Sorry-in my previous msg the Amazon ref. got mangled--it
should be :
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380975378/104-0674676-3851956?v=glance
 ...tonyC

"Anthony Cerrato"  wrote in message
news:c955md$13bn$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
>
> "r norman"  wrote in message
> news:c9389l$e1d$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> > On Wed, 26 May 2004 15:26:55 +0000 (UTC), Tim Tyler
> 
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > >Paper's a rather crummy long-term storage medium - not
> least because
> > >photocopying is pretty low fidelity.
> > >
> >
> > Strange -- people are still reading books written 500
> years ago.
> > People are even trying to read scrolls written two
> thousand years ago
> > (were the Dead Sea Scrolls written on a paper-type
> substrate?) In any
> > event, paper does date back 2000 years and material in
> excess of 1000
> > years is certainly readable.
> >
> > The value of paper is that you don't have to copy it,
you
> just
> > preserve it.
> >
> > Try that with digital!  Put any form of digital
recording
> you want
> > into a sealed jar, hide it, and see what remains
readable
> in the year
> > 3000!
>
> I recalled that Greg Benford had once been hired to
research
> what procedure(s) might be used to (1) identify long-lived
> radioactive waste sites after very deep-time preservation,
> and, (2) also to
> mark such sites with a clear warning in a suitably lasting
> recording medium/reading-process. His final report covered
> problems having to do with deep time declines in society,
> eco-/geo-logical and other disasters/changes affecting
same,
> and the problems of obsolescence of media readers, etc. As
I
> recall, stone tablets were one of the only securely stable
> mediums that would work. Deep-time is somewhat longer than
> that so far discussed here, but it is an interesting
> question.
>
> The original short article I recalled was apparently later
> turned into a book, which I hadn't known before googling
the
> subject; i.e., the book, _Deep Time: How Humanity
> Communicates Across Millennia_ by Gregory Benford;
> Publisher: Avon; (November 9, 1999)  ASIN: 0380975378
>
> "...the book talks about a project the author was on. a
> nuclear waste site in new Mexico needed to have a way to
> communicate to humans (or others) in the future that the
> site is radioactive. since the radiation could last 10,000
> years, the message would have to be able to be understood
> centuries from now." --from Bree Freeman's review at
> Amazon.com
> [see:
>
3Fv%3Dglance+deep+time+record+preservation&hl=en&lr=lang_en
> Regards,         ...tonyC
>
>
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