any plain readable information on a digital system.
Or... you can just toss a netbook in there, new in box. It might just be as good as opening a brand-new-in-box Apple IIc. That would definitely be a cool gift, as long as she understands the value of nostalgia and doesn't just think "gee, what a piece of junk, thanks". :P
First off, you need to know what you're placing in the container to determine how big it needs to be. The next is to ensure that you have multiple packs of Silica Desicent to handle any extra moisture (corrosion reduction). In regards to the container itself, it needs to be waterproof and possibly air tight but not gas proof as you'll eventually need to purge all Oxygen from the container using Inert Dry Nitrogen. Then simply don't open it until the designated time (birthday gift is a great idea). Another way of introducing Dry Nitrogen into the case is the use of Liquid Nitrogen and allowing it to evaporate. The advantage is it will drive all of the oxygen out of the case and ensure a very slight overpressure, which helps keep moisture from entering.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Include the required hardware. A dirt cheap netbook, for example.
sign her up on several current sites, and then put the user name and password in the vault.
Imagine, in 17 years from now, she could have the pretty impressive slashdot user ID!
Also, toss a couple of shares of MS, IBM and Disney. wth.
On the down side, you might need to make a script that logs into those account once a year or so.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well Osiris curse me, you're right!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
There are two ways this can be dealt with.
1) Somebody could do maintenance work on the "time capsule" contents for the next 16 years. This would involve occasionally moving the digital files to fresh media and converting files from obsolete formats to current ones.
2) The time capsule could contain the entire computer setup required to view all the enclosed media.
There's really no other way around it.
Commodore 64's, Vic 20's and TRS80's are still functioning...tape drives intact. And what the heck was that gold plated disc they sent up with Vger, wherever it is? Oh, and stone tablets are still going pretty strong too.
How about you put a netbook or old computer in the time capsule? That will be able to read anything you put in there, and it'll work in 16 years assuming power standards haven't changed.
But you're all out of Smokey Pete and his brains, so what now?
I found a stack of 8-track players at a store-closing sale at an old Radio Shack, all new in box, just a few years ago. They were still priced in 1980s dollars.
I went back the next day to buy them, and (predictably) they were already gone.
Kid-proof tablet..
Put the music up on archive.org and be done with it. It'll still be usable in a half dozen formats. Ditto software.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
And, instead of bulky discs, get thumbdrives or SD cards.
Or, just write it on the sand at the beach, just as intelligent a suggestion as this moron.
...to a data store online? Keep everything on in some kind of torrent or google/amazon server space?
I drank what? -- Socrates
If kept unpowered and cool capacitors should not be a problem. There was a period when large batches of faulty electros were made and used in motherboards, which lead to high failiure rates.
That issue is largely resolved now.
A more important issue may be the "Whisker growing" which occours in devices made from lead free solder.
I have seen guitar amps with electrolytic capacitors more than 40 years old and still fine.
ironic how this story is almost 12 hours old and this comment is outdated but:
Use an iPod and a plug. The interface is simple and electricity is pretty much the same as it was in 1920. Solid state drive and built in interface make it the clear winner (and I am not a mac fan, so take it as you will). Ps at least one person in her "time capsule celebration" group will know how to use it.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Paper still has uses.
"They confiscated everything, even the stuff we didn't steal!"
In 20 years, of course it will.
20 years ago the RS232 port was common place, now days I can buy USB to RS232 adapters with ease. Just because we dont put RS232 on to the back of every PC and laptop does not make it hard to find. same with LPT ports, converters still exist. If USB is surpassed (perhaps I should say when) there will be converters for it as there is so much equipment running from USB (Yes, I still have two bits of equipment that are only connected by RS232, I use USB to RS232 converters).
Just use DVD. Good optical media will last for decades if properly stored. In 16 years there will still be a DVD drive for an old PC, they've been around for a decade and aren't going anywhere soon.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Optical media will be quite safe, Properly stored it should easily last 20 years. In addition to this a working 15 yr old computer will be attainable, not commonplace but easy to get a hold of but I doubt it will be necessary as I'm certain there will still be a DVD reader available in 16 years. /pats USB floppy drive on desk
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The USB 3 standard is being finalized, that should last quite a few years! I mean USB 2 must be almost 9 years old, and it will still last for another few years. USB 3 will be backwards compatible. The other option is to use a high quality archive level DVD/Blu-Ray. Verbatim makes a disc that's certified for Archive purposes, but its pricey. www.verbatim.com/optical/archival/ The netbook idea is nice, but I wonder if it will last, unless the time capsule is air sealed. Another thing to think about, is filesystems, if you use a Data DVD or flash disk, what's the chances the file system will be supported in 17 years? Rather get a Good quality Portable DVD player, or something like it, remove the battery. Make a few videos, record it onto the Archival DVD, and store it in a air-sealed container, make sure no moisture or insects can get the the container, metal containers are a good option.
I would say don't put in digital files, just because it won't mean as much as slightly age worn hand-written information.
And in addition to all of the other suggestions above, make sure to include a helmet in the time capsule to protect her from all those pesky flying cars.
Yeah I already saw that result in my own searching, but again I think that is more to do with an average amount of reading and writing from the drive and degradation of memory cells over time rather than how long data will last if the flash drive isn't used. This is the weird thing - nowhere have I been able to find a decent piece about "bit rot" in solid state memory flash drives. I'm actually intrigued now. I do understand that charge can leak from an imperfect capacitance medium, but is it a few milliamps a month or more like one picoamp a year?
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
you might have to wait 16 years for the cry of anguish, but it will be worth it.
or save her some penis-enlargement spam so she can see that the internet way back in 2009 was exactly the same as the internet in 2025.
This question gets asked a lot. The answer is that there is no guaranteed way -- interfaces change so that your device may not even plug into anything in the future; motors in drives seize up and stop turning; file formats evolve so that there may not be software to read your data; bitrot erodes the data right out from under your nose... The best solution that anyone has come up with is to keep it spinning on a live computer, and migrate your data with you when you upgrade said computer hardware/software. If you want to put something in the capsule that's great, but make it a symbolic effort. If you /really/ want to make sure the data is readable in 16 years, then keep a copy on your computer and don't delete it. Storage capacities blossom larger and larger every year, so chances are you won't miss the drive space.
I have one in my current computer, works fine in Windows XP.
Put a small laptop inside of it, with every software required to run it inside the laptop. AND a bluray disk with all the software required to run and all the data for multiple operating systems in case the laptop fails and people still use bluray...
©God
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