In light of the recent Crowdstrike crash revealing how weak points in IT infrastructure can have wide ranging effects, I figured this might be an interesting one.
The entirety of wikipedia is periodically uploaded here, along with many other useful wikis and How To websites (ex. iFixit tutorials and WikiHow): https://download.kiwix.org/zim
You select the archive you want, then the language and archive version (for example, you can get an archive with no pictures, to save on space). For the totality of the english wikipedia you’d select the “wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-01.zim”
The archives are packed as .zim files, which can be read with the Kiwix app completely offline.
I have several USBs I keep that have some of these archives along with the app installer. In the event of some major catastrophe I’d at least be able to access some potentially useful information. I have no stake in Kiwix, and don’t know if there are other alternative apps and schemes, just thought it was neat.
Wikimedia Commons is 373TB images. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaStatistics
Kinda interesting at a broad level … that there’s still something to the efficiency of language.
Sure storage is cheap now, but so much of the calculation of the utility of data in modern tech is the presumption of an internet connection and retrieval of information over the network.
With the internet going to shit in various ways, local or decentralised computing is making more sense, at least depending on your priorities and perspective. And so all of a sudden, storage tradeoffs become a bit more meaningful. Do I need all of the pictures and media … or would a simple textual description suffice for most instances with high res media available at a more centralised archive if I’m really interested? A picture is worth 1000 words, but takes a hell of a lot more digital storage space!
