
How to Make a Clock Run for 10,000 Years - robot
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/10000-year-clock/all/1
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socillion
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2691452> contains discussion of that
clock from a few months ago.

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tylerneylon
I love the dream of building things to last. If humans left earth this
instant, what would remain useful in 1000 years? Most of what we use today
would perish, so there is a sense of overwhelming disposability or high-
maintenance around our lifestyles.

Rather than viewing this disposability as a weakness, perhaps we can see it as
an element of wise design. By analogy, the human body leans heavily towards
self-repair rather than monolithic permanence. Perhaps it is a good thing that
our day-to-day designs depend so much on active use and maintenance. If no one
continues to use it, why does it need to keep working?

~~~
v21
This only works if design is whole-lifecycle design - if the cheap disposable
crap we produce (and rely on, and luxuriate in) can be taken apart and reused
after. If cheap fashion predominates, with clothes that fall apart after a
season, you need a plan for disposing of those clothes more urgently than you
need a plan for disposing of clothes that last a decade.

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troels
So, I admit I didn't last all through this article, but there was a mention of
titanium. I assume rare metals are needed to build a mechanism that is durable
enough to last 10.000 years. But how are they going to deal with the fact that
rare metals are also very desirable? I can guarantee that it won't take 10.000
years for someone to steal it and repurpose it.

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AngryParsley
The clock is mostly stainless steel, and it will live in a cave in a rather
remote location. If civilization collapses in the future, there will be much
easier things to steal.

If they really wanted to prevent theft, the builders could alloy the metals
with something poisonous or radioactive. But that's harder than it sounds. Not
much stuff stays dangerous for 10,000 years. If I were in charge, I'd build
some cool Indiana Jones-esque traps. :)

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gwern
> If they really wanted to prevent theft, the builders could alloy the metals
> with something poisonous or radioactive. But that's harder than it sounds.

I'd also point out that such a technique would run opposite Long Now's goal of
having visitors - I mean, it's hard to build a clock that lasts 10k years,
hard to contain radioactive materials in casks buried underground in salt
flats for 10k years, how much harder would it be to do both simultaneously?

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geuis
I'm not sure I like that the article opens by giving most of the credit to
Jeff Bezos, "Billionaire Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has a long-term
plan...". Yes, he is footing the bill for the Clock, but its hardly his.

Danny Hillis's concept and planning and the Long Now Foundation all preceed
Bezos's involvement.

It would be much more genuine to attribute Jeff Bezos as the sponsor of the
clock, but not as if it was entirely his idea.

~~~
jcrites
It sounds like Jeff and Danny have known each other for a couple decades, and
have been working actively together on the clock for at least 5 years. It also
sounds like Jeff may have had significant involvement in helping to put the
team together and actually make it happen, and he's philosophically invested
in its purpose.

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michaelbuckbee
While this article seems solid, I think it might push the gee whiz engineering
aspects of the project (of which there are many very impressive ones) too
much.

Bruce Sterling has a wonderful critique of the clock project and suggestions
on how to impart it with some sort of higher level cultural permanency.

[http://blog.longnow.org/2008/08/03/bruce-sterlings-sharp-
war...](http://blog.longnow.org/2008/08/03/bruce-sterlings-sharp-
warning-8-years-later/)

What is really heartening to me is that much of the clock design seems to have
taken this into account: the constantly change chime sequence, the difficult
to access location, etc.

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jtagen
I wish there were more technical details - the engineering behind building
something designed to last 10k years would make for a great article.

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gwern
The real cleverness seems to be in Hillis's mechanical digital logic for time-
keeping; I looked up the patents once to look at the diagrams, and realized I
had no idea what I was looking at. (Still looked pretty cool, though.)

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Simucal
Neal Stephenson's novel, "Anathem", was partly inspired by this clock.

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escapegoat
I would add, for you silicon valley/SF residents, that longnow.org puts on
monthly lectures (<http://longnow.org/seminars/>), some of which are very
interesting. E.g. the next speaker is Timothy Ferriss.

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donnaware
This is a giant waste of money.

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maeon3
In 10k years, in the year 12011. the human race is going to be extinct one way
or the other, either we all kill each other over resources or we advance way
beyond biological and physical barriers, I hope someone finds this clock and
thinks, how quaint.

Though it will probably just be a novelty, as we would stumble upon a hole in
the ground some animal left in the jungle. The animal thinks it's a genius, we
shrug and say eh, I could make that in 5 seconds.

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adrianN
They should make it count down to the Amazon Clock Apocalypse in 12012.

~~~
shasta
That will be the story in the year 4000: ancient Americans believed the world
would end in 12012.

