Vatican Chooses Open FITS Image Format 223
@10u8 writes "The Vatican Library plans to digtize 80,000 manuscripts and store them in the open data format FITS, originally developed for astronomy and maintained under the IAU. The result is expected to be 40 million pages and 45 petabytes. FITS was chosen because it 'has been used for more than 40 years for the conservation of data concerning spatial missions and, in the past decade, in astrophysics and nuclear medicine. It permits the conservation of images with neither technical nor financial problems in the future, since it is systematically updated by the international scientific community.'"
The Pope Has Spoken, It Is Done! (Score:1, Funny)
"May the devil take the internet and transparency [slashdot.org]. They are tools of evil. *clears throat* I have decided to go with the open and transparent format of FITS when we transition our most sacred documents so that they are stored ... digitally ... online ... on the ... internet ... for easier access. Hmmmmm."
It's nice to see that at least someone has adhered to a cogent message dating back to such honored traditions as "eye for an eye *cough* turn the other cheek" as well as "love thy neighbors *ahem* kill the Native Americans/witches/heathens."
Petabytes (Score:2, Funny)
Re:40 Years? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Petabytes (Score:3, Funny)
More like... Pedobytes!
Re:Petabytes (Score:5, Funny)
Happy now?
Re:40 Years? (Score:3, Funny)
The Wikipedia page states FITS was created in '81. How does that translate to more than 40 years of use?
In some years they REALLY used it.
Re:DjVu? (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe they're just trying to make amends with astronomy after persecuting it so many years ago. "Hey, we have something in common now!"
What about the Monks? (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean in the monasteries we are going to have monks transcribing these manuscripts bit by bit? I mean, if you just scan the stuff in what else will they have to do all day. Pray for the boredom to be over...
Re:Petabytes (Score:2, Funny)
You read "petabytes", and think "pedophile"? Seems someone has a problem...
And why does Chrome think petabytes is a misspelling and want me to change it to gigabytes?
You spelled pedophile wrong.
Re:Image size? (Score:3, Funny)
But all those extra details can be extrapolated in software anyways, didn't you ever watch CSI?
Re:Petabytes (Score:1, Funny)
No, that's just where they stick their extra digits.