Saving digital work after death…

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Dave Winer is up early here in Paris too and is wondering how to make sure that our work sticks around long after we do.

I’d love for there to be an Amazon S3 or a Microsoft or Google service that we could pay for to keep our stuff around for 100 years. It’d have to be a company like that because not many companies would have a chance to stick around that long.

Actually, thinking of it, a bank or an insurance company would make more sense, especially ones that have stuck around for a few hundred years already.

Our work online is really a digital asset and one that SHOULD be saved for future generations. Even if it’s just our kids who want to troll through it later in life it’d be valuable for that.

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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88 thoughts on “Saving digital work after death…”

  5. Pingback: Make it Last : The Last Podcast

  6. I absolutely agree. I’m afraid that one day, we may find that practically an entire segment of our history has been lost thanks to ever-changing format standards and the lack of a good paper trail. Say what you will about flexibility, paper at least has that going for it. It continues to function completely passively. Of course, we may cease to understand English or something, but that’s another matter entirely.

    And Peter, I like that idea too. Could be very interesting indeed… although, almost by definition, many of us may never be around to see it happen. Oh well.

    Like

  7. You did an interviiew on PodTech with a guy on this very subject… more like the cultural implications of our generation creating so much bu it not being backed up properly… just like your first blog posts that have gone down the drain! Got a link to it? It was really good.

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  8. You did an interviiew on PodTech with a guy on this very subject… more like the cultural implications of our generation creating so much bu it not being backed up properly… just like your first blog posts that have gone down the drain! Got a link to it? It was really good.

    Like

  9. I absolutely agree. I’m afraid that one day, we may find that practically an entire segment of our history has been lost thanks to ever-changing format standards and the lack of a good paper trail. Say what you will about flexibility, paper at least has that going for it. It continues to function completely passively. Of course, we may cease to understand English or something, but that’s another matter entirely.

    And Peter, I like that idea too. Could be very interesting indeed… although, almost by definition, many of us may never be around to see it happen. Oh well.

    Like

  10. With my cancer diagnosis and treatment and all this year, I’ve been wondering about this very concept, and hoped that after he discussed it earlier this year, Dave might have come up with a solution, and I had hoped to ask him about that an Gnomedex, which I ended up not being able to attend in person.

    Um, any ideas on how we can get on this? I’m still doing fine now, but I would like to plan ahead.

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  11. With my cancer diagnosis and treatment and all this year, I’ve been wondering about this very concept, and hoped that after he discussed it earlier this year, Dave might have come up with a solution, and I had hoped to ask him about that an Gnomedex, which I ended up not being able to attend in person.

    Um, any ideas on how we can get on this? I’m still doing fine now, but I would like to plan ahead.

    Like

  12. Isn’t that what archive.org is doing? Im pretty sure that search engines are backing up whatever they crawl. I think it will be more an issue of indexing all this information to search it than storing it.

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  13. Isn’t that what archive.org is doing? Im pretty sure that search engines are backing up whatever they crawl. I think it will be more an issue of indexing all this information to search it than storing it.

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  14. Pingback: Krishwords » Blog Archive » Mummifying our web presence

  21. Dave Winer can easily be kept around even after he’s dead. A simple bot can simulate posts to Scripting News and Twitter. It can be set to be rude, obnoxious and generally arrogant to some random person at random intervals. Then follow up each incident trying to turn things around with a few “cry me a river” posts. Things calm down and back to normal with technology and blog talk. Then it all it goes around in endless circles until the sun engulfs the Earth. It’d be like he never left. Quite simple really. šŸ™‚

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  22. Dave Winer can easily be kept around even after he’s dead. A simple bot can simulate posts to Scripting News and Twitter. It can be set to be rude, obnoxious and generally arrogant to some random person at random intervals. Then follow up each incident trying to turn things around with a few “cry me a river” posts. Things calm down and back to normal with technology and blog talk. Then it all it goes around in endless circles until the sun engulfs the Earth. It’d be like he never left. Quite simple really. šŸ™‚

    Like

  23. If you want your kids to see it, put it on CD/DVD and give them a copy. Giving physical items to your children has worked pretty well for a long time now.

    To enable everyone else to see it, try getting over yourself.

    Society usually finds a way to preserve good works. The mediocre will wither away. It is the way of the world.

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  24. If you want your kids to see it, put it on CD/DVD and give them a copy. Giving physical items to your children has worked pretty well for a long time now.

    To enable everyone else to see it, try getting over yourself.

    Society usually finds a way to preserve good works. The mediocre will wither away. It is the way of the world.

    Like

  25. I think Tim has it exactly right. There will be enough of the good stuff preserved for historians and researchers. Want to ensure immortality? Do something with more long term benefit to humanity. Otherwise, fall in with the vast majority of us who will be glad to “live” a few generations into the future in the hearts and minds of loved ones left behind.

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  26. I think Tim has it exactly right. There will be enough of the good stuff preserved for historians and researchers. Want to ensure immortality? Do something with more long term benefit to humanity. Otherwise, fall in with the vast majority of us who will be glad to “live” a few generations into the future in the hearts and minds of loved ones left behind.

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  27. @9 – Tim, society has always been able to preserve _some_ good works because they have been material and humanity has a tradition of passing on material assets on death. The vast bulk of human history is however still being pieced together from the small fragments that remain because, by the very entropic nature of the universe, things decay / decline / get lost or erased…

    In the land of the mediocre however, the popular man is king. Online, many many “good works” may very well go un-noticed, due to the floods of mediocre ramblings (which I am really happy to read and contribute to). What is good is not always what is popular but what is popular is most likely to be retained as thousands and thousands of people read / copy it.

    For now if anyone wants immortality I would still recommend hardcopy. The printed word has been around far longer than the digital. If someone can come up with a way to guarantee online (and backed up) storage for more than a hundred years I’d love to see it happen. For now though – if it’s important I print it. If I want to publish something that my great grandkids can read – I’ll publish a book. It can alwys be digitised later šŸ˜‰

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  28. @9 – Tim, society has always been able to preserve _some_ good works because they have been material and humanity has a tradition of passing on material assets on death. The vast bulk of human history is however still being pieced together from the small fragments that remain because, by the very entropic nature of the universe, things decay / decline / get lost or erased…

    In the land of the mediocre however, the popular man is king. Online, many many “good works” may very well go un-noticed, due to the floods of mediocre ramblings (which I am really happy to read and contribute to). What is good is not always what is popular but what is popular is most likely to be retained as thousands and thousands of people read / copy it.

    For now if anyone wants immortality I would still recommend hardcopy. The printed word has been around far longer than the digital. If someone can come up with a way to guarantee online (and backed up) storage for more than a hundred years I’d love to see it happen. For now though – if it’s important I print it. If I want to publish something that my great grandkids can read – I’ll publish a book. It can alwys be digitised later šŸ˜‰

    Like

  35. CDs/DVDs are NOT a good option for long-term storage. Paper works, but use archival paper and ink if you want long-term preservation (300+ years). Not all things can easily be reduced to paper, though, and of course it’s not an option for multi-media!

    Many libraries and archives, which have traditionally specialized in paper materials, are starting up institutional repositories for digital materials. DSpace, Fedora (not the Red Hat variety), and Digital Commons are some of the more common applications. Governments at the state and national level are also pursuing options for digital archiving. A few companies that specialize in records management are already selling digital archiving services, primarily to corporations — I’m thinking of Iron Mountain, as that’s the company I’m most familiar with. I don’t know if anyone is selling these types of services to personal consumers.

    It’s fairly complicated to think about long-term digital archiving — you have to consider issues like migrating materials to newer versions of applications or emulating older applications through virtualization, etc. There are graduate programs were you can study these issues — my alma mater, the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, has a strong program — and quite a few conferences devoted to the topic.

    Like

  36. CDs/DVDs are NOT a good option for long-term storage. Paper works, but use archival paper and ink if you want long-term preservation (300+ years). Not all things can easily be reduced to paper, though, and of course it’s not an option for multi-media!

    Many libraries and archives, which have traditionally specialized in paper materials, are starting up institutional repositories for digital materials. DSpace, Fedora (not the Red Hat variety), and Digital Commons are some of the more common applications. Governments at the state and national level are also pursuing options for digital archiving. A few companies that specialize in records management are already selling digital archiving services, primarily to corporations — I’m thinking of Iron Mountain, as that’s the company I’m most familiar with. I don’t know if anyone is selling these types of services to personal consumers.

    It’s fairly complicated to think about long-term digital archiving — you have to consider issues like migrating materials to newer versions of applications or emulating older applications through virtualization, etc. There are graduate programs were you can study these issues — my alma mater, the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin, has a strong program — and quite a few conferences devoted to the topic.

    Like

  37. You all don’t read people’s past work now, and few people comment or link to existing work, other than a few big names…

    Why, then, this discussion on what you all want to do with someone else’s site and writing?

    Consider that what we have now is a gift, to be enjoyed and partaken of now–knowing that, someday, it will be gone. Appreciate the now, rather than fret over the future.

    Like

  38. You all don’t read people’s past work now, and few people comment or link to existing work, other than a few big names…

    Why, then, this discussion on what you all want to do with someone else’s site and writing?

    Consider that what we have now is a gift, to be enjoyed and partaken of now–knowing that, someday, it will be gone. Appreciate the now, rather than fret over the future.

    Like

  39. GoDaddy did something this for a customer once. She asked how much it would cost to get a permanent account on GoDaddy. Bob ended up giving it to her. But this is a one-off situation and not the norm. He either blogged about it or it was on his podcast.

    Like

  40. GoDaddy did something this for a customer once. She asked how much it would cost to get a permanent account on GoDaddy. Bob ended up giving it to her. But this is a one-off situation and not the norm. He either blogged about it or it was on his podcast.

    Like

  43. I think Robert raises an excellent point. Long-term availability of “work”/”content” published on the web is a huge, unresolved issue. This problem of lost information occurs not only when people die, but other times too. For example, if the company that was hosting your content goes bust; or your stuff gets deleted for other reasons.

    I don’t think there are any “one size fits all” answers. However, I think that Robert’s idea of paying a fee to have information made available on-line for a long period of time, say 100 years, is a good one.

    There are technical problems with this though; and it’s pretty difficult to beat words and images printed on paper as a long-term archival approach. Printed paper is probably the most well-proven long-term archival technology around. I certainly wouldn’t trust tape, or DVD, or a hard drive attached to Windows or Linux or Solaris box, to be readable in 100 years.

    Like

  44. I think Robert raises an excellent point. Long-term availability of “work”/”content” published on the web is a huge, unresolved issue. This problem of lost information occurs not only when people die, but other times too. For example, if the company that was hosting your content goes bust; or your stuff gets deleted for other reasons.

    I don’t think there are any “one size fits all” answers. However, I think that Robert’s idea of paying a fee to have information made available on-line for a long period of time, say 100 years, is a good one.

    There are technical problems with this though; and it’s pretty difficult to beat words and images printed on paper as a long-term archival approach. Printed paper is probably the most well-proven long-term archival technology around. I certainly wouldn’t trust tape, or DVD, or a hard drive attached to Windows or Linux or Solaris box, to be readable in 100 years.

    Like

  45. Jesus said that on Judgement Day, we’ll have to account for every useless word we’ve ever spoken (Matthew 12:36), so I figure archiving all our stuff could be a duplication of effort. šŸ˜‰

    It is a really fascinating idea though, and after a glass or two of Claret might lead to some Very Deep Thoughts Indeed.

    Dave Winer can easily be kept around even after heā€™s dead.

    Ah, the “eternal recurrence” idea that Pynchon played with in Against The Day? In Hollywood, don’t they say “we need a George Clooney type” when George Clooney isn’t available? Perhaps in the future we will need a Dave Winer type. Perhaps we have always needed a Dave Winer type, and always will…

    I was going to mention Stephen Leacock as someone whose writings are, if not lost to history, then certainly not as popular as they should be. But reading a bit about him on Wikipedia, he begins to sound a bit like P.J. O’Rourke. Perhaps P.J. O’Rourke is our instantiation of the Stephen Leacock object class…

    As an aside, if you ever need a good laugh, I highly recommend Leacock’s Nonsense Novels. Perhaps lost to history, but saved up on Project Gutenberg.

    Want to ensure immortality? Do something with more long term benefit to humanity.

    Interesting, but I think that’s possibly backwards: it’s the people who were trying to benefit humanity who, as a side effect, became immortal.

    Consider that what we have now is a gift, to be enjoyed and partaken of nowā€“knowing that, someday, it will be gone. Appreciate the now, rather than fret over the future.

    If I can channel FSJ for a moment: I honor the place where your Zen attitude and my bottle of Claret become one. Namaste. *hic*

    Like

  46. Jesus said that on Judgement Day, we’ll have to account for every useless word we’ve ever spoken (Matthew 12:36), so I figure archiving all our stuff could be a duplication of effort. šŸ˜‰

    It is a really fascinating idea though, and after a glass or two of Claret might lead to some Very Deep Thoughts Indeed.

    Dave Winer can easily be kept around even after heā€™s dead.

    Ah, the “eternal recurrence” idea that Pynchon played with in Against The Day? In Hollywood, don’t they say “we need a George Clooney type” when George Clooney isn’t available? Perhaps in the future we will need a Dave Winer type. Perhaps we have always needed a Dave Winer type, and always will…

    I was going to mention Stephen Leacock as someone whose writings are, if not lost to history, then certainly not as popular as they should be. But reading a bit about him on Wikipedia, he begins to sound a bit like P.J. O’Rourke. Perhaps P.J. O’Rourke is our instantiation of the Stephen Leacock object class…

    As an aside, if you ever need a good laugh, I highly recommend Leacock’s Nonsense Novels. Perhaps lost to history, but saved up on Project Gutenberg.

    Want to ensure immortality? Do something with more long term benefit to humanity.

    Interesting, but I think that’s possibly backwards: it’s the people who were trying to benefit humanity who, as a side effect, became immortal.

    Consider that what we have now is a gift, to be enjoyed and partaken of nowā€“knowing that, someday, it will be gone. Appreciate the now, rather than fret over the future.

    If I can channel FSJ for a moment: I honor the place where your Zen attitude and my bottle of Claret become one. Namaste. *hic*

    Like

  47. The only reason I can see to save some of these writings is for when we need a good laugh. Like back in 97 when Dave told the Financial Times that Apple would never hit another home run in the industry. Priceless stuff.

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  48. The only reason I can see to save some of these writings is for when we need a good laugh. Like back in 97 when Dave told the Financial Times that Apple would never hit another home run in the industry. Priceless stuff.

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  49. I’d much rather trust a bank than google/ms any day.

    Course in order to make it cost-effective all the info wouldn’t be available online… While storage is cheap, storing 1TB+ of data for a user is going to be damned expensive for 100yrs.

    Putting it on disk/tape, however, could probably be done for 1-2k – even by a startup…

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  50. I’d much rather trust a bank than google/ms any day.

    Course in order to make it cost-effective all the info wouldn’t be available online… While storage is cheap, storing 1TB+ of data for a user is going to be damned expensive for 100yrs.

    Putting it on disk/tape, however, could probably be done for 1-2k – even by a startup…

    Like

  51. This is positively ridiculous. You want to pass it along to future generations then save it off and pass it along. I think it’s pretty safe to bet that in 50 years NO ONE will be wondering what Dave Winer had to say about RSS or outlining and no offense Robert I’m sure your hyping of Facebook / web 2.0 this or that will not provide interesting reference in the future. Perhaps for your children and family it will be very interesting but not my children.

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  52. This is positively ridiculous. You want to pass it along to future generations then save it off and pass it along. I think it’s pretty safe to bet that in 50 years NO ONE will be wondering what Dave Winer had to say about RSS or outlining and no offense Robert I’m sure your hyping of Facebook / web 2.0 this or that will not provide interesting reference in the future. Perhaps for your children and family it will be very interesting but not my children.

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  53. I used to be a fan of the idea of a mechanism for saving the best of the web – for making our work accessible after bloggers have died, to be sure the good stuff lived on. A sort of museum might be nice, but that’s not what Dave is talking about. Museums don’t feature me because I say I’m important. There is a process to becoming worth preserving. It’s more than technology and dollars.

    Maybe we SHOULD have to lose one another here.

    Maybe it will keep us human.

    Maybe if we keep one another alive here, we’ll soon be twittering along for a year before we realize someone’s dead.

    Maybe we can get rid of grieving altogether, get back to work, keep posting away, as long as we know that our dead friends’ site has been preserved in plastic, encased in gold. That’d be super!

    Maybe it’s up to the family. Maybe they want to decide I was an asshole they want to rip down my site. Maybe they should have that choice.

    Dave wants to be on vinyl: The best of Dave Winer, collector’s edition, double CD – as if no dave will ever come again. Dave will come again. And again. We are a blip, no matter how many quotes, how many links. There is something honest in others keeping our history.

    Let the business model of dead blogger books write itself–it doesn’t need help from the top.

    Our work belongs to our estates, doesn’t it? Dave wants to plunk down a hundred grand to be sure he’s always here, calling people names, calling for posses. Super. The rest of us — the ones who can’t afford the super deluxe gold coffin edition of blogging — we win the prize: We get to disappear.

    The guy with the most money and best algorithm wins. It has been ever thus. Old boss new boss. And so it goes.

    Like

  54. I used to be a fan of the idea of a mechanism for saving the best of the web – for making our work accessible after bloggers have died, to be sure the good stuff lived on. A sort of museum might be nice, but that’s not what Dave is talking about. Museums don’t feature me because I say I’m important. There is a process to becoming worth preserving. It’s more than technology and dollars.

    Maybe we SHOULD have to lose one another here.

    Maybe it will keep us human.

    Maybe if we keep one another alive here, we’ll soon be twittering along for a year before we realize someone’s dead.

    Maybe we can get rid of grieving altogether, get back to work, keep posting away, as long as we know that our dead friends’ site has been preserved in plastic, encased in gold. That’d be super!

    Maybe it’s up to the family. Maybe they want to decide I was an asshole they want to rip down my site. Maybe they should have that choice.

    Dave wants to be on vinyl: The best of Dave Winer, collector’s edition, double CD – as if no dave will ever come again. Dave will come again. And again. We are a blip, no matter how many quotes, how many links. There is something honest in others keeping our history.

    Let the business model of dead blogger books write itself–it doesn’t need help from the top.

    Our work belongs to our estates, doesn’t it? Dave wants to plunk down a hundred grand to be sure he’s always here, calling people names, calling for posses. Super. The rest of us — the ones who can’t afford the super deluxe gold coffin edition of blogging — we win the prize: We get to disappear.

    The guy with the most money and best algorithm wins. It has been ever thus. Old boss new boss. And so it goes.

    Like

  55. I think that the solution involves getting out of the mindset that web logs have to be online. If we can come up with a URL that deals with copies of data, and a way to search for ANY available (signed) copy of a given piece of data, we can go a long way to solving this, and many other problems we find ourselves facing on the net. (Like censorship for example)

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  56. I think that the solution involves getting out of the mindset that web logs have to be online. If we can come up with a URL that deals with copies of data, and a way to search for ANY available (signed) copy of a given piece of data, we can go a long way to solving this, and many other problems we find ourselves facing on the net. (Like censorship for example)

    Like

  58. I’m just peeved that all of my 2002-2003 links to Fishrush are dead and he’s not. No offense… I didn’t mean, well, you know…

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  59. NOTHING is forever… even banks and insurance companies go under (e.g. Barings bank or, more recently, Northern Rock). I’d wager the only thing that’s likely to survive 100 years from now is the Department of Defence in one form or another. Now, trusting them with archiving the web? Probably not the best idea.

    Like

  60. We’ve been kicking the idea around a bit about the trusting role that banks and credit unions have with their customers/members and ways to leverage that to make the online safe deposit box concept work. Chances are banks and credit unions will be around, in some merged form or another, years from now. Longer than most tech companies, that’s for sure. I think we finally have the problem solved and the more I work it out in my head, the more it makes sense. Most FI’s have trust services, so setting up a trust to execute certain events on your death would be pretty easy, like publishing your blog virtually or in print form, exporting all of your pictures from flikr and storing them somewhere else, etc…

    Like

  61. We’ve been kicking the idea around a bit about the trusting role that banks and credit unions have with their customers/members and ways to leverage that to make the online safe deposit box concept work. Chances are banks and credit unions will be around, in some merged form or another, years from now. Longer than most tech companies, that’s for sure. I think we finally have the problem solved and the more I work it out in my head, the more it makes sense. Most FI’s have trust services, so setting up a trust to execute certain events on your death would be pretty easy, like publishing your blog virtually or in print form, exporting all of your pictures from flikr and storing them somewhere else, etc…

    Like

  62. NOTHING is forever… even banks and insurance companies go under (e.g. Barings bank or, more recently, Northern Rock). I’d wager the only thing that’s likely to survive 100 years from now is the Department of Defence in one form or another. Now, trusting them with archiving the web? Probably not the best idea.

    Like

  65. Interesting concept. Hmmm. You know…there are cord blood banking companies that save your baby’s cord blood. When you start blogging maybe there is a company that will store your blogging (or all Internet activity) output for a fee in a bank (like you mentioned above). Then there would need to be a way to sift through all the information.

    When would a person’s family need to get access to the info and why? With cord blood the answer is clear. Interesting concept.

    Like

  66. Interesting concept. Hmmm. You know…there are cord blood banking companies that save your baby’s cord blood. When you start blogging maybe there is a company that will store your blogging (or all Internet activity) output for a fee in a bank (like you mentioned above). Then there would need to be a way to sift through all the information.

    When would a person’s family need to get access to the info and why? With cord blood the answer is clear. Interesting concept.

    Like

  67. I think the driving force of most great art has been the intent to leave something behind. If you create something of enduring value then people who care about art will collect your work and archive it for you.

    If you crank out tedious self-involved commentary then you probably sit on your deathbed and bemoan the fact that your efforts will go unnoticed.

    But let’s put all concepts of quality or merit aside: it’s a business opportunity for someone: “We Will Save Your Blog for As Long as You Wish”.

    If the business is structured well then the blogs will linger for years. You just need to create an account and invest in your future.

    As I write these words, I have a little program running that’s creating a mirror of a famous blogging site. The technology to clone web-sites is fully baked… what’s NOT easy to establish is the trust of enough bloggers to fund the business of managing the “assets”.

    If someone does create a foundation to archive with more rigor than “archive.org” then most of us will be frustrated because they will probaly create a committee to decide what’s actual worth saving… and that’s so “old school”: a meritocracy. A final exam that’s graded pass/fail.

    Like

  68. I think the driving force of most great art has been the intent to leave something behind. If you create something of enduring value then people who care about art will collect your work and archive it for you.

    If you crank out tedious self-involved commentary then you probably sit on your deathbed and bemoan the fact that your efforts will go unnoticed.

    But let’s put all concepts of quality or merit aside: it’s a business opportunity for someone: “We Will Save Your Blog for As Long as You Wish”.

    If the business is structured well then the blogs will linger for years. You just need to create an account and invest in your future.

    As I write these words, I have a little program running that’s creating a mirror of a famous blogging site. The technology to clone web-sites is fully baked… what’s NOT easy to establish is the trust of enough bloggers to fund the business of managing the “assets”.

    If someone does create a foundation to archive with more rigor than “archive.org” then most of us will be frustrated because they will probaly create a committee to decide what’s actual worth saving… and that’s so “old school”: a meritocracy. A final exam that’s graded pass/fail.

    Like

  69. Pingback: Geek And Poke

  70. I think the driving force of most great art has been the intent to leave something behind. If you create something of enduring value then people who care about art will collect your work and archive it for you.

    If you crank out tedious self-involved commentary then you probably sit on your deathbed and bemoan the fact that your efforts will go unnoticed and un-preserved. ā€œCall for Willy Loman on the courtesy phone.ā€

    But letā€™s put all concepts of quality or merit aside: itā€™s a business opportunity for someone:

    ā€œWe Will Save Your Blog for As Long as You Wishā€

    If the business is structured well then the blogs will linger for years. You just need to create an account and invest in your future.

    As I write these words, I have a little program running thatā€™s creating a mirror of a famous blogging site. The technology to clone web-sites is fully bakedā€¦ whatā€™s NOT easy to establish is the trust of enough bloggers to fund the business of managing the ā€œassetsā€. I use asset in the most liberal senseā€¦ if they are funded by the author then they meet the financial criteria of a liabilityā€¦ a committed obligation.

    NOTE: $10,000 at money market rates produces about $300/year. You shouldnā€™t speculate with a trust asset but use a conservative, insured investment. But what about inflation, increased overhead costs, etc. The contract might be full of fine print to protect the supplier of such a service from future variables.

    If someone does create a foundation to archive with more rigor than ā€œarchive.orgā€ then most of us will be frustrated because they will probaly create a committee to decide whatā€™s actual worth savingā€¦ and thatā€™s so ā€œold schoolā€: a meritocracy. A final exam thatā€™s graded pass/fail.

    Do good work. Let history protect youā€¦ all else is vanity. Iā€™m just sayinā€™.

    Like

  71. I think the driving force of most great art has been the intent to leave something behind. If you create something of enduring value then people who care about art will collect your work and archive it for you.

    If you crank out tedious self-involved commentary then you probably sit on your deathbed and bemoan the fact that your efforts will go unnoticed and un-preserved. ā€œCall for Willy Loman on the courtesy phone.ā€

    But letā€™s put all concepts of quality or merit aside: itā€™s a business opportunity for someone:

    ā€œWe Will Save Your Blog for As Long as You Wishā€

    If the business is structured well then the blogs will linger for years. You just need to create an account and invest in your future.

    As I write these words, I have a little program running thatā€™s creating a mirror of a famous blogging site. The technology to clone web-sites is fully bakedā€¦ whatā€™s NOT easy to establish is the trust of enough bloggers to fund the business of managing the ā€œassetsā€. I use asset in the most liberal senseā€¦ if they are funded by the author then they meet the financial criteria of a liabilityā€¦ a committed obligation.

    NOTE: $10,000 at money market rates produces about $300/year. You shouldnā€™t speculate with a trust asset but use a conservative, insured investment. But what about inflation, increased overhead costs, etc. The contract might be full of fine print to protect the supplier of such a service from future variables.

    If someone does create a foundation to archive with more rigor than ā€œarchive.orgā€ then most of us will be frustrated because they will probaly create a committee to decide whatā€™s actual worth savingā€¦ and thatā€™s so ā€œold schoolā€: a meritocracy. A final exam thatā€™s graded pass/fail.

    Do good work. Let history protect youā€¦ all else is vanity. Iā€™m just sayinā€™.

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  74. The longest lasting institutions in the world are universities and the churches, not banks or insurance companies.

    In the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, it is the Catholic Church that ends up saving all technological information after a nuclear war and subsequent Luddite, anti-technology uprising by the survivors.

    There’s a doomsday seed bank up in Norway. Maybe instead of preserving blog posts, we should be thinking of a similar repository of knowledge somewhere… not to put a Y2K survivalist bent on things; I just think it would suck if Something Bad Happened and nobody knew how to make antibiotics, or aspirin, or fire, but we did have multiple redundant emergency backup copies of everything that had ever been posted to Scripting News and icanhazcheezeburger.com. First things first, you know.

    From there we should go to works of art. Not just great paintings, but film on decaying celluloid, old recordings, out of print books, the genome sequences of endangered species. I am a huge fan of the band Lush; they broke up only about 10 years ago and it’s already difficult to find some of their recordings, despite them having been made in the digital age.

    Once we have a “Memory Alpha” in place, then let’s look at the blog posts… šŸ™‚

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  75. The longest lasting institutions in the world are universities and the churches, not banks or insurance companies.

    In the novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, it is the Catholic Church that ends up saving all technological information after a nuclear war and subsequent Luddite, anti-technology uprising by the survivors.

    There’s a doomsday seed bank up in Norway. Maybe instead of preserving blog posts, we should be thinking of a similar repository of knowledge somewhere… not to put a Y2K survivalist bent on things; I just think it would suck if Something Bad Happened and nobody knew how to make antibiotics, or aspirin, or fire, but we did have multiple redundant emergency backup copies of everything that had ever been posted to Scripting News and icanhazcheezeburger.com. First things first, you know.

    From there we should go to works of art. Not just great paintings, but film on decaying celluloid, old recordings, out of print books, the genome sequences of endangered species. I am a huge fan of the band Lush; they broke up only about 10 years ago and it’s already difficult to find some of their recordings, despite them having been made in the digital age.

    Once we have a “Memory Alpha” in place, then let’s look at the blog posts… šŸ™‚

    Like

  76. The thing for me is not so much the notion that my thoughts and work can live on after my death, but that there will be an enduring reflection of who I was at a given point in time – regardless of whether or not I’ve shuffled off my mortal coil.

    I.e. I’m currently 33 years old, but I can go back and see the 32 year-old me (effectively dead and buried) any time simply by browsing my blog archive.

    Kinda adds another dimention to the notion of immortality, IMHO. It’s not just that I can live forever, but all my previous incarnations (as a younger man).

    I need a drink now.

    šŸ™‚

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  77. The thing for me is not so much the notion that my thoughts and work can live on after my death, but that there will be an enduring reflection of who I was at a given point in time – regardless of whether or not I’ve shuffled off my mortal coil.

    I.e. I’m currently 33 years old, but I can go back and see the 32 year-old me (effectively dead and buried) any time simply by browsing my blog archive.

    Kinda adds another dimention to the notion of immortality, IMHO. It’s not just that I can live forever, but all my previous incarnations (as a younger man).

    I need a drink now.

    šŸ™‚

    Like

  78. Does it mean we can leave a will saying that, all my digital belongs to my xxx….? And they enjoy the revenue generated?

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  79. Does it mean we can leave a will saying that, all my digital belongs to my xxx….? And they enjoy the revenue generated?

    Like

  80. As much as I enjoy conversations, such as this one, they are given some weak semblance of immortality, if at all, only by the subsequent conversations they engender or influence. They found Catullus in a wine barrel in the 14th century. His works endured like a seed waiting for ground again. A thousand years of forgetting couldn’t get rid of him. Conversation about technological tools, however, regardless of how interesting they might be in the here and now, are simply not as important. They can’t help people like poetry, or a song, or Tsagaglallal engraved on a rock in the Columbia River. They don’t have that urge to life that a poem does.

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  81. As much as I enjoy conversations, such as this one, they are given some weak semblance of immortality, if at all, only by the subsequent conversations they engender or influence. They found Catullus in a wine barrel in the 14th century. His works endured like a seed waiting for ground again. A thousand years of forgetting couldn’t get rid of him. Conversation about technological tools, however, regardless of how interesting they might be in the here and now, are simply not as important. They can’t help people like poetry, or a song, or Tsagaglallal engraved on a rock in the Columbia River. They don’t have that urge to life that a poem does.

    Like

  82. Up until roughly the 18th Century, the King’s clerk’s and the Church monks, were the best historians, in a sense. For example, the history of the Crusades would have been much lighter if not for Roger of Hoveden. In more modern times, the Monarchical state, has been rather archive-democratized by the State Universities.

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  83. Up until roughly the 18th Century, the King’s clerk’s and the Church monks, were the best historians, in a sense. For example, the history of the Crusades would have been much lighter if not for Roger of Hoveden. In more modern times, the Monarchical state, has been rather archive-democratized by the State Universities.

    Like

  84. It seems like gmail will be around a while. What if you emailed gmail ewerytime you posted posted to your blog. Also google could subscribe to your blog if they built in a little reader

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  85. It seems like gmail will be around a while. What if you emailed gmail ewerytime you posted posted to your blog. Also google could subscribe to your blog if they built in a little reader

    Like

  86. A few years back my mum was doing one of her usual “Don (my dad), you need to clear out the garage!” rants. We found an old box of toys from when my brothers and I were kids, my dad insisting that we keep them around so that my kids (when I have them) could play with them.

    I appreciated the sentimentality of that notion, but the reality is that my kids won’t have any interest in the things I played with. I always think of that scene in Back TO The Future 2 in the Cafe 80’s “You mean you have to use your hands? That’s like a baby’s toy!”

    By the same notion, I struggle to see how people would utilise the web work of today. Not that we should go about what we do feeling futile, at our best we’re helping each other figure this thing out. But it is hard enough for thinking to stay relevant month to month, let along over 100 years.

    Let’s be glad for what we have now, and hope that our children’s grand children have a better world and some photos of great, great grandpa smiling, surrounded by people he loved.

    Like

  87. A few years back my mum was doing one of her usual “Don (my dad), you need to clear out the garage!” rants. We found an old box of toys from when my brothers and I were kids, my dad insisting that we keep them around so that my kids (when I have them) could play with them.

    I appreciated the sentimentality of that notion, but the reality is that my kids won’t have any interest in the things I played with. I always think of that scene in Back TO The Future 2 in the Cafe 80’s “You mean you have to use your hands? That’s like a baby’s toy!”

    By the same notion, I struggle to see how people would utilise the web work of today. Not that we should go about what we do feeling futile, at our best we’re helping each other figure this thing out. But it is hard enough for thinking to stay relevant month to month, let along over 100 years.

    Let’s be glad for what we have now, and hope that our children’s grand children have a better world and some photos of great, great grandpa smiling, surrounded by people he loved.

    Like

  88. Pingback: Living in the Cloud(s) « Unraveling Obfuscation

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