What Goes Around, Comes Around.



Sorry about the crappy comic. I'm all out of sorts. I feel like we're all sitting at the edge of the precipice, breathlessly waiting for the final, definitive word from the intelligence community that will, at last, send t-Rump and his seditious cronies tumbling into the abyss.



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I don't know if you've ever considered this but web sites such as this one and creations such as mine are as ephemeral as a butterfly's wing. If I were to nibbled to death by newts tomorrow my cartoons and Rants would only remain viewable as long as the hosting fee was paid. If the cyber-mortgage was nigh when calamity struck this site could be gone within days. That's a sobering thought.



So what, I ask myself, might be the best way to save my works for posterity? Having them printed as books is the obvious solution but, to be brutally honest, only a relatively few people would ever own a copy.



After having giving it some thought I think the answer might be Youtube as it never deletes anything that isn't specifically required to be deleted. Therefore, a video of all my toons could be viewable as long as the net is still novel or useful.



Specifically, I could create a soundless movie in high-def and devote 5 frames to each comic. The resultant 5-minute film could hold all my 'toons and the movie could be downloaded and played back a few frames at a time at the readers leisure. Just like an e-book.



It also occurred to me that Youtube could likewise operate as an effective genealogical tool. For instance, my younger sister passed away in 1989. If I put scans of all her photos in a video like the one described above, plus providing frames of pertinent biographical information, my familial antecedents would have an easy-to-access trove of information.



You might think that Youtube will run out of storage space some day but I've read recently of successful experiments in storing data in DNA. Storage and retrieval techniques have been cracked, now all they need to do is speed up the access. So, no, I think every cute cat video current on the 'Tube will be available in some form a hundred years hence. And, hopefully, my toons, too.



=Lefty=

