Jacques' Brain Drain

When writing and computers come together, you often come to a very strange place. On one hand, any rational person trained in how computers work and how to work with them knows, almost instinctively, that bits are far more ephemeral than words on paper. On the other hand it is equally clear that digital works can, in theory, express a permanence that is unsurpassed in recorded history. The difference depends on your definition of permanence.
It is obvious to nearly everyone that it is far easier to damage a disk drive, for example, in a way that completely prevents data recovery than it is to damage a book or manuscript to the same extent. Manuscripts exist in museums and libraries today which have survived fires, floods, physical damage of various types, being repeatedly dropped, shipped all over the world, and stored for hundreds of years – sometimes in horrible conditions. The important thing to remember is that these texts, after this type of treatment, are still readable. Destroying bits is a simple process. If I fail to pay my hosting bill for a few months, this server will be shut down, and the disks will be overwritten with data from another client. At that point, all but the most extensive recovery efforts would be completely futile.
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