Multi-millenial Mechanical clocks - Long Now "Mechanicrawl" pt. 1

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Boing Boing tv guest correspondent Todd Lappin (R) and cameraninja Eddie Codel (L) trek to the Long Now Foundation's first-ever Mechanicrawl event, and bring back tales of early analog computing, fantastic timepieces, and impossibly eccentric mechanical things.

First, Todd speaks with the Long Now Foundation's Alexander Rose about a 10,000-year mechanical clock dreamed up by supercomputer designer Danny Hillis.

Next, we listen to a prototype chime mechanism that will ring ten bells in a different sequence each day over the next 10,000 years. Brian Eno and Danny Hillis came up with the algorithm, and a team of tinkerers crafted the contraption to tap out time on a series of Tibetan bowl gongs.

Todd has a photoset with snapshots from the Mechanicrawl adventures. See also this previous Laughing Squid post.

(Special thanks to Karen Marcelo for image shown in video still)

[#1 posted by adamrice , July 29, 2008 7:54 AM]

"longnow.org.mechanicrawl" does not look like a valid URL.

[#2 posted by Xeni Jardin , July 29, 2008 9:17 AM]

Hey Adam -- where are you seeing that url in this post? Everything's working AFAIK, I don't see that url anywhere.

[#3 posted by Chris Fedde , July 29, 2008 9:30 AM]

Awesome topic! SF alone has years worth of locations.

[#4 posted by byronba , July 29, 2008 10:55 AM]

Xeni@2:
Just saw the URL that Adam@1 mentions in the credits for the segment.

[#5 posted by Dana Devonshire , July 29, 2008 11:27 AM]

@ ADAMRICE and BYRONBA -

Thanks very much for the heads up. Revised URL will be up shortly. In the meantime, please check out mechanicrawl.org!

Dana Devonshire
Series Producer, Boing Boing tv