Bedford was frozen in 1967; how hard would it be to either collect or assemble a set of yearbooks, describing what’s happened since then, and storing a small library of such reference texts at both CI and Alcor?
I think that, at least, is a solved problem, or at least as near-to-solved as we’re likely to get, so no effort need be made on that front.
Wikipedia has encyclopedic overviews of each century—C20th, C21st—with further information available readily. And down to far more detail than a revivee is likely to want, apart from those areas and people that they had a personal/individual interest in. There are significant, well-organised and seemingly-sustainable efforts in place to keep this information up to date, to keep it safe, and to keep it readily available.
I think just giving them a tablet and a couple of minutes’ instruction on navigating Wikipedia would work very nicely for that particular job. It’d also get them started with the online world, which is arguably the biggest shift in Westerners’ daily lives since 1967.
(And if the process has temporarily impaired their vision or motor skills, happily Wikipedia is readily available in a wide variety of accessible formats.)
I think just giving them a tablet and a couple of minutes’ instruction on navigating Wikipedia would work very nicely for that particular job. It’d also get them started with the online world, which is arguably the biggest shift in Westerners’ daily lives since 1967.
Errh. I’m not sure it would be that easy. Some members of my family not particularly comfortable with computers took much more than that before they got to the point where they could conduct a google search on a tablet and read news articles, and they were familiar and trained in the use of systems much more modern and similar to tablets than the Hypertext Editing System (which was being developed in 1967).
I think the weirdness of a solid flat piece of material glasslike on one side and rubber-weird on the other with icky pressure plates on the sides where the glassy side somehow partially changes color into arbitrary and unfamiliar images with uncanny precision unlike any other type of light-emitting device ever encountered before and where the lights and images somehow move as if controlled by some intelligence by magically detecting the mere touch of fingers...
...is being slightly underestimated here.
And we haven’t reached the browser or Wikipedia yet. I think they might ask for a (physical, paper, bound) book instead.
a solid flat piece of material glasslike on one side and rubber-weird on the other with icky pressure plates on the sides where the glassy side somehow partially changes color into arbitrary and unfamiliar images with uncanny precision unlike any other type of light-emitting device ever encountered before and where the lights and images somehow move as if controlled by some intelligence by magically detecting the mere touch of fingers...
“Oh, it’s a small TV that I can touch to move the pictures around. Neat.”
People learn all sorts of arcana given the right incentive. My aged parents got broadband for one purpose: to Skype to their children and grandchildren.In the late ’90s, a friend’s technophobe father got an iMac and a dialup account for the single purpose of using eBay.
(I’m currently trying to arrange my own cryo affairs so that upon my deanimation, a copy of Wikipedia (amongst many other things) goes with me, in case I’m frozen for long enough that having a reference for my era and culture would be handy to have.)
Technically, it will be the executor of my will who will make the final decision; but my instructions are to use long-term archival media, with M-Discs as the main example.
I think that, at least, is a solved problem, or at least as near-to-solved as we’re likely to get, so no effort need be made on that front.
Wikipedia has encyclopedic overviews of each century—C20th, C21st—with further information available readily. And down to far more detail than a revivee is likely to want, apart from those areas and people that they had a personal/individual interest in. There are significant, well-organised and seemingly-sustainable efforts in place to keep this information up to date, to keep it safe, and to keep it readily available.
I think just giving them a tablet and a couple of minutes’ instruction on navigating Wikipedia would work very nicely for that particular job. It’d also get them started with the online world, which is arguably the biggest shift in Westerners’ daily lives since 1967.
(And if the process has temporarily impaired their vision or motor skills, happily Wikipedia is readily available in a wide variety of accessible formats.)
Errh. I’m not sure it would be that easy. Some members of my family not particularly comfortable with computers took much more than that before they got to the point where they could conduct a google search on a tablet and read news articles, and they were familiar and trained in the use of systems much more modern and similar to tablets than the Hypertext Editing System (which was being developed in 1967).
I think the weirdness of a solid flat piece of material glasslike on one side and rubber-weird on the other with icky pressure plates on the sides where the glassy side somehow partially changes color into arbitrary and unfamiliar images with uncanny precision unlike any other type of light-emitting device ever encountered before and where the lights and images somehow move as if controlled by some intelligence by magically detecting the mere touch of fingers...
...is being slightly underestimated here.
And we haven’t reached the browser or Wikipedia yet. I think they might ask for a (physical, paper, bound) book instead.
People are very adaptable.
“Oh, it’s a small TV that I can touch to move the pictures around. Neat.”
People learn all sorts of arcana given the right incentive. My aged parents got broadband for one purpose: to Skype to their children and grandchildren.In the late ’90s, a friend’s technophobe father got an iMac and a dialup account for the single purpose of using eBay.
“Is there anything Wikipedia can’t do?”
(I’m currently trying to arrange my own cryo affairs so that upon my deanimation, a copy of Wikipedia (amongst many other things) goes with me, in case I’m frozen for long enough that having a reference for my era and culture would be handy to have.)
What are you going to put it on?
Technically, it will be the executor of my will who will make the final decision; but my instructions are to use long-term archival media, with M-Discs as the main example.