Monday, July 09, 2007

Our Collective Alzheimer's

Print books, if taken care of, can last 3-800 years. Paper, three thousand. Shakespeare's

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme

was predicated on that.

CD's will soon be as unreadable as LP's are becoming now.

Computer disks get damaged or outmoded; who can read a low-density floppy?

Microfiche fade and can't be replaced (nobody's making them anymore, nor the machines to read them -- from what I hear decades of major newspapers are being lost...)

History is being effaced in an amnesia of succeeding technologies, a kind of collective Alzheimer's induced by scientific advancement.

So when will this blog go *poof*????

6 comments:

Unknown said...

When will your blog go *poof*?

No time soon, I hope.

I cannot keep up with technology. For example, though I am a fan of Apple products, I have no burning desire for an iPhone. Who would I call on it?

I telephone almost no one, and weeks go by when no one calls me...

Emily said...

Time to print out your blog, Brian - with archival ink on acid-free rag paper. :--)

Andrew Shields said...

One thing I have wondered lately: is there some "SAVE BLOG" command? Where I can just save the whole shebang to a file to store on my computer?

Just in case blogger goes poof.

Brian Campbell said...

Just to reassure you guys -- I have no immediate plans to *poof* my blog.

I was thinking -- when I go poof, or when the whole blogging platform goes poof, superceded by something else.

Anything built on an electronic or digital platform is shortlived it seems. (Digital platform: I think of a table with wiggling fingers for legs...)

Thanks for your comments!

Anonymous said...

I predicted around 20 years ago that the LP would outlive the prerecorded cassette and the prerecorded CD as a viable medium for serious music fans. People laughed at me--students and teachers alike, and told me to jump in my time machine and head back to the '60s "where I belong." In 2007, with the cassette resting in peace somewhere between the reel-to-reel and the 8-track, CD sales dropping like firebombed flies, old John Coltrane, Doors, MC5 and Black Sabbath LPs being reissued, and new Sonic Youth material being issued on vinyl only, I'm the one laughing! (And furthermore, I look good in paisley and green drape jackets, and have always had a thing for Italian scooters!)

Brian Campbell said...

What I always liked about old LP's was the ambient fireside crackling... then the gangs of children on roller skates at the end of every record.