If running a long-lived institution matters, then I think a backup service run by the Catholic church would be a great success.

The Catholic church has only been around for about 2,000 years. For comparison on these time scales, note that none of what we now view as "primitive" religions from the ancient world persist today. On top of that, I believe that even though the world is highly religious today, it is one movement I'd imagine to be in significant danger going into the far future.

> The Catholic church has only been around for about 2,000 years.

Do you know of any older institution ? I don't think there is.

Depending on how you blur the definition of 'institution' either the Imperial House of Japan[1] or the Jewish Kehuna[2] might qualify. Some more candidates here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archiv...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_House_of_Japan [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen

The Catholic church is one of the, if not the oldest institution. Also, the world has always been religious, and it's not significantly becoming less so just yet. So there's no indication of that going away.

There's no mention of a DVD release date on any of the pages I can find, anyone know if it's in the works? Having to fly to the UK to watch it is a bit of a non-starter.

This looks awesome. And reminds me of the storyline of Homeworld (the building of the mothership). Anyone else?

I was sure hoping this was going to be about information archiving - and its long-term issues.