commentary Humble pachyderms could be the solution to data storage durability.I've recently had a bit of time off from the busy and hectic pace of ZDNet life, enjoying a semi-holiday. Visions of sun-soaked beaches and dusky island maidens danced before my eyes, but sadly, this was all illusion, as I never in fact stepped outside of my normal Sydney horizons. I did, however, spend a fair amount of time playing with my two year old daughter, and watching some of her favourite television programs during the times I let her put her brain off the hook.
Now, a two year old's discernment isn't up to much, but she's exceptionally keen on the early morning offerings of our national broadcaster, and as such that formed the majority of what we watched together -- and before anyone gets on my back about raising the next generation of obese computer programmers, she's an active little girl who spends the vast majority of the day running finding animals to smile at and/or throw things at, depending on her mood.
Watching that much children's television did demonstrate a few things to me, however. For a start, Playschool's Benita Collings will outlive us all, and can no doubt do things with an egg carton that would make your eyes spin. Moving on -- and in a more IT-centric bent -- the world of IT has solidly reached the world of children's programming, although it's still a few years behind the curve.
I saw plenty of programs that featured PCs in various contexts, but without a fault, they fell into two distinct categories. There were the evil-computers-that-will-take-over-the-world type (I'm still trying to build mine in the garage, and have plenty of new ideas now), and desktop PCs. No laptops, no PDAs, and only a scarce smattering of mobile phones, all of which were used purely to make phone calls. It seems to me that by the time the new young generation grow up, the technology that they take for granted will already be superseded, if they expect people to still carry around suitcase-sized phones and use huge desktop PCs. Perhaps the alternative will play out, and a computer run amok will enslave the human race, making all this pondering moot.
One program did catch my attention with an interesting idea, however. Two characters -- one little boy and a suitably gruff but friendly bear were arguing about who had the most 'stuff' when a discussion turned to a new computer. The bear challenged the boy's assertion that this new computer could remember 'ten times as much stuff' with a rather solid 'how'? I was a little surprised by this -- I'm sure I could sit down in front of my toddler and tell her all about SDRAM, Hard Drives, processors and memory buses until I was blue in the face, and she'd listen patiently, nod a lot, and then shout 'CAT!' and run off into the kitchen, none the wiser.
The boy's explanation, however, was that the PC was full of elephants -- well reknowned for their fact retention abilities. This strikes me as a great idea, and I wonder why hard drive makers haven't cottoned onto it before now.
Sure, there are issues of miniturisation to deal with, but with their trunks, elephants are self-water cooling, emit waste products that can be used to grow roses and, as my experience shows, are beloved by two year old girls everywhere. Moreover, elephants are extremely durable. Drop your hard drive a few times and you can kiss your data goodbye. Scratch your data DVD, and it's goodbye to the bank statements for your small business. Drop or scratch your elephant and he'll just look up at you mournfully.
Sadly, though, the story of the bear and the boy had a sting in its tail that cut short all my dreams of launching Pachyderm Data Pty Ltd and making millions. According to the little boy, there weren't any elephants in the PC after all. Apparently the mouse scared them all away.
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