

Ask HN: Putting knowledge into imperfect containers - onk

Files are the recording of observations and also contain the product of thought and instrumentation. They are a History. Because of software dependencies many file formats require periodic ports to new formats. Many of these translations can be lossy. What amount of knowledge is being put into formats that are certain to suffer gross or meaningful loss of fidelity during future format translations?
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sagacity
A very thought-provoking notion, indeed.

However, must we take such a pessimistic view of the future data
porting/migration methodologies?

> Many of these translations can be lossy.

Agreed to _'can be'_.

But, on the contrary, just as they can be lossy, they _could be_ more
_intelligent_ or _smarter_ too, leading to not just 'not lossy' migrations,
but even to more enriched output.

One quick scenario I can think of, off-hand:

Let us take the example of legacy, (scanned) photographic images. A 'smart'
porting tool can add value to such data in at least two ways.

1\. Read the date stamp of the original file and superimpose it on the output.

2\. Apply face-recognition technology to it and offer (various) option/s to
the user to tag/store it in different ways.

Of course, I know that this is just a very small sample of the entire data
'universe', but, as they say at the end of many patent documents:

While the detailed description disclosed above relates to one specific
embodiment of the claimed method, it should be evident that the same can be
put into practice in any number of different ways, without actually departing
from the scope and the spirit of the claimed method. ;-)))

Your views?

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onk
The question was deliberately broad and honestly inquisitive. But born of the
narrow observation that while there are standardized, published formats that
separate style from content (HTML/CSS) and similarly, say, LaTeX, much human
"work" is put into formats where the style /is/ the content. Say, a pretty
resume in Word or a PowerPoint presentation.

We have conversations where we say things in passing. Maybe we don't care to
preserve those words. But when we bother to document things presumably they
are worth something. So I wondered how much "worth" was being lost or later
mis-read.

Perhaps some or much documentation is simply a means to an end and its
longevity is immaterial.

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ewan
This seems a perfect title for an article about educating people!

