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____/ SomeBloke on Wednesday 21 May 2008 15:14 : \____

> Here's an interesting opinion from Vint Cerf.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6960896.stm
>
> A sample,
>
>
> We will also be confronted with a kind of "information decay" in which
> digital objects become less and less accessible owing to the age of the
> software that created it.
> As an example: it is already a challenge to watch videos posted on the BBC
> website in 1997.
> Imagine trying to watch the same video in 100 years. Or in one thousand
> years.
> It's not only file formats that change, though. Changes in computer
> programs, operating systems and even the hardware that we use to build
> computers will accentuate the challenge of keeping digital information
> meaningful.
> This raises a host of intellectual property questions that will almost
> certainly need to be considered.
>

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/boo...rtner=yahootix

Publish And Perish

"So far there's no business case for digital preservation--in fact, for
software makers like Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan."



- --
~~ Best of wishes

The folks on the Ubuntu CD cover need to apt-get shirt, not sudo fsck.
http://Schestowitz.com | Free as in Free Beer | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Cpu(s): 24.4%us, 3.6%sy, 1.0%ni, 66.6%id, 4.1%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.1%si, 0.0%st
http://iuron.com - semantic engine to gather information
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On May 21, 7:14 am, SomeBloke wrote:
> Here's an interesting opinion from Vint Cerf.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6960896.stm
>
> A sample,
>
>
> We will also be confronted with a kind of "information decay" in which
> digital objects become less and less accessible owing to the age of the
> software that created it.
> As an example: it is already a challenge to watch videos posted on the BBC
> website in 1997.
> Imagine trying to watch the same video in 100 years. Or in one thousand
> years.
> It's not only file formats that change, though. Changes in computer
> programs, operating systems and even the hardware that we use to build
> computers will accentuate the challenge of keeping digital information
> meaningful.
> This raises a host of intellectual property questions that will almost
> certainly need to be considered.
>

Time is working against Microsoft on this account. Not that many
people want to watch 10-year old digital videos, because not that many
were made 10 years ago. It will be quite different 10 years from now,
and it will raise the awareness of the problem in everyone's mind.
Already the problem of digital preservation is apparent to people in
government, libraries, academia, etc. Nonproprietary standards will
come, but Microsoft will no doubt have some success in delaying them.

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> ____/ SomeBloke on Wednesday 21 May 2008 15:14 : \____
>
>> Here's an interesting opinion from Vint Cerf.
>>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6960896.stm
>>
>> A sample,
>>
>>
>> We will also be confronted with a kind of "information decay" in which
>> digital objects become less and less accessible owing to the age of the
>> software that created it.
>> As an example: it is already a challenge to watch videos posted on the
>> BBC
>> website in 1997.
>> Imagine trying to watch the same video in 100 years. Or in one thousand
>> years.
>> It's not only file formats that change, though. Changes in computer
>> programs, operating systems and even the hardware that we use to build
>> computers will accentuate the challenge of keeping digital information
>> meaningful.
>> This raises a host of intellectual property questions that will almost
>> certainly need to be considered.
>>
>
>
http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/boo...rtner=yahootix
>
> Publish And Perish
>
> "So far there's no business case for digital preservation--in fact, for
> software makers like Microsoft, planned obsolescence is the plan."
>
>
>
> - --
> ~~ Best of wishes

Do you recall the major project by the BBC called the Domesday Project to
record a snapshot of Britain onto laser disc in the 1980's. Now the discs
are obsolete and according to this reference
(http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/ad...uknafeb06.html) the
information was only rescued because one(!) surviving player was working
and a team who spent a year recording the info again.

That is just one example, and I don't think planned obsolescence has
anything to do with it. Depending on one format is foolish and
shortsighted. Yet libraries and museums, let alone businesses do it all the
time. Quickbooks anyone?

* SomeBloke peremptorily fired off this memo:

> Do you recall the major project by the BBC called the Domesday Project to
> record a snapshot of Britain onto laser disc in the 1980's. Now the discs
> are obsolete and according to this reference
> (http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/ad...uknafeb06.html) the
> information was only rescued because one(!) surviving player was working
> and a team who spent a year recording the info again.
>
> That is just one example, and I don't think planned obsolescence has
> anything to do with it. Depending on one format is foolish and
> shortsighted. Yet libraries and museums, let alone businesses do it all the
> time. Quickbooks anyone?

You know the one sure way to preserve information? The most robust
method?

Stone tablets.

--
The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow.
-- Bill Gates

Linonut wrote:

> * SomeBloke peremptorily fired off this memo:
>
>> Do you recall the major project by the BBC called the Domesday Project to
>> record a snapshot of Britain onto laser disc in the 1980's. Now the discs
>> are obsolete and according to this reference
>> (http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/ad...uknafeb06.html) the
>> information was only rescued because one(!) surviving player was working
>> and a team who spent a year recording the info again.
>>
>> That is just one example, and I don't think planned obsolescence has
>> anything to do with it. Depending on one format is foolish and
>> shortsighted. Yet libraries and museums, let alone businesses do it all
>> the time. Quickbooks anyone?
>
> You know the one sure way to preserve information? The most robust
> method?
>
> Stone tablets.
>

Isn't that the truth. We know more about the Assyrians from five millenia
ago than we do about the Britons from just before the Roman invasion.

The website for the CamiLEON Project that resurrected the digital Domesday
project is http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/

SomeBloke espoused:
> Linonut wrote:
>
>> * SomeBloke peremptorily fired off this memo:
>>
>>> Do you recall the major project by the BBC called the Domesday Project to
>>> record a snapshot of Britain onto laser disc in the 1980's. Now the discs
>>> are obsolete and according to this reference
>>> (http://www.dpconline.org/graphics/ad...uknafeb06.html) the
>>> information was only rescued because one(!) surviving player was working
>>> and a team who spent a year recording the info again.
>>>
>>> That is just one example, and I don't think planned obsolescence has
>>> anything to do with it. Depending on one format is foolish and
>>> shortsighted. Yet libraries and museums, let alone businesses do it all
>>> the time. Quickbooks anyone?
>>
>> You know the one sure way to preserve information? The most robust
>> method?
>>
>> Stone tablets.
>>
>
> Isn't that the truth. We know more about the Assyrians from five millenia
> ago than we do about the Britons from just before the Roman invasion.

That was partially at least to do with available materials. We have
Skara Brae on Orkney at about 3,000BC with beds, cupboards and plumbed
(with stone) toilets, but not much writing...

The commmon use of wood for most things in Britain, including the
round-houses unique to the British Isles, were mostly made of wood,
great for the environment, but ultimately highly perishable. The runic
script used on a day to day basis by the Anglo-Saxon (ie., post
Romano-British) folk is mostly lost because again, they used to write it
mostly on wood, which has perished. The runes which were inscribed on
stone, mostly in Scandinavian countries, have survived well indeed.

>
> The website for the CamiLEON Project that resurrected the digital Domesday
> project is http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/

Well done those people!

When Video Disc first appeared (from Philips), the original intended
market was to replace the paper catalogues from Empire Stores and
similar. Unfortunately, most people prefer printed paper, particulary
for glossies, so it wasn't successful.

Furthermore, most people felt that video disc's inability to record
material was a show-stopper, in spite of that fact that very few people
ever record anything on video-cassette machines or even on the later
writable-cd machines.

Personally, I've only started regularly recording things since mythtv
came along...

I tend to think that the internet is the best thing which ever happened
to "information storage" since stone and vellum (see hansard). It tends
to remove the access protocol problems from playback of recorded
material. The greatly increases the chances of accessing stored data.
If we could persuade the world to store its data in open formats, then
we would merely be up against entropy, so it would be a question of how
much power (joules) the planet would be prepared to expend on refreshing
data in the war against entropy. Presently, we expend rather more
energy on the war against proprietary formats, so we're not very
efficient.

--
| mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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