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Ask Slashdot: Storing Items In a Sealed Chest For 25 Years?
New submitter accet87 writes "We are celebrating the Silver Jubilee of our graduation next month and have come up with an idea where we will build an air-tight chest in which each of us will deposit something and will open the chest only on our Golden Jubilee, i.e. after another 25 years. I want to understand what kind of items can be safely stored for 25 years and what kind of precautions are required to be taken. I am sure things like paper, non-ferrous metallic objects, wood, etc., will hold up well. What about data storage electronically? I don't think CD/DVDs, etc., will be usable. Even if the data is retained, reading it in 2037 may be a challenge."
On my first day of class of Junior High school, my Mother packed a lunch for me, which include a Thermos full of milk.
I promptly threw it in my locker and forgot about it.
On my last day of class, I was cleaning out the locker and found the abandoned Thermos. I brought it home unopened.
My Mother made me take it out to the far end of the lot and open and empty it out there, which I did.
The moral of the story: Don't put milk in your sealed chest!
If I were storing stuff for a long time, I would consider using an airtight sealed case, oxygen absorber and a dessicant, making sure that if any liquid came out, it could not touch the protected device. I would separate out items just to be safe.
Some items, like SD media, I'd also consider using anti-static packaging just for peace of mind as well.
Just load all of your photos, videos, data, etc onto a retina macbook pro and toss it in the case.
Maybe by 2037 someone will have figured out how to change the battery.
If so, you've got your data and you're good to go.
Get a container which is airtight and watertight. Pump it full of nitrogen.
I disagree with CDs and DVDs not being readable. Compact discs are a mature technology. As long as they're kept someplace cool, dark and dry they should be fine and readable when the container is opened in twenty five years. No idea if memory sticks or hard drives would survive.
No worries man, end of epoch isn't until 2038.
It's been over 30 years now, and as long as DVD or Bluray players still exist, the CD will still be readable. CDs aren't going anywhere. (Note I said CD not CD-R or CD-RW which are self-erasing when the dye fades.)
VHS video will still be readable too (if necessary you can buy a used VCR from ebay in 2037). It's analog so even if it degrades it will still be watchable..... I know this from personal experience with 25-30 year old tapes.
That's about it. I wouldn't trust hard drives or flash drives to still work 25 years from now. I have an HD that I left sit for just 2 years, and already it's sluggish as if it doesn't want to start spinning.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Be careful about your hermetic seals, water leakage has turned many time capsules into a soggy brown liquid. I suggest some silica gel (the kind you shouldn't eat) to absorb any latent water in the air when you seal it so you don't get condesation. Anything you seal inside should either be readable by normal human means or include the reader. Avoid batteries or other volatile chemicals as they will leak. Burned CDs are really just like polaroid photographs and fade in about 15 years on the outset depending on the burn speed and qualities of the dyes. Include black and white photos or 3 color separations so that it is easy to put back together. Same goes for 3d photos, the future is likely to use more stereo photography so take a picture with 2 cameras next to each other of the same type. I use two iphones and tap the shutters simultanously a few times to see if I can get a match. Make sure you deposit the item in a place unlikely to face future development or it will just be shoveled up onto a trash pile. There's a start, but think long term. A lot can happen in a quarter century. LONGNOW DOT ORG
Just for kicks, I pulled out a floppy with some files on it from 1987 ( My resume was short back then! ). I had no problems reading the files. However, I could not run any 16 bit programs ( I found a copy of Norton SI -- I was wondering what the speed index on my Core i7 would be ).
Brew your own beer. Make sure there's anough alcohol in it and let yourself be surprised that in 25 years the taste will certainly be different but if brewed good it will still have a chance to taste good.
I have some 5.25" floppy disks that are over 30 years old, and I can still read them. I also have some that don't work, but most are fine. We're just hitting the point where it's hard to find PCs that will read 25-year-old 3.5" floppies (but good luck with an 800K Mac floppy).
In an air-tight container with no light exposure, I would expect a CD or DVD to be just fine after 25 years, and I would expect that you would still be able to find older computers that could read them.
Your best be for electronic data would probably be a USB flash stick. While the USB standard will evolve, if it goes to something incompatible, there will be plenty of conversion dongles.
Also, a USB flash stick would be a good representation of portable storage.
Or just put the data in "the cloud" and write the URL down on a piece of paper. I'm sure that will work. :)
Perhaps now would be a good time to point out that solid-state media can hold many times that of optical media for equivalent or lower costs. A 32 GB flash drive costs around $1 per GB these days. For another $30, you can buy a pico computer capable of HDMI output. The display may be a problem; You will need to bury your capsule to a depth of about 8 feet (if memory serves) to prevent it from freezing. It will then maintain a temperature of about 50 degrees.
Electricity hasn't changed at all in the last 50 years... you should be able to just plug it in and go. Total cost: Less than $150. And anyone can drop a pen drive in the box then with hours of video footage and recordings. Although, you'll have to wait longer than 25 years for it to be legal to play it back... A lot longer. -_-
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Even if no one uses the same physical media as we do now, and even if no one uses the same file formats, storing an entire PC is likely to solve the problem. You can get a small, inexpensive PC for cheap - a couple hundred dollar atom-based machine should do the trick - and throw a large amount of storage in it. I'm fairly certain that standard power connectors will still be available 30 years from now. VGA connectors may not be, so think about storing a small monitor in there as well (someone else can speak to the chances that a monitor will turn on after 30 years).
Going this route gives you practically unlimited storage for photos, music, text, etc.. with very high chances that it will be recoverable.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
1) In 25 years any foam rubber will have turned to goo.
2) Obvious but easily forgotten: remove batteries from electronic devices.
I helped setup a "time capsule" back in 1985 for my college's centennial celebration, we expect to open the capsule in 2035. I hope to be alive when it happens, because I put some items in there. We placed lots of plastic, wood, paper, and metal objects in the capsule. For paper products,we treated each piece of paper with a mild basic solution that neutralizes the sulfur compounds used in the paper production so that the paper doesn't yellow and deteriorate. For wood, we only allowed solid pieces, and only "natural' wood, without lead or "weird" paints. Plastic was a wild card.. we didn't really know how they would react, so we decided to only allow "hard" plastic items, and no styrenes or lightweights. Metals had to be brass, iron, or "slightly" reactive metals. We wrapped each and every item in a anti-static bag, and then evacuated the bags before boxing them up. We used normal cardboard boxes for boxing.
So.. stay away from color printer output (they degrade very fast) and any pseudo-soft plastics like polycarbonate (CD/DVD) because they'll break down too. Black and white prints are the safest picture types. You might spray your paper products with a baking-soda bicarbonate solution and then dry out.
good luck!
What about an oil barrel? :D
You'll need it in 2037!
Plus, you could sell it for a few thousand dollars and buy vintage stuff from 2012
paper has been around for a LONG time. There is even paper that is made to last long. Bit more expensive, but it will last much longer.
For 25, just use normal paper. Write whatever you want. e.g. how you feel about people, politics, the future, your state of mind. Write about your dreams and your thoughts of now.
Once you have printed it, seal it in plastic. You can put a LOT of information on it and it will be very personal as well.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
People who store food for long periods either often put nitrogen in, co2 in, or throw iron sachets in that eat the oxygen. The CO2 might join any moisture to make a weak acid and the iron can eat so much oxygen as to create a small vacuum that just pulls in air anyway. So a toot of nitrogen is probably best. Compared to oxygen nitrogen is basically inert. But an iron sachet wouldn't hurt on top of the nitrogen as it will eat any oxygen that leaks in.
The other key will be variety. If you use a technology that you could be certain of can you be certain of the longevity of the materials. I have 10 year old burnable CDs where the data layer just flaked off. I also have a very old external HD where the rubber feet turned to liquid goo. So even if you decided that a USB memory stick would be the way to go I would suggest buying 2 or three very different brands.
As to worrying about how to read the format just throw in an old laptop (minus its battery) which might last and be ready to read your data.
Also separate the different storage media into different ziplocks or containers so that if one melts into a corrosive goo that the rest might be spared.
If you throw in some silica gel packs to eat any moisture be aware that if moisture is getting in regularly over time those packets can start pooling moisture around them. Thus put it at the bottom with the good stuff propped above to keep it safe. Also the iron packs can become warm if exposed to a blast of air (like the handwarmers) so keep that away from the important bits that you don't want cooked.
Lastly keep the temperature cool and stable as entropy is slower when cold.
From personal experience, I can vouch that Apple II floppy disks hold up over 25 years!
I'd add a bottle of good scotch. It will be even better in 25 years (and something to toast your discovery with).
/me takes dusty 1995 Linux CD-R that we wrote off shelf, and puts it in:
dg@major:/media/CDROM$ ls -l
total 575
dr-xr-sr-x 3 dg dg 69632 Jul 12 1995 bitmaps
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 2048 Jul 5 1995 ddd
-r--r--r-- 1 dg dg 441397 Jul 18 1995 DirList.180795
dr-xr-sr-x 13 dg dg 6144 Jul 18 1995 documentation
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 4096 Jul 10 1995 ELF-GCC
dr-xr-sr-x 10 dg dg 2048 Jul 11 1995 emulators
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 2048 Jul 5 1995 fvwm
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 18432 Jul 10 1995 gnu
dr-xr-sr-x 11 dg dg 2048 Jul 10 1995 kernel-source
dr-xr-sr-x 3 dg dg 2048 Jul 11 1995 languages
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 6144 Jul 18 1995 leftovers
-r--r-xr-- 1 dg dg 99 Jul 13 1995 Leftovers_dir_list
dr-xr-sr-x 7 dg dg 4096 Jul 12 1995 logos
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 2048 Jul 11 1995 Networking
dr-xr-sr-x 6 dg dg 2048 Jul 18 1995 pgp
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 2048 Jul 11 1995 Printing
-r--r-xr-- 1 dg dg 5814 Jul 18 1995 README.html
dr-xr-sr-x 11 dg dg 4096 Jul 10 1995 slakware
dr-xr-sr-x 4 dg dg 2048 Jul 18 1995 sunsite.unc.edu
-r--r--r-- 1 dg dg 1015 Jul 18 1995 TRANS.TBL
dr-xr-sr-x 5 dg dg 2048 Jul 10 1995 www
dr-xr-sr-x 3 dg dg 4096 Jul 11 1995 X
dr-xr-sr-x 2 dg dg 2048 Jul 5 1995 xemacs
Looks ok :-) That's been stored on a dusty shelf in my room for the last ~17 years (in jewel
case) having said that it was a good quality kodak blank, and your mileage may vary.
IMHO store multiple copies written on multiple vendors media written on multiple drives;
use a few types of storage (CD, USB-flash from a good vendor), and something like
laser printed (not-ink jet) QR code on good paper; I'd wrap each separately (hmm what in?)
Oh, and in 25 years come back and tell us how much data is visible.
Leave a gap at the bottom for stuff to drip into safely if anything can leak (think a tiny pallet).
Put dry cloth between surfaces that might stick to each other.
No Polaroid photos unless the chemical packet isn't present).
Oxygen getter and desiccant.
Store it somewhere cool - preferably with a non-varying temperature.
Don't make it look like a valuables container like a safe.
Put data on at least 2 types of media (duplicate copies).
No food or liquids unless very very stable.
Nothing with batteries.
---------
Finally, no kittens. They'll just turn into cats.
Talking about cannibalism, if the electricity supply has gone, or if a suitable transformer is not available, not the society has already fallen apart and the roving bands of hungry feral humans have already killed you and eaten your corpses so it would not matter.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That'll never go down or anything- just password protect the file and then don't open it until then. It'll be the worlds first Cloud based Time Capsule! Epic!!! Duuude!! EPIC!!!
Nobodies Prefect
Tidbits for Techs Technology Blog
Instead of storing data in the box directly, where you then rely on media retaining viability over 25 years you could always strongly encrypt the data you would like to logically store in the box and then write (or etch in stone, whatever) the decryption key and store that human readable quantity of data in the box and then maintain the cipher-text outside the box in a redundant distributed fashion over multiple generations of media. Of course I fail to see what the advantage of keeping the data secret over the time period would obtain, and it prevents transcoding to new file formats, so I'd just suggest keeping copies of the data as you would any data you want to have in 25 years (not locked in a box).
You see, physical objects are placed into a time capsule because they would normally deteriorate and not be archived properly if they weren't removed from the harsh existence of everyday life. Data however doesn't work like that, neglect is the biggest problem and hence a time capsule is not a good means of preserving data the way it is for preserving objects.
I'd get a cheap laptop that has the ability to read all of the media you're putting into the chest, into the chest as well. I'm sure you can find something cheap on ebay. Make sure to remove the battery and DO NOT put it in the chest. If the battery blows, there goes all of your data... You can run most laptops just from the power cord without an attached battery.
;-)
You may even have an old laptop laying around that you can donate to the cause. Just remember. Remove the battery. Don't even think about putting it in the chest. throw it away so someone else doesn't throw it in there "just because there is room". =)
CD-Rs and DVD-R's tend to loose their 'readability' due to heat and light. If they are stored properly, the data on them should be readable in 25+ years. That being said, if that's your media of choice make sure to make duplicate copies of your data, and store it on different brand's / types of media.
32GB of data, whether it's on DVD, USB hard drives, or SD cards, is extremely affordable nowadays. I think SD cards may loose their charge after 10 years or so but hard drives will always be readable as long as they spin up. For Hard Drives, 25 years ago from today, SCSI/IDE drives were the standard, and I know I can still read them today using a cheap USB interface.
I guess what i'm trying to say here is you have options. Depending on how important this data is, use multiple options to ensure the data is readable. If you include a reader in your chest (the laptop sans battery) you increase your chances of easily being able to read the data.
Oh, and if you do put a laptop in the chest? Don't forget the power cord.
Meep Meep!
Throw in a couple of Twinkies and the aura will keep everything fresh for 100 years.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Make it a science project.
Put identical data on one of every type of storage technology and see which survives. In 25 years you will have a very interesting case study while being nostalgic about the data storage media used back when you were young.
If they all fail then laugh at how silly you were all those years ago and how you should have done x instead.
I use it for everything I need to store; backups of tax returns, keeps veggies crisp for decades, and turns incompetent employees into wonderful conversation pieces.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Forget Flash memory, the data retention of 10 years won't be enough even if usb ports remain viable in 25 years.
My tip: print your digital data out in hex along with documentation on how to read it out. Be sure to include redundancy among multiple stacks of paper. Oh and make sure the shipping container you use keeps out moisture...
It is not a trivial request to ask how to make things survive a 25 year isolated containment, even if you solder or weld the outer container shut and it stays sealed.
Batteries, capacitors, wood, paint, plastics, bugs in the wood, polymer coatings can all outgas. Some plastics naturally keep changing very slowly as their molecular cross linking changes and plasticizers move to the surface.
Those outgassing chemicals can wind up interacting, or corroding if you wish, the other item's materials and you don't get what you think you will in 25 years.
If you actually put a battery in their you can get other reactions occurring very slowly as the battery discharges. Don't forget that many electronics use a milliamp or so to keep some functions ON all the time, even though the devices is supposed to be turned off. Batteries are notorious for having their liquids eventually leaking out.
When you handle all the items, getting ready to load the time capsule, there are going to be all sorts of finger oils and millions of bacteria that are on each piece you put in the container, plus what is on the inside of the container and its seal materials. Some bacteria are anaerobic, so just because there is no Oxygen (if you load the capsule with Nitrogen), doesn't mean there won't be live bacteria in there.
Lastly, if your container is totally sealed and outgassing raised the internal pressure, then chemical reactions can occur more rapidly.
I did some temp work at a document storage warehouse repacking some damaged file boxes. One thing I learned is that rubber bands have a useful life of about two years. After about five years, all rubber and elastic bands had failed, and worst of all, after about eight years, the remnants of rubber bands had all turned into a permanent solid glue. Lesson learned: no rubber bands allowed for long-term storage.
You know, in case the apocalypse happens in the next 25 years, you'll have something to eat when you open your time capsule.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16852830
Free Manning, jail Obama.
The cake should last edible for a 100 years, if it's made correctly.
do something else. How weak minded do you have to be to be unable to to think what should go in a box.
They're not having trouble thinking of what to put into the box. It's parsing what will LAST from what won't that they are having trouble with.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
They're practically indestructable.
Why not store data redundantly in several different formats? You could use flash, HDD, and DVD. That will increase your chances that at least one will work. Or, you could store it online, and just put the password on a piece of paper in the chest.
that's only due to the 1, high salt content 2. dessication, not the other preservatives. Essentially the same things that make jerky last. nothing to see, move along
Assuming they're well made and don't delaminate, pressed CDs and DVDs may still be readable, if you can find a drive. As may re-writable CDs and DVDs, which store data in phase-changing crystal which requires high temperatures to change. Write-once discs on the other hand store data by burning off a die, usually an organic one. And that die will spontaneously degrade so errors will start creeping in within a year or so, and your data will likely be completely unreadable after a couple decades.
As for being able to find a drive to read them - I doubt that'd be a problem only a few decades out. People made a huge investment in CDs and DVDs, and just as today you can still find a cassette or VHS player without difficulty I doubt CD/DVD drives are disappearing any time soon.
High-quality flash memory might theoretically last long enough, but there isn't much real data on the subject. Low-density Hard drives would probably last, magnetic media tends to be fairly stable as long as the bits are large enough - I'd go for the physically largest, lowest-capacity drive you can find. If you can find a 5-1/4" drive go for it (does anyone even still make those?). I'd probably use an external USB drive as well - or at least include a quality USB-to-SATA adapter. That will give you two potential interfaces to work with, odds are at least one of them will still be supported.
Regardless of medium, I'd recommend storing at least two copies - one in "normal format" for easy reading, and one in a heavily redundant ECC format, the kind that doubles or triples your data size, and ideally has low physical locality so that a corrosion spot on the platter will remove a little redundancy from a lot of data rather than all copies of a little data. I can only assume that there are archiving tools out there that will store data in such a format.
And I second the nitrogen idea - oxygen is a rather hideously destructive element.
Of course if you want data to be *really* reliable go with HD-Rosetta, good luck finding someone to record it for you though.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Paper.
I suggest acid free paper. If you're familiar with high density 2D barcodes you can store digital on it but most inks in inkjets will degrade fast. Laser printers are even worse as the pages will stick together.
Pick a good India ink and acid free paper and learn to write. ;)
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Take everything you want included as information (as opposed to toys, etc) and incorporate in into a book. Send a copy to the Library of Congress, and let them deal with the maintenance. Include a stone tablet in the box with the ISBN number chiseled into it so you can find the book when the box is opened.
Semiconductors do degrade over time. They're made of pure silicon (an insulator) which has been precisely contaminated in specific places with very small quantities of dopants (e. g. boron, phosphorous) giving one side of the junction an excess of electrons and the other side a scarcity. Over time, the dopants diffuse across the junction, changing the characteristics of the transistor by leveling out the excess/scarcity gradient. A 25 year old transistor will no longer meet it's specs. A diode will have greatly increased reverse leakage. AND gates turn into MAYBE gates.
Some capacitors will degrade quickly, some will last much longer. Ceramic capacitors will last a century, electrolytics at most 20 years. The electrolyte dries out.
Use a DLT tape (30 year retention guarantee), use tar as the archive format and transcode everything to a non proprietary codec or plain text. That'll probably be fine in 100 years. I've got a 25 year old DLT my father created on a VAX and that was readable last year still!
Or inflict you on them.
Then you will have something to do for the next 25 years - discussing if the cat is probably dead yet.
I suppose lots of food & water might be needed as well. Anyone know a breed of cat that might live 25 years ?
You should write down the definition of Jubilee and put it in the container.
Stamp the # of living roaches you throw in there on metal, and compare to the number that are there when you open it. Hopefully, you won't be restoring them after a successful global extermination.
Just make sure it's at a sufficiently high altitude so it's still above sea-level when you want to retrieve it.
Smivs on the intertubes!
How about storing all digital data on a netbook with instructions on how to recharge the damn battery?
Stone (everyone)
Intaglio bronze plates (Romans, especially for Senate documents)
Clay tablets (Babylonians)
Parchment (Everyone)
Acid free rag paper (Chinese and later the europeans)
Linen - required in many town halls for registered surveys and plats (last hundred years)
Mylar - also required for many town halls for registered surveys (ever since the invention of mylar drawing media).
We have clay tablets from thousands of years ago.
We have parchment documents from hundreds of years ago
We have paper documents from hundreds of years ago
Linen became popular when it was machine made - it is extremely durable and will last hundreds of years if given even minimal care.
Mylar can last thousands of years even after being abused.
One of the most indestructible and compact ways of storing data is punched mylar tape. It can be dumped in a bucket of oil in the shop, wiped off, and sent through the reader. It's simple to make a reader too. Herman Hollerith would have understood immediately how to read punched mylar tape had he been alive to see it. Mylar is also very stable, and not prone to rot. I would like to see the look on a wandering novice monk's face in a few thousand years unearthing an earthenware container packed with dessicant and spools of mylar and all of it entirely readable mechanically or electronically with simple tools.
It would be a new twist on the Sacred Shopping List.
And here we're merely talking about 25 years. Even a paperback written on fast-yellowing paper will survive that, given an airtight and light tight container and a pack or two of silica gel. Photographs on archival paper would be good. Microfiche would be excellent. Anything on an acid-free paper. Basically anything that can be read mechanically or optically including QR codes printed out on acid free paper with good ink.
Things to not store for 25 years and expect to be able to read: Any electronic format that depends on a proprietary reader in a proprietary format. That is *guaranteed* bit rot.
--
BMO
The elephant in the room that nobody is discussing... what's your container going to be made of? How are you going to seal it and keep it sealed? These are non-trivial questions. Containers react with the materials inside and corrode both inside and out. Seals dry out. Etc... etc...
There's a lot more to this than just the items inside. The container has to maintain its integrity too.
Surprised nobody has suggested this...save yourself the hassle of trying to pick a storage device that will still be compatible in 25 years and just get something with a network interface, I.E. a NAS. If you want to bank on something still being easily available in 25 years, bank on HTTP. It's been around for a very long time and isn't going anywhere. Just get yourself a NAS that supports IPv4 and IPv6 with an integrated webserver and you're golden for probably the next 50 years. Make sure it has a ethernet port, you should definitely be able to find ethernet enabled gear or at least some sort of ethernet adapter in 25 years. Also, most NAS boxes will also have USB and potentially firewire, Thunderbolt, etc. Those don't hurt, the more connectivity options the better. Make sure you have the data you want to save on several drives in case one goes bad.
Aside from the suggestion of packing a cheapo minibook (or netbook, or whatever they're called these days) along with say a USB flash drive, the best way would be to use good-quality media.
25 years isn't much time really. I've a 21-year-old IBM PS/2 which still boots up just fine (into Windows 95) - its Seagate SCSI drive is still going strong. I've a box full of Commodore Plus/4 floppies which still read just fine despite being over 25 years old, as do the old PC Plus coverdisks I kept back from my first PC (although they're only 21 years old).
I have a 5.25" drive hooked up to my (Sandy Bridge) PC and yes, it still works. I've another drive in an old P3 I keep ticking over for DOS games; that one's hooked up to a CatWeasel ISA card and that can read pretty much any format you're likely to come across.
As for optical media, I was too poor to afford a CD writer in the early 90s but by the late 90s I could afford one - I still have a few dozen CD-Rs containing source files from back then. The Kodak Gold Ultima discs read perfectly fine, but they were expensive - over a pound a disc. Some of the cheaper discs haven't made it, as the dye's faded and they're now unreadable using standard equipment.
Mitt is the creepy guy in your fraternity who thought it would be a good idea to assault fans of the opposing team because he thinks that's a prank (no it isn't) and that it's funny (no, it's a crime). Then he had his obligatory Mormon wedding and produced 5 clones of himself. If he runs healthcare there won't be a line for bypass surgery. There will be a footrace. He'll have a jolly good time watching grandma grab her chest and fall 10 feet short of the finish.
but I've had factory made DVDs die on me after a few years simply because I preferred to keep the AC in my apartment low.
As good as the ancient Egytians were at making mummys, an anomalous ancient Chinese genius beat them. Instead of a corpse that looked like a charcol brisqute, the royal woman he preserved, found thousands of years later, still had skin, organs, bendable limbs, etc. Like she died recently.
His method? Concentric coffins.
The inner one holding the body, floated inside of another larger coffin filled with a liquid antiseptic.
Archival Gold CDRs should be fine. The medium is supposed to good for 300 years based on accelerated testing.
http://www.mediasupply.com/mamgold.html
Make a redundant copy and you should be fine.
As far as being able to read it, there is so much stuff on CD sized optical media I would be truly shocked if in 25 year readers would not be commonly available. I've already had CD music players for that long.
Laser printer pages don't stick together.
I have banker's boxes full of documents (mostly code listings) circa 1986 printed on the first HP laser jet. No sticking problem.
The only sticking I've seen in laser printing is from early models (circa 1975) of IBM 3800 laser printers (mainframe laser printers) which printed so fast the thermoplastic never had time to cool before it was pressed down by the sheet above. Print jobs directly off the back end would sometimes stick together. This was solved in a few months by a toner change.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
1. Keep it low tech:
Assuming you graduated college at 21, you'll be around 71, you won't be that interested in figuring out high-tech stuff. It won't be long until the tech we have now is obsolete, because the rate of change continues to accelerate. Try finding a punch card reader these days.
Print stuff out on paper, regular paper works fine for only 25 years. Add a desiccant, and pump in nitrogen or argon if you can.
2. Redundancy:
Many of you will be dead and many will have lost their memory.
Print out a copy for everyone. Everybody gets one. Store in metal boxes clearly labeled on the outside so you don't have to keep opening it to see what it is.
3. Locators:
Include a list of everybody who gets a box in the box. Include personal identifiers (full names, DOBs) so you can track people down on the Internet (or whatever it is called 25 years from now.)
You may find 25 years from now that there are already records or copies of whatever you put in the box* but the greatest treasure will be locating your old buddies.
*Most people who open time capsules find old newspapers. The exact same newspapers which are also in storage in the newspaper office down the street. Probably when you open your box in 25 years you can find everything you put inside still on eBay.
Good luck!
I've got CDs I burned sometime in the mid-late 1990's that still work just fine, 1996-1998ish. I don't know why you'd be worried about them not working. They'd possibly degrade and become unreadable if they were in the sun all the time, but how much sun do you think they're going to get in your package? ;)
I'd also recommend regular cheap paper. It can have a nostalgic look to it, when it turns yellow.
testing out my trending skills
If you don't want to read the data until the chest is opened, encrypt it and only put the encryption key in the chest (something like a piece of paper will do). Periodically migrate the encrypted data itself to new media as you would with any data.
Any domesticated cat can live up to 25 years, but it's hit or miss. The odds are low, though.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I'm a lot older than the OP and have a different perspective. Some people my age spend a lot of time thinking about 'the good old days'. Those people strike me as non-functional, fossils, relics...
A few people my age forge ahead, engage with the world, eagerly anticipate exciting changes in our culture. They don't have time for ritual, reminiscing and memorabilia.
The OP doesn't say what he graduated from. If it was the Apollo astronaut team, then go for it- you've earned a place in history. Otherwise, reconsider the silly ritual; live in the present and enjoy the unfolding of history around you.
...omphaloskepsis often...
don't include the battery then, just a power supply. most laptops will function without the battery as long as they are plugged into the wall. As for the battery in the PC, you are thinking of the CMOS battery. A laptop would have one of these as well, but I've had computers in closets for decades that never showed any indication that the CMOS battery leaked, so i figure its a non problem. If you are really worried about it, remove the battery, and place it in some other sealed (non conductive) container.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
I have underwear that old!
Personally I think you should just put whatever seems poignant into the time capsule and see what happens. To me that's the fun.
25 years isn't all that long of a time. I think you could easily get away with using something like a "Gamma Seal." these seals easily last 10 years with regular use. 25 years should be easily attainable. In theory they attach to any bucket but this may not be durable enough for your needs. A Vittle Vault is both durable and sealed tight from the elements thanks to a Gamm Seal. Becoming a variety of sizes and can be picked up at any pet supply store.
For good measure throw in one or two blocks of silica gel and some oxygen absorbers. I don't see why set up like this wouldn't deliver your stuff 25 years to the future and beyond.
re: your last point.
The Milne Speaking Clock currently housed at the Science Museum in London uses optical glass discs for playback (source shines through the discs, sensor on the other side). It is still equipped with the same optical discs it was installed with during its 1964 refit (the Pat Simmons voice), although the device at the Science Museum has not been used as the line clock since 1964 (replaced by a much smaller device with a magnetic drum rather than optical discs). The original GPO Speaking Clock voice (Jane Cain) was commissioned in 1936. As of 3 April 2012 (I've been and photographed it), it's still running to a tolerance of thousandths of a second.
As far as I can make out from seeing the device first hand, the discs are made from a very highly polished quartz glass, coated with carbon(?). The entire device is encased in a sealed glass container, I would venture a guess that it is filled with an inert gas to prevent the carbon coating on the discs from oxidising. Whether this is part of the original design or if it's part of the museum preservation process, I couldn't tell you.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The records on the Voyagers and Pioneers didn't just contain audio, you know.
They contained video as well.
RCA tried (and failed) to commercialise this technology in 1981 as the CED Videodisc System.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Paperback novels, that I've reread a number of times and that live on my bookshelf. They aren't in pristine condition, but they are just fine.
Assign a handful of people to be on the contact list for the depository, and put your materials in a safe deposit box. The climate-controlled environment will make things last a lot longer, and the depository will be in contact should something happen, such as a move, or an accident, or the depository failing.
Definitely keep track of people who pass on, and assign new contacts in that event.
Set a date for everyone to appear at the depository to open the box.
This is a great idea but it is not all that hard. I have lots of stuff that is in my attic which has been sitting for over a quarter century and it is fine. I would agree with the concern about CD-R dyes however there are some disks that are advertised as being archival quality and good for over 100 years. I buy those and I make multiple copies.
The biggest issue is format changes and lack of support for old software, hardware and data formats. Companies like Apple should be ashamed at their abandonment of compatibility with the old in their relentless drive for new, new, new.
Sure, you can use CDs/DVDs. I mean, look how long some people have been using VHS (which has been around since the mid-70's). So, it shouldn't be so bad to do that. If nothing else, toss a few random CDs in there anyways just as a display of the, by-then, incredibly antiquated storage medium.
You may need by then.
...after the gubernment takes them away you'll be glad you did! Just in time for the epochalyse too!
Nuff said
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
For long-term storage I've had good luck with the following. You will need:
Place your objects in a vacuum-sealable bag. Use the vacuum cleaner to extract as much air as possible from the bag. Replace the air with dry nitrogen (i.e., nitrogen at 0% humidity), but do not overinflate: leave some room for the nitrogen to expand with temperature changes. Seal the bag. Place the bag inside an opaque plastic bag (a black garbage bag works well) and put into storage.
The two major contributors to chemical decomposition over time are oxygen and energy. By purging the air (78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, approx) with nitrogen, you get rid of most of the oxygen. By making sure you're using dry nitrogen there's no water present in the bag, and water as you can probably figure out is an oxygen source. No oxygen equals no oxidation reaction. Nitrogen is also a fairly inert gas: it's not argon-level of inert, but it's pretty damned unreactive.
By putting things into a black garbage bag, you seal it off from sunlight. No more ultraviolet light doing ultraviolent things to valence shells, kicking out electrons, etcetera.
Now that you've got oxidation and ultraviolet light controlled, store it in a fairly temperature-controlled place. 25 years of thermal shock can destroy things, and your keepsakes deserve better. A basement works well.
Insofar as how to make sure the digital media is still readable... buy a cheap laptop and put that in the nitrogen-atmosphere, UV-shielded, temperature-controlled time capsule, too, along with a USB-to-RS232 cable. In 25 years we'll still be able to read data out over a serial connection, even if Ethernet is still a thing of the past.
Store your data on ROMs. Include a VERY simple ROM Reading device that emits a serial signal. Include a small paper document that explains the ROMs, the ROM Reader, and how to properly hook it up to a serial data input line on any digital device. Provide basic information of data format, start with an ASCII character table, then simple text files describing in technical detail whatever other file types are on the ROMs including images, video and or sound files. Your ROMs could be electronic, laser etched glass with a metal coating, hell, cuneiform on clay tablets, choose a technology that's nonvolatile and sports the data density you like and have at it. Oh, yeah, mark your ROMs so that they're read in proper order... don't make future readers have to guess about anything.
You know, seeing as this question crops up repeatedly every so often, it would be a great idea to have someone come up with a nonvolatile storage medium that is high density, standard, and registered among a number of international governments and standards agencies, so future generations can access these things at some future time without scratching their heads and asking WTF. Of course if as a species, considering we have a bugger all hard time ensuring the future air is fit to breath and water fit to drink, we probably aren't gong to make sure that future generations get the pleasure of seeing reruns of "Gun Smoke".
You may also want to include a paper document that explains human based data starting with our math. Just in case we extinct ourselves, and the folks who open the capsule have zero human context. Just a thought. Don't forget to use acid free paper.
No, they do not catch on fire with age, and they are NiCD or Lithium so they don't have battery acid.
At least any laptop created in the last DECADE. Desktops' tiny battery is a lithium battery.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Sounds like my guild chest on my guild ship in DDO. Nobody ever touches the crap in there lol. My suggestions for an "IRL" one would be lots of shotguns and shells...for the zombie apocalypse (or hyper-intelligent monkeys).
Yeah, but where are you going to find a three-prong plug in 25 years?
Maybe if you flash froze some gerbils and a wheel... :^D
Very authoritative /techon.nikkeibp.co.jp article. It claims that even resting the newer 3 bit per cell flash chips earmarked for consumer grade USB thumb drives can lose data in as little as a year. There is better one bit per cell flash. But having read this piece (if it is at all accurate) I would never store a consumer grade SSD for 25 years and expect to read it without difficulty.
I think If I wanted to store data reliably for twenty five years on machine readable media I would choose -- as some have already suggested -- an archival gold DVD. Since a lot of important data are being stored on these currently it should be no trouble to find a reader capable of reading them in twenty-five years. My guess is that at least some future optical drives will be backward compatible. If only because 100 year archives are currently being created on long-life discs. You might have to pay a professional to load your data to your cloud account, however, as consumer hardware might include optical drives. But there is little doubt that you could get a DVD read in twenty five years with ease.
I have read that optical discs should be stored in their jewel cases standing on edge; that is, perpendicular to the ground. I think if you add in a duplicate to the mix then you will guard against some random defect sandbagging you. Maybe the dupe should be from another brand, like Verbatim. Bag the discs in plastic. And throw in a pouch of desiccant as others have said. Not a need for special treatment for the box IMHO. Cool dry place. Twenty five years will go by in the blink of an eye. Lemme tell ya. I recently opened some storage that was put up when I went overseas in 1989. Everything was in pretty good shape.
The broader question of what to put in the box is more interesting than how to preserve it. A video postcard from each participant would be nice. (Stored on the gold DVD.) A small personal item worn on the day of the silver jubilee might be worth seeing. What about a secret message from each person in a sealed envelope?
Something like: "I loved you from afar in history class back then. But you noticed me not. And I would have never divorced you and taken every penny like SHE did. But then you always were a damned fool, you damned fool."
Then again you could always just do butt scans on the copier. My guess is that the copy paper will hold up better than your butts will after 25 years.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Put the data in on various forms such as a portable USB hard drive, flash drives, and multiple DVDs. I would suggest looking into a RAID array as well--if a hard drive or two has errors, the error checking might make it accessible anyway. Stick a PCI-e/PCI USB and SATA adapter card in there as well. Also stick a laptop in there with the power adapter but don't put the battery in there. The battery will have died by then, and might blow up or something after a while and destroy everything. I think it would be safe to assume that power plugs will always be the same for the next fifty years or so. You would be safe even if USB/CD are not in use anymore if you have the entire device needed to read them in there.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
...answer your questions, but you should at least register it with them as extra insurance of not losing track of where you put it.
http://www.oglethorpe.edu/about_us/crypt_of_civilization/international_time_capsule_society.asp
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Why don't you do an experiment and put assorted items in a sealed container for 25 years and then open it and tell us how well things stored?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
There are cheap ways to get oxygen absorbers and silica gel desiccants:
Hand warmer = oxygen absorber
(some) kitty litter = desiccant (make sure it has silica gel; Fresh Step Crystals, Petco Crystals are both OK)
The hand warmer will generate more heat than a food-grade oxygen absorber, so make sure it doesn't touch the stuff you want preserved. Also consider putting your kitty litter in a cloth bag to keep it contained.
Good luck!
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
It's expensive... often 4-10 times as expensive as the common MLC media, but flash media is the most promising at this time for long term storage... 25-50 years I think. If you look at it, even today, it is possible to read 8" floppies with a little effort. With a bit of work, I was able to help someone read an old IBM370 disk pack on a PC a little while back. Whether it is convenient to read or not is a different story. But the fact is that reading ancient media isn't impossible. Flash is promising since it should experience almost no bit rot if you use single level media which tends to have fairly gigantic cells. Making use of 45nm or larger tech is an even better idea. So, in reality, a USB thumb drive that was a bit price a while ago might be your best option. I regularly buy industrial grade flash which is single level based, in an age where a 256gig flash drive can cost $300 or less, these still cost about $300 for 8gigs. They will however last a great deal longer than the alternative varieties.
I am not a big believer in disc based media since purchasing a 8" floppy drive and connecting it to a PC can easily end up costing $1000 or more these days. I feel strongly that it will be much harder in the future. I would even recommend finding a really cheap single board computer with a USB port on it and putting it into the box. With some exposed pins and access to the Internet, a high school kid in an electronics course should be able to use that to rig up a reader for the Flash drive if USB happens to go the way of the dodo. Remember though, this is 2012 and I still use RS-232 every single day I'm at work.
Well I recently plugged in a desktop that had been sitting abandoned in a warehouse since 1993 and while the CMOS battery was of course toast it certainly didn't damage the unit and it booted right up...Windows 2 was on the machine and I have to say THAT was a trip back in time. You don't realize how much things have changed until you fire one of those old monsters back up, remember how LOUD the hard drives were then? i had gotten so used to silent drives it took me a minute to realize it was that big old clunky HDD making all that noise.
As for something to throw in there I figure space will probably be at a premium so I'd throw in a pad like this along with the power supply and a ton of pics on a microSD card. this way you'll be able to laugh at how primitive the tablets were plus have an easy way to show everyone all the pics you've taken on the MicroSD. You can include a message from everyone to their "future selves' on the MicroSD which will be fun to look back on then as a nice bonus.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This is just an idea I'm throwing out there, based on the idea of a networked disk.
You could have a legal firm tasked with updating the media every 5 years in perpetuity.
Of course if you actually kept a disk connected to the Internet it could be hacked, this is probably 100% certain by the year you are planning to open it. So you could instead put a usb drive in a bank vault. Perhaps put a laptop in too.
Then every 5 or 10 years, someone comes along to copy it onto the latest media type. Perhaps one day soon we will even have a Library of Congress data vault where people can pay to store data and have it preserved. If such exists, it can also be used in parallel.
I am thinking it is going to be much more secure to put things into a vault than burying it in the ground and wondering if random chemical processes will destroy it or not. It sounds very possible you could even have flooding from rising seas or natural disasters from global warming, get zapped from EMF bombs or who knows.
So while burying a time capsule is romantic if you want something to be safe maybe you should at the same time, distribute it digitally in commercial physical structures.
3-prong probably, 120V most definitely. Worst comes to worse, just cut the end off and hard-wire it. Failing 120V AC, I'm sure the DC output equivalent should still be available.
It should be perfectly fine in a perfectly sealed box for 25 years. Or not.
Note how I did not use "purrfectly". There is still some sanity left!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
On the other hand, I have code listings printed back in 2002 on a low-end LaserJet 1200 using an HP cartridge that were stuck together pretty badly when I went through them a couple of years ago. Different printer/toner/paper combinations can yield different results.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
That is all.
Different places require different technology. For a pole-pig, inductance works well because of the relatively high inductance*frequency which means you aren't just sending all the power into eddy currents. In a wall-wart, there isn't enough size to get more than a mH or so of inductance, meaning they have to use resistance to keep the current down. If the frequency were around 1kHz then sure, wall warts would be nice and efficient. But at household size conversion and with 60hz input it is better to rectify, smooth, then square-wave-AC at high frequency into a little transformer which does the conversion with less current therefore less I*I*R losses.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
a bottle of scotch, duh.
nonsense, here in illinois we have several schemes to soak the poor for what little they have. One is the State Lottery, there are at least six more.
Put a single sheet of paper in the box with the details of a cloud storage account to which you have uploaded all your digitized memorabilia. Like, say, maybe, Megaupload....
--
If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. - Mark Twain
The sooner the rest of the world moves to 240V the better. Half the transmission loss or twice the power?
There are myriad number of issues you might not find addressed on this thread and will not be able to guess at. Archivist are professionals in long-term storage in various environments; some of them have been at it for over 25 years already. Society of American Archivists (SAA) members have a certification process. You should be able to find contacts and relevant publications here:http://www2.archivists.org/
-- Wife looks menacingly at husband of 26 years when he is ten for ten on the smoothest ones.
-- Another wife looks on in dismay at her husband when he is ten for ten on the hairy ones.
-- And all look on in fear at the smug woman who is 20 for 20 -- both hairy and smooth.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
It feels like once a month there is an Ask-Slashdot question worrying about the long-term storage of digital information.
Get two or three raspberry PI, and copy the same data (a linux distro + everything needed to read the files) in a dozen or so different SD cards, from different brands. Data redundancy should keep you safe, and having more than one hardware, too. Add a cheap screen (although Raspberry can output RCA), and you are good to go.
Be sure to leave an apology note for destroying the environment in your box.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff