[LINK] Digital doomsday: the end of knowledge

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Kim writes,

> I found an article in New Scientist (30 Jan 2010) on .. how long our
> mounting cloud of digital data will last .. They have a chart:
> Flash memory: 10 Years, Magnetic tape: about 20 years, Rewritable CDs
> and DVDs: 7 years, Most CD-R and DVD+R, DVD-R, audio CD and Movie DVDs:
> 26 years, Special gold CD-R: 100 years, Hard disks: no-one knows.


Another issue is the data format. Here's an amusing example pertaining
to these data archival problems today from Peter, a teaching colleague:


"I was reading an 1865 collection of essays on gold and capital.  The 
reason doesn't matter, but I found a reference to a visit by the French 
frigate 'Venus' to Monterey, before the Californian gold rush.  The date 
wasn't given, but I needed an actual date. The year turned out to be 
1837, but then I saw that this same vessel had been in NZ and other 
Pacific waters and also at Honolulu, Tahiti and Sydney.  I wondered if a 
certain lewd old nautical ditty concerning an infamous ship of the same 
name might be related.  I always chase down such alleys.

It probably wasn't related, but I discovered a trove of NZ stuff 
sponsored by Victoria University of Wellington at <http://www.nzetc.org> 
and while testing the site, I came upon "A Punched Card Indexing System 
to Literature for the Biological Research Worker or Institution" at 
<http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Bio13Tuat02-t1-body-d1.html>
first published in 1965.

This sort of "system" was state-of-the-art in the 1960s, indeed I 
confess to having last used such a card in 1981. I suspect that it will 
now be largely and deservedly unknown as a solution, though it is worth 
knowing as an example of old database methodology.

Definitely of more use than the old ditty, anyhow.  Not to mention more 
suitable for classroom use.  peter

--

Cheers,
Stephen