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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?

#581

Post by bruce343434 »

chillacy wrote: post #537
mlinsey wrote: post #330

Other comments have given ways to physically archive the webpage. Continually hosting it is a much trickier endeavor. Beyond just keeping the servers up, technologies will shift such that eventually html webpages, servers that talk using tcp/ip, datacenters that connect via fiber cables, etc will all be deprecated. That said, if we have a very liberal definition of the word "website" to include any successor technolo…

> Getting that sort of money is quite hard You could start a trust with ~1M in assets and if you avg 8% growth a year (taking into account management fees) you'd have 1B in 90 years just through compounding.

At which point you will probably need closer to 100B due to inflation, if the dollar is still relevant. Also you're likely dead.

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

#583

Post by simpleguitar »

500 years is not children of your grand children. If people still have children at 30, your "children of your grandchildren" would be born only 90 years after you, and even if they live to 90, that's only 180 years.

Doing the same math, the 90 year old that sees your web page 500 years from now would have to be born 410 years from now, and at 30 years per generation, that's 13+ generations. At that point, this descendant is related to you as much as a you are to a random stranger from your city.

Look around and see what lasts 500 years: tombstones, statues, family heirlooms.

Your best bet might be to create a ritual, and have your children practice it as part of a religious ceremony!

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

#584

Post by layoric »

JimTheMan wrote: post #543
joe_the_user wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are different kinds of stability. One is whether the same language is spoken informally. Another is whether people are able understand earlier texts. I'm pretty sure texts from the 20th and 19th century are commonly read in High School, TV shows from 1960s onward are watched, etc. Having the past ever-present makes it something current informal language relates to. Many, many people speaking English also create…

I have a book from the 1700s on my bedside table I can read just fine... My lived experience is I can read texts from hundreds of years ago just fine. Old mate is struggling with 50s tv. The only tip is to use stable language. IE don't use the term dab or vibe or whatever the latest fad niche speak is. I think whoever is interested in a 500 year old website is going to be ok.

This comment will be fine in hundreds of years. I completely expect (at least Australians) to continue to use “old mate” for a long time to come :).

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

#586

Post by noizejoy »

7thaccount wrote: post #566
sam0x17 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Create nuclear blasts that encode the information in short microbursts. Info will be available in the carbon record and in tree rings around the world .... profit?

At that rate, just make sure it's part of the human genome :)

Or maybe a bit more likely to survive longer: cockroach genome or tardigrade genome :-)

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

#587

Post by noizejoy »

drbojingle wrote: post #575
cstross wrote: post #336

The world wide web is only 28 years old. We've had computers for 76 years at this point. We're discussing this topic in modern English, but if you look back 500 years William Shakespeare wouldn't be born for another couple of generations: vocabulary and grammar have changed a lot since then, and if you look back a further 500 years (to 1021AD) the "English" spoken in those days was a lot closer to Frisian than anythi…

That assumes language will continue to evolve the same way now as it did 1,000 years ago. Back then everyone couldn't read and people were separated. With mass media that's no longer the case.

With increasing hostility towards education, we may also regress.

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

#589

Post by aluminum96 »

mlinsey wrote: post #330

Other comments have given ways to physically archive the webpage. Continually hosting it is a much trickier endeavor. Beyond just keeping the servers up, technologies will shift such that eventually html webpages, servers that talk using tcp/ip, datacenters that connect via fiber cables, etc will all be deprecated. That said, if we have a very liberal definition of the word "website" to include any successor technolo…

This is a great answer -- as with many humans problems across large timespans, this is solved by an institution, not an individual.

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

#590

Post by hellbannedguy »

In 500 years the internet will not be here.

Democracy will die.

We will probally be indentured servants to China.

Why will the internet not be around?

Public unrest. The wealthy will take away all forms of communication. The risk of unrest will be too great.

Underground newspapers will be circulated, but reading/possessing them will be a felony. All books will be burned.

The wealthy will be living in protected pods.

We will be living like the actors in Soylent Green.

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