A Million-Year Hard Disk 394
sciencehabit writes "Pity the builders of nuclear waste repositories. They have to preserve records of what they've buried and where, not for a few years but for tens of thousands of years, perhaps even millions. Trouble is, no current storage medium lasts that long. Today, Patrick Charton of the French nuclear waste management agency ANDRA presented one possible solution to the problem: a sapphire disk inside which information is engraved using platinum. The prototype shown costs €25,000 to make, but Charton says it will survive for a million years. The aim, Charton says, is to provide 'information for future archaeologists.' But, he concedes: 'We have no idea what language to write it in.'"
Cuneiform (Score:5, Funny)
It's awl-write.
I'll get me coat.
If ancient people taught us anything... (Score:5, Funny)
Consider stone tablets. I head they are cheap, easy to come by, and last a long time.
Duh (Score:5, Funny)
Cheaper way to do it (Score:5, Funny)
Esperanto! (Score:5, Funny)
They (Score:5, Funny)
They really need to fuck with the future archaeologists by writing everything in Klingon.
Nuclear waste will be the crude oil of the future! (Score:5, Funny)
In a few years, we'll be drilling for nuclear waste to power our flying cars! Just like how the cave men buried dinosaur waste, which we now pump out as petroleum to power our driving cars.
Future folks will be overjoyed to find an old nuclear waste dump buried on their property, because they will get rich by fracking it! Sapphire disks will be like old, dusty grizzled-prospectors' maps, and be highly valued.
Re:If ancient people taught us anything... (Score:5, Funny)
I head they are cheap, easy to come by, and some of them last a long time.
FTFY.
20th Century English (Score:4, Funny)
If my TeeVee has taught me anything, it's that no matter how far into the future or past we go--even if we travel to other worlds--everybody speaks 20th Century English.
If Slashdotters had their way... (Score:4, Funny)
A million years? You just the first phrase will be: "I, for one, welcome our future overlords..."
Amusingly that'll also be the first +5 post when Slashdot covers the unearthing of this drive.
Re:easy answer. (Score:5, Funny)
What language? All of them.
They should write it in C -- it'll never go away since it'll always be needed for embedded systems.
Re:If ancient people taught us anything... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Something that everyone can understand? (Score:5, Funny)
Pirate treasure! Let's dig it up!
Yeah, that'll work.
Re:Etchings? (Score:5, Funny)
They said readable in a million years, not edible in a million years. Do you really want some redneck to stumble upon the warning twinkie stash a few thousand years from now and swallow all the information? I thought not. ;-)
Re:Nuclear waste will be the crude oil of the futu (Score:5, Funny)
In a few years, we'll be drilling for nuclear waste to power our flying cars! Just like how the cave men buried dinosaur waste, which we now pump out as petroleum to power our driving cars.
Thag: "What we write so no one dig here?"
Ugg: "Thag crap here. No one go near it."
Thag: "You funny."
Ugg: "What? Like it matter in 1825 sunrises!"
Thag: "OK, How you spell crap?"
Ugg: "Don't know. Just put small 9 after your name."
Thag: (Draws in the dirt with a stick, then notices his friend's feet) "Hey, where you get boots?"
Ugg: "Made them from fake dead animal."
Re:easy answer. (Score:5, Funny)
I think that means civilization will collapse immediate after it's written.
Re:If ancient people taught us anything... (Score:5, Funny)
Sometimes I do make flippant remark or make an attempt a humor that (rightfully) gets modded down
My pet peeve: sometimes I make some vaguely amusing remark in the middle of an otherwise well thought out post. Someone moderates it "Funny", but it really wasn't, nor was it meant to be. Then future mods look at it as a trainwrecked attempt at humor rather than being mis-moderated, and it gets pounded to the ground with "overrated". It's really frustrating to have that happen when I put a lot of effort into a long, well-researched comment.
I'm not sure what could be done about it, though. Perhaps hide the "Funny" flag from moderators to prevent the bias?
Re:easy answer. (Score:5, Funny)
The product (Score:5, Funny)
Re:easy answer. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:easy answer. (Score:5, Funny)
But, we are asked not for a solution but ,*"Pity the builders of nuclear waste repositories.*
In accordance with their request: "There, there".
Re:If ancient people taught us anything... (Score:5, Funny)
Tablets! Good grief, you apple fanboiz never give up.
Re:If ancient people taught us anything... (Score:4, Funny)
What if we make the tablet out of some extremely toxic material? That should keep away the looters. Heck, you wouldn't even need to write anything on it. They'd get the idea.
Eureka! Just bury the waste in open containers! People in the future will figure out they should steer clear much quicker than they'll decode some sapphire disk.
Re:easy answer. (Score:4, Funny)
Pictures.
One picture is case civilization has collapsed - skulls, and people on fire.
One picture in case civilization has not collapsed. An orbital model of the atom, with little balls streaming away.
What if the archeologist is not humanoid and is used to a completely different models for atoms/particles? Then let the fucker burn, what do we care about octopi from Alpha Centauri?
And anyway, we still understand Hebrew, Greek and Latin after 2000 years. I would be amazed if civilization endures in 10000 years AND English has been lost.
Re:easy answer. (Score:4, Funny)
The ONLY thing that needs to be put onto a million-year hard-drive is
001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011 [theinfosphere.org]
Re:easy answer. (Score:5, Funny)
Some cultures have not taken skulls to be a symbol of death though. In ten thousand years, maybe the primative tribes that survive consider skulls to be a symbol of the cycle of life and renewal or whatever superstious rubbish they have invented by then. They'll run into the storage facility thinking it'll make them young again.
Then they will have a learning experience.
Either way, we've helped future generations. :)