1000 Year Capability Memory Being Developed by Japanese Researchers

We already have this technology. It's called clay.

You are more than welcome to write out the complete machine code for the Windows Vista operating system using clay.

For serious amounts of long-term data storage most media are sadly lacking in their survivability verses the simple and basic time-tested media (like stone and clay).

The question is, who will care about Vista 1000 years from now? And on what device will they recover the data from this new format? We are very close to having everything scrap of information on this planet digitized and warehoused. As technology changes, it's simple to copy the info to the next level.

The only use for 1000 year storage is 1000 year useful information.

For instance, I remember reading about a plan to make fired clay disks to distribute around nuclear waste dumps. The disks would have simple pictograms indicating the danger of digging in the area. They would last 10,000 years.

There was a good article on the "New Scientist" website regarding data storage and retrieval in the near and distant future and the need to store and then be able to retrieve data (along with the need to include designs and information on how to build the equipment necessary to read and run the data since said equipment will likely not exist).

It was quite interesting, but I have lost the link (it was sometime early this year or last year I think).

As technology changes, it's simple to copy the info to the next level.

More and more data is being stored only online. Imagine losing the entire internet.

For instance, I remember reading about a plan to make fired clay disks to distribute around nuclear waste dumps.

I saw some of the designs including the sculptures on top of the site. I couldn't figure them out and would likely come to investigate rather than stay away. Why not just maintain the nuclear storage site and change the warning labels when major changes to language and pictographs occur.

With the successful development of such a long-lived storage medium the Japanese have finally ensured that their own unique and remarkably voluminous contributions to various fields of highly disturbing pornography can be archived for those living in the next millennium.

what - you're not a yaoi boy?

These will become wonderful museum pieces for future generations to marvel at our futile attempts for "everlasting memories".

Look at how we view parchments and "paper" documents of the middle ages. Do we wonder at the content? No, because it's already history. We more often observe the methods of production and the "craftsmanship" of the fabrication and are thankful that we have advanced beyond such primitive and ancient methods.

Even our most prized records (Like the magna cata, US declaration of independance and various religous scrolls) that seem worthy of preservation only number a few hundred around the world and while interesting artifacts, in themselves contain nothing that is essential for the development of civilisation through time. (They only provide evidence that at some point of time a particular even happened.)

Like, who now uses 5" floppy disks? They were "state of the art" only 25 years ago and now have been relegated to museums.

And on a more frivilous note, who would you see if they failed "under warranty"? Japan may not exist as a nation in 10,000 years time. (Nor any other "nation" as we know them.)

Reminds me of the episode of The Twilight Zone where they sent a man off on a mission from which he would return some 70 years later to discover if life existed somewhere far away. Twenty years into the mission they developed the technology to make the round trip in a year. That was made in the 60's so we've known how this works a long time. But from our current "key-hole view" what's a human to do?

Are we really sure we want our data hanging around that long?

What, you don't want your CR4 posts to be the subject of intense academic debate in the distant future by scholars and techno-archaeologists? What could possibly go wrong?

.............

"And we see now from the entity called "Vermin" that he/she/it was not human, we can only guess from his picture (perhaps an advanced form of bacteria) but we all agree that from the messages "Vermin" wrote (perhaps by bouncing on the keys of the anchient ceeboard) that Vermin sure was intelligent (although must have been very small, or have a very large ceeboard). Obviously he got around by bouncing, and we speculate that Vermin was a silicon-based life form due to his home "Silicon Valley"