

Ask HN: You have 8GB to store for the future. What do you keep? - cloudwalking

You have an 8GB microsd to stash in an impervious time-capsule. What information will you put on it?
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sbierwagen
The english wikipedia (without edit history) is about 4 gigs, compressed. So,
that.

<http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Wikipedia>

Not sure what I'd do with the other four gigs.

~~~
cloudwalking
How Things Work in digital version?

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drallison
First things first. How long are things going to remain in your impervious
time-capsule? Microsd cards are just flash memory. Over time, the information
will leak away. How long that will take is hard to guess, but if you are
aiming for a century or more, microsd is likely to not be a good choice.
Furthermore, what is going to be used to read the data you preserve on the
microsd? Do you think there will be microsd readers a few decades into the
future, much less a century.

Assuming that you do use the microsd, I would use two different physical
cards, incorporate multiple copies of whatever I choose to include on each of
the microsd cards, and add in some heavy duty error correction codes so
degraded content can be recovered.

Oh, one more thing, it might be a good idea to use a card that has write
protection so that revisionist history is difficult.

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aristus
Assuming such a time capsule is feasible, I'd save the locations and contents
of all other known time capsules.

eg, <http://www.paperinternet.org>

The biggest problem with time capsules is that people forget where the damned
things are.

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anujkk
1) I would store books of all kind - Science, History, Language, Economics,
Philosophy etc. Also some religious writings such as Vedas.

2) If there is some space left, I would like to keep information, designs,
code, etc of important products.

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jhen095
My personal photos. Always the first thing to be backed up and always the
first thing to save in a disaster.

Either I can use the time-capsule as a safe backup and come back to it in 60
years. Or someone else will find it in another time (far distant future) and
it will be an important archeological find. Oh to be immortal.

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icco
Art. High quality photos from a large portion of museums. Maybe something like
500 pieces from each major art movement and time period?

Then chuck wikipedia on there, and maybe a dictionary.

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jodrellblank
Any future which can read it is not going to need any kind of "how to rebuild
technology after an apocalypse" kind of information.

1) Random data. Hopefully they find an 8Gb memory stick in a mysteriously
impervious container, fille with _heavily compressed or encrypted data_ (heh
heh) and it becomes a notorious puzzle.

2) Sell the space.

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HeyLaughingBoy
\- Video of Leonard Cohen's _Dance me to the end of Love_

\- Text of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_

and random crap.

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runjake
Wikipedia compressed, my personal journals, pics of the kids & family.

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latch
My dropbox folder.

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nicklovescode
The history and comments of hacker news

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naithemilkman
Michael Jackson and Justin Biber Mp3s

~~~
naithemilkman
Sorry, I meant to say Justin Bieber

