A sense of perspective is unavoidable from 22,000 miles out. Looking down at Earth from that distance — almost three times farther than the diameter of the planet itself — allows a view of the globe as a massive organic system, pulsing with continuous movement. (NY Times) Last month, Japan’s new Himawari-8 weather satellite began…  Read More

This lecture was presented as part of The Long Now Foundation’s monthly Seminars About Long-term Thinking. The Creator Economy Tuesday March 31, 02015 – San Francisco Video is up on the Saffo Seminar page. ********************* Audio is up on the Saffo Seminar page, or you can subscribe to our podcast. ********************* The Creator Economy –…  Read More

In November 02011 Brewster Kahle, the founder of the Internet Archive, spoke for Long Now. “We are really striving to build The Library of Alexandria version 2,” says Brewster, near the start of his talk, “So that everyone anywhere who is curious to want access can access the world’s knowledge.” He proceeds to assess, one…  Read More

February 24, 02015 Jason Scott (archivist, historian, filmmaker) The Web in an Eyeblink at The Interval Tickets are now on sale: space is limited and we expect this talk to sell out If you are reading this then Jason Scott has probably backed up bits that matter to you–whether you are an ex-SysOp or only use…  Read More

February 10, 02015 Jeffrey McGrew (architect of The Interval) Talking with Robots about Architecture at The Interval Tickets are still available: space is limited and these talks tend to sell out. Our next event in the Conversations at The Interval series features architect Jeffrey McGrew, a co-designer of The Interval, talking about technological innovations that are changing the…  Read More

It’s been an annual tradition since 01998: with a new year comes a new Edge question. Every January, John Brockman presents the members of his online salon with a question that elicits discussion about some of the biggest intellectual and scientific issues of our time. Previous iterations have included prompts such as “What should we…  Read More

January 20, 02015: Mathieu Victor (artist, technologist) Artists with Lasers: Art, Tech, & Craft in the 21st Century Co-produced with Zero1 Tickets are still available: space is limited and these talks tend to sell out. Technology enables art, and artists push technologies to their limits. That’s just part of the long-running story that Mathieu Victor will…  Read More

  When The Long Now Foundation first began thinking about long-term archives, we drew inspiration from the Rosetta Stone, a 2000-year-old stele containing a Ptolemaic decree in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Demotic script, and Ancient Greek. Our version of the Rosetta Stone, the Rosetta Disk, includes parallel texts in more than 1,500 languages. Since creating the…  Read More

On the evening of Monday December 8, 02014 from 8pm to midnight, come see the first demonstrations of Jürg Lehni’s Chalk-Drawing Machine at The Interval. Jürg will be in attendance and will give live demonstrations throughout the evening. The Long Now Foundation commissioned Jürg and his team in Switzerland to build a custom version of his Viktor chalk-drawing machine and…  Read More

Last year I had the opportunity to give a talk and tour of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC at the invitation of Demetrios Matsakis, the director of the U.S. Naval Observatory’s Time Service department.  The Naval Observatory hosts the largest collection of precise frequency standards in the world, and uses them to, among…  Read More