It is a fun exercise to do these kinds of things. Obviously, they are very inefficient. But that is not the point! Perhaps there's some residual value related to some Dropbox feature (such as automatic replication) that makes this useful . But that is countered by getting your account rate-limited by Dropbox.
I wonder, is there some way to create a key-value store out of any physical or virtual object that can store state? I know there is a lot of work done with quantum computing to store state in quarks. I can see that has value.
But, what is the most inefficient data storage mechanism you can come up with? Here are a few I can think of:
Instagram-as-a-database - You issue a request to save your data, we encode it using some visual encoding scheme, take a picture, and then upload it somewhere. You get returned a URL, and can then decode it or update it.
MTurk-as-a-database - The possibilities are endless here. Someone could write down your request on a piece of paper and then you could send another request where they type it back.
Twilio-as-a-database - Encode your data as an audio stream. Store it in random voicemail boxes. Retrieve it later by calling up, listening to your voicemail, decoding the messages.
Humanity as a database: after infiltrating a religious order mandate arranged marriages encoding your input data in predicted genetic mutations of offspring. Ensure the religious order is hermetic so no outside data appears and that its teaching require all members to appear at a certain location at a certain time. Retrieve your data 1000 years later by appearing at the preordained spot for the Holy Query Ceremony, and examining the eye/hair colours of those gathered. Good error correction protocols are required. (This might well already be part of a Neal Stephenson novel).
A Minecraft game would make a hilarious database. The fact that it's probably pretty trivial to CRUD it programmatically outside the Minecraft client by manipulating save files is a great bonus.
Start using the DB. If you get bored enough you can examine the data physically in-game.
Why not go full-hilarity and not touch the save files? The DB API simply performs clicks, keydowns, and mouse movements on the game client, so you see the character moving on the screen. I guess you would have to initially read the save file though, to know what you start with. Would be hilariously slow.
I wonder, is there some way to create a key-value store out of any physical or virtual object that can store state? I know there is a lot of work done with quantum computing to store state in quarks. I can see that has value.
But, what is the most inefficient data storage mechanism you can come up with? Here are a few I can think of:
Instagram-as-a-database - You issue a request to save your data, we encode it using some visual encoding scheme, take a picture, and then upload it somewhere. You get returned a URL, and can then decode it or update it.
MTurk-as-a-database - The possibilities are endless here. Someone could write down your request on a piece of paper and then you could send another request where they type it back.
Twilio-as-a-database - Encode your data as an audio stream. Store it in random voicemail boxes. Retrieve it later by calling up, listening to your voicemail, decoding the messages.