• A Million-Year Hard Disk made out of sapphire
    74 replies, posted
This reminds me of the movie Prometheus, maybe that green thing in the first chamber was a sapphire memory stick warning about the contents of that room. And that black sludge was probably some hazardous waste.
[QUOTE=Article]But, he concedes: "We have no idea what language to write it in."[/quote] Write it in ancient Latin with the title "SPQR". That'll throw them off for a loop when they dig it up :v:
Seriously, only one other person bothered to read that this thing stores tiny pictures and NOT digital information. Read the article for fuck's sake! [editline]14th July 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36768874]Write it in ancient Latin with the title "SPQR". That'll throw them off for a loop when they dig it up :v:[/QUOTE] That is hilarious.
[QUOTE=Killuah;36765983] I remember reading an article that we should make up a myth about the nuclear sites and a cult following it since cult and myth is what preserved the longest in human knowledge, myths of the great flooding for example date back more than 3000 years.[/QUOTE] [thumb]http://images.wikia.com/stalker/images/5/5b/SCS_Monolith_Patch.png[/thumb]
[QUOTE=Scotchair;36765197]Surely writing it in binary would be the bets bet...[/QUOTE] Binary doesn't mean anything if it's not representing some form of mathematics or language. If you don't have some understanding of what the binary translates into linguistically, it's all just garbage numbers. This kind of thing is actually really interesting. There's a few nuclear waste sites in the US we've tried to put up warnings around, ending up using monolithic spikes and shit trying to say "get the fuck out." Unfortunately, when [I]we[/I] modern humans see monolithic, dangerous shit, we go "oh there must be something important in there. Let's find out what!" So fuck knows what future humans are going to do when they think there's some secret treasure in a toxic waste dump. It's really weird to think of how language is going to change. Shit, we can only roughly understand English around five hundred years back. After that point, it's all unintelligible even to scholars.
[QUOTE=Lankist;36769466]Binary doesn't mean anything if it's not representing some form of mathematics or language. If you don't have some understanding of what the binary translates into linguistically, it's all just garbage numbers. This kind of thing is actually really interesting. There's a few nuclear waste sites in the US we've tried to put up warnings around, ending up using monolithic spikes and shit trying to say "get the fuck out." Unfortunately, when [I]we[/I] modern humans see monolithic, dangerous shit, we go "oh there must be something important in there. Let's find out what!" So fuck knows what future humans are going to do when they think there's some secret treasure in a toxic waste dump. It's really weird to think of how language is going to change. Shit, we can only roughly understand English around five hundred years back. After that point, it's all unintelligible even to scholars.[/QUOTE] We should just plant mines around it. Maybe them World War 1 ones. I mean, they're still blowing up French farmers, aren't they? They gotta last a while.
[QUOTE=Zally13;36769591]We should just plant mines around it. Maybe them World War 1 ones. I mean, they're still blowing up French farmers, aren't they? They gotta last a while.[/QUOTE] The goal is to keep people from being hurt, not to keep them out at all costs. Nobody really cares if somebody finds a nuclear waste dump. The concern is that we don't want it to become a giant deathtrap for ourselves in the future. We want to warn people away because it's dangerous. That isn't accomplished by making it [I]more[/I] dangerous.
[QUOTE=Lankist;36769710]The goal is to keep people from being hurt, not to keep them out at all costs. Nobody really cares if somebody finds a nuclear waste dump. The concern is that we don't want it to become a giant deathtrap for ourselves in the future.[/QUOTE] if someone steps on a mine that's a bit of a message to keep out safer than bathing in it i mean, only one casuality and anyways it was a joke
You aren't really understanding the problem. The harder we try to keep people out (consider that they won't understand our language or our culture by then), the more they're going to think there's something valuable or worthwhile to be had in there. You want to warn them away from the site without making it seem like you're protecting something. You don't want to physically impede their progress toward the site through harmful or lethal means. You merely want them to [I]want[/I] to leave it alone. Think about how hard we worked to get into the Pharaoh's tombs, having no idea what was inside of any of them. We worked so hard because we thought there was some great treasure or historically significant information in there. Everything from the outside looked to be protecting something on the inside, as it was. We don't want to create that kind of scenario for ourselves with toxic nuclear waste.
[QUOTE=Lankist;36769787]You aren't really understanding the problem. The harder we try to keep people out (consider that they won't understand our language or our culture by then), the more they're going to think there's something valuable or worthwhile to be had in there. You want to warn them away from the site without making it seem like you're protecting something. You don't want to physically impede their progress toward the site through harmful or lethal means. You merely want them to [I]want[/I] to leave it alone.[/QUOTE] Again, it's a joke. If I really thought using mines would be an effective way to keep people out from a dangerous place, I'd be insane.
[QUOTE=Lankist;36769466]Binary doesn't mean anything if it's not representing some form of mathematics or language. If you don't have some understanding of what the binary translates into linguistically, it's all just garbage numbers. [/QUOTE] I seriously doubt people would dig this up and say, "Hm, they must have just written random numbers here" and toss it into a trash bin. Binary would probably be easier to decipher than putting it into an actual language.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;36769946]I seriously doubt people would dig this up and say, "Hm, they must have just written random numbers here" and toss it into a trash bin. Binary would probably be easier to decipher than putting it into an actual language.[/QUOTE] They can't do that with dead languages. In ten thousand years, English will simply be gone. Shit, all of our languages will be gone. And I mean [I]gone[/I]. Not Latin 'dead,' where it's only been a dozen centuries since people stopped speaking it. It's not that they'll dig it up and say "oh look, random numbers." It's that all record of whatever modern language is transcribed in the binary code will have vanished from the face of the Earth. They could understand it is significant, but they'd never be able to figure out why. [editline]14th July 2012[/editline] How many 10,000 year old languages can you name that we know jack shit about today?
[QUOTE=sHiBaN;36766421]some caveman in the ice age after a nuclear war finds it and uses it to carve seal meat he then proceeds to shatter it to pieces for his spears[/QUOTE] And another 250 000 years later scientist assemble it and discover what was on it.
Salt the surrounding earth with Polonium so they know the area's radioactive.
i was thinking really simple heiroglyphs like I is an eyeball wouldnt work because for all we know future men could call eyeballs sporks and it wouldnt make sense
We should write a big sign that says "FUCK YOU, ALIENS", so they have it in some museum or historical site, then they decipher our language and find out what it really means. [editline]14th July 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=ajrhug;36770491]i was thinking really simple heiroglyphs like I is an eyeball wouldnt work because for all we know future men could call eyeballs sporks and it wouldnt make sense[/QUOTE] are you intentionally being silly or am i just imagining it
[QUOTE=ajrhug;36770491]i was thinking really simple heiroglyphs like I is an eyeball wouldnt work because for all we know future men could call eyeballs sporks and it wouldnt make sense[/QUOTE] There's not really a necessity for pictographic language, just enough to convey important concepts. Something that indicates radioactivity, atoms, a sense of time, and exponential decay.
Taking it straight from a Stargate episode. "Jackson realizes that the atoms are a kind of universal language - to ensure universal comprehension the language has been reduced to basic elements common to all life."
[QUOTE=Lankist;36770129] How many 10,000 year old languages can you name that we know jack shit about today?[/QUOTE] Well 10,000 years ago we didn't exactly have any real reliable means of archiving things like that, and the people back then were probably more concerned with eating the bears before the bears ate them than they were with making sure people 10,000 years down the road would know how to read their stone carvings. Now we have stuff like electronics and these newfangled sapphire disc thingies instead of stone tablets, and I imagine along the way between today and AD 12,012 we'll do a better job at keeping our info around than our ancestors did. Assuming we don't first decide that blowing up the planet would be cool.
Why don't they make it out of diamonds and then it lasts forever?
Just leave them a copy of Rosetta Stone and let them sort it out.
[QUOTE=Krinkels;36770628]There's not really a necessity for pictographic language, just enough to convey important concepts. Something that indicates radioactivity, atoms, a sense of time, and exponential decay.[/QUOTE] Or you know, a skull or something. People falling over.
The perfect business idea is making stuff that you can't prove actually works beyond your lifetime because the thing is that it works beyond your lifetime [editline]15th July 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Lankist;36770129] How many 10,000 year old languages can you name that we know jack shit about today?[/QUOTE] 10000 years ago they didn't have a way to document everything ever and make it incredibly easy for everyone to see, I seriously doubt we're going to be stupid enough to just forget the entirety of the internet/encyclopedias/books in general
[QUOTE=latin_geek;36777556]... 10000 years ago they didn't have a way to document everything ever and make it incredibly easy for everyone to see, I seriously doubt we're going to be stupid enough to just forget the entirety of the internet/encyclopedias/books in general[/QUOTE] I wouldn't say it's stupidity, more along the lines of a large scale disaster or change coming along and wiping our recorded history off the face of the planet. Unlike older civilisations, our history is even more fragile (Stone monuments/tablets last longer than memory sticks and text books) Converting binary to English (Or any other language), and then to whatever language is used in the future would require the equivalent of 2 Rosetta stones for that civilisation. We know currently that 01100001 = 97 = a (And that's only in a couple of encodings we currently use), other languages are even worse (Guess what 011000010000001100001000 means, etc.)
I personally would just write it in English and then provide a means to understand the English language on the same disk for the convenience of anyone in the future who doesn't understand English.
[QUOTE=Riutet;36777859]I personally would just write it in English and then provide a means to understand the English language on the same disk for the convenience of anyone in the future who doesn't understand English.[/QUOTE] that's like trying to write a book on how to read... wait... it's exactly that
In a distant future, there is future-facepunch, where everybody is discussing the newly found discs. Well discussing, mostly talking about how the "Old People" where fucking retarded and we should start diggin at given coordinates.
[QUOTE=SIRIUS;36778518]that's like trying to write a book on how to read... wait... it's exactly that[/QUOTE] What, you mean like the Rosetta Stone? It's funny, cause that taght us a ton about Egyptian heiroglyphics.
[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;36779617]What, you mean like the Rosetta Stone? It's funny, cause that taght us a ton about Egyptian heiroglyphics.[/QUOTE] The only problem is that the Rosetta Stone had one language on it that we already understood(to some degree).
[QUOTE=ItsMozy;36779650]The only problem is that the Rosetta Stone had one language on it that we already understood(to some degree).[/QUOTE] And there's a really good chance that at the very least fragments of English will survive for the foreseeable future, what with it being one of the biggest languages in the world and all.
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