Sociotard Posted October 23, 2006 Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 http://www.rosettaproject.org/about-us/disk/concept The idea is a little disk with documents in 2500+ languages. The site is a preservation thing, to prevent losses to the logosphere, or at least leave some record of the languages that existed. All you need is a 500 power microscope, and you'll have pleanty of reading material. by the way, they have two left. they sell for $25,000. EDIT: I can't believe I flubbed the Title. It's supposed to say "Fun Artifact: The Rosetta Disk". I'd appreciate it if a mod could change it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlHazred Posted October 23, 2006 Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The While an interesting artifact for a game, personally, I think it's one of the dumbest things I saw this weekend. I mean, if I want documents in 2500+ languages, well, that's why I have the Internet! And hey - I bet the Rosetta Disk doesn't have any documents in Klingon, or Quenya, or many other languages you can find on the WWW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curufea Posted October 23, 2006 Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The Strangely enough, you cannot find 2500+ languages on the internet. Only the languages used by people who use the internet. A much smaller amount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sociotard Posted October 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The While an interesting artifact for a game, personally, I think it's one of the dumbest things I saw this weekend. I mean, if I want documents in 2500+ languages, well, that's why I have the Internet! And hey - I bet the Rosetta Disk doesn't have any documents in Klingon, or Quenya, or many other languages you can find on the WWW. The WWW is, for the most part, a snapshot of what we know now. This project was created for the purpose of preservation. So, they could've just burned a whole bunch of DVD's and said "these hold all these languages. they are now preserved." But wait, in 50 years, will people still be able to find a DVD drive that can read them? What about software? Will they have the right version? Now go 100 years into the future. How about 1000? 10000? These disks are made of materials that should last for those kinds of timespans. The messages are engraved, not encoded, so you won't need to worry about having the right equipment, assuming they still have microscopes in the future. (I call that a safe bet) For a little perspective, look at this picture One hand holds a spool of magnetic tape made in the 1980's, the other a clay tablet written thousands of years ago. Any guesses which is going to outlive the other? The Rosetta Disk is produced in large part by the "Long Now" project, which has the goal of lengthening our concept of what "now" means and creating a more ponderous society that thinks long thoughts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted October 23, 2006 Report Share Posted October 23, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The The objective seems much more serious than that -- an attempt to provide a way for people in the far future to have a way to comprehend docuemnts in the languages that may vanish from the face of the Earth by the time they get to them. Of course, for that to work the disk itself must still be avaiilable, and the researchers must have some idea what it actually is. So it would be little help to, say, alien explorers who come to Earth ten thousand years after the death of the last human being, or to whatever the next sentient race on Earth happens to be. Nor is it at all likely that they would survive a nuclear war or planet-killer asteroid impact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlestaff Posted November 1, 2006 Report Share Posted November 1, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The Of course, with the microscope. you can read what it really says: "If you can read this, you have been scammed." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OddHat Posted November 1, 2006 Report Share Posted November 1, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The Rosetta Disk Fixed the title. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savinien Posted November 15, 2006 Report Share Posted November 15, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The Rosetta Disk I think it sounds inhumanly deep. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deucex Posted November 17, 2006 Report Share Posted November 17, 2006 Re: Fun Artifact: The Rosetta Disk of course what good will it be to future archaeologists since we shred all our important documents these days. That and instead of writing letters we write emails, text message and make phone calls. It doesn't leave much left for them to find that is worth while. I can hear them now, "literally translated using the information we gleaned from that translation disk this says 'buy now and save 15%" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.