From: Stewart Brand <sb@gbn.org>
>As you know, The Long Now Foundation is well along with the design
>and prototyping of Danny Hillis's 10,000-year Clock. A $2 million
>version has been commissioned for the British Science Museum.
>Part of a mountain in Eastern Nevada adjoining a National Park has
>been purchased for building a massive version of the Clock inside
>its white limestone cliffs. That project will cost on the order of
>$40 million. The idea is to build a mythic mechanism with the
>effect of the photos of Earth from space---temporally reframe
>thinking so that taking the long view becomes common instead of
>rare.
Picture of the prototype in the March WIRED. The clock was recently
refered to on a question on "Hollywood Squares". (okay we can't
think all the time.)
>Kevin Kelly has been pushing his idea of what we've been calling
>a Global Biocensus---set about identifying ALL of the species on
>Earth. The process itself and the results and side effects could
>outweigh (and incidentally build on) the Human Genome Project.
>Kevin can spell out the emerging details. It's a billion dollar
>project---a bargain for the value it would generate.
An excellent idea, we'll never solve the puzzle if we destroy the
pieces... It might not be a bad idea to cryopreserve specimens
on the endangered lists, just in case.
I would guess Stewart has been interested in questions like this
even before he created "The Whole Earth Catalogue".
Every time I get the urge to start building a house, I re-read some
part of his book "How Buildings Learn".
Welcome to the list.
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Adler Planetarium www.adlerplanetarium.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Mars Society, www.marssociety.org
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:06:12 MDT