Access versus Memorization

When I grew up in the 1950s as a child it was all about memorization and spelling. Can you speak in front of a class something you memorized of 100 words or more? Yes. I could.

Now, today, it is about access which means something totally different than the 1950s. Now it is about: "Can you formulate the right  questions so that the computer will take you to the information you need to complete your paper on whatever?

So, it is important that if your grandchildren are talking to you about access it is because this is how they now learn not in relation to memorization and spelling and books and the Dewey system in a Library but more now through the Computer online with unlimited resources from around the world.

God help us if there is a Solar Storm and it wipes out all magnetic storage on earth in one fell swoop!

That would mean there would only be non-magnetic storage left. Only things like DVDs and Blue Rays would be left after that.

Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

repeat quote taken from 'Wikipedia button above'

Ice cores contain thin nitrate-rich layers that can be analyzed to reconstruct a history of past events before reliable observations; the data from Greenland ice cores was gathered by Kenneth G. McCracken^[9] and others. These show evidence that events of this magnitude—as measured by high-energy proton radiation, not geomagnetic effect—occur approximately once per 500 years, with events at least one-fifth as large occurring several times per century.^[10] Less severe storms have occurred in 1921 and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported.

end quote from Wikipedia.

 

So, if the average is once every 500 years then this could happen at any time and wipe out some or all magnetic memory on the surface of the earth. 

But, I bet if you had mainframe computers and servers underground deep enough they would be impervious to this kind of effect. At this point only the military does as a remnant of DARPA which is a remnant of Cold War technology that spawned the internet. But maybe all nations need to have mainframes operating underground deep enough to back everything up in the form of servers in case of an emergency as well.  And as long as they had big enough surge protectors and back up diesel generators or solar power fields powering them ongoing they could make it through almost anything. It is funny to me that the same technology to create redundancy in a nuclear war to have at least one computer mainframe to keep working in case of attack is the same kind of infrastucture that could also make sure we survive a large Solar Flare like the Carrington event which set paper on fire in Telegraph offices around the world even if the electricity was off in their telegraph wires. They could send telegraph messages without any of their electricity attached so great was the power of the Carrington event.

 

Also, even the 1989 event over Canada knocked out power to I believe around 6 million people in Canada and the Northeast U.S. and shut down a Generating STation in Canada and burned up some of its circuits.