3 ms·

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) -> ( \| )

by 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.
- dusted 4y ago
  > you must do actual calculations. I disagree, you build intuition around numbers just as you do anything else, and there's so few of them when dealing with time, you feel it, your mechanical intuition has been built the same way. Like, if you read "19 minutes" you don't really need to calculate to feel "about a fourth of an hour" but if you needed to know, you don't have to squint harder. I agree, bar-shaped clocks would be silly, I was just thinking about gauges in general, where they make sense, and dial clocks are a special kind I think, because they wrap around all the time, exactly like your temperature or fuel gauge do not (or the "windows file copy progress bar"). A bar for an engine temperature, or fuel, or.. A time-constrained meeting! that'd make a lot of sense if "quickly determine if the engine is overheating without looking away for too long" is the priority (or if you need to decide if you have to run to the bathroom now or can wait for the meeting to end)

by dusted 4y ago

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.

dusted 4y ago
> you must do actual calculations. I disagree, you build intuition around numbers just as you do anything else, and there's so few of them when dealing with time, you feel it, your mechanical intuition has been built the same way. Like, if you read "19 minutes" you don't really need to calculate to feel "about a fourth of an hour" but if you needed to know, you don't have to squint harder. I agree, bar-shaped clocks would be silly, I was just thinking about gauges in general, where they make sense, and dial clocks are a special kind I think, because they wrap around all the time, exactly like your temperature or fuel gauge do not (or the "windows file copy progress bar"). A bar for an engine temperature, or fuel, or.. A time-constrained meeting! that'd make a lot of sense if "quickly determine if the engine is overheating without looking away for too long" is the priority (or if you need to decide if you have to run to the bathroom now or can wait for the meeting to end)