I'm just thinking in terms of post-apocalyptic stuff... I'm reading at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipedia) that as of 2015 they had about 10 TB (uncompressed) of data. Even allowing for some growth since then, I'm thinking someone could download all their content, all the content from, say, WebMD or ten or so other smaller websites, and still have room to spare on a not-that-intense server or series of external hard drives. Am I missing something in this equation? Is it reasonably realistic to think there are people who've done this, people who've downloaded vast stores of human knowledge in various places as a hedge against the loss of the internet? Is everything as simple as it looks? And, more fun question... if you were going to start hoarding knowledge, what sources would you be sure to preserve?
I am curious how a person would go about doing that. It sounds like a PITA. AFAIK there isn't an easy option to download the catalogue. The only thing I can think of is going through it page by page, but this is not my domain of expertise. Certainly, a person who worked there might have access to it. Hmm.. hoarding knowledge for what purpose?
in termsof post apoc - power is going to be off, fuel for generators scarce and fairly shortly computers will start to fail... if I wanted to horde knowledge i'd definitely be looking at actual paper books
I'd imagine the internet would only be lost if there was a GIANT EMP. So no computers either. Would be impractical to print out all that content. I'd carry a few encyclopedias, some survival guides, and some engineering books.
If we're looking at 10 or more TB of data? 1TB would apparently be about 86 million pages of Word documents. Now, Wikipedia has lots of images, too, so they'd be more data for less paper, but still, we're looking at a pretty unmanageable storage issue if we tried to put it all on paper, and FINDING information would be almost as difficult. Other websites would have videos, songs, etc. that wouldn't easily be reproduced on paper. I think the internet could go with a general loss of electricity or other apocalyptic issues, But even in the case of an EMP, if someone wanted to protect knowledge for future generations, they could build a Faraday cage, put the server/hard drives in it, and use solar or hydro power to run the computers. That side of things seems pretty straightforward. There'd be issues when the computers needed repairs, etc... but at least the people would have access to the knowledge they'd need to figure out the repairs.
My only problem with that is I'm not sure how effective the cage would be with a worldwide EMP. Plus, I'd want something that can last and I could have with me anytime. Good d luck getting any laptop to last 20 years. Sorry, off topic.
Computers don't last for ever - the hard drives would fail in a matter of ten or so years (less if they were in regular use) The other thing is much of whats on Wikipedia is irrelevant babble now - celebrity pages, sports stats and other stuff that's not in any way relevant to what people would need in a survival situation They'd be far better off with a selection of good books about pertinent topics
They could be repaired. It isn't as if the parts wouldn't exist, and they would have access to the information unless everything was stored on a single device. Plus, depending on the world/time frame, things could be far more advanced than they currently are. And laptops are a bit more finicky, but something like a Raspberry Pi is not. It's also small and cheap.
For a while, sure. But shit happens. Eventually, it'd be gone for good. Almost forgot to mention farming books and medical books.
Need a computer to read it. I'd just get mini copies of all these books, and laminate them after making them fire retardant. And have multiple copies of each hidden.
Smaller, cheaper circuits are far more prone to failure. The smaller the nano-meter process, the more susceptible it is to electro-migration and bit-flops. It's one of the reasons why you can have a PET work perfectly fine for 50 years, but 5 year old laptops are already kaput. If you were solely at longevity, something based around an IBM 8086 or similar processor would probably be best. Large circuits are also less prone to overheating and damage caused by EMPs.
I don't think there's a prayer of having something that can be with you anytime without going digital, is there? I mean, even an old-fashioned paper encyclopaiedia is too heavy to carry around with you!
