Okay I Have A Little Time On My Hands This Morning.

[Brian R. VanCise]

Okay I have a little time on my hands this morning. I started out cleaning and oiling a rare Korean jingum that I have. (really rare and expensive) I do not do this very often because well truthfully even though this is a rare sword and the maker now no longer makes them it simply is not my favorite sword. So it get's neglected at times.

Later I went down and was perusing my Video/DVD library and noticed a couple of old DVD's by certain artists. Some of these DVD's are from the old century panther series which they have cleaned out and are no longer available. Some are from individual martial artists who no longer sell their DVD's. Bottom line many are simply not available anymore unless someone has loaded a clip up to YouTube, etc.

I finally noticed something sticking out and opened the case and their was my old Gracie Total Defense CD-Rom. Now the Gracie's have lots of material available and the material on this CD is in no ways not able to be found still it is an old CD. (the first and I believe last of it's kind put out by the Gracies) I do not think you can buy this anywhere else except maybe on Ebay? (and then only if someone is selling one)

So I was thinking what else is gone? What else will be gone soon? Things simply do not last forever or are available to purchase forever!

 

[terryl965]

Brian I have alot of old out of copy books, that I did not relize I had until we moved into the new house and also found a buck knife that was my fathers that I thought I lost. It is amazing how much stuff one can prosses and not remember they have until one day when they find them. Sometime we neglect the very things that inspired us to be in the MA in the first place and we always find new tools and toys to play with.

 

[MA-Caver]

I'm sure there is someone somewhere archiving something. You read stories about how attics are filled to the brim with old National Geographic magazines or old records (talking vinyl '78's here) and lots of other stuff worthy of a special on Antiques Road Show.
True lots of things aren't available for sale anymore because they don't make the money that they used to. That's what it mainly boils down to. Money, revenue. Sure they're great videos/cds/DVD's but if they're not making the manufacturer any money or there's a whole section of warehouse full of stuff gathering dust because inventory hasn't moved them then why bother spending the money to make more for sale when nobody is buying?
But fortunately you can still find the old stuff somewhere. The web has at least afforded many of us collectors (as it were) the ability to round out our personal archives of things that we personally hold dear.
I have dozens of old movies on DVD that would hopefully be still around 20-30-40 years from now and even beyond that. I'd hate to see that lost.

 

[Sukerkin]

It's one of the problems of the digital information age that many people think that data is now 'safe' for all time. Sadly, this is not so.

Again, the problem is partially to do with money - it is technically feasible to make CD's and DVD's that hold their data uncorrupted a lot longer than they do. It would, however, be very expensive to do that and the counter argument also has the 'string' that the hardware to retrieve the data is transient too i.e. what's the point of making a DVD hold it's data for a century if the machine to read it disapears after ten years?

My personal view is that it's very short sighted and a lot of information is going to be lost whilst we sort out how we're going to approach this problem.

On an individual level, all you can do is make regular backups of your disks, keep a pristine spare copy of the original as a double precaution and never use the originals for anything other than the source of backups.

Now the copyright lawyers will scream about 'infringement' if you do this and that is another part of the problem.

How that hurdle is overcome is a whole other discourse.

 

[Shicomm]

The copyright laws in the Netherlands allow me to make a copy of a videotape as long as i own the original and dont have to bypass any copy protections.

Really nice because i was able to rescue some very old vhs stuff that was gathering dust.
I've converted some rare tapes to digital storage.
With some of them most of the signal on the tapes was very bad so it was just in time...

Imho anybody that has some nice stuff around on tape should be allowed to convert it to a digital format to save it for the future!

 

[mrhnau]

So I was thinking what else is gone? What else will be gone soon? Things simply do not last forever or are available to purchase forever!

I better go out and buy everything I can from www.instinctiveresponsetraining.com! Before its too late!

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I better go out and buy everything I can from www.instinctiveresponsetraining.com! Before its too late!

:rofl: No worries my stuff will be around for a long time!

 

[MA-Caver]

It's one of the problems of the digital information age that many people think that data is now 'safe' for all time. Sadly, this is not so.

Again, the problem is partially to do with money - it is technically feasible to make CD's and DVD's that hold their data uncorrupted a lot longer than they do. It would, however, be very expensive to do that and the counter argument also has the 'string' that the hardware to retrieve the data is transient too i.e. what's the point of making a DVD hold it's data for a century if the machine to read it disapears after ten years?

My personal view is that it's very short sighted and a lot of information is going to be lost whilst we sort out how we're going to approach this problem.

On an individual level, all you can do is make regular backups of your disks, keep a pristine spare copy of the original as a double precaution and never use the originals for anything other than the source of backups.

Now the copyright lawyers will scream about 'infringement' if you do this and that is another part of the problem.

How that hurdle is overcome is a whole other discourse.

Indeed. But how long will the originals last. Quite a while I imagine but like Agent Kay said... "...see this? It's going to replace CD's soon, gonna have to buy the White Album again." (Tommy Lee Jones from MIB). Technology will keep changing and getting better and more storage will be afforded but yeah, degrading data is the problem.
So yeah backing it up is always a good idea. But like you said the copyright lawyers will be whining "but we don't make any money off of iiiitttt..." as if they need more money.
You own the original so basically you can have a bbq in your back yard with all the DVDs/CD's you own if you want. It's yours to do with. Backing it up shouldn't be illegal until you plan on making money off of the back-ups.

Eventually somebody out there will break free from the monopolizing conspiracy of data storage and create a storage medium that will allow for (very) long term storage on a disk or whatever.

 

[jks9199]

:rofl: No worries my stuff will be around for a long time!

Y'know...

My cynical side was wondering if that last line about stuff not being for sale forever was kind of a veiled threat...:wink2:

 

[tshadowchaser]

old material ( video's, tapes, cd's, etc.) are to be treasured. Tapes of ones instructor or old seminars are in the same boat. Once an instructor is no longer around it is nice to be able to go back and review the material they gave you and sometimes it is just nice to see their face and hear their voice once again.
Little things can be overlooked over time and having these old materials (including notebooks) are a beautiful way to remember and relearn

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

old material ( video's, tapes, cd's, etc.) are to be treasured. Tapes of ones instructor or old seminars are in the same boat. Once an instructor is no longer around it is nice to be able to go back and review the material they gave you and sometimes it is just nice to see their face and hear their voice once again.
Little things can be overlooked over time and having these old materials (including notebooks) are a beautiful way to remember and relearn

You know I wrote about this awhile back on my Blog. When I was younger I could have cared less about a picture with someone when we were training or video footage. Now being older well everything that I do have is absolutely priceless!

 

[MA-Caver]

You know I wrote about this awhile back on my Blog. When I was younger I could have cared less about a picture with someone when we were training or video footage. Now being older well everything that I do have is absolutely priceless!

Know what you mean, I wish like hell I can find the guy who took my picture with Sifu Yip Sing... ah well. :idunno: c'est la vie say the old folks, goes to show you never can tell.

 

[Mark Lynn]

I had some old vhs tapes (copies of some seminars) that I had a friend put on DVD for me. They are almost unwatchable by today standards although the content is still great.

But in a few years those tapes [rpbably would have degraded even more.

My wife and I packed up my books and stuff in preperation for a move (which didn't take place), I couldn't believe the amount of old MA related stuff I had (still do :boing2: too).

Mark