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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)

#231

Post by hilbert42 »

ru999gol wrote: post #57
YayamiOmate wrote: post #18

I dunno, but it seems to me universities increasingly focus on press releases and marketing departments... 5D and 13.8 billion years? Phony. I know no sane scientist or enigneer that would say they use more than 3D physics. Sounds like catch phrases to sell. With such logic plain old HDD is at least 4D, because it uses CHS coordinates and magnetic orientation, to store data. To me such communication style undermines…

And the picture they release show the christian bible. Tells you everything you need to know about them really.

Oh for Pete's* sake you're unnecessarily debasing the discussion. The real issue here is that these works are probably the best known in the 'The Western Canon' and of course you'd naturally use them as benchmark examples as they've rightly done here.

To not use such well known examples on the grounds of a form of political correctness is both absurd and it also denies us our culture and heritage.

I do not believe in the literal truth of the Bible as such, but I certainly do not deny its importance in Western Culture. Moreover, the King James Edition of 1611 is one of the most remarkable texts ever written [perhaps you should read a few bits of it some time], especially so given that it was written by a committee—committees usually produce Lowest Common Denominators but that certainly wasn't so for the KJE!

There is nothing inconsistent with what I have said here.

___

* I was nearly going to say "for Heaven's sake" but I thought better of it. ;-)

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

#232

Post by hilbert42 »

lvh wrote: post #67
ru999gol wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the picture they release show the christian bible. Tells you everything you need to know about them really.

The university in question is Southampton. Hardly a Christian fundamentalist stronghold. Meanwhile, there is a tradition of using the Bible for new printing media, including one of the first printed works, the Gutenberg bible.

Absolutely!

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

#233

Post by hilbert42 »

notacoward wrote: post #220
kragen wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't launch it into space, it will be destroyed when the sun engulfs the earth in only six billion years, if not earlier. There's a dismayingly large chance that the only thing surviving from our entire culture in only a few million years will be a mass extinction in the fossil record, a halo of geosynchronous metal debris, and whatever data is encoded in such stable forms as these glass discs. In that contex…

I know it's fun to call people short-sighted and compare them to children, but grow up yourself. Sending something in this particular medium was a publicity stunt, and it worked. You think we're talking about it here for any other reason than Elon Musk was (tangentially) involved? Sending some sort of beacon or memorial into space is such a great idea we've done it many times before, with better-tested media. If we w…

"Practicality wasn't the point. Publicity was."

The real issues involved here are the Laws of Thermodynamics, Entropy and 'Glass' (Crystals) being the the most stable state of matter in the universe. All of these indicate that such longevity is possible (see my main post).

Clearly, the reason that '13.8 Gy' is used here is that it's a well known time interval and it puts the longevity of this technology into perspective in ways that many will understand.

If actually achieved in practical terms then we ought to be hailing this work as a remarkable effort—not quibbling about trivia and silly incidentals.

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

#234

Post by kragen »

notacoward wrote: post #230
kragen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said, "There's a long and mostly bad history of claims…" which I interpreted — I think reasonably — as asserting that these past claims were false . (In what other sense can a claim be bad ?) I was rebutting that reasonable interpretation of what you said, not a strawman. I am pleased to see that you are not claiming that the paper is false. False conclusions hypothetically jumped to by finance-obsessed man-child…

> Mere assertion that their perspectives are relevant Is it your reading comprehension that's lacking, or just your integrity? I said perspective is relevant. I didn't say their perspective.

What would it even mean for perspective per se to be relevant or not? We aren't discussing art history! I did indeed read your comment as saying that the perspectives of the hypothetical conclusion-jumpers were relevant, which would at least have been coherent. I can't make heads or tails of your comment about perspective being relevant — you apparently meant to accuse me of some kind of dishonesty, but it isn't even clear what I'm being accused of. In any case, your comments so far provide very little reason to take seriously anything you say.

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

#235

Post by kragen »

hilbert42 wrote: post #233
notacoward wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's fun to call people short-sighted and compare them to children, but grow up yourself. Sending something in this particular medium was a publicity stunt, and it worked. You think we're talking about it here for any other reason than Elon Musk was (tangentially) involved? Sending some sort of beacon or memorial into space is such a great idea we've done it many times before, with better-tested media. If we w…

"Practicality wasn't the point. Publicity was." The real issues involved here are the Laws of Thermodynamics, Entropy and 'Glass' (Crystals) being the the most stable state of matter in the universe. All of these indicate that such longevity is possible (see my main post). Clearly, the reason that '13.8 Gy' is used here is that it's a well known time interval and it puts the longevity of this technology into perspect…

Glass is the opposite of crystals. Crystals would presumably be longer-lived, but their anisotropy makes them somewhat trickier to work with. Otherwise I agree, and like you, I'm profoundly disappointed by the level of "notacoward"'s comments in this thread so far.

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

#236

Post by LordDragonfang »

cogman10 wrote: post #103
noonespecial wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large number of people know roughly how big The Bible is. I think they picture was more about "look, this big book fits on this little thing", and less about some perceived proselytizing.

The image is misleading anyways. The whole Bible fits in 1Mb uncompressed. That image would be billions of Bibles if it is using this new technique.

That image is probably close to a decade old, if I'm recalling correctly the first time I saw it, so it's definitely not the new technique. The image just looks good for a headline, especially since any actual picture of the new technique would likely look like unremarkable frosted glass at a macro scale.

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

#237

Post by notacoward »

kragen wrote: post #235
hilbert42 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Practicality wasn't the point. Publicity was." The real issues involved here are the Laws of Thermodynamics, Entropy and 'Glass' (Crystals) being the the most stable state of matter in the universe. All of these indicate that such longevity is possible (see my main post). Clearly, the reason that '13.8 Gy' is used here is that it's a well known time interval and it puts the longevity of this technology into perspect…

Glass is the opposite of crystals. Crystals would presumably be longer-lived, but their anisotropy makes them somewhat trickier to work with. Otherwise I agree, and like you, I'm profoundly disappointed by the level of "notacoward"'s comments in this thread so far.

Project much? "short-sighted to the point of self-parody, like a small child" is how you inserted yourself into the conversation, and "finance-obsessed man-children and brogrammers" is hardly elevated rhetoric either. The common element in all of your bad interactions of which I can see there are many, is X. Solve for X.

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

#238

Post by notacoward »

kragen wrote: post #234
notacoward wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mere assertion that their perspectives are relevant Is it your reading comprehension that's lacking, or just your integrity? I said perspective is relevant. I didn't say their perspective.

What would it even mean for perspective per se to be relevant or not? We aren't discussing art history! I did indeed read your comment as saying that the perspectives of the hypothetical conclusion-jumpers were relevant, which would at least have been coherent. I can't make heads or tails of your comment about perspective being relevant — you apparently meant to accuse me of some kind of dishonesty, but it isn't even…

"Perspective is relevant" means that it's important to have some. This is a cool scientific advance. I said so before you even showed up. But it's not something that's immediately useful to most readers. That's perspective: like this from one POV, like that from another. Is that clear enough for you?

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

#239

Post by notacoward »

Robotbeat wrote: post #228
notacoward wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's fun to call people short-sighted and compare them to children, but grow up yourself. Sending something in this particular medium was a publicity stunt, and it worked. You think we're talking about it here for any other reason than Elon Musk was (tangentially) involved? Sending some sort of beacon or memorial into space is such a great idea we've done it many times before, with better-tested media. If we w…

Publicity stunt by whom? The whole point of the Arch Mission is stuff like this: https://www.archmission.org/ Using this exact media was a full test of the technology, to get it out of the lab and into the environment they intend for it long-term. But I can see you're committed to this narrative, so please don't let me interrupt it with the actual organization responsible for it.

Are you assuming publicity is bad? I certainly never said so, and would appreciate it if you wouldn't interpret my words as negative based on your own misapprehension. Arch Mission seems like a good cause, and publicity in a good cause is a good thing.

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

#240

Post by tetrisgm »

Interesting. If we ignore whether or not this specific implementation will work, this would actually be a great way to store data for the Permaweb. I would imagine such resilient data would be a great asset when combined with content hashing!
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