CDs, Records & Cassettes

I was listening to an NPR story about these old, 17th century copies of Shakespeare that are archived in some museum somewhere. The interviewer asked them why they kept them around, when all the works were available instantly on the internet. Their response was pretty lame. They mentioned how their are interesting things like notes in the margins and foodcrumbs in there and whatnot, and that those were like a time capsule and worth saving. That's fine and all, but I think there are a million more important reasons to keep those around. One reason is simply the concept of whether to keep things digitally or in their original, physical or analog form.

here's the thing about digital versus analog: digital data records (computer files, music, photos, anything and everything we used to write down that we now store on a computer somewhere) don't degrade in the usual sense. They don't slowly crumble into dust or get coffeestains or burnt in a fire. See, they're just abstractions of real things: as long as the code is kept somewhere, we'll always have it. Pretty amazing, right?

Here's the rub: if we forget how to read the code of ones and zeros, it's lost forever. Future civilizations will not be able to read it. They'll have no old photos of us, no old books or stone tablets. They'll find a lot of magnetic disks and integrated chips with lots of peaks and valleys in them, but they'll be meaningless.

The lesson of the day is: if you're worried about the survival of the human race, long-term, and all that it has recorded of its history so far, paint it on a cave wall. It'll last longer.