The seconds are just packed

This post is the final installment in Rough Type’s Realtime Chronicles, which began here in 2009. An earlier version of this postappeared at Edge.org.

“Everything is going too fast and not fast enough,” lamentsWarren Oates, playing adecaying gearhead called G.T.O., in Monte Hellman’s 1971 masterpieceTwo-Lane Blacktop. I can relate. The faster the clock spins, the more I feel as ifI’m stuck in a slo-mo GIF loop.

It’s weird. We humanshave been shown to have remarkably accurate internal clocks....