In March of 02019, MySpace, the one-time de facto social media network before the rise of Facebook, announced that it had lost 12 years’ worth of users’ songs, photos, and videos during a data . . .   Read More

Long Now is pleased to announce that we have partnered with GitHub on its new archive program to preserve open source software for future generations.  The archive represents a significant step in averting a potential future digital dark age, when much of the software that powers modern civilization could be lost to bit . . .   Read More

Popular Science recently profiled our Rosetta and 10,000 Year Clock projects, as well as a number of related long-term thinking projects, such as Martin Kunze’s Memory of Mankind, the Apollo 12 MoonArk, nuclear waste ray cats, the Star Map at Hoover Dam, and more. Corroded, wrecked, and half-buried for . . .   Read More

Nautilus interviews Cesar A. Hidalgo, Director of the Collective Learning group at the MIT Media Lab, on how people and products become forgotten by culture. . .   Read More

Last week, The Atlantic’s Sarah Zhang profiled a University of Edinburgh science experiment that began in 02014 and—if everything goes according to plan—will conclude in 02514.

The experiment is studying the longevity of bacteria, which can remain viable well past the lifespan of humans.

Physically, the 500-year experiment consists of 800. . .   Read More

During the Cold War, this underground bunker in Culpeper, Virginia was where the government would have taken the president if a nuclear war broke out. Now, the Library of Congress is using it to preserve all manner of films, from Casablanca to Harry Potter. The oldest films were made on nitrate, a fragile and highly. . .   Read More

The concept of the Digital Dark Age has been around for quite some time, and has been a key topic of discussion at the Long Now Foundation since its inception in 01996. In fact, it has been my own raison d’être since I started grad school in 02006. It may be a surprise to. . .   Read More

Via Alexis Madrigal’s TinyLetter, Real Future, DOTS is a Digital Optical Technology System developed by Eastman Kodak in the 01990s, and abandoned in 02002. In 02008, a team of digital imaging experts and former Kodak employees founded Group 47 to buy the DOTS patents and continue development. They succeeded in 2011.

Unlike magnetic and. . .   Read More

On this week’s episode of On the Media, they dive into the digital preservation issue: what would happen if we, as a species, lost access to our electronic records? What if, either by the slow creep of  technological obsolescence or sudden cosmic disaster, we no longer could draw from the well of of. . .   Read More

If you could tell the universe about planet Earth, what would you say?
The One Earth Message Initiative is sending a missive to the stars, and they want your input.

The initiative’s goal is to create a message that will be digitally uploaded to a spacecraft currently making its way to the outer reaches. . .   Read More