In the Superman comics, the eponymous hero occasionally flies to a crystal fortress where he can access memories of his long-obliterated homeland, stored in shards of crystal. Wouldn't it be nice if we could find somewhere to store our memories indefinitely, too? Of course, we already have lots of options for storing information. But hard-disc drives can easily be wiped, while flash memory can be damaged by high temperatures and deteriorates after a several thousand write cycles. Even DVDs oxidise after a few decades - if they don't get scratched first. Safe long-term data storage is a concern for us all today. Future human or even alien civilisations might also appreciate us keeping orderly records. It turns out, to fulfil that futuristic vision, we could do worse than emulate Superman's shards.
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