Storage

Backups

Jan 1, 2022 Archiving Lifecycle Media Storage

Like flossing, backups are something we should do all the time, but for many it is often overlooked for spans of time. Partly because it is a lot of work. Partly because it has been a moving target over time. Backups The basic idea is to take a snapshot of either your whole system or the parts that are important to you …

A modest word

Nov 7, 2021 Archiving Encoding Storage

Cover image from Wikipedia. Word sizes We have a range of word sizes with computers. If you have used a wide range of machines you may have even seen bytes with more or less than 8 bits. We have standardized on 8 bits in a byte in the last 40 decades. Characters can be 8, 16, 32 or a variable number of bytes depending …

Bits for life

Oct 17, 2021 Archiving Storage

How long can a bit live? This question is both nonsensical and serious at the same time. The base concept of a bit says it doesn’t have a life time so much as it encodes a hint at the probability distribution. In real life though we use those bits to encode almost everything today. Looking around my house I can …

Ransomware

Jun 11, 2021 Storage Cybersecurity Ransomware Archiving

[cover image comes from Wikipedia] It’s all about the backups Ransomware is all over the news right now. It has gone from a harassment for payment in cryptocurrency to shutting down medical care and crippling supplies of food and fuel. These attacks are hitting all of us and have become a real problem, but the …

Immortality drive?

Nov 29, 2020 media anticryptography archiving storage

I really don’t like the feeds on social media. I joined Twitter purely for this blog and it is rare that anything there is more than noise to me. That’s why I did not install the app on my phone and I only check it with relation to this blog (which is not really worth it either). Last night I checked for …

Floppy life

Oct 2, 2020 storage floppies lifecycle

I previously posted this in 2016 and posting the article again as the details are still valid today. In Atomic Floppies we see how a critical part of the national defense infrastructure rests on 40 year old, 8" floppy drives and disks (I’m guessing the actual disks are a little newer). The first question …

Atomic floppies

Oct 1, 2020 floppies storage media floppies nuclear weapons

I previously posted this in 2016 and am posting the article again as the details are timeless. Reading the morning news I saw an article that piqued my interest. I had heard in previous news that the Air Force relied on floppy disks for some of the nuclear launch systems. Today TIME magazine took them to task on it in …