The Rosetta Project's goal is to create an online archieve of all human languages. The purpose is as a tool for linguistics research as well as an educational tool, and to protect languages that may become lost in the future. To this effect they have created Rosetta disks with 1,000 languages etched onto it as a physical counter part to the online database and micro etched disks each containing 350,000 pages.
The purpose of the 10,000 year clock is exclusively to exist as a monument to long term thought. Instead of using electronics to keep track of the 10,000 years it will be a binary mechanical computer. The designer, Danny Hills, conceived of the clock and built the first prototype, which now resides at the scientific musuem of London, on new years 1999 just in time to hear it bong twice for the millennium. I believe work is being done on the second prototype which includes an orrery to keep track of the six planets visible to the human eye.
The first prototype of which there are CAD schematics on the site and some people have made their own.
The second prototype
In addition the site runs long term bets and has downloads of their monthly seminars
Someguysteve
USA
September 2005
DEC 15, 2005 09:28 PM