this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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Microsoft develops ultra durable glass plates that can store several TBs of data for 10000 years::Project Silica’s coaster-size glass plates can store unaltered data for thousands of years, creating sustainable storage for the world

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[–] [email protected] 191 points 10 months ago (8 children)

"Project Silica’s goal is to write data in a piece of glass and store it on a shelf until it is needed. Once written, the data inside the glass is impossible to change."

Very important note here.

[–] [email protected] 93 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

That's Glass-R but fot a few bucks more you can get a Glass-RW

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just watch out for Glass-RAM, it doesn’t work in most drives.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Excuse me, I was looking to download more glass RAM. Is it free?

[–] [email protected] 49 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So it's great for archival storage. This is exactly the type of thing I'm interested in if it was cheap enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (3 children)

What kind of files would you use so it could be read in 10 000 years?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

XML/HTML

and for your next question: Wikipedia.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

So what was my question?

[–] Nommer 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't that be funny to be tasked with getting the data off a 10 000 year old piece of glass only for it to be dragon/car vore?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Researcher in 10000 years: "Woah! You thought those 'ancient greeks' were weird? Look at this shit!"

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My media collection. I really only need like 50 years tops. At which point I'll be dead or to senile to enjoy it. Unless I can back up my own consciousness onto it. Then... That.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Interesting replies but I’m just wondering what file format to use.

Don’t we have troubles opening stuff from 4-5 os versions ago?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I don't have anything I can't open and I've got stuff from 20+ years ago. I don't even have to go out of my way to have applications that are compatible with it. If I did run across something I would just build a VM with whatever software I needed to open it. Just have to keep in mind what software you'll need and back that up as well.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Interesting replies but I’m just wondering what file format to use.

ascii + markdown for text if you're from the US

Don’t we have troubles opening stuff from 4-5 os versions ago?

Yeah, but that is because people want to make money and so make their file formats difficult to understand on purpose.

Whatever creatures discover our mystical tablets will hopefully be far smarter than us, or they'll use the sum of human knowledge to tile their bathrooms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You want me to store my consciousness in plain text?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 46 points 10 months ago (1 children)

True, but being very easy to make would hopefully keep costs down, allowing you to have multiple plates.

Also, this may not be for home use but companies that need to store data for years.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I could see applications for home use. Media backup comes to mind.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

My great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandson is really gonna love this 36K remaster of Shrek. I know I would

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great who?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

All that time copying greats, no time deciding on WHO. My future progeny are doomed

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Haha maybe they will. I was thinking more like family photos.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

That's roughly 1,500 years of descendants. Well past even Futurama's time!

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (2 children)

"Bob, why the hell did you format this as 'Jim sux dicks'?! You know that's permanent, right?"

10K years later

Alien captain: Anything to report?

Alien: We need to find a being named "Jim", sir...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

We've got lots of Roman dick drawings, so it's our turn to leave our mark on the future

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Why so negative? It could just as well be humans that find such a thing 10K years later

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Unlikely at the rate we're going. I'd give us 100 years, at most.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If the glass is nothing special, each piece would cost cents and be like burning CD's back in the day, except infinitely recyclable.

What's more important is the time and cost to read and write.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Backup wikipedia once a year to a crystal and then civilizations thousands of years from now can comb through it as they wish.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This.. well roughly. People here say muh file formats etc. But you're really going for the maximum lifetime, if its uncompressed text, it wouldn't be too hard to reverse engineer if future people figure out that there's data on there at all. The harder part may be extracting the data at all. We could also include instructions on how certain file formats can be read.

It's is is still a great long term archive storage, and more likely the data would be transfered to a better storage device within a few 100 years (if we're talking about archiving the present for future archologists that is)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

How amazing would it be if we came across some tomb that was just filled with thousands of scrolls detailing the whole history of Rome and Greece and all those other empires from the BC years?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

CDs aren't expected to last more than 100 years in storage.

This is more like stone tablets for the future.