Sounds like dubious advice to me. And what does he mean by “…those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse than, the artefacts that we digitised”? Digital photos, for example, always were digital photos. They haven’t been “digitised”.

And those that have been scanned from hard copies surely increase the probability of their long-term survival – that’s why we do it. We store far more information than ever before, precisely because of the convenience of digital storage. If we had to make hard copies of everything, we’d probably go back to pre-digital rates of information storage…

>Print out digital photos or risk losing them, Google boss warns

Internet pioneer Vint Cerf says it is time to start preserving the vast quantities of digital data before they are lost forever

Warning that the 21st century could become a second “Dark Ages” because so much data is now kept in digital format, he said that future generations would struggle to understand our society because technology is advancing so quickly that old files will be inaccessible.

Speaking at a conference in San Jose, California, Mr Cerf likened the problem to the Dark Ages, the period in Britain between the 5th and 8th centuries where little is known, following the collapse of the Roman Empire.

“If we don’t find a solution our 21st Century will be an information black hole.

“Future generations will wonder about us but they will have very great difficulty knowing about us.

“We think about digitising things because we think we will preserve them, but what we don’t understand is that unless we take other steps, those digital versions may not be any better, and may even be worse than, the artefacts that we digitised.

“We stand to lose a lot of our history. If you think about the quantity of documentation from our daily lives which is captured in digital form, like our interactions by email, people’s tweets, all of the world wide web, then if you wanted to see what was on the web in 1994 you’d have trouble doing that. A lot of the stuff disappears.

“We don’t want our digital lives to fade away. If we want to preserve them the same way we preserve books and so on we need to make sure that the digital objects we create will be rendered far into the future.”

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11410506/Print-out-digital-photos-or-risk-losing-them-Google-boss-warns.html

Maybe we produce less paper documentation of our history than we did from say late 70’s to early 90’s, but we still produce vastly more than at any other period.

I have wondered about longevity though. Stuff that was on the big floppies is lost. Even the small floppies are now hard to access.

It’s a double edged sword; not only do you need to consider the shelf life of the storage medium, but hardware able to read it

I think the hardware is possibly the bigger problem.

buffy said:

I have wondered about longevity though. Stuff that was on the big floppies is lost. Even the small floppies are now hard to access.

While that’s true, most people would have backed up what they regarded as important in later formats. As technology changes, I can’t imagine that the industry would ignore the huge demand for preserving existing data.

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

I have wondered about longevity though. Stuff that was on the big floppies is lost. Even the small floppies are now hard to access.

While that’s true, most people would have backed up what they regarded as important in later formats. As technology changes, I can’t imagine that the industry would ignore the huge demand for preserving existing data.

The difficulty is in knowing what is important. Think about stuff historians ‘discover’ at times. Often not considered important at the time.

I remember reading an article from about 20 years ago (but have no refs. I’ll go looking) to the effect that archivists were starting to store all their data on paper, because as technology advances older tech. gets dropped by the wayside, and we lose the ability to access the data. As buffy observed, floppy disks are harder to access, and soon will be opaque to us. I can see CDs and DVDs going the same way – indeed, CDs and DVDs burnt on a home burner have an average life span on only 7 years. IDE-based hard drive are becoming hard to read, because modern motherboards use SATA.

buffy said:

Bubblecar said:

buffy said:

I have wondered about longevity though. Stuff that was on the big floppies is lost. Even the small floppies are now hard to access.

While that’s true, most people would have backed up what they regarded as important in later formats. As technology changes, I can’t imagine that the industry would ignore the huge demand for preserving existing data.

The difficulty is in knowing what is important. Think about stuff historians ‘discover’ at times. Often not considered important at the time.

But increasingly fast data transfer rates means it’s easier than ever before to back up huge amounts of stuff quickly, without having to pick & choose. Imagine the picking and choosing that would be required if we had to preserve hard copies.

>indeed, CDs and DVDs burnt on a home burner have an average life span on only 7 years.

So we’re told, but I have mountains of stuff backed up on CDs much older than that which still seem perfectly OK.

Maybe we need an annual International Backup Week. Take the time to transfer old stuff from CDs and DVDs to your latest pooter, then back all that up on an external HD.

Bubblecar said:

Maybe we need an annual International Backup Week. Take the time to transfer old stuff from CDs and DVDs to your latest pooter, then back all that up on an external HD.

I like that one. You’re an ideas man!

Speedy said:

Bubblecar said:

Maybe we need an annual International Backup Week. Take the time to transfer old stuff from CDs and DVDs to your latest pooter, then back all that up on an external HD.

I like that one. You’re an ideas man!

I’d need a lot longer than a week though, at least for the first one. Vast numbers of backup discs stacked in cupboards. I’ll have to get into the habit of transferring a few of them to the pooter each evening.

Alarmist headline here

http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/google-executive-and-co-founder-of-the-internet-vint-cerf-says-you-need-to-start-printing-everything-out/story-fnjwmwrh-1227221136776

Hmmmm, I can’t actually find where he says “you need to start printing everything out”.

It’s an interesting stance from a company that wants you to pay them to store your data in the cloud.

Dropbear said:

It’s an interesting stance from a company that wants you to pay them to store your data in the cloud.

So it can all be put on celluloid film?

roughbarked said:

Dropbear said:

It’s an interesting stance from a company that wants you to pay them to store your data in the cloud.

So it can all be put on celluloid film?

Huh?

It’s probably just me, coz I’m weird, but yeah, the article seems a little alarmist and making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I find it difficult to believe humanity will lose data en masse due to advancing technology.
Some individuals probably will though, but that’s something that has been happening for generations already anyway.

I think the more immediate issue is efficient data storage capacity, with regards to preserving ‘documented’ human history.
But is is something to think about and keep in mind as we progress.

Bubblecar said:

>indeed, CDs and DVDs burnt on a home burner have an average life span on only 7 years.

So we’re told, but I have mountains of stuff backed up on CDs much older than that which still seem perfectly OK.

CD/DVDs seem to last a lot longer down south (as do cars for that matter). They tend to get cancer in the tropics very quickly indeed. I think it’s a humidity thing. I don’t trust anything on CD/DVD for more than a couple of wet seasons.

Speedy said:

Alarmist headline here

http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/google-executive-and-co-founder-of-the-internet-vint-cerf-says-you-need-to-start-printing-everything-out/story-fnjwmwrh-1227221136776

Hmmmm, I can’t actually find where he says “you need to start printing everything out”.

reporters creative imagination or anxiety?

Teleost said:

Bubblecar said:

>indeed, CDs and DVDs burnt on a home burner have an average life span on only 7 years.

So we’re told, but I have mountains of stuff backed up on CDs much older than that which still seem perfectly OK.

CD/DVDs seem to last a lot longer down south (as do cars for that matter). They tend to get cancer in the tropics very quickly indeed. I think it’s a humidity thing. I don’t trust anything on CD/DVD for more than a couple of wet seasons.

Combine fungi bacteria and humidity. Asking for trouble.

obviously these fellows have never imagined such a thing as backward-compatibility;

How many of you peeps now keep all your personal contacts, like family & friends, phones #, email, and home address, in a digital only format?

I’ve noticed I’m not using a notebook any more. (pen & paper style)

Not everyone keeps the same contact details for decades either, it seems.