post-doomsday computing

In article <e8319284.0307031121.59c6c046.DeleteThis@posting.google.com>,
jsaepuru.DeleteThis@solo.ee (Jaak Suurpere) writes:

>rball84213@aol.com (Richard Ballard) wrote in message
>news:<20030701040042.17796.00001172.DeleteThis@mb-m15.aol.com>...
>
>>In article <3F0101C5.5DA7A943.DeleteThis@caloundra.qld.gov.au>,
>>Bernie Dwyer <berniez.DeleteThis@caloundra.qld.gov.au> writes:
>>
>>[RB comment: Bernie Dwyer wrote:]
>>>>>Personally, I'm off-grid with 1.6 kilowatts of solar panels and
>>>>>1100 amp hours of batteries at 450 meters above sea level, about
>>>>>50km from the coast. I *should* survive food-wise, but I probably
>>>>>wouldn't be able to fire up the home computer very often.
>>>>
>>>>[RB comment: Richard Ballard wrote:]
>>>>Your solar panels are equivalent to a private swimming pool
>>>>in a blighted urban area -- an attractive nuisance. Whether or
>>>>not your solar panels survive the Apocolyptic event, other
>>>>survivors will want to steal your facility from you. Loss of
>>>>your facility also means loss of your ability to grow food.
>>>
>>>Well, most of my neighbours are on solar, too - and they're on
>>>larger plots of land then me - I'm going to have a harder job
>>>than they are, growing enough food. As we get on with each other
>>>pretty well, I'm assuming that we would share resources and pool
>>>protection from "foreigners". Why would my loss of electric power
>>>affect my ability to *grow* food? I wouldn't be able to freeze it,
>>>or look at it after dark, but what else is there? Did you mean
>>>that I would be turfed out of house and home by a large, stronger
>>>force?
>>>
>>>>Should an Apocolypse occur, IMO you will be too busy protecting
>>>>your facility and your other family members to worry about
>>>>computers.
>>>
>>>Early on, yes, I'd agree. Assuming I + family + neighbours make it
>>>through the first year, we can probably start thinking beyond immediate
>>>survival. I should have mentioned I'm in a temperate (almost
>>>sub-tropical) climate, on volcanic soil, and food isn't difficult to
>>>grow around here.
>>
>>In a post-Apocolytic era you sound like an island of affluence
>>amidst the squallor. Your neighbors and you might encounter
>>roving bands of survivors looking to take a homestead(s).
>>Electric lights are a beacon in a candle-powered society.
>>And as your neighbors' solar panels begin to fail ...
>>
>>An out-of-print but interesting novel: "Valhalla" by Newton
>>Thornburg (ISBN 0-316-84393-. I hope that your neighbors
>>and you have a strong basis for long-term cooperation --
>>civility degrades as non-replacable resources are expended and
>>infrastructure begins to fail. (IMO the able repairman is the
>>First Citizen in post-Apocolyptic society.)
>>
>>IMO many people will not function in post-Apocolyptic society's
>>frugality -- no automobiles; no parties;
>
>Depending on how much time actually is needed for subsistence
>activities.

Unless you live in a climate/latitude that allows crop harvesting
year-round I expect there will be little time for parties. The
effect of Apocolypse will be to set agriculture back a century
or so. No mechanization or nitrogen-based fertilizers and
pesticides without plentiful petroleum and natural gas. No
genetically optimized seeds -- you carry seeds from your previous
year's crop. Lamb, pork and chicken in place of beef -- herding
free range cattle is too time consuming and there will be no surplus
grain for feedlot fattening. Local fishing and edible game will be
quickly depleted. No vitamin supplements to ensure good health
on a limited, near-vegan diet.

Of course 'parties' is a relative term. Celebrating a seasonal
bountiful harvest can constitute a party (after all the work is done).

>>no tobacco; no liquor,
>>wine or beer. With the exception of a corner retained for future
>>replanting, vineyards are replanted as vegetable gardens and
>>grain is eaten, not malted. *Everybody* is hungry and everybody
>>works in the fields -- very few infants and no schooling.
>
>What happens to the number of infants once the stocks of pills
>and condoms run out?

The early stages of female reproductive biology are fragile,
particularly when combined with hard field work and marginal
nutrition (protein and calcium deficiencies). No formal
prenatal care. I would expect a high miscarriage rate during
post-Apocolypse reconstruction. Not a gentle time, and a
bad time for sharing with your neighbors.

>>>>Skeptical? In the bad old days of the 1950's fallout shelter
>>>>fad, homeowners were instructed to maintain a good larder inside
>>>>their fallout shelter, and to have a strong lockable (from the
>>>>inside) door on their fallout shelter. Candles.

I am not a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the
Mormon Church), but I understand a tenet of the Mormon Church
is that all members should set aside sufficient provisions to
last their own family through historically predictable periods
of famine, unemployment and other economic dislocations. This
precaution ensures that one's family need not draw on the
resources of the overall community. The Mormons have a history
of surviving famine with God's help and their own hard work.

My opinions.

Richard Ballard MSEE CNA4 KD0AZ
--
Consultant specializing in computer networks, imaging & security
Listed as rjballard in "Friends & Favorites" at www.amazon.com
Last book review: "Cults In Our Midst: ..."
by Margaret Thaler Singer
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

In article <be1ien$8q12$1@ID-137880.news.dfncis.de>,
"Christopher M. Jones" <spicedham RemoveThis @dualboot.net> wrote:
><jmfbahciv RemoveThis @aol.com> wrote:
>> In article <be01pl$10rstu$1@ID-137880.news.dfncis.de>,
>> "Christopher M. Jones" <spicedham RemoveThis @dualboot.net> wrote:
>> >Note the "in perpetuity". When I say that I really mean
>> >that. I mean *forever*, 'till the heat death of the
>> >Universe. Quantum mechanincs and entropy are going to
>> >destroy your information no matter how you try to save
>> >it. You need something living to keep pumping in
>> >negative entropy to keep your information around for an
>> >indefinite period of time. Preferably something that
>> >can repair itself as well. Even then, such systems /
>> >organisms are not invulnerable or immortal. All you
>> >can do is create storage systems designed for certain
>> >non-infinite lifetimes and hope for the best.
>> >
>> DNA.
>
>I'd thought about that, and it's not really that bad an idea.
>Encode your data (with extra error correction, just in case)
>in the DNA of Deinococcus Radiodurans and let it loose into
>the wild or keep a culture of it long term. The problem with
>that though is that the ability to mutate itself is a selected
>characteristic for organisms. Organisms which can mututate
>have an advantage over those that don't, so even with D.
>Radiodurans the ability to maintain DNA integrity in the face
>of powerful mutagenic forces will usually only bring DNA
>integrity up to the level of most organisms under normal
>conditions, but won't necessarily make the DNA, over many
>generations, more stable. Keeping the organisms in a culture
>with unchanging conditions would certainly help that out a
>lot, but wouldn't be a cure-all.

I don't think you can solve both problems with one solution.
Problem 1: Maintaining today's knowledge within today's context.
Problem 2: Evolving today's knowledge to include tomorrow's context.

If you think about it, the two contradict each other; thus one
solution can't solve both problems.

>Nevertheless, if the data were properly encoded in a clever
>enough fashion and if it had an extra level of error
>correction (pre / post processing of the data, in other
>words) it could very easily last millions or billions of
>years.

One of the facinating things about Mother Nature is that she's
damned efficient.

/BAH

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In article <9u42eb.oet1.ln@acer>,
Morten Reistad <mrr DeleteThis @reistad.priv.no> wrote:
>In article <be17fo$2n2$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, <jmfbahciv DeleteThis @aol.com> wrote:
>>In article <bdvqof$puu$1@gw.retro.com>,
>> gherbert DeleteThis @gw.retro.com (George William Herbert) wrote:
>>>Darren J Longhorn <darrenlonghorn DeleteThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>It's not really my thuktun, but how about blocks of stone with lines
>>>>etched all the way through them with a laser?
>>>
>>>Put the brittle materials down, off your list, and step away from
>>>the laser...
>>>
>>>The long term archival material cannot be something which can shatter
>>>if handled roughly. Because, eventually, it will be.
>>>
>>>So stone and most ceramics are out.
>>>
>>>Metals that don't corrode... nickel, iridium, platinum, gold, etc,
>>>are good choices.
>>
>>Nope. People who don't know any better, will melt them down
>>and make jewelry.
>
>So, we'll need something too hard for a bronze-age culture to
>melt or otherwise destroy, looks pretty, and can contain
>information. What surface tricks can be played with metals
>like Titanium? (Iridium may not be that far out either, BTW).
>
>Why do I care it people wear them as jewelry, as long as they
>are not destroyed?

You have to care for the times when jewelry is a sign of the Devil.
I've been worrying about this for 30 years [emoticon subtracts age
and year]..40+ years. I still haven't figured out how to ensure
preservation from bugs and water. Ensuring preservation from humans
means hiding it...but that rather defeats the purpose of preservation.

>
>(besides, the actual people will literally walk around with
>answers to most of their technical challenges inches away
>from their noses).
>
>>>Laser micro-etched small coin-sized iridium disks have been
>>>proposed as one method which would last a long time.
>>>
>>>But they presume microscopes to read them with.
>>
>>Part of the data that has to be kept is how to make a microscope.
>>Part of the data that needs to be kept is that small things exist.
>
>Perhaps some framing for the micro-data can make a rudimentary
>hologram of what you need to do?


Perhaps. Now you have to consider dependency problems. I just don't
know enough about everything to be able to make a guess at
what can be done. I've got contigencies for total annihilation,
half-annihilation, full Dark Ages event, a half-Dark Ages event
and generational attrition. And then I read Boyd's bio and got
caught by the short hairs with the notion that it might be better
for that group to start from scratch; I have to think about this
for about two years.

/BAH

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 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

In article <3F04C6BF.FDE613CC.TakeThisOut@computer.org>,
Sam Yorko <JOATnospamMON.TakeThisOut@computer.org> wrote:
>"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:
>>
>> <jmfbahciv.TakeThisOut@aol.com> wrote:
>> > In article <be01pl$10rstu$1@ID-137880.news.dfncis.de>,
>> > "Christopher M. Jones" <spicedham.TakeThisOut@dualboot.net> wrote:
>> > >Note the "in perpetuity". When I say that I really mean
>> > >that. I mean *forever*, 'till the heat death of the
>> > >Universe. Quantum mechanincs and entropy are going to
>> > >destroy your information no matter how you try to save
>> > >it. You need something living to keep pumping in
>> > >negative entropy to keep your information around for an
>> > >indefinite period of time. Preferably something that
>> > >can repair itself as well. Even then, such systems /
>> > >organisms are not invulnerable or immortal. All you
>> > >can do is create storage systems designed for certain
>> > >non-infinite lifetimes and hope for the best.
>> > >
>> > DNA.
>>
>There was a science fiction story some years ago, where someone put
>together a basic internet scanner to look for patterns that might
>bespeak of alien communication; they felt that if there had been some
>sort of alien communication, the evidence might be found somewhere in
>the vast pile of knowledge that was the internet.
>
>They found it. In the transcription of human DNA that had just been
>finished and posted.

Has anyone used any significant (a.k.a. Seti) signal processing
on DNA signals, and published?

-- mrr
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

In article <be3olh$mq7$1@bob.news.rcn.net>,
jmfbahciv.TakeThisOut@aol.com writes:

>In article <be1ien$8q12$1@ID-137880.news.dfncis.de>,
>"Christopher M. Jones" <spicedham.TakeThisOut@dualboot.net> wrote:
>
>>Nevertheless, if the data were properly encoded in a clever
>>enough fashion and if it had an extra level of error
>>correction (pre / post processing of the data, in other
>>words) it could very easily last millions or billions of
>>years.

DNA genetic coding contains no 'error correction'.

DNA genetic coding consists of predictable sequences
of RNA molecules. When I say 'predictable' I mean that
only certain sequences are acceptable -- other non-allowed
sequences designate mutation and probable catastrophic
failure. (Most mutations are failures -- the human race
has not evolved all that quickly.)

>One of the facinating things about Mother Nature is that
>she's damned efficient.

In general, error detection and correction requires storage of
*redundant* data used as a check first to identify errors and
then to correct minor errors. (Snip a chunk out of an [digital]
audio cassette tape and all the EDAC in the world won't
restore it.)

DNA error detection using only predictable RNA sequences
is not efficient -- it disallows the coding options that
unacceptable RNA sequences could provide.

DNA error correction is even less efficient -- it requires a
greater degree of redundant data storage (e.g., sufficient
to identify two simultaneous errors and to correct a single
error).

Yet given that human survival was the goal, evolution made
a good trade in the design and realization of DNA coding.

[BTW, there is great correlation between DNA genetic coding
and the lattice coding employed for n-level coding with EDAC
in high-speed modem design. Technically it is a finite memory
Markov process.]

My opinions.

Richard Ballard MSEE CNA4 KD0AZ
--
Consultant specializing in computer networks, imaging & security
Listed as rjballard in "Friends & Favorites" at www.amazon.com
Last book review: "Cults In Our Midst: ..."
by Margaret Thaler Singer
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

>Has anyone used any significant (a.k.a. Seti) signal processing
>on DNA signals, and published?

The Human Genome project may have.
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

On 2 Jul 2003, Ash Wyllie wrote:
> >Metals that don't corrode... nickel, iridium, platinum, gold, etc,
> >are good choices.

Nickel actually oxidizes quite readily in fires. Since fires are one
common local symptom of civilization collapse, if you archive on nickel
plates you should do it in some totally nonflammable structure at least.

>
> I'd avoid gold though. someone might melt down "how to make a blast furnace"
> to make a bracelet for his girl friend

Or, again, it could all melt just because the archive library burned
down. Then somebody mines the ruins to make bracelets, and gets gold
fever and melts any archives that survived as well.
>
> >Laser micro-etched small coin-sized iridium disks have been
> >proposed as one method which would last a long time.
>
> >But they presume microscopes to read them with.
>
> Lens and use diagram on one side, and data on the other.

Or make some large-scale copies of "how to make a microscope" and the
related texts. If you're unsure of how thoroughly things might go to
hell, it might be worth putting a lot of basic stuff like glassmaking on
big plates.

Are we talking about saving historical data for an advanced society that
uses newer media? Rebuilding guides for survivors of worldwide disaster,
level 1800 or so? Or a time capsule for the far future, when the
scholarly descendents of _Rattus norvegicus_, or archaeologists from Tau
Ceti, are the readers, curious about how we screwed up?

Conrad Hodson
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

Larry__Weiss <lfw.RemoveThis@airmail.net> wrote:

> Sam Yorko wrote:
> > They found it. In the transcription of human DNA that had just been
> > finished and posted.
> >
>
> I've wondered if the programmer(s) signed their work therein.
>
> Or if ours was done as an Open Source project?

That would be a laugh, for the Intelligent Designer crowd, its thousands
of intelligent designers.
--
Walter It is difficult to get a man to understand something," wrote
Upton Sinclair, "when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
Walter
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

Coridon Henshaw <(chenshaw<RE<MOVE>@(T<H+ESE)sympatico.ca)> wrote in message news:<Xns93ADCAFA360D3csbhccse.RemoveThis@207.35.177.134>...
> Larry__Weiss <lfw.RemoveThis@airmail.net> wrote in news:3F04BD15.F026F6EB@airmail.net:
>
> > Or if ours was done as an Open Source project?
>
> Considering the number of genetic defects and questionable design decisions
> in the human species, we're quite clearly a Microsoft product.

Nonsense. If we were Microsoft products, on a daily basis we'd all
suddenly go into cardiac arrest, keel over unconscious, and be
basically useless to ourselves and others until outside resuscitation
was applied. This would result in the loss of all memories of
everything done previously that day, meaning we'd have to write down
everything we thought and were doing every few minutes so as to be
able to pick up where we left off.

We would all accept this as perfectly normal.

Shermanlee
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

Dowe Keller wrote on 01 Jul 2003 01:10:39 -0700:
> "philo" <philo.TakeThisOut@plazaearth.com> writes:
>
>> maybe you could record data using clay tablets
>
> Nah, clay tablets, while they don't require ink, tend to gum up the
> print mechanism.

Aren't there clay jet printers in the works? Properly burnt,
the sheets should stay readable for thousands of years.

Karl M. Syring
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

Neil Franklin <neil.RemoveThis@franklin.ch.remove> wrote in message news:<6uznjugd0s.fsf.RemoveThis@chonsp.franklin.ch>...
> jmfbahciv.RemoveThis@aol.com writes:
>
> > In article <9u42eb.oet1.ln@acer>,
> > Morten Reistad <mrr.RemoveThis@reistad.priv.no> wrote:
> > >In article <be17fo$2n2$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, <jmfbahciv.RemoveThis@aol.com> wrote:
> > >>In article <bdvqof$puu$1@gw.retro.com>,
> > >> gherbert.RemoveThis@gw.retro.com (George William Herbert) wrote:
> > >>>Darren J Longhorn <darrenlonghorn.RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >>>>It's not really my thuktun, but how about blocks of stone with lines
> > >>>>etched all the way through them with a laser?
> > >>>
> > >>>Put the brittle materials down, off your list, and step away from
> > >>>
> > >>>Metals that don't corrode... nickel, iridium, platinum, gold, etc,
> > >>>are good choices.
> > >>
> > >>Nope. People who don't know any better, will melt them down
> > >>and make jewelry.
> > >
> > >So, we'll need something too hard for a bronze-age culture to
> > >melt or otherwise destroy, looks pretty, and can contain
> > >information. What surface tricks can be played with metals
> > >like Titanium? (Iridium may not be that far out either, BTW).
> > >
> > >Why do I care it people wear them as jewelry, as long as they
> > >are not destroyed?
> >
> > You have to care for the times when jewelry is a sign of the Devil.
>
> So that kills off about any material. Any single onject.
>
>
> Of course we long have the proper solution: Scatter as many copies as
> possible. Avoids any accidental or deliberate destruction of the data,
> by decoupling its existance form that of an single object.
>
> This has been tested, in multiple cases, by even the law not managing
> to put an program genie back into the bottle, once it was scattered
> over the internet (DeCSS anyone?).
>
Which, of course, depends on the Internet remaining free.

DeCSS remained because many people tried to preserve it.

By contrast, e. g. oral heritage is distributed, but can be very
perishable.
>
> > I've been worrying about this for 30 years [emoticon subtracts age
> > and year]..40+ years. I still haven't figured out how to ensure
> > preservation from bugs and water.
>
> The method the bugs themselves use: Produce enough copies and some
> will not be flattend before reproducing.
>
>
> > Ensuring preservation from humans
> > means hiding it...but that rather defeats the purpose of preservation.
>
> Or being fully out in the open, so often that no one has the power to
> destroy all copies. And fits the principle of preservation ideally.

If it is not hid at all, it is easy to find out the locations of all
copies and destroy them deliberately. There must be a lot of hidden
ones.

I would say that burnt clay is pretty good material. It is common, so
that it is cheap to produce large amount of copies. The impressions
can easily be mass-produced. They have utilitarian uses - some of
which are not adversely affected by presence of impressions and do not
require destruction of impressions. On the other hand, burnt clay as
material cannot really be recycled.

If you have durable, cheap, mass-produced items which because of their
purposes are likely to be lost or discarded, you can create a large
body of writing on and in ground, and in waters, including shallow
ones. Thus future generations would be likely to find many of writings
by accident. Yet because they are cheap an widely scattered, no
generation is going to find all the lost ones, nor be able to seek out
and destroy all messages.
 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

In article <6uznjugd0s.fsf.DeleteThis@chonsp.franklin.ch>,
Neil Franklin <neil.DeleteThis@franklin.ch.remove> wrote:
>jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
>
>> In article <9u42eb.oet1.ln@acer>,
>> Morten Reistad <mrr.DeleteThis@reistad.priv.no> wrote:
>> >In article <be17fo$2n2$1@bob.news.rcn.net>, <jmfbahciv.DeleteThis@aol.com> wrote:
>> >>In article <bdvqof$puu$1@gw.retro.com>,
>> >> gherbert.DeleteThis@gw.retro.com (George William Herbert) wrote:
>> >>>Darren J Longhorn <darrenlonghorn.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >>>>It's not really my thuktun, but how about blocks of stone with lines
>> >>>>etched all the way through them with a laser?
>> >>>
>> >>>Put the brittle materials down, off your list, and step away from
>> >>>
>> >>>Metals that don't corrode... nickel, iridium, platinum, gold, etc,
>> >>>are good choices.
>> >>
>> >>Nope. People who don't know any better, will melt them down
>> >>and make jewelry.
>> >
>> >So, we'll need something too hard for a bronze-age culture to
>> >melt or otherwise destroy, looks pretty, and can contain
>> >information. What surface tricks can be played with metals
>> >like Titanium? (Iridium may not be that far out either, BTW).
>> >
>> >Why do I care it people wear them as jewelry, as long as they
>> >are not destroyed?
>>
>> You have to care for the times when jewelry is a sign of the Devil.
>
>So that kills off about any material. Any single onject.

Correct.


>
>
>Of course we long have the proper solution: Scatter as many copies as
>possible. Avoids any accidental or deliberate destruction of the data,
>by decoupling its existance form that of an single object.

That's why I've been cheering you guys on w.r.t. SIMH and mirror
sites of Tim's.

>
>This has been tested, in multiple cases, by even the law not managing
>to put an program genie back into the bottle, once it was scattered
>over the internet (DeCSS anyone?).

I've had massive amounts of discussions with myself about that very
thing.

>
>
>> I've been worrying about this for 30 years [emoticon subtracts age
>> and year]..40+ years. I still haven't figured out how to ensure
>> preservation from bugs and water.
>
>The method the bugs themselves use: Produce enough copies and some
>will not be flattend before reproducing.
>
>
>> Ensuring preservation from humans
>> means hiding it...but that rather defeats the purpose of preservation.
>
>Or being fully out in the open, so often that no one has the power to
>destroy all copies. And fits the principle of preservation ideally.

Another way was establishing a religion so that the order has
sufficient impetus to protect the icons. But I always reject this
out of general principles since it's religion fervor that's been
raising my warning flags over the years.

/BAH

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 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing 

In article <Pine.GSU.4.21.0307041459181.25744-100000.RemoveThis@garcia.efn.org>,
Conrad Hodson <conradh.RemoveThis@efn.org> wrote:
>On 2 Jul 2003, Ash Wyllie wrote:
<snip>

>Are we talking about saving historical data for an advanced society that
>uses newer media? Rebuilding guides for survivors of worldwide disaster,
>level 1800 or so? Or a time capsule for the far future, when the
>scholarly descendents of _Rattus norvegicus_, or archaeologists from Tau
>Ceti, are the readers, curious about how we screwed up?
>

Yes.

/BAH

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 >> Stay informed about: post-doomsday computing