21–30 of 84 posts
You could encode data in monolithic structures this way. They'd last longer than paper and given future generations lots of confusion trying to figure out the meaning.
I saw some work a while ago of storing SQL extracted table data as an image, and always thought that with good compression and a good printer, you could make paper copies.
I have seen people do ceramics where information was stacked in layers and had to be destroyed to extract. The ultimate form of shifting media to preserve and read information. I guess that could done with better resolution with 3D printed Zirconia (0.1 mm³ blobs) so 1Mb /cm³
Edit: this idea of a cold storage is from Footfall by Niven and Pournelle, where information was stored on monoliths where layers could be incrementally extracted with tools documented on the above layers. i.e. start with 0.1 bit per m² and go down, done with the hand wavy handling of practical problems in science fiction.
[1] https://www.bookandsword.com/2016/10/29/the-information-dens...
I am not sure why, for character-based encodings, they used a general-purpose font (Inconsolata) rather than one that is specifically made for OCR -- and how this would have made it better.
Going further, if you only print a limited alphabet (16, 32 or 39 symbols) why not use a specialized font with only these characters? The final step is to use a bitmap "font" that simply shows different character values as different bit patterns.
Interesting. I am not sure why, for character-based encodings, they used a general-purpose font (Inconsolata) rather than one that is specifically made for OCR -- and how this would have made it better. Going further, if you only print a limited alphabet (16, 32 or 39 symbols) why not use a specialized font with only these characters? The final step is to use a bitmap "font" that simply shows different character valu…
I pondered this from time to time and concluded that paper data storage is of very limited use, mainly because of the information density. Any remotely human-readable form is too sprase to be useful ( For this reason, paper is at best useful as a bootstrapping mechanism, which would allow readers to construct a mechanism to read more densely encoded data. My best guess is that the main storage of information in this…
Or just go with metal https://rosettaproject.org/
Or try to create a culture for humans and store information in that.
I pondered this from time to time and concluded that paper data storage is of very limited use, mainly because of the information density. Any remotely human-readable form is too sprase to be useful ( For this reason, paper is at best useful as a bootstrapping mechanism, which would allow readers to construct a mechanism to read more densely encoded data. My best guess is that the main storage of information in this…
It is degrading too fast, microfilm archives need to be digitilized now, the solvent and image chemicals and media are all part of the problem with microfilms. Archival paper is a nice medium that can be stored a long time. This is of course a question of how long you want to store your information if you want to do 00500 years it is probably good. Or just go with metal https://rosettaproject.org/ Or try to create a…
Fiber laser in 100W range would do it, maybe $10k?
You could do photochemical etching but would be more fuss and wouldn't last as long as a laser engraving.
Probably looking at order of 1gig/1000kg if using 1mm 316 plate (napkin math only, naive estimate). Interesting to explore.