From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Give Me That Old Time Technology!
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:12:19 -0400 (EDT)
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Sounds like a fun job.  And one I think I'd be good at.

If she gives a talk, I hope it's somewhere that one can attend for
free, such as the Philosophical Society or the Carnegie Institute.

I wonder how durable flash drives are.  If they will last, I think
they're nearly ideal backup media, being inexpensive, compact, fast,
and tolerant of being dropped on concrete.

I have several, every one of which I use to back up *all* my files.
Each one includes, among much else, all the email I've ever sent or
received (some dating back 36 years), the complete archives of this
list, and a complete copy of the WSFA website as of my resignation as
webmaster five years ago.  The website includes all WSFA Journals from
1974 through 2005.

I'm a big believer in offsite backups.  I have at least two buried
in the woods, in airtight containers with dessicant to prevent
condensation.  I also always keep one in my pocket, attached to
my key ring.

Printing all this out would not be practical; one thumb drive full of
compressed text would expand to millions of sheets of paper, enough
to pack an average apartment, wall to wall, floor to ceiling.  This
would be expensive to print, expensive to store, expensive to copy,
expensive to move, and nearly impossible to search through.

Ironically, some of the oldest computer media may be the easiest to
read, as it's easy to write a program to use a flatbed scanner to read
punched cards or punched paper tape.

I also have punched cards, punched paper tape, old printouts, CD-ROMs,
3.5 inch diskettes, 5 inch diskettes, 8 inch diskettes, dozens of
mutually incompatible hard drives, some core planes, and some nixie
tubes.  (Okay, nixie tubes aren't a storage medium, but I couldn't
resist.)

ObSF:  In Greg Egan's _Disaspora_, there is discussion of getting
information to survive an upcoming nearby gamma ray burster by carving
all of it into stone tablets.  When it's realized that this would
require that several large planets be disassembled and converted into
stone tablets, they make alternate, much more radical, plans.