General > General Technical Chat
Lost in progress
DimitriP:
Me too! I disagree more than I normally disagree about nearly anything; with the "opposition" to analog clocks.
Knowing how to read an analog clock , is not unlike learning to walk, speak, solder , read read or wipe one's ass.
Now, regarding people that handle "number intuitively":
Maybe there are people that when someone mentions two and half pizzas all they "see " in ther mind is "2.5"
I see two whole pizzas and half a pizza. With the left half missing.
And when we talk about a full moon, if anyone pictures a 1 in their head, it should be examined :)
We'll talk about a year wheel comprised of 12 slices one for each month some other time,
most likely after |_ o'clock :)
Circlotron:
--- Quote from: tom66 on April 01, 2023, 05:22:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on April 01, 2023, 03:36:54 pm ---Check the permissible errors in the values a speedometer displays :) Precision != accuracy :)
--- End quote ---
The speedometer on my car is within 1 mph of GPS indicated speed.
--- End quote ---
With new, larger diameter tyres or worn, smaller diameter tyres?
Siwastaja:
--- Quote from: mwb1100 on April 01, 2023, 06:41:07 pm ---It turns out that there are one handed clocks even today, as one of these 24 hour watches demonstrates:
--- End quote ---
That zulutime example is completely incomprehensible because it just uses 24 hours but keeps all the other problems (3 hands is even worse than 2), so you still need to run the complex pattern recognition parser in your brain and now the clock is 24-hour clock so the programmed-in-school parser does not work, so it's even worse.
On the other hand, the Svalbard is just excellent! At least I can see the time-of-the-day intuitively in picoseconds. It makes total sense instantly. And the resolution you can read the time is surprisingly good. One would assume the resolution goes down by 120x when one gets rid of the minutes hand and goes to 24-hour face, but clearly this is not the case.
This is because usual clocks with minute hands are poor quality, minute hand is too thick and the mechanism is not rigidly manufactured but loose, the mapping from the mechanism to the scale is not calibrated, so you can only read the "usual" clocks by +/- 2 minute accuracy which is disappointing*. The Svalbard seems to be +/- 5 minutes or so, a VERY good compromise I would say because if you need high-resolution exact time you would obviously use a digital clock for that. The Svalbard would bring the theoretical benefits of analog clocks, intuitive quick glancing of approximate time, into practice.
*) for the same reason I find it totally hilarious that some clocks with such poor minute hands add a third hand for seconds, but it's totally useless because you can't know if the time is 9:40:57 or 9:41:57!
I like to rant about clocks because it's a perfect example of something we take for granted and most of us do not apply the same engineering scrutiny as they usually do with measurement instruments.
magic:
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 01, 2023, 06:00:52 pm ---Analog clock is a total disaster, you can't see anything intuitively. The whole feeling of simplicity/intuition is because we have been taught how to read one since we were small kids. A LOT of effort went into that learning process. It's a complex parser.
--- End quote ---
It's like learning to ride a bike. It's hard, there is nothing intuitive about maintaining balance on two wheels, and stability would be better if a third was added, and you don't really need that stuff just to survive.
But learning to use complex technology is how we are able to live more comfortably than monkeys :P
--- Quote from: Siwastaja on April 01, 2023, 06:00:52 pm ---Why? What is wrong with analog clock. Basically everything:
1) It does not correspond to the natural day-night cycle at all. It does not have 24 hours like the natural cycle. Two cycles are multiplexed into one actual cycle.
2) In most actual clocks that you can buy, the more significant, larger, better visible hand is minute hand. You don't get any rough idea about the time of the day by looking at the minute hand.
3) The minute hand points to some numbers directly. Great idea, you can accurately read the minutes there? Wrong! The numbers say: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. You have to mentally multiple by five to get the minutes.
4) The small hours hand point to... nothing. The hours scale is missing. Not that it matters, the hours scale is accidentally at the wrong place (as explained above).
5) Want to have a rough idea of time, with a quick glance? No way, you see a graphical mess of two hands forming some kind of geometrical shape which means nothing.
--- End quote ---
The minutes and seconds hands are longer because they point to the 60 dots outside the circle of hours.
The hours hand is shorter because it points to hours. It should be thicker than the others to make it more visible.
If your analog clock isn't like that, you simply need a better clock.
The multiple hands provide much higher resolution that you could dream of with only one. Although it's spoiled by the seconds being out of sync with minutes in most clocks.
24 hours could be nice. I prefer the 24h system over AM/PM.
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on April 01, 2023, 02:59:04 pm ---The plan was to hang it on the wall without battery, for its Temp/Humidity indicators only. I don't like the continuous ticking of a clock. However, I've let it run to check if the clock is working, only to discover how much better a dial clock is, in comparison with a digital clock. Not talking about nostalgia here.
--- End quote ---
I have seen tickless clocks, where the seconds hand advances smoothly and silently like the others.
2N3055:
For me it is digital clock all the way..
I intuitively know where I am in time based on numbers.
Analog displays are great for transient 0-100% or static 0-100% displays. They are intuitive for that.
It can be dial or bar graph...
Figuring how many minutes to meeting or megabytes till the end of file copy i have left is best left to numbers directly..
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