Posts by wnielson

Optical archival system - where to buy from?

Paper?

Technically, this is an optical archival system: http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/

500,000 bytes per page, at an average price of $.03/page (including ink/toner), comes out to just under $65/GB. It is expensive and annoying (>2000 pages/GB), but it'll last for 100+ years if stored properly.

Seems like a joke, but really, if the data is that important to you then this is another option. Plus you don't have to worry about vendor lock-in. More at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/07/the-paper-data-storage-option.html

Boffins' brilliant plan: CONCRETE COMPUTERS

Re: Liquid cement......

The term 'liquid', in this case, refers to the microstructure. For example, metals typically have a crystalline microstructure whereas liquids are amorphous. "Liquid metal" is made by "locking in" the amorphous, or "liquid", arrangement of the atoms but in a solid material--a more technically correct name is "amorphous metal". This is typically done by melting the metal and then rapidly quenching it--the key is to do it fast enough that the atoms do not have enough time to rearrange into their preferred crystalline structure.