Thursday, July 05, 2012

10,000 year clock stuff

I'm always pretty behind the times, so I assume that most of the people who read this already know about the 10,000 year clock project.  The basic idea is to build a clock, or a series of clocks, that tick once every year, and chime once every thousand years, and last 10,000 years.  Why would you do this, you ask?  Well, they say because it symbolizes long term thinking - thinking about, planning for, being aware of the future.  Nutty idea?  Who knows.  I kind of like the idea but you wonder about productive use of resources and all of that.  It strikes me as a uniquely, well, modern America way of doing good.  We'll do good by taking on a huge costly extravagant project that doesn't really benefit anyone really in need, but it's still pretty cool, right?  But in spite of that, I still think it's way cool, I'm just a cynic.  But what I'm mostly interested in right now is this cool video!  It shows how they drill a 12 foot diameter hole straight up through 500 feet of rock.  They need the clock to be in a dry, protected environment (or it wouldn't last 10,000 years) so they're carving out the inside of a mountain!  I can't think of who else would do this aside from governments making missile silos and stuff.  So anyway, it's pretty cool and if you're bored check it out! And of course, in 20 years when they finish this thing (if they finish it that fast), if I'm still mobile I'm gonna go see this sucker!