The Long Now Foundation, a group formed as a response to the current culture’s obsession with the ephemeral, has designed a what they call The Clock of the Long Now. This timepiece, which looks like something out of an old science fiction movie, keeps ticks along not to seconds or minutes or hours, but to the passing years and is meant to be functional for the next 10,000 years. Amazingly ambitious, considering technology these days is dismissed as obsolete within six months.

The initial Clock of the Long Now prototype.

This large list of technological considerations shows that designing something mechanical that will continue to function through such a unheard of range of time is, obviously , a monumental task.

A shame we’ll all be dead and have no way of knowing if any of these projects worked.

A new service, myGreenElectronics has surfaced on the internets, whose function is to not only help you find out where you can safely recycled your outdated electronics via a simple zip code based search box, but also to point you in the direction of electronics that Mother Earth would be happy to use.

The end of the year means a lot of things, and not least of all is the endless stream of “top picks” lists from every corner of the world dealing with everything from fashion, to movies, to music, to politics and much more. You name it, there’s a list out there for you.

Gadgets and gizmos are no exception. Here’s a few quirky batches of goodies to surf through (and maybe even buy) while you should be working.

Associated Content’s Top Ten Cool Gadgets of 2006

Tech Digest’s Top 10 Retro Gadgets of 2006

Reg Hardware’s Top 20 Weirdest Gadgets of 2006

PC World’s The 21 Biggest Technology Mistakes of 2006

Yes 2006 was a fine year for the technological obsessed. Here’s to 2007, and host more of useless things to fill those neglected USB ports!

Mike Libby of Insect Lab takes insect collecting to the next level by meshing real insects with assorted parts from old watches and circuit boards to create these very visually interesting cyborg insects sculptures.

Mike Libby’s Dynastidae: Xylotrupes Gideon Lamarchus
(Yeah, I can’t pronounce it either, but it looks badass.)

These would make a great gift for one of your harder to shop for friends. I know I’d love to get something like this.

Check out the rest of the collection which includes spiders, butterflies, cicadaes, dragonflies, beetles, bees and wasps.

They’re definitely not cheap, though. The beetle pictured sells for $400, for example.

The Watchismo Times (rhymes with machismo) has an interesting post about the watches used in James Bond movies over the years. The watches are listed chronologically, along with a short description and even a video clips of some of the timepieces being used in their respective movies.

My favourite is the laser emitting Omega Seamaster from Goldeneye.

James Bond’s Omega Seamaster from Goldeneye

My reason is not because of the movie, though, but because it was also featured as a usable weapon in the classic Nintendo 64 game Goldeneye 007.

The first big LCD screen I ever bought had one one in the top right corner. The first laptop I bought had one center and about two-thirds down.

I sent them both back. The respective companies I bought items from tries to tell me that dead pixels were something everyone had to deal with in the age of LCDs. I told them that while I appreciated that fact, I still didn’t spend as much as I had on both items to accept manufacturing defects like that.

But it’s a pain in the ass to have to send stuff back and get an RMA number and make sure it’s packaged safely and so on.

Which is why I thought this article on wikiHow might be of use. It has tips and info on how you might be able to get rid of dead and stuck pixels and also links to various screen sweeping apps.

I’ve tried some of these methods in the past and had little luck, but others swear they have helped them, so YMMV.

I haven’t worn a watch ever since I first started carrying a cellphone around years ago. It seems really inefficient to wear a device on your wrist that tells the time when you can just reach into your pocket and check for the same time on your phone. Lately, though, I’ve had the itch for a new time piece and The Watchismo Times is mostly to blame.

It’s a blog devoted entirely to weird vintage and modern watches. It’s written by an obsessive watch collector from Brooklyn, NY. And nothing makes for better reading than the detailed rantings of an obsessive.

Is that a hot looking watch or what?

I’m also cursing the site now for introducing me to the beautiful thing pictured above. It’s a special edition watch called the Odyssee 2001, released by the same watchmaker that Stanley Kubrik commissioned to design a prop watch for one of the characters in his movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. 2001 is pretty much my favourite movie ever and now I’m lusting after that watch with a fierceness.