5 ms·

There's nothing objectively better about encoding a continuous value into a series of symbols. The round clock is a gauge for time. A gauge is an awesomely int

There's nothing objectively better about encoding a continuous value into a series of symbols. The round clock is a gauge for time. A gauge is an awesomely intutive way to show the change of magnitude of a value.

dopidopHN 4y ago
And a pen is a robust way to write down information that is easily retrieved on a lot of surfaces.
ben_w 4y ago
The very continuity can make dial clocks poorer. Exactly which minute is that hand pointing to? Are you sure parallax between the hand and the face isn't messing with you? And that's ignoring the higher drift in most analogue mechanisms, as sufficient technology can continuously correct for that.
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  Exactness is not the most valuable property of a gauge. It's visual proportionality. If you want exactness, go for symbols, but you will lose the immediate sense of proportion between multiple values.
  - ben_w 4y ago
    > Exactness is not the most valuable property of a gauge. It's visual proportionality. Indeed, but exactness is the most valuable property of a clock, which is why digital timepieces win over analog (guages) in most cases.
    - rhn_mk1 4y ago
      You assert your opinion "exactness is most valuable in clocks" to prove your argument. Someone with the opposite opinion can just as well prove the opposite.
      - ben_w 4y ago
        My evidence, and I suppose I could've phrased it better in the preceding comment, is the analog clocks being mostly replaced with digital ones.
        rhn_mk1 4y ago
        To which I say, got any sources :P? Also, the ones that do get replaced, are they motivated by being ergonomic or by other reasons? To give an example of what I mean, cars are losing knobs for touch screens, which are arguably not better.
dusted 4y ago
Oh but there is: "What time is it?" (Looks at digital clock) -> 13:32:02 -> "It's thirtheen thirthy two" "What time is it?" (Squints a dial clock) -> ( \| ) -> "It's.. something like (squints out window, okay, it's night so 12 means 24) -> "Okay it's something like.." okay, it's almost 24, and the minute pointer is nearest the 11, but when readin minutes there's 5 minutes between each hour.. so now 11 means 50, oh maybe the minutes arm is probably a closer to the next dot." "Yeah, okay, 12 means 24, and 11 means 50 and it's going this way around, so it's +1".. It's 23:51. yes, objectively much simpler and easier. I don't know why you think a gauge allows some intuition that is missed with symbolic representation. There's 24 hours in a day (because fuck decimals I guess), and it's intuitive that 12 is the middle of the day, that one hour is roughly a tenth of your waking day, that thirty minutes is half on an hour.. Sure, you feel a strong intuition for dial watches because that's what you've grown up learning, but the intuition comes from you having used it a lot, not from the display method itself. Places where dials make sense (somewhat) is for things with limits, maybe your fuel gauge or your temperature gauge, and here a simple "bar" is still easier and more informative to read. Gauges are primarily the way they are due to technological evolution, it's the simplest thing we know how to do, making things that turn around, we're really good at that, even early digital clocks relied on numbers printed on cylinders or and similar "rotation oriented" principles.
- mcphage 4y ago
  Digital: "How long until this meeting is over?" "Well, it's 4:37, the meeting is done at 5:00. So 5:00 - 4:37 is 63, no wait, 23 minutes." Analog: "How long until this meeting is over?" "Oh, about a 1/3 of an hour, maybe a bit more."
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  PSA: you have no idea what I did in the past. Okay, I concede that digital watches are objectively more exact than digital. So there is something objectlvely better. But arguing against round clocks having redeeming qualities is dumb. When you look at the gauge, it's enough to check in which area it is to get a rough idea about the passage of time when you don't need down-to-the-minute precision. The long dial moved from left half to right half? We're on the order of half an hour. You noticed the short dial move? It's an hour. With a digital clock you can't pick up those things semi-consciously, you must do actual calculations. As to a bar-shaped clock, given to the unbounded nature of time, it clearly doesn't work as well as one that repeats itself in a circle. I also don't see any meaningful difference in accessibility.
mcphage 4y ago
When I was young and saw digital speedometers I thought those were so cool. And then I drove a car that had one, and realized why they were terrible.
- dagw 4y ago
  Why are they terrible? My car has both, and I never use the analog speedometer.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    Because I want to know if I'm speeding—and if so, by how much—without doing math calculations in my head. Or even without having to look closely enough at the speedometer to be able to parse the numbers. Mentally, that process is a lot slower than looking at where a thing is pointing.
    - dagw 4y ago
      I don't know, I find that 'parsing' a nice big "57" in the middle of my dash board and working out how much over 55 that is a lot quicker and easier than trying to estimate how far an arrow is between two number printed in a much smaller font.
    - dusted 4y ago
      > and if so, by how much— Wait what ? So, you first have to squint, real hard, to find out how much past the printed number the indicator hand is, and THEN you have to do what kind of non-math magic to find out "by how much" ? "By two deegrees!" ?
- dusted 4y ago
  I'm driving an older car that has an analogue speed dial and a digital display only for cruise control setting.. If I'm not already on cruise control, I'll press "set" just to quickly see how fast I'm going.

dopidopHN 4y ago

And a pen is a robust way to write down information that is easily retrieved on a lot of surfaces.

ben_w 4y ago

The very continuity can make dial clocks poorer. Exactly which minute is that hand pointing to? Are you sure parallax between the hand and the face isn't messing with you? And that's ignoring the higher drift in most analogue mechanisms, as sufficient technology can continuously correct for that.

rhn_mk1 4y ago
Exactness is not the most valuable property of a gauge. It's visual proportionality. If you want exactness, go for symbols, but you will lose the immediate sense of proportion between multiple values.
- ben_w 4y ago
  > Exactness is not the most valuable property of a gauge. It's visual proportionality. Indeed, but exactness is the most valuable property of a clock, which is why digital timepieces win over analog (guages) in most cases.
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    You assert your opinion "exactness is most valuable in clocks" to prove your argument. Someone with the opposite opinion can just as well prove the opposite.
    - ben_w 4y ago
      My evidence, and I suppose I could've phrased it better in the preceding comment, is the analog clocks being mostly replaced with digital ones.
      - rhn_mk1 4y ago
        To which I say, got any sources :P? Also, the ones that do get replaced, are they motivated by being ergonomic or by other reasons? To give an example of what I mean, cars are losing knobs for touch screens, which are arguably not better.

dusted 4y ago

Oh but there is: "What time is it?" (Looks at digital clock) -> 13:32:02 -> "It's thirtheen thirthy two" "What time is it?" (Squints a dial clock) -> ( \| ) -> "It's.. something like (squints out window, okay, it's night so 12 means 24) -> "Okay it's something like.." okay, it's almost 24, and the minute pointer is nearest the 11, but when readin minutes there's 5 minutes between each hour.. so now 11 means 50, oh maybe the minutes arm is probably a closer to the next dot." "Yeah, okay, 12 means 24, and 11 means 50 and it's going this way around, so it's +1".. It's 23:51. yes, objectively much simpler and easier. I don't know why you think a gauge allows some intuition that is missed with symbolic representation. There's 24 hours in a day (because fuck decimals I guess), and it's intuitive that 12 is the middle of the day, that one hour is roughly a tenth of your waking day, that thirty minutes is half on an hour.. Sure, you feel a strong intuition for dial watches because that's what you've grown up learning, but the intuition comes from you having used it a lot, not from the display method itself. Places where dials make sense (somewhat) is for things with limits, maybe your fuel gauge or your temperature gauge, and here a simple "bar" is still easier and more informative to read. Gauges are primarily the way they are due to technological evolution, it's the simplest thing we know how to do, making things that turn around, we're really good at that, even early digital clocks relied on numbers printed on cylinders or and similar "rotation oriented" principles.

mcphage 4y ago
Digital: "How long until this meeting is over?" "Well, it's 4:37, the meeting is done at 5:00. So 5:00 - 4:37 is 63, no wait, 23 minutes." Analog: "How long until this meeting is over?" "Oh, about a 1/3 of an hour, maybe a bit more."
rhn_mk1 4y ago
PSA: you have no idea what I did in the past. Okay, I concede that digital watches are objectively more exact than digital. So there is something objectlvely better. But arguing against round clocks having redeeming qualities is dumb. When you look at the gauge, it's enough to check in which area it is to get a rough idea about the passage of time when you don't need down-to-the-minute precision. The long dial moved from left half to right half? We're on the order of half an hour. You noticed the short dial move? It's an hour. With a digital clock you can't pick up those things semi-consciously, you must do actual calculations. As to a bar-shaped clock, given to the unbounded nature of time, it clearly doesn't work as well as one that repeats itself in a circle. I also don't see any meaningful difference in accessibility.

mcphage 4y ago

When I was young and saw digital speedometers I thought those were so cool. And then I drove a car that had one, and realized why they were terrible.

dagw 4y ago
Why are they terrible? My car has both, and I never use the analog speedometer.
- mcphage 4y ago
  Because I want to know if I'm speeding—and if so, by how much—without doing math calculations in my head. Or even without having to look closely enough at the speedometer to be able to parse the numbers. Mentally, that process is a lot slower than looking at where a thing is pointing.
  - dagw 4y ago
    I don't know, I find that 'parsing' a nice big "57" in the middle of my dash board and working out how much over 55 that is a lot quicker and easier than trying to estimate how far an arrow is between two number printed in a much smaller font.
  - dusted 4y ago
    > and if so, by how much— Wait what ? So, you first have to squint, real hard, to find out how much past the printed number the indicator hand is, and THEN you have to do what kind of non-math magic to find out "by how much" ? "By two deegrees!" ?
dusted 4y ago
I'm driving an older car that has an analogue speed dial and a digital display only for cruise control setting.. If I'm not already on cruise control, I'll press "set" just to quickly see how fast I'm going.