El Mamerro Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 The Long Now The Long Now Foundation was established in 01996* to develop the Clock and Library projects, as well as to become the seed of a very long term cultural institution. The Long Now Foundation hopes to provide counterpoint to today's "faster/cheaper" mind set and promote "slower/better" thinking. We hope to creatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next 10,000 years. The Clock and Library Projects Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. The trend might be coming from the acceleration of technology, the short-horizon perspective of market-driven economics, the next-election perspective of democracies, or the distractions of personal multi-tasking. All are on the increase. Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed-some mechanism or myth which encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility, where 'long-term' is measured at least in centuries. Long Now proposes both a mechanism and a myth. It began with an observation and idea by computer scientist Daniel Hillis: "When I was a child, people used to talk about what would happen by the year 2000. For the next thirty years they kept talking about what would happen by the year 2000, and now no one mentions a future date at all. The future has been shrinking by one year per year for my entire life. I think it is time for us to start a long-term project that gets people thinking past the mental barrier of an ever-shortening future. I would like to propose a large (think Stonehenge) mechanical clock, powered by seasonal temperature changes. It ticks once a year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium."Such a clock, if sufficiently impressive and well engineered, would embody deep time for people. It should be charismatic to visit, interesting to think about, and famous enough to become iconic in the public discourse. Ideally, it would do for thinking about time what the photographs of Earth from space have done for thinking about the environment. Such icons reframe the way people think. Hillis, who developed the 'massive parallel' architecture of the current generation of supercomputers, devised the mechanical design of the Clock and is now building the second prototype (the first prototype is on display in London at the Science Museum). The Clock's works consist of a binary digital-mechanical system which is so accurate and revolutionary that we have patented several of its elements. (With 32 bits of accuracy it has precision equal to one day in 20,000 years, and it self-corrects by 'phase-locking' to the noon Sun.) For the way the eventual Clock is experienced (its size, structure, etc.), we expect to keep proliferating design ideas for a while. In 01999 Long Now purchased part of a mountain in eastern Nevada whose high white limestone cliffs may make an ideal site for the ultimate 10,000-year Clock. In the meantime Danny Hillis and Alexander Rose continue to experiment with ever-larger prototype Clocks. Long Now added a "Library" dimension with the realization of the need for content to go along with the long-term context provided by the Clock - a library of the deep future, for the deep future. In a sense every library is part of the 10,000-year Library, so Long Now is developing tools (such as the Rosetta Disk, The Long Viewer the Long Server) that may provide inspiration and utility to the whole community of librarians and archivists. The Long Bets project - whose purpose is improving the quality of long-term thinking by making predictions accountable - is also Library-related. The point is to explore whatever may be helpful for thinking, understanding, and acting responsibly over long periods of time. -Stewart Brand Guidelines Serve the long view (and the long viewer) Foster responsibility Reward patience Mind mythic depth Ally with competition Take no sides Leverage longevity The 10,000 Year Clock (Prototype 1) Completed on December 31st, 01999 The images below are of the entire three year development of the first Clock prototype. The Clock was primarily designed by Danny Hillis, additional design work and project management by Alexander Rose. Engineering and part drawings were done by Elizabeth Woods. The Escapement and movement were designed and built by David Munro and General Precision Corp. Almost all other Clock parts were machined and assembled at Rand Machine Works. Clock: Orrery (planet display) Completed on August 02005 The Orrery is an eight foot tall planetary display. It shows the relative position of the six human eye visible planets (Mercury through Saturn). The lower six layers are a mechanical binary calculation engine, each with a geneva output to a gear, which rotates a coresponding planet. Each layer is calculating a fraction of the planetary orbits to 28 bits of accuracy. Mercury takes about 88 days to make one revolution, Earth about 365 days, and Saturn takes 29.7 years. Clock: Chime Generator Prototype Chime Mechanism Completed in June 02006 This is the first concept proof of a chime generator for the 10,000 Year Clock. Through a series of phased geneva wheels, (the large star shaped plates down the center of the mechanism), a progressive algorithm generates a different bell ringing order for each day the clock is visited over the next 10,000 years (over 3.5 million combinations). This is the same algorithm used for Brian Eno’s album “07003.” This prototype is made of aluminum, steel, and brass, but the final, much larger mechanism would be made of monel with cast bronze bells. The Foundation is now looking to scale up the designs with lessons learned from these first two efforts into a monument sized version. We have purchased high desert mountain top property in eastern Nevada as the site for the public 10,000 Year Clock. We are currently designing this experience and the mechanisms that would be used in this large scale version. There is no projected completion date, it is an ongoing program. * The Long Now Foundation uses five digit dates, the extra zero is to solve the deca-millennium bug which will come into effect in about 8,000 years. http://www.longnow.org © 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LEVEL 75 PALADIN Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Re: ---------------------------------------• The Long Now ...HSAMSnoytiC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinky the kid Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 that looks like that machine from 13ghosts. also TLDR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Re: T-----H-----E--------L-----O-----N-----G------• Now TLDR. The irony is killing me. Here's the Video Lectern version: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
...HSAMSnoytiC Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Internerd Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 wat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soup Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Someone put this in ouncer terms. REALLY SMART GUY WANTS TO BUILD A SUPER KICKASS CLOCK THAT'LL STILL KICK ASS IN 2000 YEARS. HE THINKS THE CLOCK WILL KICK SO MUCH ASS PEOPLE WILL WANT TO BUILD KICK ASS THINGS TOO. HE'S ALSO SUPER FUCKING PISSED OFF AT CELLPHONE USERS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
...HSAMSnoytiC Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 but cellphones have clocks too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
...HSAMSnoytiC Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Re: T-----H-----E--------L-----O-----N-----G------• Now and what does the eyeball do :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mauler5150 Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Great thread and way more interesting than alot of crap that comes on the ounce lately. The concept of time I always believed to be something that is unique to the individual, and my recent travels made this more apparent to me than ever (longer hours with daylight than what I am used to). But the fact that this could effectively change the way that masses of people percieve time is a great thing, especially in this ADD world we live in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swindle Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Re: T-----H-----E--------L-----O-----N-----G------• Now Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span. also TLDR. The irony is killing me. soup is exactly right. i even scrolled all the way down, looking at the pictures before i contemplated reading the text. this shortening of attention span is a BAD thing. for EVERYONE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaxRoach Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 really cool. i like that they are already preparing for a 5 digit year glitch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spitfire15 Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Its alright guys dont worry. Twinky's a faggot. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twonpoo Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manute Bol Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 That's awesome, but yeah it reminds me of the machine in 13 ghosts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtydoses Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 awesome read and awesome TED link. i love shit like this. TLDR?, please just die off. kthx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
count chocula Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 i saw pieces of this at the Maker Fair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
I never said I was cool. Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 I wish I had the attention span to read all of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drue_Down Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Cause I'm the sugar dick, the Sugar Dick Daddy Mista Lawnge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Sheen Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 that shit is wild Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nsmbfan Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 I am a relatively intelligent human being... BUT WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS SOLVE? thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earl broclo ESQ Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 I don't want to think of what the world will be like in the year 10,000. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Sheen Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 To try to stretch out what people consider "now" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jugzer Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 tldr, but im gonna show this to my dad because he is a horologist, which is the dopest name for a proffession ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francis buxton Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Sounds awesome. I didn't see anything about cell phones though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
francis buxton Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 I'll live in a logans run type future, as long as i can have free access to "the circut" and some "straight up". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
!@#$% Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 i was going to make a penis joke. but that thing looks increidbly awesome Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
earl broclo ESQ Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Re: T-----H-----E--------L-----O-----N-----G------• Now tldr, but im gonna show..... Maybe it's just my short attention span, but what does "TLDR" stand for? I keep saying these new abbreviations all you text message babies keep using, and I can't keep up. No/Dao Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MOOGLE? Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Sheen Posted October 7, 2009 Share Posted October 7, 2009 Re: T-----H-----E--------L-----O-----N-----G------• Now Maybe it's just my short attention span, but what does "TLDR" stand for? I keep saying these new abbreviations all you text message babies keep using, and I can't keep up. No/Dao We're on the same page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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