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Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

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Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#181

Post by gnode »

daenz wrote: post #166
gnode wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they meant it was fraud, just that it's sensationalist drivel. It's choosing a way to interpret results for the sake of sounding impressive, rather than improving understanding. Choosing a temperature in order to say "this will last as long as the universe's current age", or finding ways to count extra dimensions is the behaviour of marketeers, not academics.

"Room temperature" is a pretty meaningful rough measurement for storage of anything.

But the temperature was 462K (about 189C), far beyond room temperature, or what we'd expect to store data at. This is just the temperature at which the expected lifetime is the age of the universe, which has no bearing on the technology itself.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#182

Post by carapace »

titanomachy wrote: post #135
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would IMO be a better solution is something like the pyramids - something huge, with a lot of data written down / chiseled in without any weirdness like parity bits or binary code, and a lot of redundancy. Imagine the pyramids but made out of modern materials, resistant to erosion and earthquakes. Ceramics? Silicon? Either way it'd have to be legible without the need of a microscope or computers. Write the same…

There is an ongoing project to carve knowledge on clay tablets and seal it in a salt mine in Austria. Sounds like it checks some of your boxes. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/01/human...

Wow!

https://www.memory-of-mankind.com/how-is-information-kept-le...

> The geology of the mountain will allow the MOM archive to fully close itself by a natural phenomenon: the salt “flows” with a speed of 2 cm/year into any void. This will protect the archive from the greatest threat; man himself.

> The pressure which results from the weight of the mountain and a hypothetical ice shield of 5 km thickness is approximately a fifth of the burst pressure of the used materials.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#183

Post by newen »

jalk wrote: post #107
skrebbel wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely nothing. The only theory I can come up with is that GP is a snobby atheist who associates Bibles with morons.

Using the Bible could be interpreted as ‘this is one of humanitys most important works so let’s preserve that first’ Yet the majority of people on planet earth are not Christian. I’ll go with the Gutenberg homage though

Way more than that many people couldn't care less about Gutenberg though. Point being the bible is the most read book in the world.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#185

Post by [deleted] »

lvh wrote: post #145
gnode wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they meant it was fraud, just that it's sensationalist drivel. It's choosing a way to interpret results for the sake of sounding impressive, rather than improving understanding. Choosing a temperature in order to say "this will last as long as the universe's current age", or finding ways to count extra dimensions is the behaviour of marketeers, not academics.

And yet, I pulled those claims out of the paper, which I linked. Are you suggesting Peter G. Kazansky, a research professor with over two decades of experience in optics, does not count as an academic? Or are you saying the paper doesn't make those claims? Or are you saying the paper also isn't a real academic paper and just marketeer noise? (I'm not quoting the other authors, who are of course also distinguished sch…

[deleted]

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#186

Post by Robotbeat »

notacoward wrote: post #112

There's a long and mostly bad history of claims around 3D storage. About twenty years ago I followed a company called Constellation 3D, later Terastor. They made many strikingly similar claims, smaller absolute numbers but a similar multiplier vs. what was already in the market. At least they only claimed three dimensions. I can sort of accept orientation as an effective fourth dimension, but size seems like a real s…

Or what if it's a niche technology that works just fine at scale in the real world but nobody cares enough for super long lifetimes to pay the higher price for the equipment?

No "bad history of claims," just niche technology.

Not everything has to be "fake news" or "phony" just because it doesn't take over the world.

I can't help but think we're cheapening the idea of fraud when we accuse every company or technology of fraud just because they don't wildly succeed.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#187

Post by hinkley »

notacoward wrote: post #112

There's a long and mostly bad history of claims around 3D storage. About twenty years ago I followed a company called Constellation 3D, later Terastor. They made many strikingly similar claims, smaller absolute numbers but a similar multiplier vs. what was already in the market. At least they only claimed three dimensions. I can sort of accept orientation as an effective fourth dimension, but size seems like a real s…

To me it feels like a similar (or is it reverse?) problem to deep space telescopes and that they used to 'image' that black hole. You need so many fractions of an arc-second in order to 'see' the distance object.

Only in this case you also have to arrange the other objects so they don't occlude the ones behind them.

Imagine trying to lay out a warehouse so you can do inventory without walking through the building. Just a binoculars and a gantry crane, or a bicycle to go around the perimeter.

How densely are you gonna be able to pack things, really?

I mean, there is one option I know of. The guy who discovered NiMH battery chemistry had an optical storage format he was pushing where you use one laser to excite phosphors in a 3d matrix and a second to read the state. The bits are all transparent until excited. But I think you're limited by how fast you can activate the cells, so linear scans would be the slowest.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#188

Post by notacoward »

Robotbeat wrote: post #186
notacoward wrote: post #112

There's a long and mostly bad history of claims around 3D storage. About twenty years ago I followed a company called Constellation 3D, later Terastor. They made many strikingly similar claims, smaller absolute numbers but a similar multiplier vs. what was already in the market. At least they only claimed three dimensions. I can sort of accept orientation as an effective fourth dimension, but size seems like a real s…

Or what if it's a niche technology that works just fine at scale in the real world but nobody cares enough for super long lifetimes to pay the higher price for the equipment? No "bad history of claims," just niche technology. Not everything has to be "fake news" or "phony" just because it doesn't take over the world. I can't help but think we're cheapening the idea of fraud when we accuse every company or technology…

I think you're overreacting, or perhaps going off on a bit of a tangent from what I actually said. I didn't accuse anyone of fraud. I even offered kudos. I'm just trying to adjust expectations because the history is indeed bad even if nobody did any wrong. Would it have been better if I'd said "sad" or "unfortunate" instead?

A medium that really has these kinds of density and survivability traits is indeed a great thing, but "niche" is a bit of an understatement. Adding it to the payload of a multi-million dollar rocket is definitely a publicity stunt, so I think it's entirely fair to point out that it might be good for little else depending on how further development plays out.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#189

Post by ConceptJunkie »

gnode wrote: post #181
daenz wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Room temperature" is a pretty meaningful rough measurement for storage of anything.

But the temperature was 462K (about 189C), far beyond room temperature, or what we'd expect to store data at. This is just the temperature at which the expected lifetime is the age of the universe, which has no bearing on the technology itself.

It's obvious, isn't it? They are trying to take global warming into effect.

Re: Glass discs that can store 360TB and remain intact for billions of years (2016)

#190

Post by lvh »

sp332 wrote: post #177
lvh wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be a good number of years to use? "Literally as old as the Universe is now" seems like as close a number as you can use to put timespans that big into _some_ sort of perspective.

How about an actual estimate? If it's 100 billion years that would be an even cooler number to throw around. 7 times the age of the universe! A more useful number would be MTBF or a decay rate.

But the point is that decay rate is almost entirely a function of temperature, so you have to pick... something. Unless you feel like log/log years/thermodynamic Beta is a better way to communicate decay than “it lasts as long as the universe has been around”. (Which they do! In the paper! Just not in the summary because nobody has a feel for what log/log beta/time is.)
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