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Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#21

Post by simias »

sametmax wrote: post #20
damnfine wrote: post #2

Can we crowdfund a militia to protect and secure archives for digitizing in conflict zones? We are losing too much priceless history to fools over ego.

Priceless to whom ? How many hindsights are we really going to gain from that ? How many people are even going to benefit from it. No, how many will even hear about it or will effectively access this ? We have tendency to consider that all knowledge is precious. That all information, especially from the past, should be treasured. It's sounds more anchored in a collector mindset that in any real assessment of the valu…

You might only discover that something had value in hindsight. Discriminating between what's a priceless heirloom and trivial garbage can be very difficult.

Storage is cheap nowadays, if we can afford to archive petabytes of cat videos I'm sure we can collect endangered cultural artifacts.

Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria? All those things we don't know we don't know...

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#22

Post by monsieurbanana »

simias wrote: post #21
sametmax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Priceless to whom ? How many hindsights are we really going to gain from that ? How many people are even going to benefit from it. No, how many will even hear about it or will effectively access this ? We have tendency to consider that all knowledge is precious. That all information, especially from the past, should be treasured. It's sounds more anchored in a collector mindset that in any real assessment of the valu…

You might only discover that something had value in hindsight. Discriminating between what's a priceless heirloom and trivial garbage can be very difficult. Storage is cheap nowadays, if we can afford to archive petabytes of cat videos I'm sure we can collect endangered cultural artifacts. Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria? All those things we don't know we don't…

Your argument about cheap storage misses the point. The difficult part is finding/protecting/retrieving/sorting the data.

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#23

Post by abricot »

greenbush wrote: post #16
WalterBright wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while ago I had brief (because I was traveling) access to a stack of old family documents. Scanning them would have taken too long, so I just snapped a photo of each page with my phone. It took a few seconds for each page, and I got through the whole stack. The results were very good, the pages were clear and sharp, even though I hadn't been able to flatten them out.

The Google Drive app on Android (not sure about other platforms) has a "Scan" functionality that digitally flattens out the picture of a document and saves as a pdf. It's very handy and quality is very good.

The Dropbox app on iOS does the same thing.

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#24

Post by knowThySelfx »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #7
damnfine wrote: post #2

Can we crowdfund a militia to protect and secure archives for digitizing in conflict zones? We are losing too much priceless history to fools over ego.

in the first Gulf War, the UN Coalition forces (mostly the US) carpet bombed parts of Iraq that contained a lot of yet-to-be-excavated ancient villages (they looked like mounds in the sand by the 1990s). we lost of a bunch of priceless history then, too. i'm not trying to make statements about the equivalences or non-equivalences of various war participants over there, but, there's so much ancient history being destr…

Remnants of Pagan civilisations is being destroyed by this. There could be some agenda over this.

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#25

Post by sametmax »

simias wrote: post #21
sametmax wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Priceless to whom ? How many hindsights are we really going to gain from that ? How many people are even going to benefit from it. No, how many will even hear about it or will effectively access this ? We have tendency to consider that all knowledge is precious. That all information, especially from the past, should be treasured. It's sounds more anchored in a collector mindset that in any real assessment of the valu…

You might only discover that something had value in hindsight. Discriminating between what's a priceless heirloom and trivial garbage can be very difficult. Storage is cheap nowadays, if we can afford to archive petabytes of cat videos I'm sure we can collect endangered cultural artifacts. Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria? All those things we don't know we don't…

> You might only discover that something had value in hindsight.

I completely agree.

But we have data about many, many languages, lost and current. The chances that those newly discovered ones bring something more than "oh that's nice and interesting" on the table are quite weak.

> Who knows what we could've learned from the destroyed works of the library of Alexandria?

This is a totally different scale. As I say, we must assess the potential winning vs the cost.

Currently, the science enthusiasts are saying yes to everything, and the people with money are saying no to everything. I find it harmful both ways.

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#27

Post by CalRobert »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #7
damnfine wrote: post #2

Can we crowdfund a militia to protect and secure archives for digitizing in conflict zones? We are losing too much priceless history to fools over ego.

in the first Gulf War, the UN Coalition forces (mostly the US) carpet bombed parts of Iraq that contained a lot of yet-to-be-excavated ancient villages (they looked like mounds in the sand by the 1990s). we lost of a bunch of priceless history then, too. i'm not trying to make statements about the equivalences or non-equivalences of various war participants over there, but, there's so much ancient history being destr…

If you find this kind of thing interesting, you might want to check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_codices

It's profoundly depressing to consider what was lost, though.

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#28

Post by CharlesDodgson »

Is it only me who thought this was going to be about a programming language!

I visited St.Catherine's before, you can get there pretty easy from Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai on your way to climb mount Sinai. you can go there for sunrise, it involves an early rise and a bit of a hike but it's beautiful at sunrise. St. Catherine's is also host to what is considered the burning bush. buhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_bush#Location

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#29

Post by pjc50 »

damnfine wrote: post #2

Can we crowdfund a militia to protect and secure archives for digitizing in conflict zones? We are losing too much priceless history to fools over ego.

Theoretically this should be the job of UNESCO. But I'd rather deal with the conflict zones directly.

Re: Lost Languages Discovered in One of the Oldest Continuously Run Libraries

#30

Post by cm2187 »

damnfine wrote: post #2

Can we crowdfund a militia to protect and secure archives for digitizing in conflict zones? We are losing too much priceless history to fools over ego.

It's actually an interesting debate. Do we care more about a book or a statue than a human life? Shouldn't these resources be protecting the populations first before worrying about books?
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