Some time ago I’d mentioned the Lantern and the Outernet. The Lantern was designed to be a wireless, convenient, regularly updated library that would give people access to useful documents. The Outernet would support it, and involve a satellite-based internet system. Idealistic, yes, but I plunked down my cash on the Lantern Kickstarter because, like the Ouya, the idea is almost more important than the implementation.
Around the same time I encountered the Survival Library. This was a site that was rather “Doomstay Prepperish,” a viewpoint I don’t subscribe to (because preparing for Doomsday too often results in one looking forward to it or not preventing it). However the idea of the site was brilliant – collect a large variety of books online that would basically let you rebuild society and technology from scratch, from basic survival up to vehicles.
Philosophical differences aside, I love the idea. As of late, as may seem obvious, I’ve become more aware of our responsibility to curate and preserve documents as citizens. This definitely fits my (developing) philosophy on the idea, and may be one I can explore more.
These ideas began to combine in my head, building on my thoughts about how Dicks Encyclopedia provides a good template we could follow as geeks recording knowledge.
Then in struck me, these ideas (easily accessible information, practical guides, and curated, integrated information) brought together could produce something amazing and useful and needed.
An STC. A Standard Template Construct.
However to explain this, I’m going to have to talk Warhammer 40K, which is a setting (originally for a wargame but now for others) of a dark far future.
. . . hang in there. This may take a little work.