[xkcd 1683] Digital Data

[rustychainsawenema@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36672698

Source: https://xkcd.com/1683/

[muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee]

Ironically this is original data we are viewing now.

[shinkantrain@lemmy.ml]

I'm doing my part

[johsny@lemmy.world]

[lena@gregtech.eu]

I'm doing my part

[sorse@discuss.tchncs.de]

Am I doing my part?

[itsathursday@lemmy.world]

Good luck finding the raw original video of anything these days. The amount of 3gp an rm files that used to float around compared to the reactionary emoji text bs you see today. Get off my lawn.

[rozz@lemmy.sdf.org]

My eyes!!

[allero@lemmy.today]

For sure you are!

[mesamunefire@lemmy.world]

I've always thought that argument only works as long as data is free or close to free. Once it incurs a cost, I think less copies end up getting removed. I think it's fundamentally flawed to say the internet will never forget.

[moody@lemmings.world]

Well it wasn't even posted on your instance, so you're already just viewing a thirdhand copy of it

[muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee]

Despite that its still the same actual bits of data

[feathercrown@lemmy.world]

[moody@lemmings.world]

It's identical, but it's not the same bits

[draneceusrex@lemmy.world]

It's not, it already has a fucking 9GAG watermark on it...

[crusa187@lemmy.ml]

Well, for thot pics, there’s always more jpeg. For everything else, there’s lossless data formats.

[tanisnikana@lemmy.world]

I like how /u/gofsckyourself didn’t show up with a higher quality version.

[rickyrigatoni@lemm.ee]

yes it is. all electrons are just the same one moving very fast.

[buddahriffic@lemmy.world]

Even with jpeg, you only lose data each time it's encoded. If you save the file instead of taking a screenshot, the quality remains the same.

That said, I don't know if there's a digital storage method widely used that will last longer than a book without some sort of active aspect to the storage (like copying the files to a new medium every now and then).

I think punch cards are one that can, but they aren't used much anymore due to poor density and speed, plus being susceptible to literal bugs. It's possible to encode digital information into carved rock, but that would also have density issues (higher density means less reliability because the amount of damage required to make it unreadable is lower).

I think there's a good chance that a lot of the knowledge we have today could be lost entirely if civilization collapses to a certain degree just due to how we store it.

[thebrideworecrimson@sopuli.xyz]

See, that's why I started using JPEG-XL for long-term storage. Apart from being better in every aspect for lossless and near-lossless still images than any competitor, the generation loss even over 1000 lossy save and load cycles is negligible.