Intro

So: blogging. Again. This is the first time I've done this in a long time, my last blog died after fading away. I got busy and with few people reading what I wrote it didn't make sense to spend so much time on it.

But I love writing. Pen to paper, words on the screen: communication that transcends both time and space - all with simple arbitrary lines in the form of characters and words.

When I was in 7th grade I went to an art museum in Ann Arbor Michigan with my art class and perhaps one of the best teachers I had ever had. She was our Art teacher, (Greek my nationality and we called her Katie since her last name was darn near unpronounceable) and was a professor at the University. There she took us into the exhibits and showed us this small chard of pottery with writing on it. Most of us didn't care, it was broken and old - not majestic like some of the art on display, the beautiful marble sculptures or the paintings. She said it dated from the 2nd or so century A.D. and - as she explained - since paper wasn't invented yet - or at least very rare and expensive, people would use broken pieces of pottery or what not to write whatever they needed to much like what we use scrap paper for now.

The writing on the chard was that of a shopping list. Katie then read off what it said.

I then had an epiphany.  While standing there I realized for the first time how powerful writing was. How one can take information and encode it in some physical medium - engrave the very thoughts into a piece of material where it then will remain for centuries independent of the writer who has long since died. Writing gives a sense of immortality.

Kind of.

The real problem standing in our way of communication immortality is that of formats. If you doubt this, talk to my friend who has all of his college documents on zip drives. How do I know that the format (or the medium in which I'm storing the data) will be accessible in 50 years? How can I be guaranteed that in 100 years I will be able to read this hard drive (assuming it hasn't gone bad in the meantime) and read the data? In photography we're facing the same problem. 

The only solution I have found thus far is the same solution the ancient Egyptians found: paper.

Until electronics can be as fail safe as paper we're going to be running into this problem. Paper still is permanent.

In 50 years all of the stuff I have posted to flickr and other places most likely won't be here. In 500 years when our civilization is being excavated by archeologists all of my digital accomplishments will be lost forever.

But that which I have committed to paper will be able to be read.

after all, the broken piece of pottery still speaks.