5 ms·

I've always loved this idea. It just makes sense. People argue against the "circular notation" of a clock face and how it relates to 60 minutes/seconds, but a

I've always loved this idea. It just makes sense. People argue against the "circular notation" of a clock face and how it relates to 60 minutes/seconds, but all that analog stuff is dead.

bluedevil2k 13y ago
And as long as we're discussing "out there" time notations, I'll throw out my support for a calendar system that makes more sense. 12 30-day months with a 5 (or 6) day "Holiday Month" at the end. Adjusting the "week" to be 10 days instead of 7. 3 weeks a month, 9 weeks a quarter, 36 weeks a year. Work 7 of the 10 days in a week would be the same as a 5-day work week (2 more days off a year actually).
- rolux 13y ago
  Maybe, but that ship has sailed. No-one is going to reform this. There are many problems with time (see http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_saf.html http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_...), but the number of hours per day or the number of days per week or month are none of them.
- rhizome31 13y ago
  What you describe sounds a lot like the French Republican Calendar (linked from the See Also section).
- nathos 13y ago
  You might be interested in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar I remember it still being used at Kodak when I was a kid and my father worked there.
- Uchikoma 13y ago
  I honestly ask why?
  - bluedevil2k 13y ago
    Dates would be the same day forever. Financial quarters would be even and easily divided. Never print a new calendar. Etc.
    - anonymouz 13y ago
      Seems like all the complexity and special casing of the time keeping is moved into the "holiday month" at the end. E.g., Which financial quarter does it belong to? Moreover only 5 or 6 out of the 10 weekdays will occur in the holiday month, then you have to reset to "Monday" again to have a fixed date->day mapping.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- kybernetikos 13y ago
  That's what I have in my time system UIT (linked earlier). I renamed the days to nullday, unday, duoday, triday, quadday, pentday, hexday, heptday, octday, nonday. One nice feature is that if I tell you that it's 1st Unday today, you can see immediately that it's the 12 day of the year (since 0th Nullday is the first day of the year).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- VLM 13y ago
  Perhaps a start would be not naming months after dead early roman emperors
lampe3 13y ago
"but all that analog stuff is dead." I still wear a analog Watch
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- ValentineC 13y ago
  Just curious — aesthetics aside, what other advantages do you think an analog watch provides?
  - orbitingpluto 13y ago
    "What exactly does it mean -- to wind a watch?"
  - lampe3 13y ago
    It's a self-winding Watch so I don't need a Battery. I grew up with analog Watches and reading them is not a problem for me but i understand the point to use Digital Watches. I Personally don't like the aesthetics of Digital Watches ;)
  - gumby 13y ago
    > Just curious — aesthetics aside what other > advantages do you think an analog watch provides? Think of an analogue watch as a 2d graph where one of the dimensions is t. If you have a table of numbers you can compare them by looking at all the cells or you can graph each row one a cartesian (or polar or...) plot. Both contain the same info, and the table probably has higher resolution, but which tells a more illuminating story? On a watch face, the minute hand is the biggest win: you can see at a glance approximately what time it is / approximately how long you have / approximately how far away you are which is what you usually need. I definitely think in terms of it being about "a quarter past fourteen" or "half past seven". The digital watch has too much precision and requires too much parsing. The hour hand gives you similar data on a larger scale, but you typically need that less. And in fact though the watch face shows 2x 12 hours, when I look at it I see the normal 24 hour clock. The second hand is good when you're working out since as you see it sweep to its goal you might push harder to get one more rep in or whatever, but this is a less common need and in fact many analogue watches come without a second hand. === The analogue clock face is an example of more humane design for specific problem domain, sort of the like US & Imperial unit systems. They are utterly useless for engineering (but even in engineering I use both MKS and CGS depending on the problem domain -- and its community). Miles and km / acres and hectares -- it's no big deal to me either way. But when making a staircase, cooking a meal for three people or resizing a dress pattern, the ability to use a system that naturally decomposes into rational factors is appropriate. And that's the beauty of the babylonian time system: despite the annoying (though necessary) primality of the week, there are plenty of factors available for subdividing the intervals.
0xEA 13y ago
I was a huge fan of this in '98. Was very sad to see it fail. I even wrote custom software for Litestep so you could see what beat time it was.
gaius 13y ago
The way you experience time most certainly is analogue. Hint: time does not advance in units of seconds, it is continuous.
pedalpete 13y ago
Beats time is no more 'digital' than the 24-hour day. It's 10 base which makes it easier for us to calculate, and without time zones, makes it easier to communicate around the world as we become more global. I think maybe Swatch gave up to early on this? It could have just been another measurement on their watches. Not the main one, but secondary. There's no way this was going to be an overnight change.
- JadeNB 13y ago
  > Beats time is no more 'digital' than the 24-hour day. It's 10 base which makes it easier for us to calculate, and without time zones, makes it easier to communicate around the world as we become more global. But 'digital' literally means base-10 (as in, like the digits on your hands), so in what sense is it not digital?
dfc 13y ago
> People argue against the "circular notation" of a clock face I have never heard this argument and I am not very sure I understand what it means. What is the argument? Who are these "people"?
kybernetikos 13y ago
Actually, a decimal time works really well on a circular clock face: http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/ http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/ (you need to permit gps to get the correct rotation and drawn on light/dark periods). http://kybernetikos.com/2012/11/26/modern-times-a-new-clock/ http://kybernetikos.com/2012/11/26/modern-times-a-new-clock/

I've always loved this idea. It just makes sense. People argue against the "circular notation" of a clock face and how it relates to 60 minutes/seconds, but all that analog stuff is dead.

bluedevil2k 13y ago

And as long as we're discussing "out there" time notations, I'll throw out my support for a calendar system that makes more sense. 12 30-day months with a 5 (or 6) day "Holiday Month" at the end. Adjusting the "week" to be 10 days instead of 7. 3 weeks a month, 9 weeks a quarter, 36 weeks a year. Work 7 of the 10 days in a week would be the same as a 5-day work week (2 more days off a year actually).

rolux 13y ago
Maybe, but that ship has sailed. No-one is going to reform this. There are many problems with time (see http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_saf.html http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2009/04/making_time_...), but the number of hours per day or the number of days per week or month are none of them.
rhizome31 13y ago
What you describe sounds a lot like the French Republican Calendar (linked from the See Also section).
nathos 13y ago
You might be interested in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Fixed_Calendar I remember it still being used at Kodak when I was a kid and my father worked there.
Uchikoma 13y ago
I honestly ask why?
- bluedevil2k 13y ago
  Dates would be the same day forever. Financial quarters would be even and easily divided. Never print a new calendar. Etc.
  - anonymouz 13y ago
    Seems like all the complexity and special casing of the time keeping is moved into the "holiday month" at the end. E.g., Which financial quarter does it belong to? Moreover only 5 or 6 out of the 10 weekdays will occur in the holiday month, then you have to reset to "Monday" again to have a fixed date->day mapping.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kybernetikos 13y ago
That's what I have in my time system UIT (linked earlier). I renamed the days to nullday, unday, duoday, triday, quadday, pentday, hexday, heptday, octday, nonday. One nice feature is that if I tell you that it's 1st Unday today, you can see immediately that it's the 12 day of the year (since 0th Nullday is the first day of the year).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
VLM 13y ago
Perhaps a start would be not naming months after dead early roman emperors

lampe3 13y ago

"but all that analog stuff is dead." I still wear a analog Watch

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ValentineC 13y ago
Just curious — aesthetics aside, what other advantages do you think an analog watch provides?
- orbitingpluto 13y ago
  "What exactly does it mean -- to wind a watch?"
- lampe3 13y ago
  It's a self-winding Watch so I don't need a Battery. I grew up with analog Watches and reading them is not a problem for me but i understand the point to use Digital Watches. I Personally don't like the aesthetics of Digital Watches ;)
- gumby 13y ago
  > Just curious — aesthetics aside what other > advantages do you think an analog watch provides? Think of an analogue watch as a 2d graph where one of the dimensions is t. If you have a table of numbers you can compare them by looking at all the cells or you can graph each row one a cartesian (or polar or...) plot. Both contain the same info, and the table probably has higher resolution, but which tells a more illuminating story? On a watch face, the minute hand is the biggest win: you can see at a glance approximately what time it is / approximately how long you have / approximately how far away you are which is what you usually need. I definitely think in terms of it being about "a quarter past fourteen" or "half past seven". The digital watch has too much precision and requires too much parsing. The hour hand gives you similar data on a larger scale, but you typically need that less. And in fact though the watch face shows 2x 12 hours, when I look at it I see the normal 24 hour clock. The second hand is good when you're working out since as you see it sweep to its goal you might push harder to get one more rep in or whatever, but this is a less common need and in fact many analogue watches come without a second hand. === The analogue clock face is an example of more humane design for specific problem domain, sort of the like US & Imperial unit systems. They are utterly useless for engineering (but even in engineering I use both MKS and CGS depending on the problem domain -- and its community). Miles and km / acres and hectares -- it's no big deal to me either way. But when making a staircase, cooking a meal for three people or resizing a dress pattern, the ability to use a system that naturally decomposes into rational factors is appropriate. And that's the beauty of the babylonian time system: despite the annoying (though necessary) primality of the week, there are plenty of factors available for subdividing the intervals.

0xEA 13y ago

I was a huge fan of this in '98. Was very sad to see it fail. I even wrote custom software for Litestep so you could see what beat time it was.

gaius 13y ago

The way you experience time most certainly is analogue. Hint: time does not advance in units of seconds, it is continuous.

pedalpete 13y ago

Beats time is no more 'digital' than the 24-hour day. It's 10 base which makes it easier for us to calculate, and without time zones, makes it easier to communicate around the world as we become more global. I think maybe Swatch gave up to early on this? It could have just been another measurement on their watches. Not the main one, but secondary. There's no way this was going to be an overnight change.

JadeNB 13y ago
> Beats time is no more 'digital' than the 24-hour day. It's 10 base which makes it easier for us to calculate, and without time zones, makes it easier to communicate around the world as we become more global. But 'digital' literally means base-10 (as in, like the digits on your hands), so in what sense is it not digital?

dfc 13y ago

> People argue against the "circular notation" of a clock face I have never heard this argument and I am not very sure I understand what it means. What is the argument? Who are these "people"?

kybernetikos 13y ago

Actually, a decimal time works really well on a circular clock face: http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/ http://kybernetikos.github.io/UIT/ (you need to permit gps to get the correct rotation and drawn on light/dark periods). http://kybernetikos.com/2012/11/26/modern-times-a-new-clock/ http://kybernetikos.com/2012/11/26/modern-times-a-new-clock/