The Roomraiders-Effect

I’ve just watched MTV’s “Roomraiders” on telly, a dating-show where the candidates are judged by the condition and contents of their rooms. The thought popped up “What would they find in my room?” Well, a huge amount of technical gadgets, computer-literature, clothes lying around everywhere – thats about it. It’s not that I don’t listen to music, watch good films, collect family-photos – but everything is stored digitally in my Powerbook, invisible for any observer. I entrust an increasing part of my cultural identity to machines, which is very dangerous in times of harddrive-crashes, viruses, EMPs (ok, perhaps in some years *g*). What info will my grandchilds have about me? I think it’s time to order some reprints of those fancy digital gallerys… On a global basis I suppose this century will be some kind of new “middle-ages” concerning cultural inheritage – we can’t handle the information-overkill on a daily basis, and we’re far away from storing it in a persistent readable format for the “after-world”. I would like to know how long these lines will exist – probably until the next big Typo3-disaster *g So long…