Rothenberg, J., "Ensuring the Longevity of Digital Documents", Scientific American, 272.1, Jan. 1995

It's even more sobering to read almost fourteen years later.

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I, for one am heartbroken. We must learn to transcribe them to the surfaces of ceramic pots. They last damn near forever. We need to preserve our lofty-ass culture here!

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Look, it's not the case that "data used is data that isn't lost." It's the case that "data *accessed* is data that isn't lost."

Meaning, even if we have WordPerfect conversion tools in MicroGoogleSoft Word 75.0, the fact is the *data itself* will likely have disappeared given the degradation of digital data over time, especially on older media (like the aforementioned magnetic storage).

What's even worse, the *volume* of data prevents effective archiving.

Easy example: in high school, my first GF and I did the long-distance thing for a long time. We exchanged roughly a hundred letters over that time. The two of us still have those letters. The paper hasn't yellowed or faded yet. It *will* do so, of course, but it's still a tangible, accessible item that tells the reader a history of events (however boring).

Fast-forward fifteen years. A different GF, same long distance story. All our messages to each other are electronic-- first Lycos mail, than Gmail. I lost all of the first, the second I'd have to physically print out to store (as you can't download Gmail emails-- the benefit/curse of online applications). All of our photos together? Digital.

It will easily be the case that virtually every record of a year-long relationship will go "poof" in a far shorter time than my past records.

We've seen this problem coming for years-- the first major example being the Clinton Adminisration's record-keeping, which was the first administration to widely use email. How does one archive email? How does one *search* email? How does one recreate history from email-- especially when email alone doesn't tell you the history of how a process actually happened?

Think of all the future historians who won't have anywhere near the advantages that current historians have. Today, I can go back and read love letters from the Civil War, official census records from the Dust Bowl years, minutes from Truman NSC meetings. Tomorrow, no one will be able to research anything at all-- the media won't exist, the media won't be readable, or the media won't be effectively usable/searchable.

Good times.

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Also, for those saying you cant open old files, you can always just use a Virtual PC.

I got Windows95 running in a little box whenever I want, it works perfectly with all my old games, documents and software.

I can copy stuff out when I like.

Old data isnt lost when fomats change, it just takes another step or two to read them.

Even in a thousand years, if the data is physicaly there, it IS possible to understand, it will just take more effort.

It will still be vastly easier then translating an ancient human langerage.

Heck, by that time if we were still around, you could probably have software to brute-force work out how a file format works in a seconds.

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