Non-Singularity scenarios

Vinge began by declaring that he still believes that a Singularity event in the next few decades is the most likely outcome— meaning that self-accelerating technologies will speed up to the point of so profound a transformation that the other side of it is unknowable. And this transformation will be driven. . .   Read More

A piece in Forbes Magazine

Publish And Perish
Elisabeth Eaves, 12.01.06, 12:00 PM ET

Nothing is safe. Not your e-mails, digital photos or Word files. Not old newspapers or books. When it comes to storing information, everything will disappear into digital obsolescence or crumble to dust.

Even White House e-mails. . .   Read More

2nd Life takes off

What is real life coming to owe digital life?

After a couple years in the flat part of exponential growth, the steep part is now arriving for the massive multi-player online world construction kit called “Second Life.” With 1.7 million accounts, membership in “Second Life” is growing by 20. . .   Read More

 
A good article on the digital preservation problem in Popular Mechanics:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4201645.html?page=1

When the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz takes to sea, it carries more than a half-million files with diagrams of the propulsion, electrical and other systems critical to operation. Because this is the 21st. . .   Read More

Storing information is easier than ever, but it’s also never been so easy to lose it — forever. We could end up with a modern history gap.

By Charles Piller, LA Times Staff Writer
September 13, 2006

Carter G. Walker remembers the day her memories vanished.

After sending an e-mail to her aunt, the. . .   Read More

Original recordings of Apollo moon missions are missing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The U.S. government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong’s famous “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” a NASA spokesman said on Monday.

Armstrong’s famous space walk, seen by millions of. . .   Read More

Generative play

In a dazzling duet Will Wright and Brian Eno gave an intense clinic on the joys and techniques of “generative” creation.

Back in the 1970s both speakers got hooked by cellular automata such as Conway’s “Game of Life,” where just a few simple rules could unleash profoundly unpredictable and infinitely varied dynamic. . .   Read More

Community-built content rules
Vision is one of the most powerful forms of long-term thinking. Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the all-embracing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, examines how vision drives and defines that project and its strategy— and how it fits into the even larger world and prospects of “free culture.”

“The design. . .   Read More

Long Now collects stories of the “digital dark age”.  Originally these were kept in discussion boards, but we have moved this to our blog as of 02007 (Acknowledging that the present will in fact be known as the digital dark age, since all our digital data has no forward migration path.)

I thought that the. . .   Read More

Categories go nova

It is fortunate that the leading thinker in “social software” is one of the best speakers in the high-tech world, a hot ticket at any conference that can get him. CLAY SHIRKY gave one of his dazzling presentations Monday, Nov. 14, examining a new dimension in one of the most vexed. . .   Read More