Bush’s expansive memory threatens the National Security Archive

January 5th, 2009

Turns out the Bush administration has been cranking out more data and knowledge than we’ve been led to believe. The administration claims it has close to 100 terabytes of information which includes love emails between Bush and Cheney to hysterical videos of White House dog Barney “pretending” to push the button.

Oh Barney, you mangy mutt. Will you ever learn? (shakes head)

This all according to the New York Times which says this volume of data is threatening the National Archives. I don’t believe either. I don’t believe they’ve amassed 100 TB of data nor do I believe the volume is threatening the National Archives. A hundred terabytes of data (100 one TB drives) can fit in a closet. The National Archive has many closets. Clean one out and stick the legend of Bush’s eight years in there.

Do you know how much can FIT onto 100 TB of data? A single TB of data can hold about 400 hours of DV quality video. If it’s just filled with video, they could jam as many as 40,000 hours of video, or about 13 hours a day which means they could literally record almost every single waking hour of the President for every single day of his presidency.

I know it includes a lot of other stuff, most of it not video, like email, which doesn’t take up nearly as much space, and it’s more than just the President. Still, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. Storage is insanely cheap. If the National Archives don’t know what to do, they should talk to Turner Entertainment as they’ve been storing terabytes of data on holographic disks for years.

This news item is for the Spark Minute week of 1/5/09 which can be heard daily on Green 960 and 910 KNEW in San Francisco, CA.

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