4 ms·

Thanks for that. We had those as well. But third-grade me never really thought about the purpose. So it's fun to think about it now. In contrast, I'll sometim

Thanks for that. We had those as well. But third-grade me never really thought about the purpose. So it's fun to think about it now. In contrast, I'll sometimes now walk into a lobby or reception area of a business where they will have like five different analog clocks on the wall representing NY, Paris, London, etc, (trying to look "international" I guess) and the minute hands are out of sync. Kind of sad in 2023. :-)

ipqk 4y ago
My gym has about 15 different clocks on the walls, and they all tell a different time, some of them egregiously so. Every few months (often after I mention it), someone will go around and fix the worst ones.
- Eleison23 4y ago
  My first job was at a Network Operations Center, and it was just like in the movies, with a big projection monitor, two network operators at terminals below, and above us were four analog clocks depicting the four main time zones of these United States. They were electric, and I guess they were battery-powered because of the lack of cords going everywhere. When Daylight Savings Time began, I sauntered in about 9am and my coworkers were filtering in too. The morning guy, "Matt" had been there since about 6am and he had changed the clocks. So my other coworker, "Jason" congratulated Matt for setting all the clocks correctly and then he asked him, "so did you do it by setting all four clocks ahead one hour, or did you move them all to the left and then move the Pacific clock to the Eastern position?" Facepalm! That might be a good job interview question, or it would have been if manual, analog clocks were still a thing.
- lxgr 4y ago
  That's one good thing about daylight savings time, I suppose: It's a good opportunity to correct any non-synchronized clocks.
  - stavros 4y ago
    Or to haphazardly ruin any synced ones.
    - fsckboy 4y ago
      I raise my glass, half empty, to you! you and me, we're the optimists, things can only get better from here!
- logicallee 4y ago
  Reminds me of the old saying, "A person who has a watch always knows what time it is. A person who has two watches is never quite sure."
  - taneq 4y ago
    And this is why I don’t like digital Vernier callipers. :P
caf 4y ago
It'd be a fun project to make a dial wall clock that uses GPS time.
- lxgr 4y ago
  GPS would be tricky to receive in a typical hotel or office lobby (i.e. far away from any windows at the ground floor, possibly in an urban canyon). In Germany (and in neighboring countries), radio-controlled clocks are quite common for this purpose, listening to DCF77 near Frankfurt [1]. Long wave seems to work a bit better than the L-band for indoor propagation, and it probably also helps that the transmit power is three orders of magnitude higher. I'm not sure if the US has an analogous service – there's WWV and WWVH, but they are shortwave transmitters, and I don't know if wall clock or even wristwatch size receivers are possible for that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77
  - kortilla 4y ago
    > I'm not sure if the US has an analogous service – there's WWV and WWVH, but they are shortwave transmitters, and I don't know if wall clock or even wristwatch size receivers are possible for that. It does. Small WWVB clocks that self set are quite common.
    - jethro_tell 4y ago
      Yes, works for small clocks and watches, but they have mostly moved to gps these days, at least for auto sync watches.
  - lygaret 4y ago
    WWVB is running at 60kHz, and powers at least a few of the small desk clocks in my home :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

ipqk 4y ago

My gym has about 15 different clocks on the walls, and they all tell a different time, some of them egregiously so. Every few months (often after I mention it), someone will go around and fix the worst ones.

Eleison23 4y ago
My first job was at a Network Operations Center, and it was just like in the movies, with a big projection monitor, two network operators at terminals below, and above us were four analog clocks depicting the four main time zones of these United States. They were electric, and I guess they were battery-powered because of the lack of cords going everywhere. When Daylight Savings Time began, I sauntered in about 9am and my coworkers were filtering in too. The morning guy, "Matt" had been there since about 6am and he had changed the clocks. So my other coworker, "Jason" congratulated Matt for setting all the clocks correctly and then he asked him, "so did you do it by setting all four clocks ahead one hour, or did you move them all to the left and then move the Pacific clock to the Eastern position?" Facepalm! That might be a good job interview question, or it would have been if manual, analog clocks were still a thing.
lxgr 4y ago
That's one good thing about daylight savings time, I suppose: It's a good opportunity to correct any non-synchronized clocks.
- stavros 4y ago
  Or to haphazardly ruin any synced ones.
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    I raise my glass, half empty, to you! you and me, we're the optimists, things can only get better from here!
logicallee 4y ago
Reminds me of the old saying, "A person who has a watch always knows what time it is. A person who has two watches is never quite sure."
- taneq 4y ago
  And this is why I don’t like digital Vernier callipers. :P

caf 4y ago

It'd be a fun project to make a dial wall clock that uses GPS time.

lxgr 4y ago
GPS would be tricky to receive in a typical hotel or office lobby (i.e. far away from any windows at the ground floor, possibly in an urban canyon). In Germany (and in neighboring countries), radio-controlled clocks are quite common for this purpose, listening to DCF77 near Frankfurt [1]. Long wave seems to work a bit better than the L-band for indoor propagation, and it probably also helps that the transmit power is three orders of magnitude higher. I'm not sure if the US has an analogous service – there's WWV and WWVH, but they are shortwave transmitters, and I don't know if wall clock or even wristwatch size receivers are possible for that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77
- kortilla 4y ago
  > I'm not sure if the US has an analogous service – there's WWV and WWVH, but they are shortwave transmitters, and I don't know if wall clock or even wristwatch size receivers are possible for that. It does. Small WWVB clocks that self set are quite common.
  - jethro_tell 4y ago
    Yes, works for small clocks and watches, but they have mostly moved to gps these days, at least for auto sync watches.
- lygaret 4y ago
  WWVB is running at 60kHz, and powers at least a few of the small desk clocks in my home :) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWVB
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]