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Vatican Chooses Open FITS Image Format

Posted by timothy on from the wouldn't-a-lossy-format-make-more-sense? dept.

@10u8 writes "The Vatican Library plans to digtize 80,000 manuscripts and store them in the open data format FITS, originally developed for astronomy and maintained under the IAU. The result is expected to be 40 million pages and 45 petabytes. FITS was chosen because it 'has been used for more than 40 years for the conservation of data concerning spatial missions and, in the past decade, in astrophysics and nuclear medicine. It permits the conservation of images with neither technical nor financial problems in the future, since it is systematically updated by the international scientific community.'"

11 of 223 comments (clear)

  1. The Pope Has Spoken, It Is Done! by eldavojohn · · Score: 1, Funny
    Pope Benedict XVI was quoted as saying:

    "May the devil take the internet and transparency. They are tools of evil. *clears throat* I have decided to go with the open and transparent format of FITS when we transition our most sacred documents so that they are stored ... digitally ... online ... on the ... internet ... for easier access. Hmmmmm."

    It's nice to see that at least someone has adhered to a cogent message dating back to such honored traditions as "eye for an eye *cough* turn the other cheek" as well as "love thy neighbors *ahem* kill the Native Americans/witches/heathens."

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    My work here is dung.
  2. Petabytes by bigredradio · · Score: 2, Funny

    [insert tasteless joke here]

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    1. Re:Petabytes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      More like... Pedobytes!

    2. Re:Petabytes by ruiner13 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Where to Catholic priests store their data? In Pedophiles, of course.

      Happy now?

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      today is spelling optional day.

    3. Re:Petabytes by mr_lizard13 · · Score: 2, Funny

      You read "petabytes", and think "pedophile"? Seems someone has a problem...

      And why does Chrome think petabytes is a misspelling and want me to change it to gigabytes?

      You spelled pedophile wrong.

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      "We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
    4. Re:Petabytes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Where to Catholic priests store their data? In Pedophiles, of course.

      No, that's just where they stick their extra digits.

  3. Re:40 Years? by CannonballHead · · Score: 2, Funny

    Everyone knows that time goes faster as you get older. Same with formats.

  4. Re:40 Years? by mooingyak · · Score: 2, Funny

    The Wikipedia page states FITS was created in '81. How does that translate to more than 40 years of use?

    In some years they REALLY used it.

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    William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
  5. Re:DjVu? by Xtravar · · Score: 2, Funny

    Maybe they're just trying to make amends with astronomy after persecuting it so many years ago. "Hey, we have something in common now!"

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    Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
  6. What about the Monks? by Herkum01 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does this mean in the monasteries we are going to have monks transcribing these manuscripts bit by bit? I mean, if you just scan the stuff in what else will they have to do all day. Pray for the boredom to be over...

  7. Re:Image size? by Draek · · Score: 2, Funny

    But all those extra details can be extrapolated in software anyways, didn't you ever watch CSI?

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    No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.