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Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

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Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#361

Post by pmarreck »

bergie wrote: post #140
codazoda wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently saw headstones with photos on them. Now I’m thinking about writing a bunch of stuff and encoding it in a QR code on a headstone. The QR code is likely to be replaced with something else, but maybe if it says “QR Code” under it they could snap a picture and figure it out.

I can see future archaeologists classifying QR Codes as an “ornamental technique popular in early Plastic Age cultures“. Somewhere a crackpot conspiracy theorist group will be trying to claim that the QR Codes contain messages from this long-lost civilisation…

Based on fairly common nerd interest in old tech (see: retro gaming, for one thing), I'm pretty sure QR codes will remain a curiosity for the foreseeable future, as they certainly solve a certain use-case/problem

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#362

Post by markstos »

NoGravitas wrote: post #155

Print it out on acid-free paper with a stable, acid-free ink. Have it bound as a hardback, and seal it into a waterproof container. Entrust it to one of your children, tell them to keep it in a safe-deposit box and take it out once a year to share with their children, and to pass it on to their children with the same instructions. If you have it electronically, the absolute best case in 500 years is that it will be a…

The United States government studied this question and came to the conclusion of... acid free paper. So it's now law that "permanent" documents in the US are to be stored on acid free paper:

https://www.loc.gov/preservation/resources/rt/perm/permpapr....

Some of us who remember the 5.25" floppy disks, the 3" "floppy" disks, the HUGE Zipdisks, the 5.25" spinning platter drives, the 2.5" spinning platter drives, then the 2.5" SSD drives, and now the M.2 SSD drives... there's clearly no hope of any digital medium lasting 500 years. It's hard enough to read data from a drive built 20 years ago!

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#363

Post by oceanplexian »

NoGravitas wrote: post #155

Print it out on acid-free paper with a stable, acid-free ink. Have it bound as a hardback, and seal it into a waterproof container. Entrust it to one of your children, tell them to keep it in a safe-deposit box and take it out once a year to share with their children, and to pass it on to their children with the same instructions. If you have it electronically, the absolute best case in 500 years is that it will be a…

I’d alternatively recommend microfilm. It’s specifically engineered to last ~500 years and has much higher storage density than paper and ink. The technology needed to read it is fairly low tech and trivial and the format is quite durable.

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#364

Post by pmarreck »

kingcharles wrote: post #305

As someone who just basically teleported to 2021 from 2013, I can tell you that 99% of my bookmarks are now dead. So, even in 8 years most web sites haven't managed to survive.

I recently went through my 2013 Bitcoin-related bookmarks.

It's a graveyard!

Re: Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years?

#366

Post by munk-a »

Figure out a way to stop humanity from imploding for 500 years and realize that we're, effectively, like thirty years into using this internet technology thing. So it's quite likely we'll see some really serious infrastructure changes before we get to 500 years out.

My more serious advice is to instead look at the best options for long term persistent data storage and assume that people in 500 years will need to load your site using specialized technology like folks going to the library to view VHSes.

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