A Reflection on How Our Recorded History Is Doing
By: David Baker
August, 2018
I’ve worked in the media business for over four decades as a producer, director, writer, editor, cameraman and more. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that; technology, and the media created by it, doesn’t last forever. It sounds obvious but it’s a hard reality we basically ignore, and one that will bite us all… if it hasn’t already. The data we create today, and whatever device it’s stored and played back on, will be eventually lost in the dust of time. No matter how well you’re backed-up right now,… eventually all your media will be gone… and maybe sooner than you think.
I have reflected on this many times over my years of working in the media, and I believe that; in the not too distant future, the history of my baby-boom generation, and generations to follow, will be almost completely lost. Why? Because the devices we are using today to record and play back our content will, sooner than later, no longer exist — and by extension, the media that sits on these devices will no longer be playable.
As a whole, we create massive amounts of new data every second of every day. Storing it all, along with the back-ups , (and back-ups of back-ups) has always been a costly and time-consuming chore.
However, when new tech arrives, we scurry to up-convert our content to play it on whatever new device we’ve just acquired. Many of us self-archive our old media and devices in boxes. A decade ago, it took for me over 4 months to convert my music CDs into MP3s so I could play songs on my new iPod. Now, my new songs are stored in the cloud somewhere, or so I’m told, but I really don’t know where that is. My old boxes of CDs are my music back-ups now.
Conveniently, we can now find all of our files that are stored in the cloud, wirelessly fromwirelessly, from multiple devices, including those in our pockets. We can also access the rest of the world’s knowledge almost instantly… ON DEMAND! But do you know where your data is? I mean physically? And who is in charge of that place, in the “Cloud”? We are told it’s secure, but there are more questions than answers on that topic. Cloud storage is cheap now, — but for how long? What will happen to your data when you no longer have the time to deal with it, or simply don’t wish not to pay the price to have pay someone else to store it?
As I reflect, my theory is: The cost to update, up-convert, and store all of the world’s data is enormous, takes a tremendous amount of energy, and the society’s data growth rate is out of control. Those who have their finger on the <Archive> button are making decisions every day as to; what to keep, what to bury in long-term storage, and what to simply <delete>.
According to a 2011 MIT Technology Review [1],: “A data repository almost 10 times bigger than any made before is now built by researchers at IBM’s Almaden, California, research lab. The 120 petabyte “drive” facility = 120 million gigabytes. It’s made up of 200,000 conventional hard disk drives working together.”. Of course all that data needs to be backed-up somewhere else, equalling = 240 million gigabytes., and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if all that data is backed up somewhere else as well… maybe 4 times more. Eventually every data storage facility will have to be upgraded, then again, and again on newer, smaller, faster, more dependable drives that consume less energy. And the band plays on.
I have a rhetorical question:. How much does it cost to save all of the world’s data… right now, this second? If you Google that question, one of the first things that pops up is an April 2017 Forbes article that asks the question, “What Will We Do When The World’s Data Hits 163 Zettabytes In 2025? [2] It’s worth a read.
The kicker for me was at the CBC, 7 years ago. I offered to donate my one-inch, videotape archives that included a huge collection of figure skating footage that dated back more than 100 years. For those of you who have no idea… 1” videotape was the professional standard between 1978 to about 1995. All network productions, worldwide were recorded on this format. I assumed that because CBC was always “big” into figure skating, I thought they would welcome the opportunity be the proud guardians of figure skating’s video heritage. But no. CBC politely declined as they had recently converted all of their videotape archives to disk, and rid themselves of those pesky, dust-gathering, fridge-sized, videotape machines that are now long past their “expiry” date.
These archives, along with thousands of hours of shows I produced over many years, are now completely unplayable and will never again be viewed by anyone… including by me. So, on a sad day I filled an entire dumpster with hundreds of obsolete 1” reels of tape, ½ inch and ¾ inch video cassettes, and shipped them all off to a landfill. To me it was a great loss, and this is only about me. I have no doubt that this is going on with others everywhere in the world, every day. I believe it And I think it will only get worse as the pressure to increase sales cycles of devices, and the media they, play continues.
Carl Sagan wrote when referring to the fable about grains of rice piling up on a chessboard, “Exponentials can’t go on forever, because they will gobble up everything.” Let’s think about that in terms of the growth of digital media. I think it’s quite fair to say that its growth is exponential. This would mean that total loss is inevitable. At one point, someone is going to have to put their foot on the brakes as because it will be too expensive, too time consuming, or too inconvenient to… (yet again) … convert the world’s data to… (yet another) … next-gen tech.
For me, it comes down to a good news, bad news story. The bad news is that; if aliens land on earth a thousand years from now, maybe they will find nothing of our history except what was penned or printed on paper, and painted on canvas and stone. Perhaps, buried in the same cave, will be a massive pile of aluminum boxes full of globs of phosphorescent precious metals that were once circuit boards. Might they think, “How primitive these creatures must have been.” ?
The good news is , that the bad news is still over the horizon, so we have lots of time to enjoy our amazing media options, both now and into the near future. Let’s enjoy it while we can.
[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/425237/ibm-builds-biggest-data-drive-ever/
[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewcave/2017/04/13/what-will-we-do-when-the-worlds-data-hits-163-zettabytes-in-2025/#2a4bf181349a