fuckyeahdarkextropian:

The radical tactics of the offline: abandoning the online for more secure offline transfer. Taking inspiration from ancient libraries as copying centers and Sneakernet, Henry Warwick describes the future of the library as digital and offline. Radical Tactics of the Offline Library traces the history of the library and the importance of the Personal Portable Library in sharing knowledge and resisting proprietarian forces.

The library in Alexandria contained about 500,000 scrolls; the Library of Congress, the largest library in the history of civilization, contains about 35 million publications. A digital version of it would fit on a 24 terabyte array, which can be purchased for about $2000. Obviously, most people don’t need 35 million books. A small local library of 10,000 books could fit on a 64 GB thumb drive the size of a pack of chewing gum and costing perhaps $40.

I’ve got this 1TB drive I’ve been slowly filling with esoteric texts, key documentaries, cult movies and classic tv shows. Enough material to keep me going for a 100 years.

“He was last seen leaving the city in a beat up diesel Hilux, his dog at his side. The back loaded with trunks of books and camping gear. Solar panels and 3D bio printers. Headed for the desert|forest|mountains. Amazon Drones only know where exactly.”

I’ll put it all up on TPB before I go.

Institute of Network Cultures | No. 07: Radical Tactics of the Offline Library, Henry Warwick