The Present, A Clock That Tells Time By Season, Is Finally For Sale

After a year of development, the monster Kickstarter hit The Present is ready for purchase. The second--that one-Mississipi unit of measurement--is actually a pretty young concept. Developed in the 17th century to keep order in an increasingly complex world, it’s wholly contemporary unit of measurement, tied to the precision of modern systems. But by devoting ourselves to meting out life by the second, do we lose sight of the broader shifts in the world around us? That’s what Scott Thrift, the filmmaker and designer behind The Present believes. “I feel like we deserve a new way to tell the story of time,” says Thrift, who has spent the past year bringing The Present into, well, the present. “We’re having a 21st-century experience of time, but we’re still measuring it with an 18th-century clock.” The Present is his solution: a “s...