[Beowulf] how Google warps your brain

[Hearns, John]

Ok - so this is a bit off-topic but in my opinion the *only* music
format that will be guaranteed readable in say 100 years time is vinyl
and the only document format that endures will be ink on paper.

SD cards, CDs, DVDs et al. will all become obsolete as technology
progresses, and even if they didn't then they will suffer from bit rot.
Academics are already finding that the CDs they burnt of their research
a few years ago are no longer readable.




The same goes for a lot of digital data. We might still have the medium
(tapes, optical disks etc) but the physical drives are long gone, or the
computers with the OSes to hook up to the drives are gone.

 

I have a copy of my thesis on a DEC TK50 cartridge. I haven't seen one
for ages. They are still around - I spotted a MicroVAX at a major UK
aerospace manufacturer a couple of years ago, but in a few years TK50
drives will be history.

Same goes for the medical imaging data I used to look after on real
glass magneto-optical drives - I'd guess they are all in the bin by now!


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