I read my ARC of Famous Men Who Never Lived

[conuly]

Not much plot, lots of character development - just the way I like it!

Of course, it took me a while because I kept thinking of what crucial parts of our culture I'd regret not bringing with me in this scenario and also my chronic daydream of what I'd love to read if I could hop over to other universes on day trips. (Honestly, I'm so backlogged in THIS universe I don't know why I keep thinking about reading in other ones, but there you go.) Which got me wondering about the feasibility of putting my entire personal library on microfilm (microfiche?) in case I suddenly have to evacuate to a parallel universe or another planet or just another city and god forbid I wouldn't have it with me. Sure, I'd need a reader for maximum use, but the tech isn't that hard to obtain, and a magnifying glass would do in a pinch if I was desperate. (I would be.) There are no compatibility issues like with computers, and it lasts forever. Sure, people might think it odd that I showed up to my evacuation point or whatever with an already prepped bag of carefully stored microfiche, but they'd thank me later. Better to have it and not need it, right?

The real question is the feasibility of doing this at home. I may need to find a wealthy eccentric to do it for me, or at least fund it, an extreme prepper type, but, you know, "cultural" and "philanthropic". They'd probably want to save their home library first, though. God, so selfish!

(Now, how can I compatibility-proof store popular music and movies and tv shows? I guess sheet music and scripts will have to suffice.)

*****************

In the Future, Everything Will Be Made of Chickpeas

The reason why 'ji32k7au4a83' is a common and terrible password

NYC mayor: Extend shoreline to protect city from storms

What's the Perfect Price for Public Transportation?

Overlooked No More: Isabella Goodwin, New York City’s First Female Police Detective

"I got told what to call this poem by my male colleague" (In the comments over at MeFi somebody linked to this twitter thread in which somebody recounts being told - by a man, natch - that women "don't really orgasm like that" and if she thought so, she was wrong. How he can be such an expert when surely he never gets to sleep with the same woman twice, I don't know.)

When Civility Is Used As A Cudgel Against People Of Color

California governor halts death penalty: 'I couldn't sleep'

The human cost of insulin in America (God, it's even worse than asthma inhalers, and that is saying a damn lot.)

Jewish Caricatures at Belgian Carnival Set Off Charges of Anti-Semitism (No, this is not PC going "too far" ffs.)

Comments

[steorra]

For audio recordings, grooved records in a durable material should be fairly future-proof ... but not very compact or transportable.

[conuly]

Yes, and given the premise of the book I'm now waltzing around thinking portability.

[jesuswasbatman]

I felt old last week when I met a young woman at work who had no idea what to do with a microfiche document.

[conuly]

To be honest, I don't think I've ever really encountered one in real life, but I know what they are, at least. (Because "how do I handle this weird device in the library?" was a semi-staple plot in long-running YA series when I was a kid.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Oh, I have been at microfiche and microfilm. And had the discovery of the page not aligned at the photographing. There is no recourse if the page is misaligned, not as a High Schooler and in reality, much newspaper was trashed after the processing, and before the 'is this archival media' was determined.

When I'm feeling brave, I must seek out the main branch and access that technology. It's been a long time. It might be over a quarter of a century, I just don't recall if I used any later than the 1871 Chicago Fire.

[marahmarie]

Oh God, I had to *train* on how to use them (there was a whole course in "how to use a library to maximum benefit" during some part of my schooling: microfiche, microfilm, Dewey Decimal, I was almost suicidal I hated it all so much, though surely silveradept would have Words for a school that actually bothers to train kids as thoroughly as they did us in How To Library).

Anyway, you'll need the magnifying glass, the end. Also, the machines are huge, hard to use, heavy (though upon after-the-fact googling I see there are easier, lighter, and more modern-looking versions than we had back in the day with an actual screen, so there's hope for you yet), and don't look they could possibly do the very thing they wind up doing (well, back in my day they basically didn't; the experience was comparable to using a microscope, another not-favorite pastime as I hate squinting at anything). Have fun lugging it around (assuming you're stuck with what I had, though even more modern versions look to weight in around 10 lbs, which isn't light). :)

[conuly]

Have you ever had call for those skills since?

(And I don't intend to lug around a machine, just the shrunken images of my kills books.)

[marahmarie]

Nooooot that I can think of. Research for high school papers would've been my last hurrah on that, most likely. That said, I don't rule out having to use it in the future, as up until the internet took off microfilm/fiche was pretty much the only way to access archival news clips, images, and so on. For future research I definitely don't rule it out.

[conuly]

Honestly, although the internet is more convenient, I really do hope we don't stop storing archives in a more reliable and long-lasting format.

[gale_storm]

Wow, it's been ages since I last piddled about with microfiche, and it had nothing to do with plankton.

That's a line someone could use to suss out the age or experience level of an audience. :-D

[conuly]

Plankton?

[gale_storm]

Yeah, micro-fish. .-D

[conuly]

Bread and water, three days.

[gale_storm]

:-P

:-D

[polydad]

Obviously, reading in other universes involves no movement along *our* timeline. Makes perfect sense; it's like being offered a case-full of spare Tuesdays.

[conuly]

Does this also apply to: watching movies/tv, listening to music, touring museums, fine dining, visiting the beach, sex?

[polydad]

Depends if you're translating, traversing, or rotating.  Rotation and translation put you on a different time axis, and duration there is irrelevant to duration here.  If you're traversing, you're keeping the same time axis, and duration proceeds as normal.

[conuly]

Just so long as there are no lions or witches. (Wardrobes are okay.)

[gale_storm]

Perhaps a faun?

[gale_storm]

I like the idea of having a caseful of spare Tuesdays. What caused them to pop up is a question I'll wonder at, perhaps on a spare Tuesday.

[marahmarie]

How he can be such an expert when surely he never gets to sleep with the same woman twice, I don't know.

Hot damn feel that burn.

[conuly]

I'm right, though.

[marahmarie]

That wasn't criticism, that was said in agreement. :)

[marahmarie]

The day you find a "cultural" and "philanthropic" "prepper" pass me their phone number, please, as I could find a few uses for this person, myself (hey, it's NYC - anything's possible, even a "cultural" and "philanthropic" "prepper", right?).

[conuly]

Will do!

[jack]

Ooh, that book does sound really interesting, I've put it on my list!

I realise my instinctive reaction is "take a DVD of everything you can, scientists will be so interested in parallel worlds they'll figure out how to build a DVD player", but that only works if that's actually true, if no-one cares and it has to be something I could reconstruct ad hoc, I don't know what I'd do.

[conuly]

Microfilm and a magnifying lens. If we all get together right now and start on it, we'll be halfway done before the end of the world.