I don't normally complain about the sites themselves, but there is an interspersed ad in this article with a fully interactive 3D model that captures swipes (couldn't scroll past it) and makes my mobile browser lag so bad I could hardly use my phone.
We've lost the romance of letter writing in the digital age. There are a few diehards still trying, but I imagine climbers these days send and email or a WhatsApp message. It doesn't have the same power unless someone took the physical effort to put pen to paper somehow.
If, for some odd reason, we lose access to the archives of tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook updates, etc, there'll be a giant void in the history of what people did in the past 30 years. It's ironic, because while we have those things we have far more access to what people thought than we've ever had in the past.
I’ve met a friend recently and while shopping he picked up some paper for writing letters. He told me about his tradition of writing one handwritten letter to his partner once a month. I’ve never thought about that before but it sounded like a very nice idea.
It’s trading off longevity for immediacy in my opinion. Was visiting family recently and spent some time looking through old photo albums which was nice.
I got in to typewriters last summer. They’re pretty neat machines! It’s a single purpose writing machine, and everything you type is immediately put to page. It does interesting things for writing flow and style. It’s also very cute for writing personal notes to friends.
> We've lost the romance of letter writing in the digital age. There are a few diehards still trying, but
I bet it's more than you think. My partner still writes correspondences on paper to old college friends, and they write back. We wrote each other letters during early courtship, even after we lived together. Occasionally, I'll still find a nice handwritten letter on my desk.
> If, for some odd reason, we lose access to the archives of ...
The library of congress used to preserve old tweets. I suspect more than a few individuals have archives of miscellaneous digital content. I know I'm prone to screenshot things (even by mistake) and then just let them pile up in my photos, and occasionally happen upon something I've seen prior. I encourage everyone to save things, even via screenshot.
I highly doubt that there'll be any void of artifacts from our age. I'd venture a bet that the vast majority of preservation efforts (of present-day live) undertaken in the cumulative history of humankind were/are being done by people alive today. I think it would suit us well to take ourselves a bit less important in the grand picture.
> If, for some odd reason, we lose access to the archives of tweets, YouTube videos, Facebook updates, etc, there'll be a giant void in the history of what people did in the past 30 years.
That's also true if we lose access to the archives of old letters.
I am sure this law/rule has even its own name, its just logical result of easiness and overabundance of something, that then becomes worthless. The more effort you put into anything, the more value it has.
Plus longevity of digital vs analog, yeah I am not holding my breath some future archaeologists will have much of our digital waste available.
Did they consent to having their letters distributed to the entire public? Because this sounds a hell of a lot like prying into personal affairs I have no business with. (No, I did not follow the link.)
And before anyone says, "But History!" I think there ought to be a principle operating here akin to the old security example of the difference between a database police can go make a request of, and ubiquitous robots with a data connections that instantly scan every plate in the state and generate a real-time map of where every car is, and who owns it. I don't see anything wrong with (presumably) old letters being stored in an archive somewhere, where those with a interest and motivation can trade some of their time for access. But throwing them out there for everyone on Earth (unless the authors gave their consent for that in advance) does not feel right.
The only thing that works well for me on iOS is nextdns. Works with any browser and most apps, I only see ads in the YT app that I don’t use as a result.
I'm getting so tired, folks. So, so tired.