Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post

khorboth · 07-21-2019, 01:15 PM

On another end of the media spectrum is flash drives. Those suckers are remarkably resilient. Water, mud, trees, etc. prove no problem. Age doesn't bother them much at all; being solid state, they don't particularly degrade over time. There are many stories of them working after being zapped with electricity or having nails pounded through them.

The problems are compatibility and usefulness. So... is it USB 1? 2? 3? A little sun fading and it's impossible to tell. Is it mac formatted? Linux? Unknown! Even then, you need something that can read it. There was stuff upstream about computers. It would take some work, but cobbling something together could be done. And then... what do you have? A survivalist's downloaded how-to? somebody's term paper? 4 pics from a family vacation and lots of empty space? pirated episodes of GOT? a weird Linux install? You'd probably have to go through hundreds to get anything of use. And then it's still dubious. How many are in your house? I think I have 6 or 7. And none of them would be of any use. But there's no way to tell without plugging them in.

07-21-2019, 01:15 PM	#196
khorboth Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Denver, CO	Re: So What IS ruined after an Apocalypse? On another end of the media spectrum is flash drives. Those suckers are remarkably resilient. Water, mud, trees, etc. prove no problem. Age doesn't bother them much at all; being solid state, they don't particularly degrade over time. There are many stories of them working after being zapped with electricity or having nails pounded through them. The problems are compatibility and usefulness. So... is it USB 1? 2? 3? A little sun fading and it's impossible to tell. Is it mac formatted? Linux? Unknown! Even then, you need something that can read it. There was stuff upstream about computers. It would take some work, but cobbling something together could be done. And then... what do you have? A survivalist's downloaded how-to? somebody's term paper? 4 pics from a family vacation and lots of empty space? pirated episodes of GOT? a weird Linux install? You'd probably have to go through hundreds to get anything of use. And then it's still dubious. How many are in your house? I think I have 6 or 7. And none of them would be of any use. But there's no way to tell without plugging them in.