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purpose: Will Kahn-Greene's blog of Miro, PyBlosxom, Python, GNU/Linux, random content, PyBlosxom, Miro, and other projects mixed in there ad hoc, half-baked, and with a twist of lemon

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Tue, 20 Jul 2004

Too much data

I have data issues. I have email going back to 1996 and I have documents and other data formats for which I don't have the original program anymore.

In regards to email, every now and then I get up enough energy to start going through it and deleting email that's clearly not interesting. The problem here is that I accumulate more email than I delete and I feel like I spend a lot of energy and time organizing it.

In regards to the other data, I could keep moving it from format to format but that also takes a lot of energy and time.

I don't keep a journal or a diary, so this data is really the only records I have of past years. It's the only way I can get a glimpse of how I've grown over time.

The question is how important is this data? Is it important to keep it all, or is it good enough to just keep a few things that capture enough of the essence of that period of time? Is it better to go through things and create an "editorial" of that period of time with citations from the original pieces and then destroy all the original data?

What uses does the data have? Maybe it's better to just jettison it all and start afresh?

[ tags: communication, life | category: /content | Permalink | View/Add Comments: 5 ]

Comments:

Posted by Chris Green on Wed Jul 21 11:46:16 2004
Every couple years, I archive all my mail onto a cd and file it away. I used to archive mailing lists but things like gmane & marc have popped up to make me confident that mailing lists I care about will have public archives.

Same goes for files, programs that were hard to find or setup or notes.  Now, I'm hoping my blog will be atleast half of a reminder of things I've worked on or issues I've faced.


Posted by LorenzK on Tue Jul 27 07:33:43 2004
Don't put too much effort in it! ZIP & burn it, then delete from hard drive (to get it out of your view). You will probably forget where you put the CD, because you will almost certainly never want to look at it again, but if you do, you have it and zgrep/zless


Posted by will on Wed Jul 28 12:02:15 2004
Mmm...  I guess if I decide the data is useless, I'm better off just deleting it rather than stick it in in a box in the closet and wait until I forget about it.  Why do the extra work now only to push the decision making into the future?


Posted by mollo on Mon Aug 2 14:28:27 2004
Moore law and growing HD space will allow you to keep all your important data online..except video, linux distributions and music.

Let's buy a DAT.. On ebay a SCSI DAT DDS-2 cost around 20USD, let's 60USD for a DDS-3

GnuTar is your friend.. Bacula is also a nice backup program.

I can actually restore DDS-1 tapes (1.3GB) on an DDS-3 (12GB) written around 1993.

And I've some problem to read my first Hobbes Archives CD pressed in 94..


Posted by will on Mon Aug 2 14:31:58 2004
It's not a space issue.  It's an issue of the data being too much and too disorganized not to mention the fact that data formats have lifespans forcing me to convert the data from one format to another which inevitably (especially in the case of formatting) screws up the data in little ways.

I have enough space on a hard drive to hold it all and mirror it to another machine.  The issue is that it's too much to get a handle on.  I'm only 28 now.  What happens in 5 years when everything is digital?  The problem is only going to get worse--not better.


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