Do Digital Photos Endanger History?

Ant writes "Experienced photographer Jayne West wrote her degree dissertation on the historical impact of digital capture. She argues that the use of digital photography in news reporting means we could lose a valuable pictorial record of history." Much of her argument seems weak to me (precisely because digital photography allows the instant culling West talks about). The digital storage itself, though, perhaps ought to make us nervous.

Paper????

[Anonymous Coward]

By the gods! How can you write anything important on paper? It will be lost to history. You need to carve your work on large stone slabs so it won't deteriorate over time. Anything else is unconscienable.

A Vegan Perspective

[mr_don't]

As a Vegan [vegan.org], i.e. one who doesn't (or tries not to) use or eat animal products, digital photo technology provides an alternative to analog film, which almost always contains gelatin...

I am hoping to start a Vegan Film Project [mrsodaoverload.com] specifically to discuss methods to create non-gelatinous motion picture film (and potentially less toxic methods of developing it). I already put up a message board at Mr. Soda Overload [mrsodaoverload.com]. Anyone care to help? Please chime in with ideas...

Re:The real danger

[redcliffe]

>We are able to study scripts written as far as 4000 years ago.

Wow. I didn't realise people were writing scripts back then. Were they using Perl or just shell scripts?

Re:The real danger

[John Miles]

If you look at them under a very high powered microscope

No good. The RIAA-sponsored Microscopy Analysis Abuse Prevention (MAAP) Act of 2412 outlawed the use of "optical enhancement technology" for purposes of reverse-engineering their intellectual property.

Gotta go, the DeLorean overheats if I leave it idling too long...

Re:Paper????

[Anonymous Coward]

yeh like those 15 commandments

Re:Paper????

[mrogers]

I am Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my holiday snaps, ye mighty, and despair.