Slashdot Mirror
Europeans Bury "Digital DNA" Inside a Mountain
adeelarshad82 writes "In a secret bunker deep in the Swiss Alps, European researchers deposited a 'digital genome' that will provide the blueprint for future generations to read data stored using defunct technology. The sealed box containing the key to unpick defunct digital formats will be locked away for the next quarter of a century behind a 3-1/2 ton door strong enough to resist nuclear attack at the data storage facility, known as the Swiss Fort Knox. The capsule is the culmination of the four-year 'Planets' project, which draws on the expertise of 16 European libraries, archives, and research institutions, to preserve the world's digital assets as hardware and software is superseded at a blistering pace. The project hopes to preserve 'data DNA,' the information and tools required to access and read historical digital material and prevent digital memory loss into the next century."
"The sealed box containing the key to unpick defunct digital formats will be locked away for the next quarter of a century behind a 3-1/2 ton door"..."the information and tools required to access and read historical digital material and prevent digital memory loss into the next century."
Perhaps they should include the calculations they used to equate 25 years with 90 years.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
The key is a COBOL program written on punchcard.
Always been wondering what those Swiss are doing under those mountains. Storing information about data formats, sure. This is propaganda straight from Them - They want you to believe this to secure what is *really* down there. Data formats, right - They could as well hang out a sign reading "The content of this underground bunker complex is BORING. Don't go there, you'd only waste your time." Something up in Their propaganda department lately? I am used to better work.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It's the Elvish word for 'friend'
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
can you imagine how much of the earth's surface you'd have to nuke to get rid of all the XP install CDs?
Dear God, you'd have to nuke the entire freakin' planet!
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
From orbit, no less.
can you imagine how much of the earth's surface you'd have to nuke to get rid of all the XP install CDs?
A noble objective to be sure, but I for one believe that GNU/Linux can and should achieve world domination peacefully.
Its the only way to be sure.
Ok, but this begs a simple question: how is the information describing the file formats itself encoded?
It's printed on surplus thermal fax paper from the 70's. That stuff will last forever!
Let's just say that you wouldn't want Monsanto's license server to go offline...
Yes, but if the golden records are played backwards, they're actually Rainbow's 1978 Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, which should provide sufficient warning to any semi-intelligent species out there. R.I.P. R.J.D. :/