The Millennium clock

May 11, 2006 11:47 PM

The Clock of the Long Now "I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every one hundred years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. I want the cuckoo to come out every millennium for the next 10,000 years."
posted by dhruva (17 comments total)

The idea to build a monument scale, multi-millennial, all mechanical clock - why build one when you can just plant one?
posted by Samuel Farrow at 11:50 PM on May 11, 2006 [1 favorite]

Seems like a lot of work to generate a 20 second blurb in somebody's evening newscast a thousand years from now.
posted by scheptech at 11:55 PM on May 11, 2006

An essay by Danny Hillis from 01995... My entrepreneurial friends muse about how to make it financially self-sustaining. *coughs*
posted by Samuel Farrow at 11:56 PM on May 11, 2006

The sad thing is it will probably make a 20 second blurb on a newscast within 20 years when some idiot vandalizes it.
posted by 2sheets at 11:57 PM on May 11, 2006

Double-post!!!

(in such a hurry to claim the prize that i jumped at the first Long Now Foundation FPP i could find...they are all about the clock, anyway...there are others, i am sure...)
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:11 AM on May 12, 2006

This could be the earliest FPP on the clock: October 31, 2000.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:12 AM on May 12, 2006

5 + 1/2 years since it was mentioned? I think there must be a statute of limitations on calling it a doublepost.
Nice craftsmanship. Thanks dhruva.
posted by peacay at 12:43 AM on May 12, 2006

Interesting that the question of there being a statute of limitations on double posts on an FPP about 'the long now', isn't it? The later ones are from 2004, and I swear this was attempted earlier this year too, but I can't seem to find it.

That said, i support this idea wholeheartedly, and I wonder if the intention of having something last for 10,000+ years will make it more or less durable.
posted by phylum sinter at 1:49 AM on May 12, 2006 [1 favorite]

Am almost certain it was mentioned in the last few months, I'm fairly sure I stumbled upon it through mefi. Oh well, it's an "interesting" project anyway.
posted by knapah at 1:49 AM on May 12, 2006

5 + 1/2 years since it was mentioned? I think there must be a statute of limitations on calling it a doublepost.

It's been mentioned frequently since then. Defo a triple/quadruple, some sort of -ple, anyway...
posted by jack_mo at 1:56 AM on May 12, 2006

Oh. In that case: Burn him! Burn the heretic!
posted by peacay at 2:43 AM on May 12, 2006

Sample post! Apple post! Nipple post! Dimple post!
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:23 AM on May 12, 2006

Nipple post?
posted by TwelveTwo at 3:30 AM on May 12, 2006

He's got a watch with a minute hand, millennium hand and an eon hand. When they meet it's a happy land!
posted by jozxyqk at 3:38 AM on May 12, 2006

when the big hand touches the little hand, it's time to call the cops at michael jackson's house.
posted by quonsar at 4:13 AM on May 12, 2006

Quonsor, I bet that joke will never get old, so I'm hoping you'll remember to post it in the year 12006 when someone creates this same FPP for the 5000'th time. My mind boggles at the thought of what Michael Jackson will have morphed into given that much time.
posted by Meridian at 4:25 AM on May 12, 2006

Is this the same thing they have parts of in the Science Museum?
posted by slimepuppy at 4:45 AM on May 12, 2006