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> If you absolutely must know that it's precisely 14:22:04 it's not the device for you. I think that's false. Railroads used precise watches and published tim

> If you absolutely must know that it's precisely 14:22:04 it's not the device for you. I think that's false. Railroads used precise watches and published timetables to coordinate train movements well before signals were invented; your watch is wrong, you hit another train head on. So if you want to know that it's 14:22:04, the watch has been your device for 200 years.

al_borland 3y ago
They used it because it was the best technology available at the time. And many regulations were put in place to ensure watches for the railways were more accurate than the ones built for the masses, because of those crashes you mention. The railways really drove improvement in watchmaking. I’m sure the railroads would not bother relying on syncing mechanical watches today, there are much better and more accurate tools. I say this as a fan of mechanical watches.
gumby 3y ago
I was writing in this case about 2024. My analogue apple watch face is synced either via nntp or perhaps directly from the GPS stratum 0 time, but typically I simply glance at it and perhaps walk a little faster. Or not. We used to have various rituals for syncing clocks and precision timepieces before the advent of quartz digital watches, NTP, and such. Fun as such things were to watch in the movies and at the Olympics, I never needed such precision in my daily life.
Kirby64 3y ago
That’s only due to extensive synchronization and much more accurate timekeeping. Modern extremely high quality mechanical watches today are only accurate to something like +/-5 seconds per day. If you wear one for months it may be off by minutes. Today’s quartz watches are accurate to something like 1 second a year (for really good ones), but those didn’t exist back in timetable railroad days.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Perhaps this is why the canonical designed clock/watch face comes form Swiss Railways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock There was a huge uproar when Apple used it in early iPhones. Also, TIL, trains in Switzerland always leave stations on the full minute mark.

al_borland 3y ago

They used it because it was the best technology available at the time. And many regulations were put in place to ensure watches for the railways were more accurate than the ones built for the masses, because of those crashes you mention. The railways really drove improvement in watchmaking. I’m sure the railroads would not bother relying on syncing mechanical watches today, there are much better and more accurate tools. I say this as a fan of mechanical watches.

gumby 3y ago

I was writing in this case about 2024. My analogue apple watch face is synced either via nntp or perhaps directly from the GPS stratum 0 time, but typically I simply glance at it and perhaps walk a little faster. Or not. We used to have various rituals for syncing clocks and precision timepieces before the advent of quartz digital watches, NTP, and such. Fun as such things were to watch in the movies and at the Olympics, I never needed such precision in my daily life.

Kirby64 3y ago

That’s only due to extensive synchronization and much more accurate timekeeping. Modern extremely high quality mechanical watches today are only accurate to something like +/-5 seconds per day. If you wear one for months it may be off by minutes. Today’s quartz watches are accurate to something like 1 second a year (for really good ones), but those didn’t exist back in timetable railroad days.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Perhaps this is why the canonical designed clock/watch face comes form Swiss Railways: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock There was a huge uproar when Apple used it in early iPhones. Also, TIL, trains in Switzerland always leave stations on the full minute mark.