Comment Impressive boom (Score 2) 440
that is,
that is,
* According to Google Scholar it is cited 2461 times
With high quality fine clay you could probably make 50 bits per square centimeter including ECC. If we make the panels 50 by 50 centimeter this amounts to about 16 kB per panel. Let them be 1 cm thick including padding. Wikipedia says that the Library of congress has 1200 km of shelves which means it could hold about 2 TB. Compared to the estimate of 20 TB it is holding now this is only one order of magnitude lower. Maybe it would be worthwile to backup everything in clay.
I do not have numbers but I would think is is well above 80 percent. Although most people in germany have learned some english in school, I do not think most of them are proficient enough to follow anything but very simple stories. More or less technical articles on Wikipedia are certainly out of reach for most
Then again, I consider the fact that we have so many different languages on this planet somewhat of a curse(are you listening, Babylonians?). I see very little added value and a ton of effort to ensure we can communicate with one another.
Communicating is certainly a problem. On the other hand it was proven time and again that the language you speak shapes the way you think about the world. That is, as we are losing more and more languages (which I think is inevitable as we are more closely connected than ever before) we also reduce our chances that somebody somewhere gets a really helpful idea
and in the same list with "watching grass grow"
If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro