Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility: The Ideas Behind the World's Slowest Computer by Stewart Brand ISBN: 0-465-00780-5 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.38 (16 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Thought-provoking book on thinking long-term
Comment: Brand, author of The Whole Earth Catalog, is part of a team that is endeavoring to build a clock that will last for ten thousand years. In here, he comments on the lessons to be learned from that effort and the result.
These days time seems to be getting ever shorter, our subjective "now" shrinking from generations to years or less. People need to think on the longer term, for the sake of earth and civilization. Brand broods on how to accomplish this with a series of short, themed articles addressing everything from a visit to Big Ben to a commentary on how the digital age has made things more impermanent rather than less. (Want to try to run a Commodore 64 program? Well, you might almost as well forget it.) He provides a list of levels of paces, from fashion (the quickest) through commerce, infrastructure, governance, culture, and (the slowest) nature. He points out the twentieth century phenomenon of organizations and movements devoted to historical preservation, both a luxury that earlier ages would have found it hard to afford and perhaps a need to be filled in our fast-paced age.
A fascinating and thought-provoking read.
Rating: 5
Summary: 10,000 years - a tick in the evolution of the universe
Comment: This easy to read yet intellectually stimulating book describes the need for mankind to consider the long-term, and presents the Clock of the Long Now project - a clock that will record time for some 10,000 years, as well as its accompanying 10,000-Year Library. Design considerations of a clock that could run for 10,000 years are discussed. The importance of culture and libraries are discussed, as well as the short lifespan of digital information for a variety of reasons, often due to the introduction of newer technologies making older representations obsolete. It is put forth that a 10,000-Year Library would make the world safer for rapid change, and the possible collections of such a library are discussed.
Rating: 5
Summary: Truly Extraordinary--Core Reading for Future of Earth- Man
Comment:
I confess to being dumb. Although I know and admire the author, who has spoken at my conference, when the book came out I thought--really dumb, but I mention it because others may have made the same mistake--that it was about building a cute clock in the middle of the desert.
Wrong, wrong, wrong (I was). Now, three years late but better late than never, on the recommendation of a very dear person I have read this book in detail and I find it to be one of the most extraordinary books--easily in the top ten of the 300+ books I have reviewed on Amazon.
At it's heart, this book, which reflects the cummulative commitment of not only the author but some other brilliant avant guarde mind including Danny Hillis, Kevin Kelly (WIRED, Out of Control, the Rise of Neo-Biological Civilization), Esther Dyson, Mitch Kapor (Lotus, Electronic Frontier Foundation) and a few others, is about reframing the way people--the entire population of the Earth--think, moving them from the big now toward the Long Here, taking responsibility for acting as it every behavior will impact on the 10,000 year long timeframe.
This book is in the best traditions of our native American forebears (as well as other cultures with a long view), always promoting a feedback-decision loop that carefully considered the impact on the "seventh generation." That's 235 years or so, or more.
The author has done a superb job of drawing on the thinking of others (e.g. Freeman Dyson, Esther's father) in considering the deep deep implications for mankind of thinking in time (a title popularized, brilliantly, by Ernest May and Richard Neustadt of Harvard), while adding his own integrative and expanding ideas.
He joints Lee Kuan Yew, brilliant and decades-long grand-father of Asian prosperity and cohesiveness, in focusing on culture and the long-term importance of culture as the glue for patience and sound long-term decision-making. His focus on the key principles of longevity, maintainability, transparency, evolvability, and scalability harken back to his early days as the editor of the Whole Earth Review (and Catalog) and one comes away from this book feeling that Stewart Brand is indeed the "first pilot" of Spaceship Earth.
It is not possible and would be inappropriate to try to summarize all the brilliant insights in this work. From the ideas of others to his own, from the "Responsibility Record" to using history as a foundation for dealing with rapid change, to the ideas for a millenium library to the experienced comments on how to use scenarios to reach consensus among conflicted parties as to mutual interests in the longer-term future, this is--the word cannot be overused in this case--an extraordinary book from an extraordinary mind.
This book is essential reading for every citizen-voter-taxpayer, and ends with an idea for holding politicians accountable for the impact of their decisions on the future. First class, world class. This is the book that sets the stage for the history of the future.
 |
Title: How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built by Stewart Brand, Penguin USA Paper ISBN: 0140139966 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 1995 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
 |
Title: Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology by Howard Rheingold ISBN: 0262681153 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 18 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title:January 07003 | Bell Studies for The Clock of The Long Now ASIN: B0000ACXT6 Publisher: Opal Music Pub. Date: 22 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.99 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $24.99 |
 |
Title: Who Learns What from Cases and How?: The Research Base for Teaching and Learning With Cases by Mary A. Lundeberg, Barbara B. Levin, Helen L. Harrington ISBN: 0805827781 Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc Pub. Date: January, 2000 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
 |
Title: Radio: An Illustrated Guide by Jessica Abel, Ira Glass ISBN: 0967967104 Publisher: This American Life / WBEZ Alliance Inc. Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
