In addition to projects like the ones above, a “CityCam” project was started wherein a fixed camera takes a single exposure each day of a city from an overlook. This creates an even record of mutation and change. The application of this data is unknowable, but certain to be of value. Similarly, there’s a photo technique evolving in architecture for revealing the guts and surface of a building at once through repeated multiple exposures of a single frame - it renders the structure of buildings visible, within an equally visible facade. Spooky but cool expression of time through architecture (which seems static from our normal point of view).

Finding a job has become much more of a challenge in recent years. Using the Internet as an additional resource will increase your options to find many great job opportunities, which are not always advertised in the newspaper….

I’m fascinated with the idea of the Long Now. I would localize however to the Long Week. You know, like “there are 07 days in this week. I’ve got plenty of time to get that project done. Wait a minute what day is it now? Aw, 0crap.”

Cultural perceptions of time is a subject that goes WAY beyond the differences between New Yorkers and Europeans. My recent experience working with Native Americans introduced me to the idea that because there’s an endless supply of time stretching far off into the distant future, there’s no need to worry about getting something done by a certain date –it will eventually get done because there’s no such thing as “running out of time.” Hard to explain to construction contractors and project installers, but the serene delivery of the concept by a tribal member leaves one rather speechless. OK, my work is finished and has been waiting for two years to be delivered. I guess I’ve got the time! The Long Now Foundation projects take a similar view: there is no deadline; there’s plenty of time; it will get done.

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It does make me wonder if some of The Long Now Foundation’s members are too future-centric. Are we only interested in prolonging “this” now forward? Are traditionalists and historians ahead of the game by connecting the past to now and the future?

And to James’ point (that fugu-eating madman), I expected a reference to Eno’s Discreet Music, in which he takes Pachelbel’s Canon and slowly devolves the piece by assigning longer and longer note values to the various instruments.

One last anecdote- I recently read an article by Oliver Sacks in the New Yorker that explored the connections between the neuropsychological effects of Catatonia and Tourette’s Syndrome and the experience of time. Catatonics are apparently the masters of the long now, whereas sufferers of Tourette’s Syndrome, some experts believe, are experiencing time faster than they can properly filter. Amazing stuff…