Too Much Information. Not Enough Storage
Most people deal with limited storage along with their almost unlimited desire to save pr0n things. In the digital world, the problem is compounded by the speed at which various storage formats become obsolete. Even if you can lay your hands on a 5.25" floppy disk you have valuable things stored on, do you even have something that will read it ? Eventually the information might get corrupted even if you can read it. The Library of Congress, along with other interested parties, are looking for a new way to store data without obsolescence.
Most details remain to be worked out, but the digital information probably will be stored in a network of computer "repositories" scattered across the globe. To avoid obsolescence, the information will have to "migrate" repeatedly from existing systems to the next generation of storage platforms. Decisions have to be made about which data will be kept, who'll have access to them, what it will cost and how to protect confidential or private information...
...Examples of lost data abound. Early images of the Earth and the moon from space were stored on 1970s-era UNIVAC computers and can't be recovered. Almost half the Web sites created in 1998 vanished within a year. Data stored on once-ubiquitous floppy disks probably are gone forever.
I doubt half the websites created in 1998 are worth looking at, but it seems bizarre that we figured out how to fly in space, then lost the pictures we took like some senile tourist's vacation pictures.
Most details remain to be worked out, but the digital information probably will be stored in a network of computer "repositories" scattered across the globe. To avoid obsolescence, the information will have to "migrate" repeatedly from existing systems to the next generation of storage platforms. Decisions have to be made about which data will be kept, who'll have access to them, what it will cost and how to protect confidential or private information...
...Examples of lost data abound. Early images of the Earth and the moon from space were stored on 1970s-era UNIVAC computers and can't be recovered. Almost half the Web sites created in 1998 vanished within a year. Data stored on once-ubiquitous floppy disks probably are gone forever.
I doubt half the websites created in 1998 are worth looking at, but it seems bizarre that we figured out how to fly in space, then lost the pictures we took like some senile tourist's vacation pictures.
