Code That Will Last For A Thousand Years!

Screen shot of GitHub account

What are you talking about? How can your code last for a thousand years?

Well let me explain, or better yet, let these videos explain . . .

Better video
More information about the storage method

“*Arctic Code Vault Contributor” if you see this message on your GitHub account overview page, then you are a contributor as well. You should be proud, because it not only acknowledges your contribution to Open Source Software, which should be enough in itself, but it says if civilization fails, you’ll be there posthumously to help in the recovery!

Now here is an even wilder thought . . . Imagine a time in the future in which AI has progressed to the point of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), let’s assume not the Terminator kind. That AI might read millions of GitHub repositories to get examples for writing it’s own code. Assuming that AI is helping humanity, that again would be a contribution.

One of my blogs on August 5, 2012 preserved inside the WayBack Machine

Unlike the walls of cave paintings, we contributors ourselves may not be preserved, but our work lives on.

Even one more, have you heard of the WayBack Machine? The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web, founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco. It allows the user to go “back in time” and see what websites looked like in the past.

So whether you are a contributor of code or the written word to websites, blogs, etc. your contributions can be preserved for posterity.

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Michael McAnally

Temporary gathering of sentient stardust. Free thinker. Evolving human. Writer, coder, and artist.