The Amazon founder Jeff Bezoz is building a clock that will last for 1,000 decades. Wait, what?

[kpete]

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/06/10000-year-clock/all/


FORTUNE -- As any Amazon (AMZN) investor will tell you, Jeff Bezos believes in long-term thinking. Make that really, really long-term thinking. So long, in fact, that he's spending at least $42 million to build a giant clock that will tick for 10,000 years deep inside a mountain in West Texas.

The clock is being constructed by the Long Now Foundation, which aims to promote a more patient, far-sighted mindset in an increasingly fast-paced world. The clock will play a new tune every year, century, and millennium, and will not repeat a melody throughout its entire lifespan. It doesn't have a practical purpose, per se, and it certainly won't make money. It's more of a conceptual art piece designed to encourage people to be good stewards of humanity's distant future. Journalists can only hope that Bezos's purchase of the profit-challenged Washington Post will be similarly philosophically driven.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/06/about-jeff-bezos-10000-year-clock/

[Initech]

1. That $42 million could easily go to paying way higher wages.

Instead may this clock forever serve as a big fuck you to income inequality.

[AZ Progressive]

2. Thats what I was thinking as well

"I've got mine, screw you" and "You don't have to help anybody, that's what this country's all about."

[kpete]

3. not at all

what I came away with

but then...

I am always hoping someone comes along who thinks outside the box...
have not seen that animal since 1963...





peace, kp

[liberal_at_heart]

15. I wish someone would think outside the box for the people and not just the ideas.

Sure this clock is cool. Hell, iPhones are cool. iPhones are actually great for people with disabilities. But these people are short sighted when it comes to the resources they use to make their technology, their employees. Their employees are their greatest resources and they treat them like crap. Let's have one of these geniuses think out of the box for their employees. That would be impressive.

[Lucky Luciano]

11. My coworker used to have Bezos as his IT bitch when he used to work

at (I think it was) Bankers Trust. My coworker said he was such a nerdy geek and they used to abuse the shit out of him.

Now Bezos has....um...outperformed them by just a little bit! Last laugh was for the nerd in this case!

[adirondacker]

12. Libertarians and egocentrics are quite prevalant in science and tech.

Doesn't surprise me one bit where this guy's prioritize are.

[HiPointDem]

4. um, what? a clock inside a mountain is supposed to encourage people to be 'good stewards'?

a clock no one sees because it's 'deep inside' a mountain?

so he's goinng to tear apart a mountain to put a clock in it? that's good stewardship?

bezos is an ass. he could use the money to pay his workers better. how about some freaking good stewardship NOW?

[markiv]

9. he's maximizing the value of that mountain, at least in the short term

got a problem with that COMMUNISTS!!?!?!


(sarcasm)

[joeybee12]

5. Well, if he can stop the Washington Compost from continuing its slide into

right-wing buffonery and Repuke butt-licking, then he can build as many damn clocks as he wants to.

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

6. will it be set to mountain time or central time?

[markiv]

8. DOH!!!!

back to the drawing board

[Gregorian]

7. Bored billionaires.

[liberal_at_heart]

14. exactly.

[malaise]

10. He's better hope that Murray fellow doesn't find any coal

in that mountain. Someone will tear it down anyway - if nature doesn't destroy it, but he'll be long gone.

[brooklynite]

13. Isn't there an app for that?