Yes, Fifi. That's the downside.

There's a Far Side (I think) cartoon with two poodles staring at the dumb guy holding a dish of food. "Yes, Fifi", says one, "That's the downside. If we kill him the food stops." Newspapers may be outdated, but if you kill them, at least one source of information is gone. There won't be any website to read instead of buying the newspaper.

And the hallmark of a good website is it is always changing. Fresh! Fabulous! Relevant and easy to use. And gone tomorrow. How will our descendents know us? Is someone archiving everything on a giant server in a non-proprietary languge somewhere for the future? (Ok, besides the Mormons?) I know a lot of stories get lost in databases, hung up in unscalable Content Mangement Systems.

Did you ever have a document in Word Perfect?

Obituaries are farmed out to a vendor. Digital images are great, but one bad click and Poof! Gone. I'd like my descendents to read the article alongside my obit to see a how my world was when it ended for me. A picture of me in the time and place.

I want somebody to be able to research my obit. I hope somebody will want to. My wedding is recorded for prosterity in the Prattville Progress newspaper clipping, yellow and crumbling, pasted in my "Our Wedding" scrapbook. It documents, if you ever care to research it, that a descendent of Robert the Bruce joined the lineage to a descendent of Rob Roy McGregor. (Unbeknownst to either party.) Best hold onto that, if the old story of vhs vs. beta, vinyl vs cd, dvd vs blueray scenario is any indication. And I want some credibility while you're at it. Don't make it so my lineage can be "photoshopped" and suddenly I am no longer traceable back to Robert the Bruce.

Please record my accomplishments like Eagle Scout or Gold Award in a fashion that can be retrieved years from now. And let's have multiple copies of it floating around somewhere, like in walls of that old house that's being renovated, where it was stuffed as insulation. I'm counting on a picture that documents 50 years of marriage appearing one day. That's a real trophy and I want mine.

Maybe we need to think beyond today's pixel and make a paper backup. I'd rather be on microfiche for eternity instead of just a few pixels on a server today.