Human history, on a flash drive

May 28, 2012 by Joshua
in Blog, Entrepreneurship

A couple friends created the eVr1 Codex — part accessory, part memory drive — that stores a huge canon of literature so you can keep it with you at all times.

I know both friends from business school classes. You can also see the California outdoor love of nature they share. Here’s one of their products.
EVR1 Codex

Our Vision

eVr1’s vision is to connect modern man with the long, global human story.  We achieve market leadership in sustainable goods that connect humankind to the web of life, while inspiring wonder & purpose in our employees & customers.

Their outdoors-y love of nature is different than my physicist love of nature, but I’m pleased to say I’m on their Academic Board, so I’m helping choose the science documents that make their canon, as well as a few other duties. The canon has to include only documents that can be redistributed (as in all of Wikipedia, but sadly finding Richard Feynman material is more challenging).

Oh yeah, Thrillist also featured them (us) a couple days ago. As Thrillist put it (a little more sales-y but also a little more funny than eVr1’s own page):

The largest obstacle in cramming all of “humanity’s accumulated wisdom” into a paper-thin area less than one inch wide is not the technology, but the fact that all of humanity is super litigious when it comes to intellectual property rights. Thankfully, the Academic Board of Advisors behind eVr1’s skirted this issue by pillaging public domain canonical texts, Wikipedia, and the CIA World Factbook in creating a “modern codex”. Permanently stitched inside stylish leather pouches, each apocalypse-proof memory card can withstand 950 psi, 8000 volts & temps up to 500 degrees, and contains useful information including:

  • Sacred texts including the King James Bible, The Koran, The Tao of Steve, and The Dhammapada, though Dhammed if you know what that is
  • A description of every country’s geography, people, gov’t, economy, transportation, and military
  • “Practical manuals” such as US Army Survival Guide, Agriculture for Beginners, The Art of Angling, and How to Live, which anyone finding this codex millenia later will immediately recognize as total BS
  • Musings on the human condition from notable scientists, philosophers, and psychologists
  • 100+ classic literary texts covering everyone from Shakespeare, to Plato, to Thoreau, to Proust, a man who couldn’t even cram his own accumulated wisdom into 3200 pages

Anyway, check it out. It seemed like something someone should have done a long time ago. I’m glad to be a part of it now. It’s kind of neat to think when you have one, if you’re ever curious, you can just pop it in your phone or computer and you have something useful.

I mean, when was the last time you had most of human knowledge in your pocket?

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