The 10,000 Year Clock | Hacker News Reader

The 10,000 Year Clock

longnow.org

66 pointsspiffytech19 comments

I haven't heard anything about this in 3+ years; don't assume that the page is super-current. But that's kind of the point of the whole project: to make you think of yourself on a longer timescale. The engineers don't want it to be ready in a couple years; the process mirrors the art that it is producing with lots of planning, careful thought about how to get it all to last, a gradual drilling process for the cavern, etc.

I do still wish that I knew how long it'll be before I can visit it, but I take some comfort in the idea that I'll need to look at the bigger picture and wait patiently.

Due to its fascinating subject matter, it ends up being one of the most-submitted stories on HN. There are various others articles and background stories around its engineering and funding as well: https://hn.algolia.com/?q=10%2C000+year+clock#!/story/foreve...

Indeed! While I expect one or more 10,000-year clocks will eventually be completed, to some extent the project-to-build-the-clock is also itself the clock.

I see the future. There will be a bunch of dummies that think the word will end when the clocks time is up.

Some Mayan probably said exactly the same thing a few thousand years ago.

That's the joke.

That's funny. I've actually heard that within the clock is the very mechanism that will end the world. And that the only possible way to stop it would be to trekonerate it.

I just finished reading Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Highly recommended for anyone who's interested in the concept.

It's a great book, but it takes a LONG time to read. Not just because of the length, but the concepts make it slower to read than a simple fiction book.

Also, the first 200 pages seem to take forever. I almost stopped reading. Then next 200 pages go by much faster, then the next 200 even faster, and so on...

I like most of Stephenson's writing, but the first fifty to a hundred pages made me want to throw the book against a wall. But I persevered, and I think it's one of his best books, and well worth the initial frustration.

I think the initial difficulty expertly captures for the reader just a small taste of the experience of the culture shock the avout have when they come into contact with the outside world after being closed off from society for x years.

The nice thing is that on re-reading the whole book becomes pretty nicely paced and super enjoyable (not that the virgin reading is unenjoyable)

The Interval (http://theinterval.org/) is a bar/cafe/museum in SF by Long Now that has details on this project as well as a pretty cool cocktail bar. Worth a visit.

The Interval bar also has a small-scale model of part of the clock. But it's not working.

Why the twee steampunk aesthetic? Is that mandated by Hillis?

Indeed! They also recently had installed a cool chalkboard drawing robot:

http://biorequiem.com/photoflurry/chalk-drawing-robot-unveil...

Looks like I'm not the only one who followed this up after reading about Danny Hillis and Applied Invention today.

Never could figure out if this group is some sort of a cult or just a bunch of yahoos but it's damn cool either way. Reminds me kinda of the Georgia Guidestones en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

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