Ask HN: Best way to host a website for 500 years? • Hacker News Board

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

#671

Post by HighPlainsDrftr » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:13 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #655

HighPlainsDrftr wrote: post #648

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, everyone was hyped on perl at the turn of the millennium. Yet not many people write it anymore. I keep waiting for the re-surge, but it just doesn't look like it is going to happen. At nuclear waste sites, even the feds have come up with a few ways of saying "Don't enter. It is bad" with different languages, pictorial signs, and such. It is really tough to figure out what the next few hundred years looks like.…

> Maybe the right thing to do is do something so great for society that they want to write books on you (eg: George Washington). Rarely do the people that seek this actually achieve this. --quoth the raven

So true. Anyone that is smart enough to be president is smart enough to not be president.

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

#672

Post by sillysaurusx » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

Interestingly, https://www.example.com might still be here in 500 years. It's part of the spec, and the web probably isn't going anywhere.

I guess that isn't a direct answer to "How can we host a website?" but it's at least n=1.

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

#673

Post by jcims » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:23 AM UTC

Archive the site into a file, get the strongest radio transmitter you can find, point it at the closest black hole and then just start beaming bits for long as you like.

Some of those RF photons will arrive just outside the event horizon and be bent ~180° to a trajectory that will intercept the earth’s path about the same amount of time in the future.

By then we will have solar-system sized radio receivers that can pick it up (or, to satisfy the doomophiles, ‘land on a dead planet’)

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

#674

Post by postingawayonhn » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

nathan_f77 wrote: post #609

crooked-v wrote: post #209

Go to a big legal firm that's been around for at least a few hundred years. With them, set up a trust with a sufficient endowment to be run indefinitely (barring total societal or economic collapse), with the mission of maintaining this specific website in accessible format (including updates and format shifts as necessary). It will be expensive, but this general structure is already used by various organizations wit…

How expensive do you think this would be? It would be fun to estimate the potential costs over 500 years. I would never run this kind of website on free hosting (e.g. GitHub pages.) I think it's dangerous to assume that this business model will continue to exist for the next 500 years. It would be much safer to pay the ~$0.02/mo to store and serve your files from an AWS S3 bucket. A $5/mo DigitalOcean VPS would be sa…

The cost of administering the trust and paying someone to maintain the website would be far higher than the hosting costs.

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

#675

Post by postingawayonhn » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:30 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #204

sillysaurusx wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As entertaining as this is, I have a bit more faith in archive.org.

Serious question, but why?

I think the chance of future generations having the motivation to continue preserving OP's specific website would be quite low but there would be a much greater motivation to maintain a large organised archive.

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

#676

Post by CamperBob2 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:33 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #508

oceanplexian wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, occasionally those predictions have been right and society reverts to a state less advanced than it was for hundreds or thousands of years. A lot of the technology from Ancient Rome, building techniques, steam engine technology, etc. were lost for thousands of years. It’s totally conceivable to me that 500 years from now scientists have access to a wealth of electronic media, but haven’t invented the co…

I really wish the Romans had invented apocalyptic fiction, in the modern sense. Would've been interesting to read what their anxieties were in non-poetic, scrutable terms.

That's basically what the Book of Revelation is, although it's referring to Romans rather than being written by them.

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

#677

Post by Apocryphon » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #676

Apocryphon wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish the Romans had invented apocalyptic fiction, in the modern sense. Would've been interesting to read what their anxieties were in non-poetic, scrutable terms.

That's basically what the Book of Revelation is, although it's referring to Romans rather than being written by them.

Too poetic and inscrutable.

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

#678

Post by lando2319 » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

Create a charitable trust whose sole purpose is to keep up your website.

Then fund an annuity and have the proceeds funds the charitable trust.

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

#679

Post by fn-mote » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #626

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…

You can walk the street of Rome and read inscriptions that are 2000 years old, they will either be close enough to any latin language or you may have some notions of latin yourself. My point being that english is probably much more significant culturally today than latin ever was. The chances that it will be some sort of forgotten language are pretty slim (though I am sure it will have evolved). Now the real question…

Yes, inscriptions like "long live the LX regiment" or whatever graffiti. (Kind of joking.)

Given the extent of the Roman Empire, I think Latin achieved some pretty significant cultural status. Afaik, Catholic mass stopped being in latin in the 1960's. That's ~3rd century to 20th century. So in use roughly 3x as long as English? (Not a specialist.)

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

#680

Post by fn-mote » Sat, Oct 23, 2021, 2:53 AM UTC

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.

Compare your texting to 18th century personal letters. I don't disagree, but language will still evolve significantly.

Perhaps our developer docs will come to be seen as some kind of rare "Formal English" (I mean, it kind of is already) and the rest of communication will be in ... emoji??