March 2006
Confessions of a Scan Artist
You, too, can commit your life to digital -- and throw away your paper records.
By Simson Garfinkel
As our lives become more digitized, a number of eminent computer scientists are starting to warn that our most treasured family photos, heartfelt correspondence, and legal documents might be irretrievably lost if we do not print them on acid-free paper and safely store them in a cool, dark, and dry place. After all, the original Declaration of Independence, written on parchment, is still on display in Washington, DC, but digital documents from even 1990-vintage personal computers can be difficult to read, because few people have five-and-a-half-inch floppy-disk drives anymore.
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