13 ms·
Wobbly clock
- hammock 4y agoWould be cool to build one of these in real life! Doesn't seem that hard to build, perhaps hard to calibrate though.
- quietbritishjim 4y agoI don't see how a real life one could be made to look exactly the same (but I could be missing something). The seems to have something that stops the end of it moving on until enough tension has built up to side underneath it. That much is fair enough. But then that same thing stopping the end would also prevent the same satisfying wiggle when it gets to the next position because it overshoots immediately. The only thing I can think of is that the restraining pins move in and out is the clock have at just the right time but that would be quite a fiddly implementation and probably affect the visuals
- QuadmasterXLII 4y agoYou could get close by having the restraining pins hold the tip at 5N + 1 seconds instead of at 5N seconds
- moistofreason 4y agoYou’d need a mechanism at each 5 minute mark that grabbed the hand and released it at the appropriate time, then you could make the hands a s Wobbly as you want
- shagie 4y agoA physical implementation could use magnets to hold to the specific spots. Once enough torque is built on trying to move the hand, it would snap out of place and would then find the next magnet and 'hold' onto that spot. As an aside, I'm not sure that doing this for the hour hand is a "good" idea. The difference between 10:00 am and 11:00 am is significant and needing to check how much the bend is doesn't "feel" right. (late edit thought) If we're getting to the "this is controlled by some other system that doesn't need to be purely mechanical", having an electromagnet on at the right spot that then toggles off at one 5m increment and on at the next so that there's only one magnet active at a time could reduce possible issues of having the wiggle/snap attach to the wrong magnet.
- inanutshellus 4y agoUsing magnets would definitely make for a cooler look, but this effect can be done using nails of varying heights.
- shagie 4y agoThe thing that I wonder about (with nails) would be "what would happen if the the flexihand was able to wiggle past the peg when it moved from one peg to the next?" In that case, I believe, it would just be a regular clock style hand. It's possible that I've got the wrong mental model for how that would work.
- inanutshellus 4y agoI think you'd put the nails at N+1 position, not N. (e.g. for the minute mark, you't put the nail at 6, 11, 16, etc. not 5, 10, 15). Then, the hand would press against the nail and progressively bend until it slipped past the nail entirely and jumped to the next 5 spot (and not yet be touching the next nail).
- shagie 4y agoIn exploring an idea on this a bit more... I found https://ferrolic.com https://ferrolic.com which... is interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFgVtzsXHM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PFgVtzsXHM is another video on the idea.
- Kaibeezy 4y agoSee also: It Shall All Be Mine, Gregory Bae, 2016. "Atomic clocks that are magnetized to tick in place." https://www.gregorybae.com/It-Shall-All-Be-Mine https://www.gregorybae.com/It-Shall-All-Be-Mine Currently on exhibit at Chicago MCA - https://visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/gregory-bae/ https://visit.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/gregory-bae/
- GrumpyNl 4y agoYou can use a rubber second hand and put a nail at the 5 seconds, same effect.
- maybe_pablo 4y agoThat would probably prevent the wobble if the nails are not automatically retracted.
- illwrks 4y agoWithout over complicating it, I wonder if you had a flexible second hand like a spring, that's just a bit too long, with pins on the 5 second hand, dots on the rest and decent motor to drive the shaft. As the shaft turns the spring builds up tension and eventually bends enough to jump past the pin.
- ColinWright 4y agoNow found a new home that should better cope with the load: https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/wobble-clock/ https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/wobble-clock/
- ColinEberhardt 4y agoI just had to check whether you were 'the' Colin Wright, and looking at your profile I think you are. Small world! I am a fellow juggler, and used to run the Internet Juggling Database. We also very briefly bumped into each other in a corridor at Leeds Uni Physics department about 25 years ago ;-)
- ColinWright 4y agoIt's me ... hi! You don't have contact details in your profile, but feel free to email me. I travel a lot and can put you in my geographical address book so that if I come within reach we can get a coffee. Cheers!
- qrohlf 4y agoOff-topic, but what do you use for your "geographical address book"? I would love to have something that showed all my contacts on a map, but haven't run into any software that does this ever.
- ColinWright 4y agoIt will come as a surprise to no one who knows me ... I wrote my own. More, I created a system wherein people can register, and then whenever someone is travelling they can tell the system and it automatically emails everyone they know who is close to the destination. I'm the only one who uses it, although there are a few hundred people on it, so I basically just use it as my geographical address book. I also put landmarks, museums, and other places I might like to visit. When I tell it where I'm going it then sends me email to remind me of them.
- codeulike 4y agoWhat a time to be alive
- NKosmatos 4y agoNice one :-) I think it would be better if the CSS and JS were inline instead of including them from the HTML, but this is just lazy me.
- ColinWright 4y agoDisclaimer: Not my work!
- omnicognate 4y agoMost satisfying to watch. Setting my alarm so I can see the hour change. I want a real one. Edit: D'aww. Hug of death.
- ColinWright 4y agoNew URL: https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/wobble-clock/ https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/wobble-clock/
- autodev1 4y agoit too has been hugged i feel like i am really missing out on something here
- ColinWright 4y agoHmm. Working for me.
- adam12 4y agoInteresting. I get a little uneasy watching it.
- flir 4y agoI see you shiver in antici......pation.
- cratermoon 4y agoboingoingoingoingngngnggngggg
- naillo 4y agoWild to get a "This project has received too many requests, please try again later." message for what I assume is just a static page. Makes me make a note to self not to use glitch.me
- ColinWright 4y agoglitch.me is clearly intended for small experiments, not for dealing with 10s of thousands of hits in just a few minutes. I'm getting the author to move it. Stand by ... OK, here: https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/wobble-clock/ https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/wobble-clock/
- majikandy 4y agoVery cool, can imagine that on my Apple Watch
- kailanb 4y agoit's back! worth noting that anyone can remix the project :) https://glitch.com/edit/#!/wobble-clock https://glitch.com/edit/#!/wobble-clock
- ColinWright 4y agoAs mentioned elsewhere, not my project.
- naillo 4y agoEven when I've got a front page article in the past on HN at like 150 votes I only got about 6000 views in a day. This one has like 10 likes so I doubt it's getting 10s of thousands in a minute. Can only imagine it's some severe rate limiting to push glitch.me users for some paid alternative.
- ColinWright 4y agoWhen some of my submissions have hit the front page I got a lot more that 6K views in a day, although probably 10K in some minutes is an overestimate, possibly by a lot. Agreed that it's probably glitch.me pushing people to a paid option, but there's no real problem with that ... they are a business providing a service.
- TruthWillHurt 4y agoBut do you have a business plan?
- agilizer 4y agoTime to pivot.
- _0j9w 4y agoWhen you refresh the page, the animation continues playing perfectly. That is a very nice touch which often gets overlooked! Well done!
- dale_glass 4y agoThe minutes and hours hands don't work at all.
- ColinWright 4y agoThey do for me. Maybe you just need to watch for longer.
- dale_glass 4y agoIt seems to be glitching somehow. The minutes needle jumps once, then gets stuck after that.
- nokita 4y agoHave you watched for more than 5 minutes? Each hand jumps from one Division to the next, increasingly flexing in between jumps. It's working fine for me, and obviously for others, so either there's something odd about your setup, or it's just doing something you don't expect.
- samwhiteUK 4y agoThey only jump between markers, and only when they will tick to the next marker. Watch for longer.
- microjim 4y agoDo hands release from the line they're on at the point of the next time increment being reached (meaning, by the time they hit the next line, they'll be late) or does it kindly release earlier, affording time for the hand to travel to and arrive at the next line in time for it to represent the current time?
- ColinWright 4y agoJust by observing it, when the machine clock clicked to 14:20 (UK time) the second hand snapped to the vertical and the minute hand snapped to the 4 (the 20 minute mark). Does that answer your question? I don't know what I can do that you couldn't do for yourself, so maybe I'm not understanding your question.
- throwaway744678 4y agoI believe GP's question was: does the hand get released at 14:20 or 100ms before 14:20 to have it reach its position at exactly the right time, accounting for the animation delay.
- microjim 4y agoYes!
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- Eun 4y agoReminds me on https://atom.watch https://atom.watch
- codeflo 4y agoImpossible to read, unfortunately. It’s currently 3:55 here, but it looks like 2:55.
- eldaisfish 4y agoYeah, this is design for the sake of design. A clock that has an ambiguous time readout really defeats the sole purpose of a clock - telling time.
- devandanger 4y agoWaited 3 minutes to see the minutes hand move. Waste of time but satisfying.
- stirfish 4y agoNot a waste of time, but rather a satisfying exercise in patience.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- cratermoon 4y agoThis kind of reminds me of hospital clocks, where the second hand advances 5 seconds at a time.
- agys 4y agoMade me think about the Swiss Railways clock that has the second hand completing the circle in 58.5 seconds; all the clocks on the network then wait for the sync signal from the “master clock". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock
- mprovost 4y agoI love those clocks! But from memory, the second hand gets "stuck" at 12 and then when it moves again, the minute hand advances at the same time. On this one, the minute hand jumps forward at the same time that the second hand goes to 12.
- d1sxeyes 4y agoThe second hand is supposed to go round the clock in 58.5 seconds, and then 'wait' for a synchronisation signal before starting off for the next minute.
- capableweb 4y agoThe animated example in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock#/media/File:SBB_railway_clock_animated.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock#/media/Fil... seems to have the first behavior you mention, it get stuck at 12, minute hand increments and then the second hand starts moving again after the minute hand movement.
- jcrawfordor 4y agoBoth systems could be found. Early to mid 20th-century master clock systems were pretty much all designed around a common theme but there were many variations. Some secondary clocks even used fully free-running second hands that weren't synchronized at all and so had no relation to the minute hand advancement.
- jedberg 4y agoThe clocks in my elementary, middle, and high schools would do something similar. Not every minute, but every hour. At the top of the hour, when there was 15 seconds left, the second hand would make 3 second jumps until it hit the top, and then hold until the next hour started. I always thought that was a brilliant way to keep mechanical clocks in sync. And the system had been there since the 1970s, so it was well before digital clocks were feasible for a school.
- jcronenberg 4y agoFeel like an idiot for at first thinking that the seconds were WAY too long. Only after a while I realized that every jump equals 5 seconds.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y agoVery nice! Thanks for sharing it!
- sva_ 4y agoWeirdly, I can hear this clock in a way
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoAn appropriate sound might be a rubber band twang.
- bborud 4y agoOr one of those springs that some doors use to dampen impacts with the wall. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ocvBI_vtJwA https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ocvBI_vtJwA
- agentwiggles 4y agoThis was my first thought when I saw it too, I immediately found myself making a sound effect for each tick. It could definitely benefit from a tasteful sproingy sound effect!
- ColinWright 4y agoSome people can "hear" videos even though there is no sound: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42237092 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42237092
- captaincrunch 4y agoUnsure why, but this actually stresses me out. Never had anything trigger me like this (serious post).
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoExplore that. Be curious about it. Why does it stress you out?
- yamtaddle 4y agoWatching it really bothered me, too. After considering it for a while, I think it's because when I see something bending like that IRL my instinct is to make that stop happening so the thing doesn't become worn, permanently bent, or broken.
- Medea 4y agoRemixed with retina support: https://glitch.com/~noble-gratis-princess https://glitch.com/~noble-gratis-princess
- Kiro 4y agoWhat did you do to make it retina?
- larschdk 4y agoYou need to manually create a canvas at screen resolution and scale it to fit the screen. A default canvas has pixels that are logical pixels, not actual pixels.
- jonas-w 4y agoWhat does "retina support" mean? What is the benefit?
- TJSomething 4y agoI can't tell, since I don't have a Mac, but looking at the code, it implements a note from the Safari documentation for canvas [0]. I assume that if you don't do this, it either is very small or very pixelated. [0] https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/AudioVideo/Conceptual/HTML-canvas-guide/SettingUptheCanvas/SettingUptheCanvas.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010542-CH2-SW8 https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Au...
- archon810 4y agoIt certainly looks much less blurry on my Pixel 7 Pro with this version.
- franky47 4y agoI saw somewhere on the internet a clock where the hand of the seconds moves at random irregular intervals, but averages out to 60 moves a minute. Extremely frustrating to watch. Edit: here's a video of it running (somehow the seconds hand runs backwards) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKU-zmNFSxw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKU-zmNFSxw
- nokita 4y agoThe second hand isn't running backwards, the numbers run the wrong way.
- franky47 4y agoKeen eye, I did not realise at first glance.
- LanternLight83 4y agoNeat! We built clocks with CAD and a laser cutter in my high school engineering class, and I remember cheekily making mine unqiue by numbering it backwards and/or without noon at the top
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- capableweb 4y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XSp5FmXBo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1XSp5FmXBo > This clock is inspired by a post by ILAMtitan on the 43oh.com forums, which was in turn inspired by Vetinari's clock from the Discworld series of novels. Although the movement of the second hand is quite erratic, it ticks exactly 32 times in 32 seconds, and so keeps quite accurate time overall. The clock started life as a cheap $3 clock from KMart. It's mechanism was kept, but the driver circuit was removed and replaced with an MSP430 microcontroller. ILAMtitan's code is designed to ensure that every 32 seconds it will tick 32 times, but the exact timing of those 32 ticks is variable. There can be as little as 1/4 second between ticks or as much as 24 seconds. Overall though it will keep quite accurate time.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoCute, clever! But the way the minute hand stays pointing to a multiple-of-five-minutes until it Boings! to the next increment is disconcerting. It looks like it's slow all the time. E.g. 10:29 looks like 10:25 which is more than enough error to look wrong. Maybe I'd learn to read the bent-hand deflection after a while. But I guess I prefer the clock I have that just points to the right minute all the time.
- quietbritishjim 4y ago> But the way the minute hand stays pointing to a multiple-of-five-minutes until it Boings! to the next increment is disconcerting. Yeah, it would be a bit more satisfying if the end moves discontinuously (as it does now) but the stem moved continuously. Still very nice as it is though.
- graupel 4y agoI had a one-handed watch once that was called "About Time" since you could only ever know about what time it was!
- twright 4y agoThis is great, would love it on my wrist! I think digitally making analog clocks is a really fun exercise in design. Basically asking "how far can I stretch this concept without breaking it?" I've made a small CodePen collection of such experiments: https://codepen.io/collection/AQawkJ https://codepen.io/collection/AQawkJ
- rikroots 4y agoThose are some enjoyable experiments! I've always found the clock faces more fascinating than the mechanisms driving the hands around. I'm easily distracted. My CodePen kaleidoscope clock's here: https://codepen.io/kaliedarik/full/vYLaOxK https://codepen.io/kaliedarik/full/vYLaOxK
- mistermegabyte 4y agoNot sure why, but watching this makes me very anxious. Especially when the second hand is bending,just before it springs loose. Neat idea though.
- NelsonMinar 4y agoThis reminds me of Marcin Wichary's recreation of a clock on Polish TV: https://aresluna.org/polish-tv-clock/ https://aresluna.org/polish-tv-clock/ He has a great writeup about it here: https://medium.com/the-outtake/the-clock-85e8e3a50e4b https://medium.com/the-outtake/the-clock-85e8e3a50e4b
- jedberg 4y agoThis clock is great for teaching kids how to tell time! When learning to read a "circle clock", they have a heck of a time understanding what it means when the hour hand is almost but not quite pointing at a number. So when it's 3:45 they will say 4:45 because they know the big hand on 9 means "45" but they get confused because the little hand is almost pointing at 4. This clock solves that problem. Anyone know if I can get this as an Apple Watch face?
- justincredible 4y agoIt solves the problem of the child getting the wrong answer until they have to read a real mechanical clock.
- CharlesW 4y ago> Anyone know if I can get this as an Apple Watch face? Currently, 3rd parties can't create custom Apple Watch faces.
- ok123456 4y agoWhat's the point of a smart watch if you can't change the dial and face however you want? It's like when carriers wouldn't let you load your own ring tones on to your phone, because they didn't want to cannibalize their own ring tone sales.
- jackson1442 4y agoeven stranger since apple doesn't sell faces (with the exception of the Hermes faces which come with purchase of their obscenely expensive watch bands). seems like something they'd just shoot down in review if something got too close to an Hermes face.
- jaywalk 4y agoThere's so much more to a smart watch than a fully-customizable watch face. While I fully believe that Apple should open up to third-party faces, I am quite content with the customization options that they offer now.
- NiceWayToDoIT 4y agoHow do you say 5:46 -> "Five and and bit tense 45" 5:48 -> "Five and 45 tense" 5:49 -> "Five and very tense 45" or "Five and loose 50?" ? But I like it :D
- spc476 4y ago> 5:49 -> "Five and very tense 45" or "Five and loose 50?" Four past a quarter to six. As I'm posting this, it is 12 past half til 6 (Eastern).
- sam1r 4y agoIs it just me , or does it feel like time is slower per second.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoya but it flicks every 5 secs iiuc
- rzzzt 4y agoObligatory mention of the lunchtime clock that works a bit harder before lunch, then evens things out afterwards: https://hackaday.com/2011/01/18/the-lunchtime-clock-gives-you-12-extra-minutes/ https://hackaday.com/2011/01/18/the-lunchtime-clock-gives-yo...
- glerk 4y agoThis is cool, but please don't hijack the browser full screen mode on click. It's a bit jarring.
- Nevermark 4y agoUgh, I just missed the hourly transition I was waiting for, while browsing elsewhere. Now I have to watch without blinking for the next 55 minutes. (If I blink I will get distracted!) Funny how little art projects like this are so intriguing.
- nayuki 4y agoNon-wobbly clock in SVG + JavaScript (without HTML): https://www.nayuki.io/res/full-screen-clock-javascript/full-screen-clock-analog-with-seconds.svg https://www.nayuki.io/res/full-screen-clock-javascript/full-...
- rpastuszak 4y agoI love it! And I think that the idea of random intervals averaging to correct values mentioned below would make it beautifully irritating. Not a clock, but I was messing with soft body physics and ended up with this thing this weekend: https://mrrr.vercel.app https://mrrr.vercel.app [1] Consider a v2 where the hands are physically simulated al dente spaghetti. [1] (I ended up making a classic frame-by-frame animation though: http://mrr.sonnet.io http://mrr.sonnet.io - pitching it as an "AI-powered MRR optimiser" on LN)
- mahathu 4y agoOh my god!! I forgot I had my laptop still connected to a bluetooth speaker in a different room and totally freaked out when those lips started making faint noises through a door!
- rpastuszak 4y agoOh my god, that's hilarious but I'm so sorry for scaring you! (OK a creepier part of me is satisfied that I went full poltergeist in someone's house, but I promise to do these sorts of things sparingly.)
- mixmastamyk 4y agoMay be my imagination, but it seems the turning of the center pauses a bit after the end of the Second hand moves. Would expect the center to turn constantly.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoMade me think of Vetinari's clock.See, i.a., https://www.instructables.com/Lord-Vetinari-Clock/ https://www.instructables.com/Lord-Vetinari-Clock/
- vanillaicesquad 4y agoAn incredible use of math
- Lisa_Novak 4y ago[dead]
- dwighttk 4y agostuck around for 2 minutes to see the minute hand wobble... Thought it would be a little bit bigger than that.
- mahathu 4y agoSomething wrong, yank? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0wXV1AYPsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0wXV1AYPsA
- DrWormarld 4y ago[dead]
- int_19h 4y agoAt first, I thought it meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobbly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobbly. Alas, there's no sabo-tabby.
- tempestn 4y agoI think I'd buy the physical version of this.
- User23 4y agoI want this but mechanical.
- janalsncm 4y agoMade one today that shows progress over the year, month, day, hour, and minute: https://neontime.surge.sh https://neontime.surge.sh
- mike_hock 4y agoDo the hands break after 10,000 seconds?
- memalign 4y agoHere’s the author’s original post about the clock: https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/items/wobbly-clock/ https://somethingorotherwhatever.com/items/wobbly-clock/ This links to a Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/christianp/status/1250454284581457923 https://twitter.com/christianp/status/1250454284581457923 Which has at least one other interesting clock idea, this one with floppier hands: https://twitter.com/kangaroophysics/status/1250803183045181442 https://twitter.com/kangaroophysics/status/12508031830451814...
- tinglymintyfrsh 4y agoCurious: the timezone is off.
- mesozoic 4y agoThis is cool would like a mechanical watch that does this
- aw9f70gae 4y agoHow fortunate I was to watch this for a few moments only to realize that it was 2:59