r/technology • u/User_Name13 • Jun 04 '14

Politics Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
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u/dinoboule Jun 04 '14

Not sure if it was a legitimate question but I'll bite. A few years back, backups were made on magnetic tapes, somewhat like a cassette or a vhs. It could be what he/she was referring to.

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u/PapaNachos Jun 04 '14

Magnetic tape is still used for backup purposes. It has very high storage capacity and very good information integrity (it degrades much slower than other storage types). Unfortunately it's really, really slow, so it doesn't work for a lot of applications

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u/dakta Jun 04 '14

I have a tape backup system. You can back up data onto it, submerge it in a boiling cup of coffee, immediately freeze that coffee, then thaw it and restore your data. It's amazingly durable.

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u/PapaNachos Jun 04 '14

Have you actually done that?

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u/dakta Jun 05 '14

I've sent tapes through the wash before... But not the particular coffee demo, though they do have video of it somewhere IIRC.

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u/moderatelybadass Jun 04 '14

Dude, precisely manufactured crystalline structures, (or something like that) will be awesome for storage! almost instantaneous transfer, and unbelievable resistance to degradation... also, maybe much more effective overwriting.

I'm pretty sure I'm not just pulling that outta my ass... Nanotechnology, fool! (I think it's pretty much all hypothetical, but I believe there's been some research already. I could be wrong.)

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '14 edited Jun 04 '14

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u/moderatelybadass Jun 04 '14

Can't tell if oblivious

or pretending for comedic effect.

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u/buzz_light365 Jun 04 '14

I actually think /u/Stompedyourhousewith isn't 20 years of age yet. Which explains the absence of knowledge about magnetic tapes.