| Echo of the Future |
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In spite of the fact that I have my doubts regarding my own didactic powers, my daughter trustingly inquired after my cerebral volume. Her question was brought on by my trying to teach her - at her own request, I hasten to add - the principles of long division. My efforts proved less than successful and when her attention started to drift, I suggested that she should touch my head, as that was the place where I had figured it all out or was about to do so. It was then that she inquired how much brain I had. A kilogramme, I estimated. No, said my daughter, that's not what I mean, how much? I cupped both hands to show her. Go on, tell me how much, she insisted - a question so excellent that it has to date remained unanswered. Although there's still hope for my daughter as she has evidently sussed out that there must be more to an intelligence test than weighing the subject's grey matter, I seemed to hear a dull echo inside my cranium. This thought was pushed aside by another vision. I recently purchased a new computer, which is great fun as a new machine is always much faster than the one it has replaced. However, the hardware is not the only thing that evolves: the software does exactly the same, to the point where it will end up incapable of dealing with old files. Stubborn as I tend to be when it comes to clinging to the same software for years, it would seem that I am finally having to acknowledge that some of my old programmes have simply stopped working. Which implies that all those thousands of pages of text and correspondence will have to be migrated to a new system, and although that is just about doable, how much longer will it be until the chasm and the accompanying hassle have taken on excessive dimensions? This is the alarming question I should like to put to you this week: how many thoughts, ideas, texts, theories are about to be lost forever because we're about to be denied access to them? It is only ten years ago that the 5.25 inch floppy disk was common property. How many computers are still in use today that are capable of physically accommodating them, let alone reading them? And even though there's always a computer maniac or expensive expert to be found, it remains very much to be seen how many of you, having inherited a box of floppy disks or having stumbled upon them in the attic, would actually take the trouble to find out whether they contained anything of use. Had they been documents, you'd probably have sat down then and there to peruse them, so that you'd have found out within ten minutes or so what they were roughly about. Those days have gone forever … unless you heed my advice. Go to your computer now and print out the entire hard disk contents, on paper, and promise me to turn this into an annual exercise, to be performed on National Hard Copy Day, which I have decided should be held on the 21st of June, which not entirely coincidentally is the longest day of the year. Trust me: it's much easier to introduce a new public holiday than get the industry that is generating all this misery to do what you and I want it to do. NHCD will create the opportunity for your descendants to take cognisance of your body of thoughts, your diaries, your love letters. The alternative is emptiness, hollow noises, an echo dying away. Let me re-emphasize that you should print out everything. Use pretty ribbons to tie up your hard copy. It's important that the ribbon you use should look smart, for this will help convince generations to come that they may have discovered something of value. Don't worry about whether or not they will actually find out. That's a fancy question to be addressed later. Emptiness, after all, knows no dilemmas. |