Hitachi Creates Quartz Glass Archival Medium

Connect the dots by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:34 · Score: 0

resistant to extreme heat, radiation, radio waves

But not stray lasers, so watch out for cat owners.

Re:Connect the dots by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:58 · Score: 0

Yeah, and don't drop it.

Glass is an amorphous solid. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:35 · Score: 0

Glass doesn't sag.

No better way by Sparticus789 · 2012-09-25 06:38 · Score: 4, Funny

Finally, a long term solution so that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids can see my baby pictures, listen to my Fallout Boy CDs, and watch my disturbing pr0n collection. I'll order a dozen!

--
sudo make me a sandwich

Re:No better way by CanHasDIY · 2012-09-25 06:42 · Score: 5, Funny

Finally, a long term solution so that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids can see my baby pictures, listen to my Fallout Boy CDs, and watch my disturbing pr0n collection. I'll order a dozen!
***DRM ERROR - Could Not Contact Authentication Server***

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Re:No better way by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:52 · Score: 3, Insightful

Finally, a long term solution so that my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandkids can see my baby pictures, listen to my Fallout Boy CDs, and watch my disturbing pr0n collection. I'll order a dozen!
***DRM ERROR - Could Not Contact Authentication Server***
That makes me a sad panda.
Re:No better way by GameboyRMH · 2012-09-25 06:56 · Score: 2

It won't get that far because it will require an app for some proprietary long-dead OS first. Apps are the future ya know!

--
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:No better way by girlintraining · 2012-09-25 07:08 · Score: 1

***DRM ERROR - Could Not Contact Authentication Server***
Assuming the person who finds it realizes its a storage device, and not just a pretty rock...

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Re:No better way by Sparticus789 · 2012-09-25 07:15 · Score: 1

It's just Fallout Boy, no big loss. However, my Lisa Ann video collection needs to be preserved for all eternity.

--
sudo make me a sandwich
Re:No better way by Thud457 · 2012-09-25 07:22 · Score: 1

Assuming the person who finds it realizes its a storage device, and not just a pretty rock...
Society will just label them as a dangerous schizophrenic .

--
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Re:No better way by mwvdlee · 2012-09-25 07:47 · Score: 1

It's only 40MB each. You might need to leave out the baby pictures and Fallout Boy CDs.

--
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Re:No better way by RoverDaddy · 2012-09-25 07:53 · Score: 1

The Rosetta Disk http://rosettaproject.org/ is actually designed to give future humans some hint that the object contains microscopic data. Yes people have actually thought about these issues.

--
RETURN without GOSUB in line 1050
Re:No better way by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 08:01 · Score: 0

Thank you, sir. This is why I come here. I will refrain from posting insulting trolls to this article.
-Paul
Re:No better way by DigiShaman · 2012-09-25 08:56 · Score: 2

You you just virtualize an OS that virtualizes an OS that virtualizes an OS and so on and so forth. Eventually, I'm sure you'll get there.

--
Life is not for the lazy.
Re:No better way by Quiet_Desperation · 2012-09-25 10:05 · Score: 1

You win link of the week. That was awesome. Someone needs to publish a collection that guy's stories.
Re:No better way by Cute+and+Cuddly · 2012-09-25 10:45 · Score: 0

Nope, it is 40 MB per square inch. Increasethe square inches of quartz, have more storage....
Re:No better way by ZeroMS · 2012-09-25 12:10 · Score: 1

And in the end get a BSOD in Windows 27
Re:No better way by DigiShaman · 2012-09-25 14:15 · Score: 1

Isn't nostalgia wonderful?

--
Life is not for the lazy.
Re:No better way by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-25 18:35 · Score: 1

A CD-like patterning could result in the familiar interference effect. A spectrum. In the event of a collapse of civilisation, that type of effect would likely make the material a highly treasured gem. That will ensure it is preserved for a very long time (Though possibly broken into smaller pieces). The strange pattern will also attract the interest of future scientists, who will probe at it with reinvented microscopes until they figure it out.
Re:No better way by CastrTroy · 2012-09-26 00:23 · Score: 1

Learn to read. It's 40 MB per square inch. Same as an Audio CD. You could easily fit music on something the size of an audio CD, I'm sure someone has done it before. Although pictures are getting quite big. A single picture from my digital camera comes pretty close to the size of a lot of MP3s I have. So, it might need quite a few of these discs to back up the thousands of pictures I have. Although you could probably keep a collection of important ones.

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:No better way by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 02:45 · Score: 0

I just stuck on Fall Out Boy's greatest hits on spotify to see what would warrant being passed down generation upon generation, but all I heard was a fifth rate Green Day knockoff, the kind of mediocre shit you'd hear on the soundtrack of an American Pie movie.

The first thing to record by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:38 · Score: 5, Funny

Dear Hitachi,

please record the video "Never Gonna Give You Up", so that all future generations are able to get rick-rolled. And label the disc "soft porn" to ensure they'll work at decoding the data.

Re:The first thing to record by EkriirkE · 2012-09-25 07:00 · Score: 4, Funny

Careful, what people consider sexual varies culture to culture - you're going to start a future where everyone masturbates to the video.

--
from 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 to 45 2F 6E 40 3C DF 10 71 4E 41 DF AA 25 7D 31 3F
Re:The first thing to record by bobcat7677 · 2012-09-25 07:34 · Score: 1

Pretty sure Superman already has prior art on the whole data on a crystal thing...
Re:The first thing to record by modecx · 2012-09-25 08:34 · Score: 3, Funny

You mean to tell me nobody else does that now?

--
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Re:The first thing to record by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 10:01 · Score: 1

must resist... V2UncmUgbm8gc3RyYW5nZXJzIHRvIGxvdmUNCllvdSBrbm93IHRoZSBydWxlcyBhbmQgc28gZG8g SQ0KQSBmdWxsIGNvbW1pdG1lbnQncyB3aGF0IEknbSB0aGlua2luZyBvZg0KWW91IHdvdWxkbid0 IGdldCB0aGlzIGZyb20gYW55IG90aGVyIGd1eQ0KSSBqdXN0IHdhbm5hIHRlbGwgeW91IGhvdyBJ J20gZmVlbGluZw0KR290dGEgbWFrZSB5b3UgdW5kZXJzdGFuZA0KDQpDSE9SVVMNCk5ldmVyIGdv bm5hIGdpdmUgeW91IHVwLA0KTmV2ZXIgZ29ubmEgbGV0IHlvdSBkb3duDQpOZXZlciBnb25uYSBy dW4gYXJvdW5kIGFuZCBkZXNlcnQgeW91DQpOZXZlciBnb25uYSBtYWtlIHlvdSBjcnksDQpOZXZl ciBnb25uYSBzYXkgZ29vZGJ5ZQ0KTmV2ZXIgZ29ubmEgdGVsbCBhIGxpZSBhbmQgaHVydCB5b3UN Cg0KV2UndmUga25vd24gZWFjaCBvdGhlciBmb3Igc28gbG9uZw0KWW91ciBoZWFydCdzIGJlZW4g YWNoaW5nIGJ1dCB5b3UncmUgdG9vIHNoeSB0byBzYXkgaXQNCkluc2lkZSB3ZSBib3RoIGtub3cg d2hhdCdzIGJlZW4gZ29pbmcgb24NCldlIGtub3cgdGhlIGdhbWUgYW5kIHdlJ3JlIGdvbm5hIHBs YXkgaXQNCkFuZCBpZiB5b3UgYXNrIG1lIGhvdyBJJ20gZmVlbGluZw0KRG9uJ3QgdGVsbCBtZSB5 b3UncmUgdG9vIGJsaW5kIHRvIHNlZSAoQ0hPUlVTKQ0KDQpDSE9SVVNDSE9SVVMNCihPb2ggZ2l2 ZSB5b3UgdXApDQooT29oIGdpdmUgeW91IHVwKQ0KKE9vaCkgbmV2ZXIgZ29ubmEgZ2l2ZSwgbmV2 ZXIgZ29ubmEgZ2l2ZQ0KKGdpdmUgeW91IHVwKQ0KKE9vaCkgbmV2ZXIgZ29ubmEgZ2l2ZSwgbmV2 ZXIgZ29ubmEgZ2l2ZQ0KKGdpdmUgeW91IHVwKQ0KDQpXZSd2ZSBrbm93biBlYWNoIG90aGVyIGZv ciBzbyBsb25nDQpZb3VyIGhlYXJ0J3MgYmVlbiBhY2hpbmcgYnV0IHlvdSdyZSB0b28gc2h5IHRv IHNheSBpdA0KSW5zaWRlIHdlIGJvdGgga25vdyB3aGF0J3MgYmVlbiBnb2luZyBvbg0KV2Uga25v dyB0aGUgZ2FtZSBhbmQgd2UncmUgZ29ubmEgcGxheSBpdCA=

Problem... by BeerCat · 2012-09-25 06:38 · Score: 1

It's all very well having something that can be read "with an optical microscope and appropriate software", but if the planned life is in the millions of years, then you have to hope that the science of optics hasn't been lost. And as for software, that will be hard to read far, far sooner (see the Domesday Project as an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Domesday_Project)

--
"She's furniture with a pulse"

Re:Problem... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:47 · Score: 1

The solution is obvious: put the software, along with the datasheets of the ICs and schematics of the hardware for building the required computer on a quartz glass disc.
Re:Problem... by Spy+Handler · 2012-09-25 06:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Thousand years from now, someone looking at computer data storage devices might be completely oblivious to what they were meant for.
"Ah, those crazy ancient people, obsessed with making ornamental plastic/metal boxes!"
I would say from an archeological perspective, any digital archive that requires a computer to read is a big no-no. Stone tablets are good, as even in the worst dark ages people will understand their purpose (even if they can't decipher the text). However stone tablets are limited in data density, so you can't write much on them.
I propose writing on titanium or aluminum sheets. Most of the writing would be in tiny microscopic font to get some decent data density -- like microfilm of the 80's, but with better long-term durability.
On the first page we could put normal-size writing as sort of a primer. Then the text would get progressively smaller until it's microfilm-sized, so the reader would get the point that the rest of the tablet is in tiny letters. We could put a diagram explaining the properties of a magnifying glass, and how to make one.
Re:Problem... by CanHasDIY · 2012-09-25 07:08 · Score: 1

Thousand years from now, someone looking at computer data storage devices might be completely oblivious to what they were meant for.
"Ah, those crazy ancient people, obsessed with making ornamental plastic/metal boxes!"
Kinda makes you wonder about our own civilization's archaeological endeavors, doesn't it? How many odd looking "stones" have been discarded whilst in pursuit of other, more museum-desired items like clay pots and gold jewelry?

--
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Re:Problem... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:20 · Score: 0

This was a distinct problem during the early days when places like Greece and Egypt got ransacked for anything that could be displayed or sold "back home".
Re:Problem... by BeerCat · 2012-09-25 07:33 · Score: 1

I propose writing on titanium or aluminum sheets. Most of the writing would be in tiny microscopic font to get some decent data density -- like microfilm of the 80's, but with better long-term durability.
On the first page we could put normal-size writing as sort of a primer. Then the text would get progressively smaller until it's microfilm-sized, so the reader would get the point that the rest of the tablet is in tiny letters. We could put a diagram explaining the properties of a magnifying glass, and how to make one.
A bit like the plans for the Rosetta Project: http://rosettaproject.org/disk/concept/

The text begins at eye-readable scale and spirals down to nano-scale.

--
"She's furniture with a pulse"
Re:Problem... by lister+king+of+smeg · 2012-09-25 07:46 · Score: 2

if we put them on metal someone will come along and melt them down and make a cooking pot or frying pan out of them. never under estimate the the ability of anyone to not give a crap about history and knowledge. what you need is a Indiana Jones like temple/datacenter/library that will kill anyone not very determined to get at what the ancients left behind built in a geographically stable area that will anything sort of a direct extinction level meteor strike. fill it with books to teach them basic english and then books to teach computer design and programming and the function/use of all of the equipment contained inside give them the language specifications for every programing language used, along with all of source code for the compliers as a reference. fill it to the brim with as much as you can to communicate how to use your acrival media

--
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:Problem... by vadim_t · 2012-09-25 08:12 · Score: 1

I'd come up with some way of hinting at and explaining the encoding. Here's an idea:
The surface starts with a visible circle, 1 mm in diameter. The next circle is a bit smaller. The next is smaller still, and so on until the size of the bit is reached. This would draw somebody examining the device to trying to see where this detail ends.
Next to this there's a visible, etched ASCII table, with the binary representation for each letter, and an example text that's unlikely to be lost to time, with its binary version.
In the real size bits, there is a progression of: 0, 1, 10, 11... This illustrates how data is encoded. At this point, the etched alphabet should make sense.
Next there is a diagram showing how the data is organized in blocks.
Then there's a diagram highlighting the location of error correction data, and the way it's calculated.
Then there are more diagrams of the logical structure -- a simple filesystem, maybe just a tar file, with one file after another.
After all this, there's finally the data. To make it extra obvious, the blocks can be made to have visible separate, so that the grouping is obvious.
The idea is that you could start looking at the visible details, get drawn to the hidden ones, and have plenty clues along the way to figure out what it all means. And all this could be on every device with plenty room to spare for the real data.
Re:Problem... by ColdWetDog · 2012-09-25 08:20 · Score: 0

And, as an archeologist, I'd just throw that into a junkpile with the modern version of 'tl;dr'.

--
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Problem... by vadim_t · 2012-09-25 09:42 · Score: 2

Are you sure you're a real archeologist?
Any interesting artifact these days is obsessed over to an incredible degree. It gets x-rayed, carbon dated, chemically analyzed, stuck in a MRI machine, looked at with a microscope, and the debates about the conclusions that can be drawn from those things last for decades.
Re:Problem... by DrVomact · 2012-09-25 11:56 · Score: 1

Maybe sheer quantity will take care of providing a "Rosetta Stone" for the future. If only a single product label survives, then our descendants will have a record of about a dozen major languages instantiated in texts with identical meaning, and a fairly clear understanding of our major obsessions and legal system in the bargain.

--
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Re:Problem... by wierd_w · 2012-09-25 16:52 · Score: 1

This is easily accomplished.
Break the library cache into several sections.
In the first section, make a single literary work, in every world language. (We wouldn't be able to read ancient egyptian without the rossetta stone.) Do this using the "image in crystal" colimated laser etching technique. (See for instance, this image of the eifel tower.) do this with a .5in thick "slab" of crystal. This is exhibit #1 in the cache. It is intended to help future historians form a base of translation for the language used in the archive cache's texts.
Exhibit #2 uses the base language used for the cache to describe and depict the tools needed to extract the digital data from the main archives, stored in exhibit #3. These are etched using the same technique. Personal notes for the historians to read should go in this exhibit as well.
Exhibit #3 contains the rank and file of digital data encoded clear crystal slabs, carefully packed in a geologically stable, inert substance. Like say, powdered talc. This will protect the archive from shatter based damage.
If the future historians can't figure it out from that, there isn't much else you can do for them.
Re:Problem... by schroedingers_hat · 2012-09-25 22:23 · Score: 1

Another approach would be to augment this with a bottom up approach (for those words they can't quite get, or if all the languages die). It's fairly easy to get anough mathematics accross to communicate a simple audio and/or video codec (anyone competent enough to build microscopes and semiconductors is going to get the basic logical operations and from there some kind of assembly isn't hard).
Then include a bunch of sesame street and other stuff aimed at kids. Suppliment it with picture dictionaries along with our current understanding of linguistics and how it applies to the languages we know.

Long term data archival by girlintraining · 2012-09-25 06:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

The problem with long term data archival isn't just the storage medium -- it's being able to recreate the reader mechanism from scratch. Tomorrow world war 3 happens. We're bombed back to the stone age. Thousands of years from now, humanity has returned to the level it is today, but with no knowledge or intact examples of previous technology. How do you explain how to build something, when the language, the words, and the understanding of physics and technology are all different (and possibly wrong or incomplete)?

We've been trying for a long time to come up with a universal language; Partly in case we ever contact E.T., but also because of the problem of language fragmentation. Human language tends to diverge, not converge. How do you manage to tell someone how to construct a complex device from scratch, without any linguistic foundation and scientific understanding to build from?

Civilization in a bottle: Not as easy as it sounds.

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie

Re:Long term data archival by alexgieg · 2012-09-25 06:54 · Score: 2

The problem with long term data archival isn't just the storage medium -- it's being able to recreate the reader mechanism from scratch.
These are two different problems. One is how to archive things assuming the future will be technologically proficient, another is how to archive things assuming it won't. This technology is clearly geared towards the former. In a technologically proficient future, historians will certainly love having full access to the tons of small details and day-to-day stuff that can be made available for them with this, things we wouldn't dream even trying to archive in something geared towards a technologically backwards future.
The nice thing is that it isn't an either/or proposition. We can easily target both goals with different methods. Done right, the small but important stuff archived for a technological deficient future can include instructions on how to unlock the other, larger archive, even if it takes centuries for them to achieve the level of proficiency required. And then you get the best of both worlds: a retechnified future plus very happy historians.

--
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
Re:Long term data archival by virgnarus · 2012-09-25 06:56 · Score: 2

Duh, they just store it in the crystal as a README.
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:00 · Score: 0

We're bombed back to the stone age. Thousands of years from now, humanity has returned to the level it is today, but with no knowledge or intact examples of previous technology.
And you expect your storage medium has survived that?
Are you a wizard?
Re:Long term data archival by girlintraining · 2012-09-25 07:05 · Score: 1

Duh, they just store it in the crystal as a README.
They saved the file in UTF-16. Also, in the future, the use of English is illegal. Historians believe that a catacalysmic nuclear event several thousand years ago was what caused the Great Warming. Records show a language known as "english" was prevalent in the worst-affected areas. It was retroactively banned by the 320th High Pope of the New New Pastarastafarian church. It's believed the language itself was what caused the problem. Your argument is invalid.

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:06 · Score: 0

Have a magnifying glass etched on that shows bits of data getting smaller and smaller as it comes out the glass to show the data is really small.
A species smart enough to figure out how to make one will eventually understand how to read it.
As to understanding it... well that is solved by creating a very basic bridging language that can lead to learning what the other language says.
Have some plates hold a format that the files are encoded in so they know how to arrange the data.
Very good example for some initial ones is to create a pictographic bridging language with some basic math and go from there.
Re:Long term data archival by Yvan256 · 2012-09-25 07:07 · Score: 3, Funny

Civilization in a bottle: Not as easy as it sounds.
I don't know about bottles, but Sid Meier can put Civilization on a plastic disc.
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:09 · Score: 0

Don't ever try to write a Sci-Fi book, please.
Re:Long term data archival by girlintraining · 2012-09-25 07:14 · Score: 1

Don't ever try to write a Sci-Fi book, please.
Timey whimey, wibbly wobbley...

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Re:Long term data archival by ceoyoyo · 2012-09-25 07:26 · Score: 1

Did you miss the part where the reader is a microscope?
Re:Long term data archival by Gilmoure · 2012-09-25 07:32 · Score: 1

Aw, the Pope's Tits they'll outlaw Engrish. If they do, it'll become the cool underground language spooky books are written in.

--
I drank what? -- Socrates
Re:Long term data archival by Taibhsear · 2012-09-25 07:34 · Score: 1

Just make IKEA instructions for it.
Re:Long term data archival by HiThere · 2012-09-25 07:45 · Score: 1

We've been trying for a long time to come up with a universal language; Partly in case we ever contact E.T., but also because of the problem of language fragmentation. Human language tends to diverge, not converge. How do you manage to tell someone how to construct a complex device from scratch, without any linguistic foundation and scientific understanding to build from?
Cuneiform and clay tablets!

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:53 · Score: 0

In the year 1.002.2012:
Decodng Binary is easy,
Deconding Ascii / utf8/16 is hard,
Decoding Docx is impossible.
Openoffice is easier, but they need to provide format descriptors / source code. Although they probably won't be able to compile it.
Re:Long term data archival by evilviper · 2012-09-25 07:53 · Score: 1

Despite numerous cataclysms in the past, most languages remained intact. The Rosetta Stone is basically the way forward, a translation key with all languages represented, as at least ONE modern language is sure to be comprehensible in the very distant, post-apocalyptic future.
And it's an easier problem today than ever... We can print innumerable color pictures, labeled with the appropriate words. That wasn't so easy when craftsman were hand-carving stone tablets.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Long term data archival by einar.petersen · 2012-09-25 08:03 · Score: 1

Given humanity is again advanced to a reasonable technical level a simple illustration aka this one from my children's fairy tale could work. http://einarpetersen.com/doku.php?id=fiordlings_imageexample Naturally a more stylistic approach with regards to what is drawn light source / a looking glass effect drawing, the media etc. but I'd think something like that should do it, maybe throw in a few 0 and 1's / images or whatever information is recognisable so that an experimenter would recognise artefacts ... Well just a thought - after all the human creature is one with imagination so whatever we'd try someone ought to be able to figure it out...

--
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
Re:Long term data archival by pod · 2012-09-25 08:16 · Score: 1

The point is, _someone_ wanting to read your archive in the future (or a completely alien civilization) cannot do so if they can't make sense of the data. You assume the media will survive. That's why you're worried about this in the first place. If not, then you assume the reader will share your fundamental knowledge, concepts and technologies, in some form.
The whole point is, it's 1,000,000 years later. We've gone to the stoneage and back twice. Who knows what happened. You can include plans and blueprints and primers, but building something you've never seen before, like an optical drive or a display or a binary computer requires a massive amount of fundamental technologies and understanding. It's a whole way of thinking. For example, we use electrons to power and operate computers, and convey information via a flat image in the visible spectrum to perceive with our eyes. Even math, who's to say it is the universal language? We assume it is, but maybe we just don't know any better, maybe our math is too primitive, or makes assumptions that are cultural, not natural.

--
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 08:16 · Score: 0

The answer is a monolith with 1x4x9 proportions.
Re:Long term data archival by ColdWetDog · 2012-09-25 08:23 · Score: 1

Despite numerous cataclysms in the past, most languages remained intact. The Rosetta Stone is basically the way forward, a translation key with all languages represented, as at least ONE modern language is sure to be comprehensible in the very distant, post-apocalyptic future.
Sounds like every 16 language foldout instruction sheet for various little electronic gizmos.
We're saved.

--
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 10:12 · Score: 0

What they need to do is make something like a fairly idiot-proof laptop powered by a Baylis generator (wind up spring driven dynamo) with a pictogram of how to start it. Have it setup with a simplified OS and some kind of menu that appears on startup that covers at least 100 different languages. Then store that in watertight container sealed in some other container that acts as a faraday cage. Along with that, you have your container full of archival disks. Then that way you have the hardware needed to get at the data archived in the same manner.
Either that or intentionally place some archival artifacts on the moon. (Not just some landers which are already up there, but something like a vault full of goodies and an encyclopedia containing current knowledge.) If we ever screw up badly enough, if anybody left develops the tech again to get at it, at least they should know enough to find it interesting and/or useful.
Re:Long term data archival by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 13:03 · Score: 0

What the hell is the year 1.002.2012
The people on this planet can't even fucking agree to use a normal format for dates (YYYY-MM-DD) and you think we can agree on a format for thousand-year storage?
Re:Long term data archival by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-25 18:41 · Score: 1

1x4x9x16, continuing to an unspecified but finite number, according to the book. The 1x4x9 cuboid is just the part that intersects with the three ordinary spatial dimensions.

Crystal Skull time by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:40 · Score: 0

Break out the crystal skull!

In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:41 · Score: 0

Superman Sues Hitachi over intelectual property infringement on kiptonDrive TM.

Shatter-proof? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:43 · Score: 0

...just don't drop it!

Re:Shatter-proof? by mark_osmd · 2012-09-25 08:51 · Score: 2

Yeah, although more expensive, synthetic sapphire might be better

A few hundred million years later by ByteSlicer · 2012-09-25 06:44 · Score: 4, Funny

Scientist 1 : Look! We found these crystals with dots on it. We believe they're some ancient data storage discs.
Scientist 2 : Cool! What do they say?
Scientist 1 : We don't know, we need the software to decode them.
Scientist 2 : And where is the software?
Scientist 1 : We're pretty sure it's on one of the discs...
(Scientist 1 : Also, we need a running DRM server, whatever that may be)

Re:A few hundred million years later by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:50 · Score: 0

Record a label with the information as plain text, readable by microscope, for the file system and the data structures. Use simple, open formats so that there's no problem accessing the data. Store images as plain 24-bit TGAs, for example.
Re:A few hundred million years later by WillAdams · 2012-09-25 06:56 · Score: 1

Surely at least one copy of _The TeXbook_ and the other volumes of _Computers & Typesetting_ will survive:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/abcde.html
which is why I've never understood why Project Gutenberg handicapped itself in its beginning w/ no tagging at all.

--
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Re:A few hundred million years later by mareacaspica · 2012-09-25 07:01 · Score: 1

They'll be quite surprised to find out Spartacus' pron collection
Re:A few hundred million years later by Sparticus789 · 2012-09-25 07:34 · Score: 3, Funny

I am Sparticus and my collection is amazing.

--
sudo make me a sandwich
Re:A few hundred million years later by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:51 · Score: 1

I am Spartacus, and MY collection is amazing.
Re:A few hundred million years later by fa2k · 2012-09-25 08:32 · Score: 1

This problem is overblown for hyper-long term storage. It wouldn't be too hard for someone to reverse-engineer the x86 instruction set if they really wanted to. (server-based DRM is a bigger problem, but they may be able to crack things like AES-128 in the far future)
Re:A few hundred million years later by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 15:51 · Score: 0

I'm Spartacus!

posting AC because people are lame.

readable after a few hundred million years by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:48 · Score: 0

prove it

This great! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:51 · Score: 0

What happens if it gets dropped?

ridulian crystal paper by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 06:54 · Score: 0

God Emperor of Dune is pleased.

Re: ridulian crystal paper by harlequinn · 2012-09-25 11:11 · Score: 1

I was thinking along similar lines.

Most Excellent! by carrier+lost · 2012-09-25 06:57 · Score: 3, Funny

100 million years, right?

' That means I can use this to store my music collection until I finally have time to categorize and playlist it.

--
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen

Re:Most Excellent! by Malizar · 2012-09-25 07:02 · Score: 4, Funny

And it may be out of copyright by then.
Re:Most Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:04 · Score: 0

or enough time for the copyright to finally run out on it and you can give it away :)
Re:Most Excellent! by carrier+lost · 2012-09-25 07:20 · Score: 1

Ha!

--
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
Re:Most Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 10:58 · Score: 0

100 million years, right?
' That means I can use this to store my music collection until I finally have time to categorize and playlist it.
And it may be out of copyright by then.
My less cynical side wants to point out you are an optimist. My more cynical side wants to point out that to be in copyright, at least one copy must exist.

Where's the Rosetta Stone? by davidwr · 2012-09-25 07:01 · Score: 1

I hope there is a human-readable "Rosetta Stone" to convert binary information to human-readable information. Better yet, record as much as possible in human-readable form to start with.

Heck, for pictures, dispense with the binary and store them as psuedo-analog, color-separated red, blue, and green "black and white images" with "pixels" of various sizes using artificial halftones. Next to the "red" picture, put a label indicating that this is "red" or a specific reddish wavelength of light. Ditto green and blue.

For text, have an ascii table or draw out the letters like a dot-matrix printer would. OK, so they don't speak English 10 million years from now. Put in a dictionary with all known human languages along with pictures and the like. Hopefully they'll figure it out.

For sound, carve an analog or pseudo-analog sound track similar to a record-player sound track.

Sure, this may not be space efficient, but the goal is longevity and understandability, not space-efficiency.

Yes, there will be things that are best stored digitally, but even for those you can and should have human-readable instructions to help make sense of the ones and zeros.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

Re:Where's the Rosetta Stone? by Russ1642 · 2012-09-25 07:09 · Score: 1

Check out the Long Now Foundation. They have already produced Rosetta stone-like discs for languages. Their clock is very cool too.
Re:Where's the Rosetta Stone? by fikx · 2012-09-25 07:11 · Score: 1

just make a library of these crystals and then have the decoding info visible if you overlap them under a light....efficient in multiple dimensions...

--
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Re:Where's the Rosetta Stone? by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-25 18:44 · Score: 1

How about making a microscope too? A microscope only needs two materials to construct: A body and a lens. Both of those can be materials that will last a million years without difficulty, along with a storage case.

Much more practical: 100-1000 years by davidwr · 2012-09-25 07:06 · Score: 1

"Archival" storage has much more use for the 100-1000 time frame than for the million-year-plus time frame.

For time frames of less than 1000 years and assuming no major disruption like a nuclear war, we can assume that people will know what binary code is, what the English language is, have bodies that have eyes and ears that respond to light and sound much the way ours do now, etc. This makes deciding how to store information much, much easier.

Try storing the Declaration of Independence, the Koran, or Homer's great works in a form that beings 1M years from now are likely to be able to understand.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

I have only done this once before. by Thud457 · 2012-09-25 07:09 · Score: 2

IBM 5100, futar-proof.

--

the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

For the M-year-plus time frame... by davidwr · 2012-09-25 07:10 · Score: 1

The kinds of messages that will last 1,000,000 years will be things like "we built cities," "we traveled in space," "we lived in an era with rapid climate change," "we used fire, tools, and medicine," and the like.

The only deliberate messages that may last this long will be things like "DANGER! TO PROCEED IS TO DIE!" near our nuclear waste dumps. Or maybe we won't be leaving these messages after all.

--
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.

dead langauges by Thud457 · 2012-09-25 07:15 · Score: 1

But how will fuchur generashun tranzlate English into global unified LOLSpeak?

--

the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Re:Much more practical: 100-1000 years by Russ1642 · 2012-09-25 07:15 · Score: 1

Well, we've been able to read the human genetic code, see distant galaxies, and explore other planets with robots so I'm pretty certain that future humans will be able to read a Rosetta stone, which is built expressely for the purpose of being read by humans. Unless the future of humanity is a bunch of idiots they'll have little difficulty.

Infoworld's Take by dskoll · 2012-09-25 07:15 · Score: 1

Infoworld had an article on this in which the reporter wrote: It was unclear whether the optical microscopes needed to read the storage medium will still be available in the year 100002012.

Still, I hear that Hitachi is offering 10x your money back if the data is unreadable 100 million years from now.

Re:Infoworld's Take by HiThere · 2012-09-25 07:49 · Score: 1

With interest?

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Infoworld's Take by dskoll · 2012-09-25 23:03 · Score: 1

Unfortunately not!

Fortress of Solitude!!! by Blackdragonpkj · 2012-09-25 07:16 · Score: 2

When can I use these crystals to send my baby to another world where he will have super powers and build a fortress of solitude when thrown into the ocean?

Long Now: Rosetta Project by handy_vandal · 2012-09-25 07:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

The Rosetta Disk fits in the palm of your hand, yet it contains over 13,000 pages of information on over 1,500 human languages. The pages are microscopically etched and then electroformed in solid nickel, a process that raises the text very slightly - about 100 nanometers - off of the surface of the disk. Each page is only 400 microns across - about the width of 5 human hairs - and can be read through a microscope at 650X as clearly as you would from print in a book. Individual pages are visible at a much lower magnification of 100X. The outer ring of text reads "Languages of the World" in eight major world languages.

Link

--
-kgj

Re:Long Now: Rosetta Project by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-09-25 07:39 · Score: 1

Yes, and you can have one for the low low price of $10,000. Which is nice and all, and if I had stupid money, I'd buy one, but come on.
Ok, Hitachi will probably sell quartz data writers for that, to start with, and possibly they won't ever get much cheaper, but then again, they might. I can see there being a market for that sort of thing.
And yes, I understand digital data and the Rosetta Disk printed in standard human scripts are two rather different things, but consider this: if quartz disks are anything like CDRs, written data is visibly different from unwritten sections of the disk. Want to bet someone can figure out how to replicate a human-readable script using a quartz writer, writing digital data? Do it cleverly and the quartz disk can be read with either a digital reader or a microscope. And I'm a little surprised the Rosetta Disk project didn't give some thought to that themselves.
Re:Long Now: Rosetta Project by Russ1642 · 2012-09-25 08:06 · Score: 1

That's what you get with a $10,000 donation. I guess you also think that a $5,000 charity dinner is a crazy amount to charge for food on a plate.
Re:Long Now: Rosetta Project by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-09-25 08:13 · Score: 1

Yes. Yes I do. In fact, I think a $5000 charity dinner is far worse than the Rosetta Disk donation. Like I said, I'd cough up $10k if money was no object to me. But I wouldn't pay a nickel for a charity dinner. If I'm going to donate to charity, I'm going to donate to goddamn charity. Don't make me put on a monkey suit and sit around all evening in an uncomfortable chair listening to a bunch of self-satisfied pricks tell me how wonderful they are (oh, and me too, of course).

MOD PARENT INSIGHTFUL. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 07:27 · Score: 0

Mmm, Lisa Ann...

Hmmmmm by kiriath · 2012-09-25 07:30 · Score: 1

Fortress of Solitude anyone?

Duration is great, density needs work by SuperKendall · 2012-09-25 07:43 · Score: 1

They mention is has the storage capacity of "about a music CD".

I would love some kind of archival medium I could trust for 1000 years. Then I could really back up something in a form I knew would last "forever" and keep it offsite without ever having to refresh it.

But I have way too much data to make using something with the capacity of a normal CD practical for use in this way.

So I still wait for a technology to come that can really store a lot of data for a long time... I agree with all the people bringing up issues of readers, but I figure I can store a spare reader too and that's close enough for me.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

The Song Remains The Same... by Xin+Jing · 2012-09-25 07:43 · Score: 2

Great, now I have to buy my music all over again.

Re:The Song Remains The Same... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 10:36 · Score: 0

+1 User RIAA likes this post.

Just how big of a laser? by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-09-25 08:01 · Score: 1

And how long does it take to write data? Can we assume the laser required to deform quartz glass requires more power than a typical household even has available? Or is there some specific frequency that glassine quartz is peculiarly susceptible to? There isn't a lot of data I can think of that I'd like to have available from a single piece of media for the rest of my life (and the life of my species), but there is some.

One hopes there will be more details on the 30th, as one of the articles mentions.

Re:Just how big of a laser? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 08:59 · Score: 0

Just how big of a laser
I'm not sure. But you better get started in breeding those sharks...
Re:Just how big of a laser? by ledow · 2012-09-26 00:01 · Score: 1

To be honest, if you wanted to make a "home brew" version of this (which wouldn't matter so long as you used a readable medium and data structure), then one of those kits that engraves 3D images into blocks of plastic would work just as well.
I don't know how expensive they are, but they're not prohibitive, run from common power supplies, engrave on cheap plastic (whose internal structure is unlikely to decompose much in 10,000 years), and customisable (i.e. you can get them to engrave any image, so it's just a question of software).
The data density might not be up there with this particular invention, but the cheapness, durability and simple hardware (and, even better, the EXTREME simplicity of reading them back) might go some way to making them a worthy time-capsule-esque data store. And then it's only a matter of time before we all have a permanent-recorder capable of engraving a Gigabyte or so.
Re:Just how big of a laser? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 02:55 · Score: 0

It is pretty straight forward (with a bit of money) to built a reasonably high powered laser that works on a household 15A circuit. Such a laser wouldn't need to run continuously, but in pulses. It helps that the damage threshold of optics and materials is less for short pulses due to shock effects. With a damage threshold of a few hundred J/cm^2 for quartz, for a 10 micron square you might only need a few tenths of a mJ per bit. In that case a megabit per second would easily be achievable on a 15 A, 120 V socket.
Re:Just how big of a laser? by Areyoukiddingme · 2012-09-26 07:05 · Score: 1

Fascinating. It didn't even occur to me that the machine to do what they're talking about has been around for years. It's an off-the-shelf device, made in China. A random sample Google finds runs at 1.5KW with 800 DPI resolution (focus accuracy of 0.02nm) and position accuracy of 10 micrometers. And it can write to crystal, glass, hard plastic, acrylic, and even do surface etching on metals. Possibly for as little as $3000 for the machine, though it's hard to tell with these Chinese sites.
Now all somebody needs to do is write a smartphone app that can take a photo of an etched block and interpret it well enough to extract data... Is there such a thing as a 3D QR code?

How many hours... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 09:05 · Score: 0

... of Nyan Cat pse?

Analog still best by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-25 14:02 · Score: 0

I'm a computer geek as much as the next guy, but the best medium for long term storage is still "analog", at least where text is concerned.

Hundreds of years later, we can still read books. Need it to last longer? How about stone tablets or something. Want to open a computer file from the 70's? Good luck.

Re:Analog still best by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-25 18:50 · Score: 1

The surviving books have to be handled with protective gloves and stored in environmentally controlled conditions. Today's books wouldn't hold up nearly so well, as our modern paper contains whitening agents that slowly degrade the fibers. It wouldn't be difficult to make a book today that would remain readable in thousands of years, but it would have to be done intentionally, using appropriate materials.

Re:Much more practical: 100-1000 years by SuricouRaven · 2012-09-25 18:46 · Score: 1

I have visions of these devices being used to store archival tax records, or perhaps the hundred-year mandatory retention of internet traffic a near-future government will require of ISPs.

Charity Dinner: a true story by handy_vandal · 2012-09-25 23:19 · Score: 1

I worked for a small non-profit organization, years ago, and I can tell you from personal insider experience that charity dinners range from "barely worth the effort" to "financially successful, but an unspoken embarrassment to all involved".

Some of these charity dinners involved Old Money from big names, and when the rich get excited about throwing a charity dinner, said charity will bend itself silly to meet their expectations.

I'm thinking of an Old West theme dinner, which involved wagon wheels, rusty mining tools, and plates piled very high with Beef (no mistaking the capital B in those heaps of meat) ... and by "piled very high with Beef", I mean that I could clearly hear the low, laughing embarrassment of several dozen people realizing that there was three times as much meat on their plates than they could possibly eat.

Of course, it was "for the kids" (this was a children's medical charity) so everything was murmur-and-laugh, nobody made a fuss during the speeches. But it was obvious to me that one man's desire to live out his Western fantasies had caused a lot of food to go to waste, at five hundred bucks a plate, and that a lot of people felt not so good about themslves.

Also in attendance: the Chief of a local Indian tribe, in full Plains Warrior regalia (which ... isn't that a White Man's misinterpretation of native tradition? not sure) ... the tribe has done very well from casino gambling, that eagle-feather headdress looked pretty nice ... the tribe donated a speedboat for the silent auction, very generous ... but I remember the dark look on that man's face, as he witnessed the sight of rich white folks (in newly bought Western wear) with too much food on their plates. Can't blame him.

--
-kgj

100 years for internet traffic retention? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-26 04:55 · Score: 0

I think you mean more like 240 years. That's long enough to punish the children of anyone who commits an internet offense, even if the offense was committed by a child and the offender's children were born when he was an old man.

Oh wait, I forgot about artificial insemination. Hmm, maybe a million year record retention device is required after all... :(

Slashdot Mirror

Hitachi Creates Quartz Glass Archival Medium

116 comments