
A strange museum at the ‘centre of the world’ - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190101-a-strange-museum-at-the-centre-of-the-world
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kkylin
First time I saw this thing was on a drive from Southern Arizona to San Diego.
(There really aren’t that many reasons to be out there.) The pyramid is
clearly visible from the Interstate. I remember thinking: “WTF is this doing
here?” It was a little surreal.

~~~
lozaning
I knew exactly what this this article would link to the minute I read the
title. I must have driven past that pyramid and the weird little church on the
hill dozens of times before I finally bothered to stop and go take a look.
Weird place in deed.

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nmyk
First thought was that this is unnecessary because enough people will always
keep a local cache of Wikipedia or whatever handy.

Second thought was a conversation between an electrical engineering professor
I had in college and one of my classmates. We were learning about flip-flop
circuits, which led to a discussion of computer memory in general. The
conversation went:

Prof: Flip-flops and latches will lose their memory when powered off, so not
necessarily the best solution for storing something important.

Classmate: Then how does my USB memory stick store data when it's unpowered?

P: [explanation of floating-gate MOSFETs, which can hold data intact
practically forever, although actually forever is a different story]

C: What's the best way we know of of storing data for the longest possible
time?

P: Carve it into the side of a mountain.

~~~
socceroos
5D optical data storage is all the rage these days. Wouldn't want your data to
disappear with a tectonic plate shift.

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munk-a
I grew up in Boston and there are headstones from the 19th century carved in
granite that are already entirely illegible. How is this data going to stand a
chance against erosion?

~~~
ermir
There is very little erosion in the desert, unlike in cities, where acid rain
and humidity will break down even the hardiest rocks.

~~~
frogpelt
What about sand + wind?

~~~
nkrisc
That's what I was wondering. The entire monument doesn't need to be eroded,
only the fine etching.

Would the best way to preserve it actually be to allow it to be buried in
sand?

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nigwil_
I clicked the BBC link and after reading a few paragraphs with many teaser
words still no picture is shown? I reach the end of the article and yes there
is a picture, if you click all the links to find it.

[http://www.parafame.org/DPP07DA0C0D152627%20cropped.jpg](http://www.parafame.org/DPP07DA0C0D152627%20cropped.jpg)

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ermir
I wanted to make something like this myself, it's been on my mind for a while
now. I have been thinking of using laser-engraved aluminum panels instead of
granite, and mount them on a cave somewhere. Anyone have any idea of how long
the aluminum can last? Is it at least 1000 years?

~~~
schoen
You might be interested in looking at
[http://rosettaproject.org/](http://rosettaproject.org/) or talking to some of
the people who worked on that. I assume they did a lot of research on
materials and engraving processes (although they finished their prototypes a
decade ago, so it might not be as state-of-the-art as it could be).

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sjroot
This is really going to confuse the archeologists who rediscover it in the
year 6000.

