Archival is something that should be taken very very seriously by social media software

@[email protected] Yeah, but I suspect this one was bullshit. Ugh. This is the one issue I have with not running a Mastodon instance.

I shouldn't trust a random google result. I know this, and yet the habit is still so hard to break admittedly, that's why I phrased it as a question: I didn't trust the results. But I should have dug into the source myself. I appreciate you taking the time to do so for me, though!

@aud we kind of don't quite believe that anyone's actually figured out how to run a bunch of dust through an electron microscope and get good three-dimensional models of each particle. like. the mechanics of actually putting an object on a microscope stage are quite hard. so we're pretty sure this is just a case of militaries deciding they need to defend against absurd things that aren't going to happen. just... only pretty sure.

@[email protected] hm. now I'm curious how they solved that. Admittedly, if you had a machine that could separate and then scan the individual parts (or even clusters of them), you could then basically have the software play letter tetris to assemble the pieces into something. Hmmmm...

@[email protected] the concept of information remains so fascinating to me. It's a problem area I came to from chemistry (and is kind of what kept me going in that field, to be honest!) so I remain totally fascinated with the realities of entropy and what they mean in computing and archival.

@[email protected] To be fair to them, that is a good security strategy for information. Don't defend against the technology that exists today, but assume further, even impossible, refinements of existing tech (especially when it's inexpensive to take the extra step). Assume if there's a needle, there will always be a better mechanism for finding it in a haystack.

@aud the way they've bragged about it in the business press makes it sound like it's mostly a software solution, yeah.

@aud of course, we never really believe a technology works until we actually try it, and for obvious reasons we haven't tried this one.

@[email protected] hm. I wonder if any research groups do work in this area (archival, bootstrapping, consistency; specifically from a human-first perspective). Maybe that's a good thing for me to look into it. I think it's stupidly, ridiculously important, and an interesting problem as well.

@aud yes, when financial cost and environmental destruction are not concerns, it's a good approach heh.

@aud for sure!!!!

@[email protected] since they're bragging about it in the business press, I now just want to scream "booooooooooring" even though admittedly it's low key interesting.

@[email protected] negging corporations is always praxis

@[email protected] what, you don't wanna shred up a few documents and drop a couple grand on figuring out if they're full of it? weird.

@[email protected] ... ah, yeah. jesus, why did I not think about the microplastics and other pollutants? Admittedly, it is very cold and I am still not fully awake.

Really, the best thing to do with the damn things is keep using them but I get why that's a security issue.

There's a snarky part of me that just wants to say, "well, maybe nation states should have fewer secrets, then."

@[email protected] ooooooooooooooooooooh

I wonder what key terms to look for. I think a dream research project would involve working on library science type problems in tech. I want to help librarians and educators and help lift people up...!

But even in the extreme sense: assume we snuff ourselves out (I would rather we not). Could I help build something to help future generations avoid our mistakes?

@aud it is super easy to not think about that! especially if the discussion started in the digital domain

@[email protected] yeah. I think my background in chemistry usually keeps me grounded on the subject of e-waste but there's still the tendency to work in pure hypotheticals and not ground it in reality.