Someday in the future our trouble with our current systems of networking and wireless and routers and protocols and software will seem as charming and obvious as… well as charmingly obvious as the hassles medieval monks may have had with the first books, if you can believe this cool video. It’s a glorious send. . .   Read More

We arrived at Maker Faire early on Saturday morning, ready to display and demonstrate several parts of the 10,000 Year Clock to the anticipated 40,000 attendees – and with our table located at one of the main entrances, we were soon surrounded! The Clock mechanisms and Danny Hillis’ blueprints received a lot of attention. . .   Read More

Forwarded to me by Stewart Brand is an amazing article from Archaology Magazine on the construction of the Great Pyramids. After analyzing a 25 year old micro-gravimetric study that showed a spiraling sub structure, it was determined that the pyramids were built with a spiraling ramp as part of the internal structure.

A microgravimetry. . .   Read More

On January 2nd of 02007 Stewart Brand and I stepped into the cool deep past and unknown future of who begat who.

(picture: the granite genealogical vaults)

Since I began working on the 10,000 Year Clock project, and associated Library projects here at Long Now almost a decade ago, I have heard cryptic references. . .   Read More

An update to this post about the Society of American Archivists disappearing their listserv archives, as posted on the Archivist’s Listerv:
To: A&A List

From: Elizabeth Adkins, SAA PresidentSubject: Appraisal of A&A List (1993-2006)

The SAA Council convened via conference call last night to review the feedback on our. . .   Read More

There is a good story in today’s Herald Tribune on how costly digital loss can be:
“JUNEAU, Alaska: Perhaps you know that sinking feeling when a single keystroke accidentally destroys hours of work. Now imagine wiping out a disk drive containing information for an account worth $38 billion (€29 billion).
That is what happened. . .   Read More

From The Prelinger Library:
Now comes word that the SAA Council has decided that the archives of its own listserv are no longer worth saving and will be “disposed of” at the end of this month. After an appraisal of their value, they’ve determined the cost of keeping these bits is higher than their. . .   Read More

As reported by Engaget, Sandisk is rumored to be developing 100 year archival memory cards… These may be just the thing for those family photos languishing on your ever detiorating CDRs. . .   Read More

On February 24th the Rosetta spacecraft successfully completed its somewhat hairy slingshot around Mars with a copy of our Rosetta Disk on board. More here: http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Rosetta/

Here is agreat photo forwarded by Stewart Brand shot from Rosetta as it swung by Mars. . .   Read More

Nice piece by BBC on the latest work on the Antikythera Mechanism. This example of a 2000 year old astronomical computer being reconstructed out of relics from the bottom of the mediterranean is very encouraging for our Clock project…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6191462.stm. . .   Read More