Will our posts live forever.

I've always wondered how long posts and threads and podcasts are going to be kept on ATS's servers.
I am aware of the amount of threads and posts saved in one's profile.
But my question is a more "romantic" one.
When I'm old and wrinkly will I be able to log to ATS and see post and threads I made forty years earlier. Will ATS keep expanding server space and save everything?
Because if it does it would be amazing.
It would almost be like a diary of your life. You would be able to see how your thoughts and ideas developed through your life, reminisce about old friendships and conversations, if by then we're on talking terms with the spacemen we'll look at our crazy ideas together and laugh. And so many more memories kept here for us or even our descendants to look back on.
ATS would almost be like a cultural and social library of our times.
I don't know it sounds really cool to me.
So I hope we never die on ATS.

I too have pondered these same things my friend. I hope so.

Of course we will. There's no way we'd let this amazing "collection of pure human thought turned pixels" slip into the ether...

Barring unforeseen catastrophic snafus ATS, 100% of the posts, podcasts, video, etc... will forever be available to the world.

Springer...

Wait...

Sarcasm doesn't work on the net.

Sooo are you sure.

It will sure be interesting for our descendants to look back on ATS in 100-200 years and see which things have become discovered, proven, disproven, or declassified that we were discussing on here. Some pretty neat anthropology if nothing else.

reply to post by Springer


That is great news indeed!
I'll be able to share stuff with my grandkids.
ATS could become the 21st century and beyond version of the Library of Alexandria of alternative thought.
Kind of mind blowing to think about.
It seems I never run out of reasons to thank the ATS folks.

thank you

If not on ATS's servers, then the posts will be archived in a search crawler somewhere. . . Many years from now, assuming the internet, (and society) is still around, an archival server such as Wayback Machine will allow you to access your old posts.

For one thing, there needs to be electricity.. the moment we run out of juice, the 'library' might as well be gone physically.

If you wanna preserve your thoughts for the future, I'd think paper would do nicely, old fashioned but proven to sustain the test of time

Be sure to research acid , humidity and other factors that might degrade the document, done right, you could be the archeological find of the year 3000

reply to post by Phatcat


Yes, that's what I'll do, I'll scribe all my posts. Perhaps in copper.

reply to post by Phatcat

I was reading (somehwere) about utilizing the static electricity in the atmosphere to power computers and thus the internet. A truly "wireless" machine.

I am pretty sure they'll put a stop to it though just like many claim they did with Tesla, there's no where to put the meter.

That being said, solar arrays would do nicely until we figure out how to hardwire the internet into our brains.

Springer...

reply to post by Springer




Solar Arrays.
It always comes back to the tinfoil hat, doesn't it?
It is our curse.

Originally posted by Springer
until we figure out how to hardwire the internet into our brains.

Springer...

It already is- if you consider the collective unconscious a means of human to human communication. The means is hardwired into our brains, but even if one single transmission got through the background noise, we ignore it because we just aren't ready to believe it is possible yet.

The question is... who is going to read them, and what will they take from them?

Shakespeare's works still "live" - in a dead sort of way - as do countless "classics".
But how many people read them?
And how many of those actually "read" Shakespeare (or those "classic" authors) himself, as a person, between the lines?

But never mind me, I am just idly musing here...
It's what I do for fun instead of kickboxing, ever since I sprained an ankle.

that's kinda scary though. 40 years from now, when I'm old and wrinkly... I can come back and listen to my podcasts about zombie squirrels and the awesomeness of pizza hut.

I don't think that's benefiting society much, other than that we need to be wary of zombie roadkill.



Cool though, good to hear ATS has some massive HD space. I think they could just put some big piezoelectric pads underneath the server rack, with some soundproofing that generates electricity through the noise the fans make...

It would be an incredible resource for the Ph.D. in history/anthropology candidates of the future

When I was briefly a history grad student, we drooled over stuff like this. You could do a sociological study on posting patterns and starring patterns, see what people were "really" thinking about (a big conundrum for historians, who until the last fifty years or so mostly relied on "official" sources).

Wow, the more I think about it the possibiliies are just endless. A dissertation on user names alone would totally work


[edit on 9/23/08 by americandingbat]

reply to post by schrodingers dog


"Will our posts live forever."

I sincerely hope not, personally I would prefer that mine have a shelf life of not more than 48 hours.

Could i suggest maybe an all time top 100 ats threads thread.
Put to a vote or something so anonymous posters dont have to bump up an old but interesting thread?
I hate having to check the dates.
Or this week in 2002,2003 etc and the top threads at that time.
Lol wrong thread.Oh well who cares.

[edit on 23-9-2008 by tracey ace]

Mine aren't even lasting 24 hours. I posted something last night that showed up on the page and then today it's not there. Also, knowing the exact title of 2 threads in which I'd posted a LOT of work, I was unable to find them in 3 hours of search function capability.

Maybe some posts are like literary socks in the ethernet dryer and magically disappear when we least expect it?

I would certainly like to look back in many years and be able to call you lot nutters and kooks because no doom or apocalyptic event had ever taken place but my biggest fear is that in 1000's of years time some ape wonders into a cave and finds a pc terminal with all this information on and wanders what the hell happened.

cue/final scenes in A.I.

Depends on the people who run this place, whether they save all the info on servers with large enough memory, I suppose...