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Synthetic Stone DVD Claimed To Last 1,000 Years

Posted by timothy on from the will-your-progeny-the-warranty dept.

Lucas123 writes "A start-up launched a new DVD archive product this week: a disc that it says will hold its data for 1,000 years. The company, Cranberry, says its DiamonDisc product, which can be used in any standard DVD player, is not subject to deterioration from heat, UV rays or material rot due to humidity or other elements because it has no dyes, adhesives or reflective materials like standard DVD discs, and its discs are made from a vastly more durable synthetic stone. Data is laid down on the platter much in the same way as a standard DVD disc, but with DiamonDisc the burner etches much deeper pits. Cranberry said it is also working on producing a Blu-ray version of its 1,000-year disc."

62 of 416 comments (clear)

  1. What the bets the first release will be... by s0litaire · · Score: 5, Funny

    ..."The 10 commandments" Remastered Special Edition.
    It's the 2 (Synthetic) Stone DVD Version...

    --
    Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
    1. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by Al+Dunsmuir · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nope.... Flintstones!

    2. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hopefully in 1000 years it will be appropriately categorized as "fiction."

      It's not as if that's written in stone!

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    3. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by SEWilco · · Score: 2, Funny

      The director's commentary is to die for.

    4. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by LordKronos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Lol, yeah well most likely in a 1,000 years you'll be saying, "Crap! It was real - all of it was in that Book! Now what do I do?"

      If I'm alive in 1000 years, I'll be happy to have lived so long (assuming it wasn't 900 years bedridden), and if I find I'm wrong (I'm currently an atheist), I'll gladly change my ways (God says you only need to repent before death to be accepted in to the kingdom of Heaven).

      On the other hand, if I'm dead before I realize I was wrong, then either:
      1) I'm in heaven. I'd like to think this it what would happen. I live a good life (I'm kind, honest, generous, fair, etc), and I'd like to think God is more interested in rewarding good people that in stroking his ego over not being worshipped (however, the bible gives evidence to suggest that may not be the case).
      2) I'm in hell (or someplace else that's not heaven). If I end up there, despite the type of life I lived, then I'd have to think that heaven was run by a spiteful and vengeful God on a power trip. He'd be a brutal dictator, punishing anyone who doesn't do exactly as he says. He's more concerned about being treated with reverence than he is that his people are treated well. In that case, despite the popular depiction, I'd have to believe the place I ended up was the better option.

    5. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by Narcocide · · Score: 5, Funny

      Then you have to spend eternity in North Dakota.

    6. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by NatasRevol · · Score: 2, Funny

      I thought there were 15 commandments?

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    7. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by megrims · · Score: 2, Informative

      The concept that you're referring to is a recent addition too, for that matter.

    8. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by Muad'Dave · · Score: 3, Funny

      And commandment 666 says that Satan can read and write everything, but isn't allowed execute privileges.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    9. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by xmousex · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hell is not a punishment but the state that people who refuse the ultimate good.

      And the great majority of people who are atheist do not declare themselves in any way opposed to or refusing of the ultimate good.

      They are looking at the bible and those who believe it and resolving that this religion and the book its founded on does not represent in any way, an ultimate good.

    10. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by MBGMorden · · Score: 2, Interesting

      According to the Christian beliefs I was taught growing up, there is not in between - it's truly a black and white issue. That said, it's also not really linked to "good" or "bad" when it comes to going to either - it's based in salvation. In the eyes of my congregation (a Southern Baptist church - views can differ between groups though) a serial killer that repents of his sins and "accepts Jesus as his savior" right before he is executed will go to heaven, whilst an atheist who devotes their life to charity and good-works who dies would go to hell.

      It all hinged on that salvation issue, or as I heard it put several times: "Man cannot be saved through works - there are many 'good men' burning in Hell.".

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    11. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by Pikoro · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oh, but don't eat meat on Friday or you're screwed either way...

      --
      "Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
    12. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by megrims · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The concept of hell is fascinating because its origins are not really biblical at all. There are literally only a handful of passages in the entire Bible on which we pin this whole concept of eternal damnation, and their interpretation is questionable at best.

      Hell comes from the blending of Roman and Greek understandings of the afterlife into Christianity theology/mythology i.e. post-Constantine. It makes sense: culture shouldn't change just because the state suddenly changes religion. The problem is that after several generations of indoctrination, many treat these little historical quirks as if they were important (nigh unquestionable) points of doctrine, rather than curiosities.

    13. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by mpeskett · · Score: 2, Insightful

      or think courtroom justice: you were caught breaking a law, God is the judge... who is your advocate? If you accept Jesus as your advocate, he stands before the judge and says "he's guilty, but I volunteer to pay the penalty in his stead." The judge then metes out justice, but Jesus stands in your place, taking the punishment of death, while you remain free

      This is scapegoating, not justice. If a human judge allowed the punishment of an innocent "in the stead" of a guilty party, we would not call him fair, just or wise. But your cosmic super-judge (who by any logic should be held to higher standards of ethical practice) can do exactly that?

      The underlying message here is that your god is unable to forgive even the slightest transgression, has to demand mortal punishment, and yet isn't too picky about who exactly gets punished. Thinking a little further, surely an omniscient/potent creator knows exactly the consequences of his creation, and could hypothetically create a slightly different world, where the way things work out means that people sinned a little less. Then he wouldn't need to punish so much.

      I want to lay this out in logical steps, to be sure I'm understood...

      1. An omnipotent creator can create any one of the infinity of possible worlds.
      2. In each possible creation, people would freely choose different actions (some moral, some immoral) over the course of time.
      3. As there are infinitely many possibilities, every possible set of events and actions occurs in (at least) one possible world.
      4. An omniscient creator knows exactly what choices will be made in each possible creation.
      5. Following from 2 and 3, there is a possible world where everyone freely makes a good moral choice on each occasion.
      6. Following from 4, an omniscient creator knows this hypothetical world exists, and (following from 1.) can create exactly that world - one where everyone would, of their own free will, act perfectly morally.

      7. People do not act perfectly morally, of their own free will or otherwise.
      Therefore 8. Our world was either not created by an omnipotent/scient creator, or possibly was created by such a being who does not want us to act morally.

      Leibniz followed essentially this logic, and concluded that we must be in the best of all possible worlds (i.e. 3 is false, not all possibilities are actually possible, but we are in the best one that is possible). I see the same reasoning and take it as a reason to not believe in god. To relate it all back to the topic of cosmic justice, it either implies that there is no grand judge at the end of it all, or if there is... is it really fair to demand that we "get saved", when it was known to the judge in advance what our actions would be, and he selected those actions out of the myriad other possibilities?

    14. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by kalirion · · Score: 2, Funny

      Eternity in Heaven:

      "I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird-"
      "What little bird?" said Aziraphale suspiciously.
      "This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years-"
      "The same bird every thousand years?"
      Crowley hesitated. "Yeah," he said.
      "Bloody ancient bird, then."
      "Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies-"
      "-limps-"
      "flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak-"
      "Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of-" The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy."
      "But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered.
      "How?"
      "It doesn't matter!"
      "It could use a space ship," said the angel.
      Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird-"
      "Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to-" He hesitated. "What have they got to do?"
      "Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back-"
      "-in the space ship-"
      "And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.
      There was a moment of drunken silence,
      "Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak," mused Aziraphale.
      "Listen," said Crowley urgently, "the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then-"
      Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly.
      "-then you still won't have finished watching The Sound of Music."
      Aziraphale froze.
      "And you'll enjoy it," Crowley said relentlessly. "You really will."
      "My dear boy-"
      "You won't have a choice."
      "Listen"
      "Heaven has no taste."
      "Now-"
      "And not one single sushi restaurant."
      A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face."

      - Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman

    15. Re:What the bets the first release will be... by tabrnaker · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I can't be quite sure but i think that part of the bible might have been backported like several other parts of john's gospel according to new discoveries of early revisions. Too tell the truth, i don't care anymore about bible verse authenticity. I tend to think that the creator can be divined from all the works of mankind as a whole, and not taking one part separate from the father. For example, many other spiritual leaders claimed to be one with god, it doesn't mean one is all of god, but that they were in alignment with the creator, something that several religions/spiritual teachings encourage. Jesus wasn't the first to say "i am the path" after all, it's the whole basis of the Tao(path).

      Anyways, not trying to start a conflict or anything, i believe all paths lead to god eventually, even the self-serving path. The bible talks to much of the right hand path and downplays the left for my liking. I think understanding will only fully happen when we accept all that humanity is capable of.

  2. 1,000 years? by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know, when CDs and DVDs came out, they claimed they would last 50 years. I have yet to find one that lasts longer than 5. So I'd say, 1,000 years translates to about a hundred years, tops. Also, it may not be vulnerable to humidity in a controlled environment, but in the outdoors, a few seasons of freezing/melting and it'll be shot. Water beats rock every time.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:1,000 years? by batrick · · Score: 5, Informative

      I have music CDs that are over 10 years old still working perfectly.

    2. Re:1,000 years? by stinerman · · Score: 5, Informative

      Burned or stamped?

      My stepfather has an extensive collection of CDs he bought in the mid-to-late 80s that play as well today as they did back when he bought them. I ripped a Cars album without need for any cdparanoia correction. The resulting file played fine.

    3. Re:1,000 years? by maharb · · Score: 2, Interesting

      *Currently playing an 8 year old burned CD with no issues*

    4. Re:1,000 years? by onemorechip · · Score: 4, Funny

      Water beats rock every time.

      No, paper beats rock. There's no water in the game.

      --
      But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    5. Re:1,000 years? by hldn · · Score: 2, Informative

      you need to upgrade to rps7 or greater.

      http://www.umop.com/rps.htm

      --
      http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
    6. Re:1,000 years? by bcwright · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Also, it may not be vulnerable to humidity in a controlled environment, but in the outdoors, a few seasons of freezing/melting and it'll be shot. Water beats rock every time.

      I really don't care if my archival storage can stand being left outside for several years, because I don't intend to do that. I'd be quite happy if it were at least as durable as a book, which if well made and with reasonable care can last at least a couple hundred years, possibly over 1000 under ideal conditions. So what if it can get ruined if it's left in the rain? If I care enough about the data, I just make a few copies and put them in different places and hopefully if I've chosen well at least one will survive. Right now it's not at all clear that typical CD's and DVD's are even as durable as cheap pulp paperbacks.

    7. Re:1,000 years? by itlurksbeneath · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have some 20-ish year old CD's that work great.

      --
      Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful Dread Pirate Roberts.
    8. Re:1,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      from Muad'Dib?

    9. Re:1,000 years? by crispytwo · · Score: 5, Funny

      I find it all depends on which part of the floor I leave the CD. Near the middle are worst, but surprisingly the ones next to the wall are almost as bad. The ones close the wall, but less near the center seem to survive the best.

      In summary,
      1) left near doorway = rating 1 star
      2) left center of room = rating 1 star
      3) left around center or room = rating 3 stars
      4) perimeter of room = rating 4 stars
      5) left at wall of room = rating 2 stars
      6) other (case, desk, special CD container) = rating 2-4 stars

    10. Re:1,000 years? by AlamedaStone · · Score: 3, Funny

      Then let's make the DVDs out of water! Oh wait...

      I was going to suggest dihydrogen monoxide, but that stuff is probably too toxic for consumer use.

      --
      "All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
    11. Re:1,000 years? by tyrione · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have CDs from the mid 80s. What most people fail to notice is that the thickness of those old CDs did allow one to skip them on the road and be able to put them back into the player and read correctly. They are thicker than today's CDs. Like all stuff in technology they hook you at a reasonable price, jack you up on costs later and cheapen the product so it fails sooner, rather than later.

    12. Re:1,000 years? by ch0rlt0n · · Score: 2, Funny

      Five years!? You do realise they're not actually coffee coasters?

    13. Re:1,000 years? by agentgonzo · · Score: 3, Funny

      No, paper beats rock. There's no water in the game.

      Spock also beats rock.

    14. Re:1,000 years? by FireFury03 · · Score: 2, Informative

      What most people fail to notice is that the thickness of those old CDs did allow one to skip them on the road and be able to put them back into the player and read correctly. They are thicker than today's CDs.

      [citation needed]

      Philips specify the thickness of a CD - if it doesn't match the spec then it isn't a CD and can't carry the CD logo.

      In any case, the robustness of the polycarbonate is rarely the problem - the easiest way to damage a CD is by scratching the aluminium layer, since it is only protected by a thin lacquer. By contrast, DVDs have a much better design, sandwiching the aluminium between two polycarbonate discs.

      --
      http://blog.nexusuk.org
  3. First Prior Art by bigattichouse · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wonder if they applied for a patent before April 22, 2004 ?

    http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Ever-Disk

    --
    meh
  4. Presumably... by popo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... they also make a DVD player that lasts 1000 years?

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    1. Re:Presumably... by The+Grim+Reefer2 · · Score: 4, Funny

      ... they also make a DVD player that lasts 1000 years?

      At $4995 for the burner it better last 1K years too.

    2. Re:Presumably... by glyn.phillips · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Presumably all DVD readers made for the next 1000 years will be backward compatible. Have you tried to read an 8-inch floppy disk lately? And they're only three decades old!

      When the equipment for reading these starts to become museum pieces people will migrate the data to whatever the state of the art is at the time. Then these stone DVD's will last a long time in the landfill.

      It does raise some fun things to speculate about though.

      There are some ancient writings which no one knows how to read anymore. Will future archaeologists wonder what the microscopic pits in our coasters with holes in them are all about?

      Will they suffer from data overload?

      What will future archaeologists, with PhD's, think when they read what you, personally, wrote in a forum? Now that's scary.

    3. Re:Presumably... by QuoteMstr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Presumably all DVD readers made for the next 1000 years will be backward compatible. Have you tried to read an 8-inch floppy disk lately? And they're only three decades old!

      The nice thing about he optical disc form factor is that it decouples the encoding and retrieval technology from the moving parts involves in loading, unloading, and spinning the disc. It's very easy to support additional optical media formats by simply including another kind of laser in the read head.

      On the other hand, an eight-inch floppy needs a custom loading mechanism that isn't cost-effective to build anymore, so of course we don't have anything that's backward compatible.

      As long as we have optical media at all (and I don't see the idea fading any time soon), the readers will be backwards-compatible all the way back to Red Book audio. I would be amazed if we couldn't read CDs in 100 years, and only moderately surprised if we couldn't read them in 1,000.

    4. Re:Presumably... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Funny

      Assuming anybody in the future cares more than a tiny bit, I'd strongly suspect that the file formats(and possibly the disk layout) will be a bigger challenge than the lack of compatible drives.

      The surface details on DVDs just aren't all that small, since they have to be easily accessible to ~$50 worth of cheap, mass-market optics, even after some kid gets greasy fingerprints all over them. Unless the future belongs to degenerate savages and murderous rat-men, rigging up a spindle, an optical microscope, and a camera to automatically record the pit structure will presumably be within the realm of a doable for a few decent engineering grads. Assuming, of course, that we don't all have cyborg mecha-vision by that time. It wouldn't necessarily be anything close to fast; but it would be conceptually simple and reasonably economic for anything of some historical value.

      If, however, the files on the disk are all AES-256 encrypted, decodable only with the cooperation of a DRM keyserver that was deconstructed by a rogue nanite swarm during the H+ omnipurge of 2076, all bets are off.

    5. Re:Presumably... by QuoteMstr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      There are some ancient writings which no one knows how to read anymore. Will future archaeologists wonder what the microscopic pits in our coasters with holes in them are all about?

      That's an interesting thought experiment. Let's say civilization fell and rose again, and that future archaeologists came across some of our optical discs. They wouldn't need much beyond 19th-century technology and mathematics to decipher them.

      Once cleaned, 1,000-year-old discs would still shimmer the way they do today. Under a microscope (well-developed by the 19th century), pits and lands would be visible. A pit is approximately the same size as a bacterial cell, after all. The pits and lands would form a recognizable pattern. That pattern looks nothing like binary, being a clocked encoding of it. But it's obvious that a CD would spin, so eventually someone clever will realize that information is encoded at clock boundaries.

      That having been figured out, these future archaeologists will see repeating patterns of eight units. Presuming that our language came down intact (much like Latin has to us), 19th century cryptanalytical techniques could determine the correspondence of the mysterious 8-pit repeating units to letters. (After all, what is ASCII except a simple substitution cipher?)

      ECC information would be gibberish, but it could be ignored. (And once even one Wikipedia backup were deciphered, the ECC information would be understood.)

      Of course, there's a huge amount of information on each disc. It'd take a long time to go over even part of one by hand, but it could be done. After all, even in the 17th century, huge logarithm table books were produced.

      Once technology advanced a bit, it'd be possible to build an electromechanical system to read and print the contents of CDs. Even Babbage had a workable printer design, and printing telegraph machines emerged by 1910. The hardest part for our future archaeologists would be reading the discs at high speed, for which (I think) they'd need a laser. But maybe the problem would stimulate them, and they'd build lasers before we got around to discovering the things.

      Of course, this is just idle speculation, but it's fun!

    6. Re:Presumably... by QuoteMstr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By the way: if you think this is an interesting thought experiment, you'll love A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller.

    7. Re:Presumably... by fm6 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Tightwad. You can afford to buy a new burner once a century.

    8. Re:Presumably... by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Presumably all DVD readers made for the next 1000 years will be backward compatible. Have you tried to read an 8-inch floppy disk lately? And they're only three decades old!

      The nice thing about he optical disc form factor is that it decouples the encoding and retrieval technology from the moving parts involves in loading, unloading, and spinning the disc.

      The read/write head moves too - otherwise you wouldn't be able to read anything but the small portion of the disk directly above the read/write head. The form factor and details are different - but with the exception of 'flying' the head, the basic mechanical operations of an optical drive are exactly the same as a magnetic disk drive.
       

      It's very easy to support additional optical media formats by simply including another kind of laser in the read head.

      For certain handwaving values of 'simply', sure. In reality, as a given standard recedes ever further from the bleeding edge manufacturers are going to be increasingly unwilling to increase the cost and complexity of the read (or read/write) head in order to support formats fewer and fewer people use.

    9. Re:Presumably... by Theovon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      CDs aren't encoded in a straightforward manner. Data is stored as a composition of Reed-Solomon codes and 10-8 codes, and the RS encoded bits are interleaved. Without detailed knowledge of the encoding, it might as well be encrypted. You're expecting to see plain data interleaved with parit. You'll see nothing of the sort.

  5. Fun with ceramics by icebike · · Score: 2, Funny

    Coasters have come full circle now.

    I remember my mom's ceramic coasters (bone china she called it, which as a 5 year old, creeped me out).

    They were pretty durable, and lasted my mom all here adult life. The writing on the bottom was still readable after all those years.

    --
    Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
  6. Finally, a convenient alternative to pyramids... by Bob_Who · · Score: 4, Funny

    Jeeez, it took long enough to come up with a practical alternative to hieroglyphics carved in stone. So far, that was the best technology for millennial storage. I just want to be certain that I get that 1000 year warranty, in case its just a bunch of empty promises. I don't want to be disappointed 800 years down the road.

  7. 1000 years? by Obliquitous+Cowherd · · Score: 3, Funny

    We'll see.

  8. Expensive by techrolla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's going to be really hard to convince average computer users who think their data will last forever that it won't. And after 50 years no one might even own dvd players.

  9. I Hate ROCK Music by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 4, Funny

    What are they recording?

    The Rolling Stones?

    The Stone Roses?

    The Stone Temple Pilots?

    Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35?

    --
    "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
  10. This new archival format from Cranberry... by turing_m · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... seems to have been designed to linger.

    --
    If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
    1. Re:This new archival format from Cranberry... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Did you have to?

  11. Stone DVDs? by QuoteMstr · · Score: 3, Funny

    They'll come in several varieties:

    • Mafic
    • Felsic
    • Pornographic
  12. Curious... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    TFA quotes temperature resistance of 176 degrees. Fahrenheit. For a "synthetic stone" product that is supposed to be super durable, that is chickenshit. It's barely warmer than parked-car-in-summer-sun.

    I have to wonder, did some journalist fail at accuracy, or are these things actually pretty painfully unexciting in terms of temperature resistance?

    1. Re:Curious... by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://cranberry.com/faqs.php

      How is the Cranberry Disc(TM) different from regular DVDs? ... Instead [of organic dyes], the Cranberry Disc's data layer is composed of rocklike materials known to last for centuries. The Cranberry Writer(TM) etches the Cranberry Disc's rocklike layer creating a permanent physical data record that is immune to data rot.

      What temperature can the Cranberry Disc withstand?
      The Cranberry Discs can withstand temperatures of 176F indefinitely with no effect to the data or the readability of the data in a standard DVD drive.

      Can the Cranberry Disc withstand UV rays and prolonged exposure to the sun?
      Cranberry Discs can withstand the full spectrum of the sun, including UV rays, indefinitely with no effect to the data or the readability of the data in a standard DVD drive.

      The data layer is their synthetic material.
      Presumably, they still sandwich it between plastics that are vulnerable to heat.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    2. Re:Curious... by NeutronCowboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When the outside temperature hits 115 degrees with full on sun, the inside can hit 150+ within 10 minutes or so. Make it nice and black inside, and surfaces will probably be hitting 160. Soooo.... yeah. Don't leave stuff inside the car in Arizona or Death Valley.

      --
      Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
  13. they can sell it in Germany as by bitt3n · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Thousand Year Rock

    --
    how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
  14. If you're actually interested in buying these... by Foggiano · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd recommend going straight to the company Cranberry is licensing from, Millenniata. It looks like you can purchase identical products for about 1/3 the price. Cranberry's got one heck of a mark-up.

  15. Nonono... Blackadder explained it all by Cryacin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Edmund: No, you see, the thing about Heaven, is that Heaven is for people who like the sort of things that go on in Heaven, like, uh, well, singing, talking to God, watering pot plants... Whereas Hell, on the other hand, is for people who like the other sorts of things: adultery, pillage, torture -- those areas.

    --
    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    1. Re:Nonono... Blackadder explained it all by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Anyone who hasn't seen Blackadder, I recommend you find a way to do so.

  16. Re:Serious reply by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do not presume upon the mercy of God.
    I certainly wouldn't (if he existed) - by all accounts he's clearly a psycopath.

  17. Re:If you're actually interested in buying these.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Everyone except you quietly fixed the link for themselves without moaning about it.

  18. Re:Interesting pricing scheme by PhilHibbs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I read that as being $5000 for the burner and the discs.

  19. Re:is this a joke ? by cherokee158 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The Library of Congress cares, which is who spurred the research into this media. And you should, too, if you want any portion of our culture preserved for future generations.

    The widespread contempt for creating anything of lasting value I see almost everywhere today speaks volumes about both this generation's shortsightedness and its selfishness.

  20. Re:Being atheist is old...find a new hobby by zeropointburn · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is nothing of the sort. It is a reasonable question, founded on perceptions common to many outside of the Christian faith. One answer is that since heaven is a place of eternal happiness, no discontent is possible. The only way for that to be possible is either to revoke free will or to remake people to be incapable of negative emotions and actions (which amounts to the same thing).

    --
    -1 raving lunatic; +6 subGenius... Things even out...