I. The Hundred-Year Node
A small, sealed, sun-powered computer that keeps the house's record through storms, outages and decades. It draws about 15 watts, all day and night, from one solar panel and one battery.
The honest part first. No electronic part lasts a hundred years untended. Batteries wear out in about ten years, computers in about seven to ten, and panels in about twenty-five to thirty. A hundred years is reached the way an old ship is kept at sea: by a calendar of replacement, kept by people. The record itself is carried by the two things here that can last a century: M-DISC optical discs (a maker's claim of centuries, not yet proved by time) and cotton paper with carbon ink (proved by centuries of archives). The computer serves the record; it is not the record.
1. The whole, in one picture
2. The energy, worked out
A second battery (or a 120 Ah one) buys the full three days. Measure the real draw for a month before buying more.
3. The case and its shade
- Heat is the first enemy in Florida: a sealed case in direct sun can pass 50 °C inside. Shade it completely, make it white, and let the aluminium plate carry heat to the wall.
- Salt and damp are the second. Gaskets greased with food-grade silicone; two rechargeable silica-gel packs; the humidity logged so a failing seal shows before it does harm.
- Mount it off the ground, out of flood reach, grounded, and away from salt spray where possible.
4. Parts
| Part | Example | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Computer | Intel N100 mini-PC (e.g. Radxa X4) or Raspberry Pi 5 8 GB with an M.2 board | 6–9 W at rest, enough to keep mirrors and the log |
| Storage (hot) | 2 × NVMe SSD, ZFS mirror | a disk may die without losing the record |
| Battery | 12 V 100 Ah LiFePO4 with Bluetooth BMS (e.g. Epoch, Redodo) | 3,000–5,000 cycles; safe chemistry |
| Panel | 200 W 12 V rigid monocrystalline (e.g. Renogy, Rich Solar) | about 1.9 × the daily load in an average Jacksonville day |
| Controller | Victron SmartSolar MPPT 75/15 | high efficiency; temperature limits for charging |
| Case | NEMA-4X polycarbonate, ~16 × 14 × 8 in, or Pelican 1510 | sealed against rain, dust and corrosion |
| Radio | Heltec V3 or LilyGO T-Beam, Meshtastic firmware, 915 MHz | text and telemetry when phones and internet are down |
| Sensors | BME280 (inside air) + battery temperature probe | the node reports its own health |
| Protection | fuses, PV breaker, silica gel, silicone grease, cable glands, grounding | safety, and a long dry life |
| Cold archive | M-DISC BD-R (25 GB) × 2 copies + a writer that supports M-DISC | the record, readable without the node |
| Analog archive | 100% cotton paper, carbon or archival pigment ink, Mylar sleeves, oxygen absorbers | the core, readable by eye with no power at all |
5. The three tiers of the record
| Tier | Holds | Carrier | Kept by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot | everything, live | the node's mirrored disks; copied to a second machine | the node, checked nightly |
| Cold | full history, logs, media, code (about 25 GB) | two M-DISCs, stored apart | a person: test-read every two years |
| Analog | the core: standing commitments, canons, public keys, the ledger (about 12 pages) | cotton paper, sealed with desiccant | a person: inspected twice a year |
6. The century calendar
What wears out, how often it is replaced, and how many times in a hundred years. These are planning figures; the node's own logs will correct them.
| Part | Expected life | Replace or check | Times in 100 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silica gel, gasket grease | months | dry the gel and inspect twice a year | 200 checks |
| M-DISC copies | maker claims centuries (unproved) | test-read every 2 years; burn a fresh pair every 10 | 10 new pairs |
| Paper core | centuries if dry and dark | inspect twice a year; reprint any page that changes | as ruled |
| SSDs | 5–10 years | replace one side of the mirror at a time | about 12 |
| Computer | 7–10 years | replace with the then low-power equal | about 10–14 |
| Battery | about 10 years at 80% depth | replace when capacity falls below 70% | about 10 |
| Charge controller | 10–15 years | replace | about 7 |
| Case and glands | 15–25 years in sun-shade | replace | about 5 |
| Panel | 25–30 years | replace | about 4 |
The real hundred-year part is the keepers. The calendar only works if someone keeps it, writes down each change, and trains the one after. The node should remind them: it knows its own age and the age of each part.
7. Open questions
- Where does the first node stand: the house, or a second place at a distance?
- Do we buy for three full days (120 Ah or two batteries) from the start, or begin at 100 Ah and measure?
- Who keeps the century calendar after us, and where is it written?
II. The Keeper's Kit
The personal gear each keeper of the line carries: a computer, a radio, its own power, and the record, small enough for one bag, working with no grid, no phone network and no internet. Built from the same family of parts as the node, so a keeper can mend either.
1. The kit, in one picture
2. The energy, worked out
3. Parts
| Part | Example of the class | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Computer | a repairable laptop (e.g. Framework 13) or a Pi 5 handheld ("cyberdeck") | parts can be swapped by hand; runs the same Linux as the node |
| Radio | Meshtastic handheld (e.g. LilyGO T-Echo or T-Deck), 915 MHz | talks with the node and other keepers with no network |
| Power bank | LiFePO4, about 250 Wh, USB-C PD 100 W + 12 V socket | safe chemistry; charges everything |
| Panel | folding 60–100 W with USB-C PD and 12 V outputs | a day's use from an ordinary day's sun |
| Storage | 1–2 TB SSD (the whole corpus) + a microSD copy, both encrypted | two copies on the person, one small enough to hide |
| Paper | the core on cotton paper in a Mylar sleeve; a notebook and pencil | works when everything else does not |
| Bag | water-resistant, with a shielded (Faraday) pouch for the drives | dry, and safe from a surge or a careless scan |
| Tools | small driver set, spare fuses, cables, tape, a multimeter | a keeper mends their own gear |
4. Rules of the kit
- One kind of plug. USB-C wherever possible; 12 V where not.
- Two copies on the person, one at home. The kit never holds the only copy of anything.
- Repairable over powerful. Choose the part a keeper can open and mend.
- Offline first. Every tool in the kit works with no network; the network is a bonus.
- Encrypted at rest. A lost bag loses gear, never the people in the record.
5. Open questions
- Laptop or handheld for the first kit? (Laptop: easier to work on. Handheld: lighter, closer to the node.)
- How many kits: one per head of house, or one per keeper as the line grows?
- Should the kit's spec become a public page in time, so other keepers can build their own?
III. The Space Seed
What the house sends with every ship, satellite or settlement: the record in a can, and a node that can keep it far from the sun. Taken from the outside readers' sketch of the "0.5 L Archival Core" and its deep-space notes, and drawn here as two pieces.
The honest part. None of this has flown. M-DISC and cotton paper have never been tested for decades of vacuum, cold and radiation, and a radioisotope power source is something only a space agency or a licensed mission can carry. These sheets show the shape of the thing, to be proved part by part.
1. The seed canister, cut open
| Tier | In the can | Read with |
|---|---|---|
| Hot | microSD: the whole working record and its software | any computer on board |
| Cold | two M-DISCs: the full history, the Record of Errors, the canon's history | a disc reader, carried or made |
| Analog | cotton paper: the standing commitments, the canon, the public keys | the eye |
2. The deep-space node, in profile
| Danger in space | On the ground | In space |
|---|---|---|
| Power | 12 V LiFePO4 + 200 W panel | solar wings near the sun; a radioisotope source far from it, where a mission carries one |
| Heat | shade, a white case, an aluminium plate | radiator panels that shed heat to the cold of space |
| Radiation | none to speak of | shielding (polyethylene, water) and three computers that vote, so one struck by a particle is outvoted |
| Distance | a second machine, minutes away | minutes to hours of light-delay: the node decides for itself and records why |
| Witness | Bitcoin, anchored nightly | a local hash-chain, anchored when Earth can be reached |
3. Open questions
- Should the first seed be made now, for the ground, as practice for the one that flies?
- What goes on the cotton charter: the Ladder only, or the canon and the keys too?
Sources: Part I follows the specification in answers the house gathered from outside AI readers (the 15 W node, the battery and solar math, the NEMA-4X design, the Archival Core tiers and their maintenance). Sun-hour figures for Jacksonville are approximate and should be checked against NREL data before purchase.