X-Message-Number: 5576
Date:         Fri, 12 Jan 1996 04:25:46 EST
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject:      Archiving

[ Somehow this message didn't get posted to CryoNet yesterday, so I
  inserted it manually today. - KQB ]

One of the things that surprises me about this forum  (CryoNet) recently is
the apparent propagation of amnesia amongst some of its participants.  I do
not mean to be nasty here, just tactlessly to the point(s).

Here incidentally, are my points (the art for you will be connecting the
dots between them before the end of this post where I do it myself):

1) The debates about text and other data storage leave me shaking my head.
This issue has been debated before.  ALL of the issues discussed have been
considered before, and Alcor's Hugh Hixon did a very fine job pulling all
this discussion together, which I think, was posted in abbreviated form
here.  It took Hugh a lot of time to get this information.  He had one
advantage over what I see here: he called manufactuers, consulted text
books and thoroughly researched the problems. Hugh can explain how
videotape is made, what adhesives are used, what grades of tape come from
"where" on the big roll of tape initially produced, how tape in space
probes is handled and so on.  He is similarly knowledgeable about film,
magnetic overprinting, effects of LN2, etc.  In short, Hugh did good
science.  Most of what I've seen here is blathering. (Add the adjective
"informed" if you like.)

2) This problem is not new and cryonicists are not the first to confront it
(yes, Virginia, there really is a REAL world out there).  The Mormons have
spent a great deal of time and money on this issue.  So have a number of
major US companies and the US Federal government.

Bottom line: microfiche are stable for between 150 to 300 years *minimum*
under good storage conditions: ca. 12-14 C and stable RH.  The also will
tolerate far higher and lower temperatures if the RH is kept low.  Readers
for fiche are simple: you can buy a pen reader that fits in your pocket for
$15 to $20 US.  Any moron can LOOK at a fiche with a naked eye and see that
it is TEXT.  If they can't, don't worry about it, you ain't coming back.
Period.

3) Three color separation on good Kodak archival film will indefinitely
(i.e., 150 to 300 years) preserve still photographs.

4) Videotape, if cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures is indefinitely
stable. We have tested a variety of tapes including Hi8 and VHS; all seem
to do well.  Ditto audio tape.  Further, standard Fuji or Kodak slide film
(color) is indefinitely stable at LN2 temperatures.  Ditto CDs.  So, if you
only care about the data surviving if YOU do, then put it in your pod of
neurocan.  The standard Alcor/CryoSpan neuron can accomodate THOUSANDS of
pages of text on fiche, hundreds of 35 mm color slides (unmounted!) and 4-6
CDs.

5) If you want the best guarantee of survival of these things sans you or
even if you survive (you may find your storage space pared down with even
neuros having their jaw and lower head sawed off and packaged sans neurocan
in heapin LN2, if money gets tight) then redundancy is the name of the
game.

Suggestions (already made hereand in back issues of CRYONICS):

a) Send material to the Library of Congress in the US.  Germany has a
similar national archive which one German cryonicist has already used.

b) Send a copy of it to the Mormons; be sure to include geneaological data.
 They will almost certainly store material if it is on fiche and if it
includes geneaological data such as you have.  They are incredibly
sensitive to the historical value of diaries and personal biographical info
even that of Gentiles (who knows, you may end up a Mormon if some relative
of yours joins and has you baptized post cryopreservation).

c) Get a copy of your stuff together, go to a good scientific glass blower
(Every big city has one) and have him encase it in a heavy walled pyrex
glass container.  Coat the container in plastic dip used to hold broken
glass bottles together.  Put the container into a good metal overcontainer
(a specially prepared H-cylinder normally used for high pressure gas makes
a great vault) foam the glasscontainer into place, seal and paint the
container (instructions available in books from Loompanics) and have a well
drilled somewhere (preferably in a HIGH and DRY area) Lower the cylinder
into the 60 ft hole and cover it up.  There is lots of land here in
California that would serve and the cost of the drilling would be about 2K.

6) You guys are worried about decoding CDs.  Talk about dumb and dumber.
The information on how to do THAT exists; algorithms are used in existing
players; GET THEM.  The principles are SIMPLE.  What gives me a belly laugh
is that while you all agonize over CD formats being accessible, adhesives
decaying, metal pitting, etc. you seem quite happy to have your brains all
hashed up and then blithely expect someone to decode THAT mess, AND without
the instruction manual.  Talk about misplaced priorities.

7) An Alcor member recently died and decomposed.  This was a terrible
tragedy.  But it was not unexpected.  It was CERTAIN to happen.  In fact,
it has happened at least THREE times now to my knowledge to cryonicists;
two of whom were signed up.  And, long delays have occured due to sudden
death in many other cases: KVM, JE, the Alcor Suicide Victim, JH and
several others.

The solution to this problem is simple, the technology exists and it is
cheap.

Standard alarm compoents that sense motion can be mounted throughout a
house.  When you come into the house you turn the keypad on.  If there is
no motion for say more than 30 minutes, the systems sounds a local alarm
which can be manually overridden in say 5 minutes.  If it is NOT overriden
it can dial 911 or the cryonics group or a neighbor, etc.  And,
anticipating a likely objection: sleeping people move; they breathe, the
toss they, turn, etc.  A more sensitive detector is need for the bed, but
they exist and are inexpensive; kinds for matresses and kinds for overhead
mounting (infared).  By the bed is a cancel switch and a panic button.
Panicbutton triggers that can be worn on necklaces are commercially
available that can be tied into the system for several hundred dollars
more.

When you leave, you key out.

True it won't help if you die away from home, but so far exactly NONE of
the cases of unattended SCD have occured anywhere else. And this is a GOOD
start.

This simple system would have saved Rob Michels (correct name?) from burial
and would have saved Jack Erfurt hours of down time.

I have no doubt that many of you CCF participants busy mentally
masturbating out there could make such systems.  If you do, I have two
customers for them now.

I am not doing this because I am up to my ears doing basic research in
cryopreservation and using my talents where they best apply.  Ditto most of
my colleagues.  The rest of you?  Well, take stock of your output.  And
keep in mind that 10-20% of SCD is not atherosclerosis related; and that
doesn't includes things like insulin reactions, CO poisoning, accidental
electric shock, etc.  YOU may be dead for three days before someone finds
you.  Considering the personalities of some cryonicists I wouldn't be
surprised if it was more like 3 WEEKS.

Please, spare us long debates about nonsense.  Do something productive or
pool your e-mail $$$ savings and find someone who will do something USEFUL.
 This forum is (at least to me) boring as hell.  What is more, it seems to
accomplish exactly nothing except for a lot digital ejaculation.  And the
ejaculate is impotent; not wiggler in the field of view IMHO

Mike Darwin


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