The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now.

The discovery of water on the moon is almost certainly the biggest Long News story of the year; it will make it much easier to build moon colonies, and it provides cheap fuel for travel to the rest of the solar system.

But Liz Brooking suggests we also look at water issues here on earth: three hundred million school children don’t have access to clean water today, and according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 47% of the world’s population will be living in areas of high water stress by the year 02030.

Some recent news stories about water:

1. What water on the moon might mean:
The wet side of the moon
New aluminum-water rocket propellant promising for future space missions
Moon potential goldmine of natural resources

2. Back down to earth:
Water scarcity will create global security concerns
New report on the economics of water scarcity

3. The politics of water:
Arab experts predict Mideast water wars
China enters Central Eurasia’s water wars
UN study advises caution over dams
India faces water crisis as temperatures rise
Africa must act to tackle water crisis
Devastation on a ‘biblical’ scale

4. Some possible solutions:
Carbon nanotubes capture greenhouse gases, desalinate water
The high rise urban farms of the future

We invite you to submit Long News story suggestions here.

Earlier this month, a small group of World War II Navajo Code Talkers – who are today in their eighties and nineties – marched as a group for the first time in the New York City Veteran’s Day Parade as a way to raise awareness in the US about their wartime contribution. The Code Talkers were Navajo speakers recruited by the U.S Military for sending coded verbal messages by radio in World War II – an effort legendary today as producing “the only unbroken code in modern military history.”

This caught my attention partly because Navajo is a threatened language – while there are 150,000 speakers at last count and several thousand monolinguals, the word on the wire is that Navajo is losing ground to English among the youngest in the Navajo community – and children are, after all, the ones who decide a language’s fate.

I also had this question in the back of my mind – could a human language be used in such a way today?   Granted, we have sophisticated computer encryption that pretty much renders any human generated code obsolete.  But say for a moment that we didn’t, or couldn’t use digital technology…  do we simply know too much about what is possible in human language?  And failing that, is there any language out there esoteric and isolated enough that it could be put to such use?

First, to clarify, there is nothing inherent about the Navajo language that made the code uncrackable – a quick perusal of the recent press turns up descriptors like “ancient language” and “complex grammar” which could apply to any human language.  The phrase “near isolate” also doesn’t make sense because Navajo is a language with many linguistic relatives in the Athabaskan group throughout the Southwestern US, Canada, and Alaska.

What made the code uncrackable at the time was a combination of factors – physical and social isolation of the Navajo speech community certainly did, as few non-Navajos spoke the language.  Also, little was known linguistically about the language at the time, and linguistics outside of philology was itself a fledgling field of study. Most importantly, the code wasn’t just everyday Navajo, but a cipher based on Navajo with word-replacements like “tortoise” for tank or “iron fish” for submarine as well as Navajo substitutions for English military acronyms. A Navajo speaker was in fact captured and tortured for his knowledge at Bataan, but since he didn’t know the cipher, he was just as befuddled as everyone else.

I wonder though whether a linguist today with a basic knowledge of the language, and/or access to basic tools like a grammar and dictionary, transported back to that time might have figured it out, given enough data and the context in which the messages were delivered.   A relatively few cracked messages could render the essential cryptographic key. Do all human languages have such basic description?  Far from it.  My best guess based on what we’ve been able to find for The Rosetta Project is maybe one half of all human languages?  A third? Without this, the decryption task would have to encompass basic linguistic analysis as well.

So is it possible that a human language in this day and age could serve the purpose?  Maybe, maybe not — I welcome discussion.  But if not – and here’s the real question on my mind – are we linguists done?  Can we pack up our bags and go home? Although I think we understand something about human language – maybe a lot more than we did 70 years ago, it would be extreme hubris to say we really get all there is to human language at this point.  I expect there are plenty of surprises in store even as far as grammatical structure is concerned – and at every level of structure.  Many of the more interesting questions are likely to relate to how language is used in its cultural context — like the Pirahã avoiding speaking about the remote past because it is inaccessible to eyewitness verification.

That many lifetimes could be spent puzzling it all out is one of the great joys of linguistic discovery.  And to my way of thinking, the surprises about our human selves that lie in store is a primary reason to pursue language documentation as one of the great scientific and intellectual enterprises of our era.

There is new media available from our monthly series, the Seminars About Long-term Thinking. Stewart Brand’s summaries and audio downloads or podcasts of the talks are free to the public; Long Now members can view HD video of the Seminars and comment on them.

Listen to the Audio of Sander van der Leeuw’s “The Archaeology of Innovation” (downloads tab)

History of Innovation

The development of human mental ability can be tracked through the
progressive crafting of stone tools, Van der Leeuw explained. First
we learned to shape an edge—a line—then the surface, then the
whole volume of the tool, then the sophisticated sequence required to
make a superb spear point. It took 2 million years. But by 300,000
years ago the human brain had developed a sufficiently complex
short-term working memory to keep 7 (plus-or-minus 2) considerations
in mind at once. We could handle problems of multi-dimensionality….

Read the rest of Stewart Brand’s Summary

We have updated our online store with some new items for the holiday season…

Brian Eno’s 77 Million Paintings is a generative art piece that will take thousands of years to fully take in – the software slowly layers and combines several hundred original paintings in an ever-evolving kaleidoscopic experience.  You can also hear experiments by Mr. Eno for the Chime Generator on “January 07003“. Pick up a Long Now embroidered twill baseball hat or a 100% cotton screen-printed T-shirt (printed locally by Ape Do Good of San Francisco) featuring CAD drawings of Long Now prototypes.  We also have short-sleeve button down embroidered work shirts.  And don’t forget to check out the Rosetta Disk DVD, a simulation of viewing our actual Rosetta Disk under a microscope that includes linguistic data on over 1,500 human languages.

We have meaningful gifts for anyone on your list, as we work hard to ensure that the wide variety of items in our store represent the ideas we promote. Visit our store at Fort Mason in San Francisco, 7 days a week, or check us out online.

It took a while to get all the numbers crunched, but the first year’s results from the Long Bet with the highest prize are in.  Over a year ago Warren Buffet challenged the managers of several funds-of-funds to outperform the S&P 500 over a 10 year period.  A one million dollar charitable donation is on the line and so far Buffet’s opponents, Protege Partners, are doing less bad.  Carol Loomis, author of the original story on the contest, gives us the details:

Remember “Buffett’s Big Bet” (see fortune.com), in which the noted
investor and Ceo of Berkshire Hathaway maintained that an S&P 500 index
fund would outperform five funds-of-hedge-funds over 10 years? Well, the
results for the first lap, the ago-nizing year of 2008, are finally in,
and the funds-of-funds soundly whipped the index. Vanguard’s S&P 500
Admiral shares, the index fund “bought” by Buffett, were down 37.02%. on
the average, and net of all fees, costs, and expenses, the five
funds-of-funds backed by Buffett’s opponent, Protégé Partners llC, a new
York money-management firm, delivered –23.9%.

Considering that hedge funds can and do sell short, and that they are
not limited to investing in stocks, Protégé’s victory in a bear market
year like 2008 was not surprising to anyone involved in the bet. Ted
Seides, the Protégé partner who engineered the bet with Buffett, says
that until September of that year the five funds-of-funds were in fact
doing well enough that they still anticipated achieving the up year that
hedge fund seek to deliver, even in difficult markets. “But when markets
failed in the aftermath of the Lehman bankruptcy,” says Seides, “the
funds couldn’t avoid the storm.”

Which funds are these, you ask? The bet stipulates that their identities
would not be disclosed. Buffett, however, knows their names and has seen
their audited results. About his trailing position, he says, “I just
hope that Aesop was right when he envisioned the tortoise overtaking the
hare.”

The reader will note that we said the results of the bet are “finally”
in, and therein lies a little story. originally, the thought was that an
update on the bet would be announced each year at Berkshire’s annual
meeting, held in late spring. But the five funds-of-funds did not have
audited financial statements at that time, which made Buffett unwilling
to announce results. only in late october, when the last of the five
funds finally delivered its audited figures to Protégé, were complete
results known. They were very close to what Protégé had earlier
estimated they would be, so it is likely that next year Buffett will
indeed announce 2009 “approximate” results at Berkshire’s meeting in the
spring.

The author of this article is both a friend of Buffett’s and the editor
of his chairman’s letter in the Berkshire Hathaway annual report.

There is new media available from our monthly series, the Seminars About Long-term Thinking. Stewart Brand’s summaries and audio downloads or podcasts of the talks are free to the public; Long Now members can view HD video of the Seminars and comment on them.

Read the summary of Sander van der Leeuw’s “The Archaeology of Innovation”

Global warming seems to be speeding up the growth of the longest living organisms we know of.  Bristlecone pines can live for almost 5,000 years and the information stored in the growth of their rings is a treasure trove of climate data.  Because their growth is a function of the weather, analyzing the size of the rings they develop each year can tell us what that period’s climate was like.

At an elevation of 12,000 feet, where almost no rain falls, temperature is the driving influence on tree growth, while lower down, rainfall is the strongest factor in tree growth, Salzer said in an interview.

Matthew Salzer,  Malcolm K. Hughes and a team of dendrochronologists from the University of Arizona have just published a paper in which they explain that the outermost rings of Bristlecones – the most recent ones – tend to be significantly larger than most of the earlier ones.  In the last 50 years, the trees have been growing faster than they did in the previous 3,700.

Salzer has done work on Mt. Washington for his studies and shared data with Long Now.  The information from the trees on the future Clock site has provided Long Now with a helpful understanding of the area’s climate dating back several thousand years.

The current study is an indication that climate change is affecting these trees and the delicate ecosystems that support them.  This high-altitude temperature change has significance for more than the Bristlecones and the local environment, however.  The mountains this phenomenon is documented in are an important source of snowmelt for much of California and Nevada:

Hughes said that increasing temperatures high in the mountains could have significant effects elsewhere. In many areas of the western U.S., mountains are a key source of water for farms and urban areas at lower elevations.

“If the snow melts earlier, the mountains won’t be able to hold onto water for as long,” Hughes said. “They won’t be as effective as water towers for us.”

The European Space Agency’s Rosetta probe made its final flyby of the Earth on Friday in order to fling itself off towards its target: Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Launched in 02004, Rosetta has made several planetary flybys in order to gain the velocity necessary to approach and eventually orbit the comet so that a small landing craft can touchdown upon and sample some of the comet’s material.  Scientists hope that a better understanding of the make-up of a comet will be like a key that will unlock many secrets about the formation of the planets and the development of our solar system.

Included on the craft is one of the early Rosetta Disks produced by Long Now.  The highly durable, format-independent linguistic archive will survive as long as the craft continues to orbit Comet 67P.  Unlike the Voyager Disks, this terrestrial artifact will remain in our solar system orbiting the comet, which is orbiting the Sun and will continue to do so until it runs into something (which could be quite a while).

You can see lots of great photos and amazing animations on the Rosetta blog, run by the ESA.  In addition, there was a lovely little piece in the Guardian highlighting the mission’s long-term nature:

The scientific pay-off from Rosetta could be huge. But contemplate the generosity of vision that made the mission possible. Some of those who lobbied for Rosetta will have died by the time the first results are delivered. Some young scientists who will build their careers on the data from Rosetta were not born when the mission was conceived. If, as Harold Wilson famously observed, a week is a long time in politics, Rosetta is a reminder that we can also think on a celestial timescale.

Officially inaugurated in 02002, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is an attempt by Egypt and the city of Alexandria to recreate, in spirit if not content, the original Library of Alexandria.  The Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt created what was at the time, the worlds largest library in the third century BC in the Egyptian city of Alexandria.  Though historical accounts disagree as to how, why and when, this massive repository of centuries of scholastic work was burned down and lost to the ages.

Long Now Board Member Michael Keller sent in notice of his event coming up at Stanford University on December 2nd in which Dr. Ismail Serageldin will be discussing his work as the Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and his hopes for better dialogue between the West and the Muslim world:

Stanford University Libraries is pleased to present two lectures by Dr. Ismail Serageldin.

At 2:00 pm: The New Library of Alexandria: A Beacon of Knowledge

At 4:30 pm: For a Better Dialog Between the West and Muslims

Refreshments will be provided after the second lecture.

The lectures are being held in the Dinkelspiel Auditorium.  Call 650-736-9538 or email sonialee@stanford.edu for details/reservations.

Of Note: The Bibliotheca Alexandrina has a complete copy and physical backup of the Internet Archive.