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This reminds me of my experience giving up my wristwatch. I would glance at it frequently, but then didn't know the time because the behavior was strictly refle

This reminds me of my experience giving up my wristwatch. I would glance at it frequently, but then didn't know the time because the behavior was strictly reflex. Finally, someone asked me for the time right after I did this and I had to look again because I hadn't internalized it. That was the day I removed my watch forever. Your comment about being beholden to your phone reminds me a a great quote that I recalled on that day: "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time."

copperx 9y ago
> "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time." I like the quote because that's how I feel when I look at any digital clock or watch. The millisecond accuracy of any NTP-aware device produces anxiety and is unnecessary. An analog watch, especially if it's a wind-up mechanical watch, which is by its nature slightly inaccurate, is much more comforting. I feel like an observer of time, and not a slave of it.
- icebraining 9y ago
  You should get a fuzzy clock. A cute version of those are the Word Clocks.
- eeZah7Ux 9y ago
  A reliable clock produces anxiety over an unreliable one? Citation needed!
  - copperx 9y ago
    n=1, FWIW.
pavement 9y ago
I gave up wrist watches back in the late 90's when carrying a cellphone with automatic carrier time became a new sort of norm. I just wanted to shed accessories and check pockets for one less thing before heading out the door. Later on, maybe by 2010, I had noticed that as my aversion to blackberry vibrations emerged, and I avoided my work-related cellphone more and more, I got really good at ballparking the time to within a margin of maybe two minutes, give or take. Basically by now, somehow, I'm able to glance at a known clock with an accurate reading (or with a known offset to the accurate time), catch the time once, and usually remain pretty accurate for the next handful of hours, until I get stuck in a sufficiently distracting situation that demands concentration. Up until that point, I try to guess the time to the minute before looking, then look, and often, I'm right on. I don't have any special method beyond that though. It's just a gut feeling I've accidentally developed. I think it started when I disabled rings and vibrations for email alerts and I'd (with an amount of dread) try to guestimate how many emails would drop before the next time I checked my phone, and the minutes since my last look. I think the next level up, beyond this skill is memorizing relevant time zones and major cities in each, but I haven't been pushed into caring about something like that quite yet.
m1n1 9y ago
Some folks glance at their watch and reduce the time to an enum with only a few purpose-driven values like NeedToHurry, PlentyOfTime. Once the reduction takes place, the actual value for time is garbage collected. The enum is carried forward as needed.

copperx 9y ago

> "Wearing a watch is like being handcuffed to time." I like the quote because that's how I feel when I look at any digital clock or watch. The millisecond accuracy of any NTP-aware device produces anxiety and is unnecessary. An analog watch, especially if it's a wind-up mechanical watch, which is by its nature slightly inaccurate, is much more comforting. I feel like an observer of time, and not a slave of it.

icebraining 9y ago
You should get a fuzzy clock. A cute version of those are the Word Clocks.
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
A reliable clock produces anxiety over an unreliable one? Citation needed!
- copperx 9y ago
  n=1, FWIW.

pavement 9y ago

I gave up wrist watches back in the late 90's when carrying a cellphone with automatic carrier time became a new sort of norm. I just wanted to shed accessories and check pockets for one less thing before heading out the door. Later on, maybe by 2010, I had noticed that as my aversion to blackberry vibrations emerged, and I avoided my work-related cellphone more and more, I got really good at ballparking the time to within a margin of maybe two minutes, give or take. Basically by now, somehow, I'm able to glance at a known clock with an accurate reading (or with a known offset to the accurate time), catch the time once, and usually remain pretty accurate for the next handful of hours, until I get stuck in a sufficiently distracting situation that demands concentration. Up until that point, I try to guess the time to the minute before looking, then look, and often, I'm right on. I don't have any special method beyond that though. It's just a gut feeling I've accidentally developed. I think it started when I disabled rings and vibrations for email alerts and I'd (with an amount of dread) try to guestimate how many emails would drop before the next time I checked my phone, and the minutes since my last look. I think the next level up, beyond this skill is memorizing relevant time zones and major cities in each, but I haven't been pushed into caring about something like that quite yet.

m1n1 9y ago

Some folks glance at their watch and reduce the time to an enum with only a few purpose-driven values like NeedToHurry, PlentyOfTime. Once the reduction takes place, the actual value for time is garbage collected. The enum is carried forward as needed.