I agree, I was thinking someone might say that that. lol The info came from the picture. Most likely, the one pictured I would bet is at least over 1000 years old. Maybe even around 2000. But a guess of 3000 years is really stretching it and not that likely. The Platycladus orientalis tree above, you can clearly see it is very old. It has the look of a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, except the tree is not stunted by dryness, but by slow growth plus old age. See the small strips of living wood running up the sides of the weathered dead wood just like a Bristlecone Pine. This to me is a sign of great age. To me it's very likely Platycladus orientalis can easily reach over 1000 years because they are in the Cupressaceae family which includes Giant sequoia and Coast Redwood 2000 to 3000+ years of rings have been counted in some of these trees. It also includes Bald cypress core dated to be over 1700 years old. They could very likely reach sequoia and Redwood ages also. The ages on most or all Platycladus orientalis trees may have never been documented, or researched, but some do claim ages of family planted trees of 1000 years. Being in the Cupressaceae family, I see no reason to doubt 1000 year old family planted tree claims if the tree is large and very old looking. This post was edited by treeguy123 on Thu, Jan 8, 15 at 18:41

I don't know how big your hard drive is .. 5 yrs ago, they could be big or small. Regular hard drives are not overly pricey 50 to 100 dollar range if not huge... but you would need a usb hard drive enclosure which can be had fairly cheap.. I think I paid like $15 for one from newegg. Then you can just buy a new hard drive, clone th old one to it. Most new hard drives will have a cloning program you can download from the manufactures websire. Or there are free clone programs too. Most laptop hard drives are pretty simple - remove a panel from the bottom... but I don't know Sony ways. Spinner drive are getting kind of old fashioned for laptops. A 256 SSD drive maybe could be slight under $100 or super fast 256gb maybe $150. An Sdd drive will be an amazing difference in speed that might wow you if you're not used to them. I just ordered a 128gb 10 yr warranted Samsung for my 3 yr old laptop.. about $112 delivered. It will take me maybe 30 minutes to install it and windows fresh. And 15 minutes of that is wait time.

Sad isn't it, our digestive systems aren't fully stable yet. A doctor told me humans are born 3 months too soon so our heads will be able to pass through. After the first 3 months, we begin to get our sight right and other things are also easier. Poor babies born too soon into a loud bright world and getting sick of their food sometimes. Why aren't we marsupial mammals so we can be safe in the pouch until it's time to come out? The doctor and parents look in and watch us grow. Don't you think it would be better for mom and child? I hope there will be marsupial humans in the future. It's a great solution for mammals and I feel we missed out.

Wow, so many long-time followers who remember. Thanks for the photo, Alex, a keeper, for sure. I just looked at the reviews of the paper towel pig (at top) on Amazon. They were not pretty (delivered broken; more resin than metal; need two hands so it doesn't come apart, etc). Just as they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "And, please, let's be careful out there!"