3 ms·

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 b

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)

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)