Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Skyrunner]

Too bad flash drives, CDs, and hard drives degrade in less than 50 years. O_o

[Starver]

And even if they didn't, how are the aliens going to decode the data (let alone work out what the data means, without some sufficiently surviving hardware).  From scratch.

Even if not from scratch, see the problems that The Domesday Project got into within a mere decade or two (and well within the lifetime those that created/experienced it, and their memories)...  Compared with the ability to more or less read a (suitably preserved) book/ledger/manuscript/whatever from the original Domesday project, around a millennium previously (and more extreme examples with ancient clay/engraved writings, though sometimes requiring a Rosetta Stone for assistance...).

If we can come up with a better basic encoding system then should optical discs decay[1][2], we probably need to arrange for massive... oooh... circles of stone?  Lay them out in such a way that even after a lot of weathering the core data can be extracted with enough care and attention to the archaeological detail that should still be available.  Let's just hope that nobody mistakes them for astronomical devices or something, eh?



(Plan B: Black monoliths.  Let's bury one on the moon and send another up to orbit a different planet.  Nothing more needs be said, so could be left featureless, at least on the surface. )



[1] To be fair, isn't that just CD/DVD-R and -RW that decays?  Would a pressed optical media last longer, physical damage allowing?  A metal foil surface encased within transparent plastic, basically.  As long as the plastic survives, even if it goes opaque to the usual laser frequencies (and perhaps even warps) someone who knew what they were looking for should be able to use some form of microwave scanning to analyse the embedded data.  Might even be able to have a good go at reconstructing a smashed disc, if not in too many bits (and not too many small fragments lost to the process of analysis) to allow 'static' scanning and then reconstructing back into 'virtual' disc form in order to play it within a player that only exists in software.

[2] They've also recently(-ish) announced a WORM disc writing method which goes back to creating pits, rather than 'temporary' optical alterations in the surface...  I heard it was rated to 1,000 years.  Above problems with "remembering how to access/interpret it" allowing, of course...

[misko27]

I bet they'll find a massive amount of crap laying around, with some actual genuine historical stuff (as opposed to Plastic fragment #478190, and Unnatural formation #5436) mixed in between.
Sorta like what we did with the past. With the difference we've more fundamentally altered the world. But how that survives will be pretty vague.
 
Given how big we are though, it'll be alot easier to determine who are what we are from the remnants. And all you need is a couple of records to make our history. Unlike previous generations on earth, we got plastic, and we keep REALLY good records comparitvely.

[lordcooper]

Also the massive amounts of radiation caused by exploding/leaking nuclear plants.

[Lightningfalcon]

Too bad flash drives, CDs, and hard drives degrade in less than 50 years. O_o

We must etch Crysis entire code, in binary, into a stone wall to last millinia.  That is the only way to preserve our heritage.

[Cthulhu]

I've always been interested in the implications of things like nuclear waste dumps.  How do we communicate to future civilizations (human and otherwise) that this stuff isn't to be disinterred?  Because let's be real, if the Egyptians had been super-advanced and left radioactive material in their pyramids, we would have gotten seriously fucked up by it.

[Skyrunner]

I'm sure that we won't need to worry about advanced civilizations. Presumably they'll notice /something/.

As for future, less advanced civilizations... well, sucks to be them >.>

[Lightningfalcon]

I've always been interested in the implications of things like nuclear waste dumps.  How do we communicate to future civilizations (human and otherwise) that this stuff isn't to be disinterred?  Because let's be real, if the Egyptians had been super-advanced and left radioactive material in their pyramids, we would have gotten seriously fucked up by it.

I remember reading stuff about that.  I remember one of the problems would be that any warning signs we set up would be seen as a challenge. 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Current consensus is that we find a boring looking place with no significant mineral resources and bury it very deep down in a totally sealed container. There's no way to deter humans. We just have to make sure they don't find it.

[Starver]

"I say Cartwright, old man... look at the writing on the heavy stone door.  Strange symbols.  I don't understand them at all, but they... give me a sense of dread."

"Oh grow a backbone, Williams!  I really need to get into this tomb-like thing within the next few days.  The steamship is leaving in a week, and I desperately need to make this trip worth its while before I'm forced to return home in disgrace...  Just one more heave on the metal bar now..."


<a few days later>

TO THE EDITOR  STOP  APPEARS WHOLE EXPEDITION AFFECTED  STOP   REPORTS OF CURSE NOT REPEAT NOT HOAX  STOP   WILL SEND FULL COPY BY FAST COURIER  STOP

[misko27]

"I say Cartwright, old man... look at the writing on the heavy stone door.  Strange symbols.  I don't understand them at all, but they... give me a sense of dread."

"Oh grow a backbone, Williams!  I really need to get into this tomb-like thing within the next few days.  The steamship is leaving in a week, and I desperately need to make this trip worth its while before I'm forced to return home in disgrace...  Just one more heave on the metal bar now..."


<a few days later>

TO THE EDITOR  STOP  APPEARS WHOLE EXPEDITION AFFECTED  STOP   REPORTS OF CURSE NOT REPEAT NOT HOAX  STOP   WILL SEND FULL COPY BY FAST COURIER  STOP

Then they all come instantly, then they discover it after sufficient amounts of collateral damage and personnel loss, then we get nuclear bombs by WW1.

[PanH]

I remember a biology teacher I had that talked about using our DNA code to communicate with aliens or something like that. As it is presumably the only universal language. I'm not sure, but I think he talked about how we sent things with our DNA code. Now I imagine a Rosetta Stone of DNA.

... it's a bit of blurry memory said like that.

[Cthulhu]

Math is the universal language.  DNA seems a little carbon-centric. 

[Max White]

Maths isn't as universal as boolean logic, the only true universal code.

[Pnx]

I remember a biology teacher I had that talked about using our DNA code to communicate with aliens or something like that. As it is presumably the only universal language. I'm not sure, but I think he talked about how we sent things with our DNA code. Now I imagine a Rosetta Stone of DNA.

... it's a bit of blurry memory said like that.

Hmmm, it's an interesting idea, I mean I think pretty much all life on earth uses DNA identically, but does that mean that DNA is universal, or just universal to life on earth?

Personally I think the easiest way to have aliens be able to understand us is to dump wikipedia on them. With thousands upon thousands of lines of text and some images for context (which they'll hopefully be able to interpret) seems like the most reliable way to give them something they can decode.