I wonder who, if anyone, dug up the M*A*S*H 4077th timecapsule?
When the timecapsule in Knowing got dug up, the world ended shortly afterwards.
The most important thing with a time capsule is to put some healthy snacks like fresh fruit and yogurt in there in case people in the future are hungry.
And you can't just keep opening them over and over to see if the stuff is quaint yet.
A top 10 list of time capsules. I like the Tulsa one (just opened a few years ago after 50 years) and the "Crypt of Civilization".
Jeez, Stanley, where is this coming from? Time capsule?
8: I thought of it last night, so: yes! A very brief-in-duration one.
In a way, parsimon, your brain is a time capsule, too. Open it and see what's inside! Hopefully not a rusted-out DeSoto.
9: It gives me some grief, since I've just spent four days throwing my mother's stuff away, and will be spending more days in coming months extricating myself (ourselves) from more of it. Most stuff is just junk. There's too much stuff. The idea of encapsulating some selected bunch of stuff strikes me, at this moment in time, as, um, bizarre, shall we say.
And Sifu, I have no idea what you mean by 10. Perhaps it's an insult of some sort, but really, you're off base.
I think it falls more in the "stupid pun" category.
13: Oh. I just got that in connection with 9. Right, sorry, carry on.
Hopefully not a rusted-out DeSoto.
Which brings to mind "DeSoto Discovering the Mississippi" by Bruce McCall, who has a lot of work that is often very relevant to this thread. Nice short little talk by him here which includes some of his work (DeSoto at ~6:50, ends with a short based on his "Ascent of Man"). If you don't have his Zany Afternoons, you should.
Perhaps it's an insult of some sort, but really, you're off base.
If I thought that someone was insulting me, but I didn't understand how, I would assume that the insult was right. (I don't recommend this attitude to others.)
16: I gave it some thought and decided that whatever Tweety was talking about was, if an insult, completely wrong.
You're making me laugh, or shake my head, beamish.
7 - My dad was there when the Tulsa one was buried, but I think he didn't bother to go by when they had the big digging-up. Probably just as well, considering the anticlimax.
Wow, it's so weird looking in this thread. The strange fashions and curious enthusiasms of an earlier, simpler time!
Maybe it's because more information about the past is easily accessible now, but time capsules less than a hundred years in duration (i.e. most of those opened to date) seem self-indulgent to me.
I'd do a time capsule saying on the outside, "If newspapers from [today's date] are still archived and accessible to scholars, it's not time to open it." And try for hundreds or thousands of years, if possible.
Plus, account for the fact that it will be forgotten. I was tickled by the one where a researcher just happened to read an old article about a time capsule and alert people just a few weeks before the opening date.
20: well, but I think that points to the central problem of time capsules, which is that it is basically impossible to figure out what will be genuinely informative to people in the future. Like, that time capsule with the recordings that was buried in France, it probably didn't occur to them that recordings would be so pervasive that everything buried would just be available.
Imagine if e.g. the former residents of Chaco had buried a time capsule. Would they have put in things that would further help our understanding of their culture? Or would they have put in things with local religious significance or presumed value that ended up not being very informative, since we aren't coming from the same cultural framework as they are?
It reminds me a little bit of the attempt to find a good message for Voyager, and a lot more of the attempts to come up with a warning system for the Yucca Mountain site that would last 10,000 years.
If you really wanted to do an informative time capsule, it'd probably be as good a system as any to find 500 random people and have them each chuck one thing from their junk drawers into the vault.
I may have convinced myself I'm wrong in the course of typing this comment.
Am I the only person who thought this was going to be a hiatus announcement?
Imagine if e.g. the former residents of Chaco had buried a time capsule. Would they have put in things that would further help our understanding of their culture? Or would they have put in things with local religious significance or presumed value that ended up not being very informative, since we aren't coming from the same cultural framework as they are?
In some respects, well-preserved archaeological sites like Chaco are similar to the time capsule concept. It's impossible to tell any intentionality, of course, especially in the absence of written records, but the residents of Chaco do seem to have left a bunch of things of "local religious significance or presumed value" in Pueblo Bonito. Interpreting them and determining how they can further our understanding of their culture is very difficult, perhaps impossible, of course, but that doesn't stop archaeologists from trying.
(I seem to have successfully infiltrated Sifu's brain. All Chaco, all the time.)
If only the Chumash had left a time capsule containing Polynesian relics....
The more I think about it, the more odd this time capsule thing seems.
I do think that Beefo Meaty is right, if you do it all you do it with trash. It's similar to how one of the real strengths of Wikipedia is in preserving all the pop culture crap that would have been pretty lost before the 'net. (And part of why deletists are THE DEVIL.) A 1957 car is boring; what's in the glove compartment of a 1957 car is fascinating.
if you do it all you do it with trash
Right, and if you do it with trash why even bother?
Because so much physically decays?
Good point at 22.
29: Well, in a 50-100 year timeframe it might make sense.
27-30: but it really seems like an attempt to avoid the presumed pitfalls of being interpreted from the archaeological record, like "oh, we want to make sure the future people know what was really important to us", but designed in such a way that you're almost guaranteed not to get that across. So many of the ephemeral things that decay or are destroyed are so banal that nobody would think to put them in a time capsule. Like, what if the time capsule with the car in it had instead contained some of the tools used to make the car, or maybe a clay model of the car body? But even then, given another thousand years, who knows.
What counts over time is writing. Hand-written (maybe you need a typographic print-out in order to be helpful, but), hand-written testimony and reflection is really all that is sure to remain interesting and valuable.
If you wanted to be serious about it all, you might get into the paper on which you write, but generally speaking, written legends, my people, I'm not kidding.
it really seems like an attempt to avoid the presumed pitfalls of being interpreted from the archaeological record, like "oh, we want to make sure the future people know what was really important to us", but designed in such a way that you're almost guaranteed not to get that across
Indeed, but I think there isn't really a way to do this successfully.
Parsimon's right, too. The way to show what was important to you is to write it down. It's the historical record, not the archaeological record, that's capable of preserving this kind of thing.
I think we need to distinguish the Designed-to-be-opened-by-basically-the-same-culture time capsule from teh Designed-to-be-opened-by-an-alien-culture time capsule from the Judean-People's-Front time capsule. All very different things.
Things are mute; words are not.
IS THAT IT?!
I am interpreting this correctly? Was this patent for a Time Capsule actually granted?
36 and 37 are both right.
Basically, I think trying to control the image you project to future generations is pointless. The things you carefully select to put into your time capsule are no more likely to give them either an accurate picture of your society or the picture you want them to have than are the things you inadvertently leave behind without even thinking about them.
It will, however, give them an accurate picture of the picture you want them to have.
Am I the only person who thought this was going to be a hiatus announcement?
Lord, no. eekbeat's moving to Brooklyn for a very awesome opportunity, and I'm staying put here.
What else can I do but rearrange my room, work, play music, travel to NYC frequently, and talk to pretend people on the internet?
You people are an essential part of the plan. Stay gold.
It will, however, give them an accurate picture of the picture you want them to have.
It won't necessarily do that either, actually.
Do you plan on devolving into crazed jealousy as you think of what-all eekbeat'll get up to in that sultry, sweltering den of sin?
42: I don't think that's true at all, though, because you're seeing the picture presented by the objects through your own frame of reference.
41: I'm not sure 37 is the whole story; there's a professor at harvard who's very into this thing... which... can't... google... crap. Anyhow, it's all about how the ephemera of design and advertising and whatever create the urban landscape, in a way that's very hard to record or recreate. This guy, maybe?
45: Beyond her official tasks, she's on a fact-finding mission to discover Girls Who Would Go On A Second Date With Someone Named Nosflow.
We'll let you know.
45: I mean, my god, she might make her own cheese.
This guy, maybe?
He doesn't seem to even be a current professor at Harvard.
It would be more useful, but possibly less heartening, if her mission took place on the west coast.
Look, homeboy, you're going to have to take the missionary positions as they come. Deal with it.
The whole non-Brooklyn related part of this discussion is making me feel very strongly that we are (possibly just I am) traipsing daftly about on very well travelled ground, but I'm philosophically ill-read enough not to be able to refer to that. I mean, I know that describes basically all conversations here ever, but usually I'm able to wield my ignorance as a shield against... knowledge of my ignorance?
Good times.
54: I feel the exact same way. Fortunately I'm not particularly invested in this issue.
I don't even know what it is Sifu thinks he's ignorant of.
Who could dial down the preciousness about fifty notches, at least on that site, but anyhow.
55: His research sounds pretty interesting, but his prose... Jesus.
I mean:
Education ought to work outdoors, in the rain and the sleet, in the knife-like heat of a summertime Nebraska wheat field, along a half-abandoned railroad track on a dark autumn afternoon, on the North Atlantic in winter. All that I do is urge my students and my readers to look around, to realize how wonderfully rich is the built environment, even if the environment is only a lifeboat close-hauled in a chiaroscuro sea. Elsewhere I describe my books and my courses.
55: OH GOD WHAT AN ANNOYING ASSHOLE
maybe the front page of his website doesn't showcase his personal qualities in the best way.
60: yeah it's pretty terrible. This post seems to be a somewhat more comprehensible explanation of what he's about. His course descriptions are also a lot better than his... whatever that is.
If Stilgoe represents knowledge, perhaps we're better off with ignorance.
61: yeah I mean I hope not. The person I heard about him from was quite taken with his courses.
The link in 55 bowled me over with its first half sentence.
Earlier I'd written this:
There's no doubt that design is a large part of who we are. So write your ephemeral notes on the complimentary post-it note pads provided by pharmaceutical companies, and really confuse the fuck out of future generations.
Whoever the guy at harvard is, I would think that the media by, or in, which one writes one's notes would carry a great deal of information, whether we know it or not. The point is that intentionally providing that information is doomed.
I, okay. Dammit. I should find the other link I failed to google earlier.
The link in 62 is pretty good. His ideas are vaguely reminiscent of Kevin Lynch's.
Yeah, I'm sympathetic to the view linked in 62. Of course.
Stilgoe has done some pretty important work. But in the end, entire books of his easily boil down to single sentence insights. It's a bit unnerving, though not really all that uncommon. Anyway, Metropolitan Corridor is probably the best case in point.
Why did I just write all that? No idea at all.
69: so this whole thing, though, of historical landscape geography.... what's uh... what's the deal with that?
I'm trying to figure out a more intelligent way to phrase the question, but... no. What's the deal with that? Does it interact heavily with regular historical... geography... of things?
What am I even talking about? Is this book good? I have this one, and it's pretty great. What on is this stuff even called?
what's the deal with that?
Is it a slightly more mundane version of psychogeography? Like, cleaned up and made a bit duller for academic respectability?
Stilgoe's got a new book that sort of follows up on Metropolitan Corridor - only now trains look like they're not in decline after all. I haven't actually read his work, so I have no opinion of his prose, etc.
70: You might want to check out the edited collection The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes. In keeping with my not being helpful with my own opinion of this stuff, I can't remember if I read any of the essays in that collection beside the Meinig one on ten versions of the same scene. Meinig's historical geography work is social/cultural focused - at least his big multivolume series on the U.S. says it is in the intro - but I don't think it's an unusual form of historical geography.
The other guy I remember learning about in this context is John Brinckerhoff Jackson, who seems to have been more of an essayist - though he has at least one book on historical geography of the US. He wrote a lot about New Mexico and something he called the "vernacular landscape." I read A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time in college. I thought it was ok, but it didn't really grab me at the time.
Vernacular landscape! I've been trying to think of that term for hours.
So, to vaguely tie it back, it seems like the value of a time capsule could be as a way to preserve a slice of the vernacular landscape in a way impossible with purely media. But the people who make them are always trying to second guess the interests of the future, and bias them in ways that make them less useful.
75 seems to be about right. Also, I seriously don't understand the point of digging up a time capsule while people who were alive when it got buried are still around. Why not just buy them a cup of coffee and ask them to show you some of the shit in their garage?
I find time capsules rather distasteful myself. It's a combination of the narcissism and the short termism. The whole idea doesn't treat history with any respect If you're going to "control the image you project to future generations" you should do it on a scale of thousands of years. And I'd much rather people spent more energy on preserving records (and ensuring that the records are readable) more generally. As it is you get cultural travesties like the BBC recording over most of Not Only But Also. Basically, the Library of Alexandria is being burned down again and again and nobody seems to care. Apart from the wonderful people at the Rosetta Project.
Nevertheless, this dissertation on time capsules passes an hour entertainingly if you're not feeling too critical.
Has someone already linked to this? Time capsule!
55: Someone has got to let him know how that bio makes him look.
Though there's probably a good website to be had in "powerful, healthy women in challenging environments."
81: To set up the website, you mean? Absolutely.
Your time-capsule should be an energy-inefficient boat, with a cracked hull, parked on the beach of some low-lying coastal area. Stuff it with contemporary news clippings about climate change.
What counts over time is writing. Hand-written (maybe you need a typographic print-out in order to be helpful, but), hand-written testimony and reflection is really all that is sure to remain interesting and valuable.
This seems pretty wrong to me. Tools, architecture, textiles, sculpture, painting, music, etc. etc. etc. don't count and won't remain interesting and valuable?
I seriously looked into starting a business ~2000 doing very long term data archival. As in, if your time horizon is less than 3000 years look elsewhere. I think I cracked some of the basic problems, but if you want to archive large amounts of data (a movie, f'rex) it gets really tricky, since there's no reason to believe that anything capable of reading it will still exist. Fun stuff to think about, anyway.
84: The whole story requires both. One of the few compelling parts of Pirsig's Lila is a part when he is walking uptown to his hotel in Manhattan and ruminating on the nature of New York ("the Giant") and how it (or any city) runs itself at a level above our puny human dramas, That is what the Giant really does. It converts accumulated biological energy into forms that server itself. (I'd say biological and social myself). New York has always been going to hell but somehow it never gets there.
And really at the end of the day, who gives a fuck about Caesar? Rome's the story.
And really at the end of the day, who gives a fuck about Caesar?
FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE THOUSAND ISLAND...
L'ETAT C'EST MOI, YOU F*#CKING PLEBE!!!!!
Lend me their ears? I want their heads.
92: Chimed in the corny Standpipester.
91, 92, 94: Here's what you're looking for.
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Hey Stanley! If you read Language Log today, they don't know the term biscuit conditional.
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Hey Stanley! If you care about these sorts of things, you won!
97: Hey, M/tch! If Sir Kraab's checking e-mail, I sent an answer to your question from that thread!
90: "Veni, vidi, vegi" is canonical.
100: But Kobe prefers the croutonical example.
101: In that case, lettuce now praise famous men.
98: The party was fun. Someone at the party took photos -- we'll post 'em when we get them. I went as a red giant and M/tch as MySpace, complete with sound effects.
99: Stanley, thanks for the links. They came too late, but, more important, they fail on account of not being incredibly ugly and garish as proper MySpace pages are. I'm listening to what I guess is the current band right now. Two thumbs up!
the current band right now
Good stuff, but it's still no brokeNCYDE.
BC-13 are my BOYZ! They're droppin' science from Albucrazy to Cool-gary. Ain't no party like a brokeNCYDE party!
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Oh wow, my uncle just got a new road bike hand made by Chris King. That's off-the-charts fancy.
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That's off-the-charts fancy.
How much does one of those set one back?
106: I hope he didn't acquire it at a suspiciously low price . . . .
How much does one of those set one back?
I have no idea.
106: I hope he didn't acquire it at a suspiciously low price . . . .
I suspect, in his case, the high price was a selling point (or, at least, not a deterrent).
109: Where does he live?
No reason, just asking.
109: Where does he live?
That question feeks familiar.
