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Author Archive

Almost everything is getting better

by Kirk Citron on August 10th, 02011

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

Last week The Millennium Project released its 02011 State Of The Future report, looking at trends for the past twenty years and projecting ahead for the next decade. (Not the 10,000 year future, but still of. . .   Read More

A different kind of clock

by Kirk Citron on July 5th, 02011

The Clock of the Long Now measures time in 10,000-year increments. “The Clock,” a wondrous piece of video art by Christian Marclay, measures every single moment in 24 hours. Composed of film clips drawn from the entire history of cinema, the piece literally tells the time, through images of clocks and watches as well as […]

The global brain

by Kirk Citron on February 21st, 02011

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

A computer defeats humans on a television game show. An information network brings down a series of dictatorships. We are witnessing a massive explosion in data, and an equally massive explosion in our ability to process and. . .   Read More

Woman power

by Kirk Citron on September 13th, 02010

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

Burr Heneman suggests that the increasing empowerment of women around the world will have impact for generations to come.

Just a few weeks ago the U.S. marked the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave. . .   Read More

The future of war

by Kirk Citron on July 27th, 02010

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

At a recent Long Now seminar, Ed Moses mentioned in passing that we now produce enough bullets each year to kill every person on the planet — twice. We are a violent species; we hunt, we organize in. . .   Read More

Good news about energy

by Kirk Citron on June 23rd, 02010

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

It’s obvious energy will be one of the great challenges of this century. But it’s possible to hope that the current BP oil spill might help prompt a broader conversation about possible alternatives.

Over the. . .   Read More

The Future of Energy: a news hunt

by Kirk Citron on June 7th, 02010

Is There Good News About Energy?

In the face of the BP disaster, it would be all too easy to lose hope about our energy future. But it’s possible there might be a silver lining in that oily cloud: if we’re lucky, the spill may prompt a deeper conversation about the need to. . .   Read More

Man the toolmaker

by Kirk Citron on May 3rd, 02010

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

It used to be thought that what defined us as human is the fact that we make tools. But in the past few decades, toolmaking has also been observed in chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, otters, octopuses, and several. . .   Read More

You should live so long

by Kirk Citron on April 7th, 02010

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

The woman in this picture just celebrated her 100th birthday. But she’s far from the oldest living American: that’s Neva Morris, of Ames, Iowa, who’s 114. They’re just two of the 84,000. . .   Read More

Memory loss

by Kirk Citron on March 12th, 02010

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

Today, humans speak to each other in nearly 7,000 languages; it’s estimated that 90% of those languages will be gone by 02050, displaced by English, Spanish, or Chinese. Meanwhile, there’s a broader question about. . .   Read More