Stephen Hawking Unveils "Time Eater" Clock 198
gyrogeerloose writes "Stephen Hawking unveiled an unsettling clock in Cambridge on Friday. Designed by John Taylor — a British horologist and inventor whose thermostatic switch is incorporated in millions of electric appliances worldwide — the clock was conceived as a tribute to another British inventor, John Harrison. Harrison invented the grasshopper escapement in the early 18th Century, which resulted in extremely accurate mechanical time keeping and was instrumental in solving the Longitude Problem. Taylor's clock, which in entirely mechanical in operation but has no hands, uses a fearsome-looking 'demon grasshopper' as its escapement. 'I... wanted to depict that time is a destroyer — once a minute is gone you can't get it back' Taylor said. 'That's why my grasshopper is not a Disney character. He is a ferocious beast that over the seconds has his tongue lolling out, his jaws opening, then on the 59th second he gulps down time.' It also (purposely) only tells correct time once every five minutes. An excellent video of the clock in action, with an explanation of its workings by its inventor, is available on YouTube."
Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
That's just awesome. It looks like a grasshopper walking along the top. Lights spiral out from the center, until it reaches the creature, and then it starts again.
But it says that it doesn't have hands - it has LEDs all around it, which displays the time. I think that's pretty much the same thing, no?
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Only gripe is that it looks very out of place on that gaudy-looking gold face.
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Nah. That film was just about a bunch of whiny people wandering around an empty airport for three hours.
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Book was good thou.
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Well, I do wish that they had used this clock bug instead of those embarrassingly ugly mutated flying pacmans who looked like they came straight from a Nintendo 64 game. A perfect way to completely ruin an otherwise pretty mediocre film and put in on the worst-films-ever-list.
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Re:Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
But it says that it doesn't have hands - it has LEDs all around it... I think that's pretty much the same thing, no?
Sort of. The inventor is still accurate in saying that it doesn't have hands though ;) (& if you get too close to that grasshopper neither will you!)
The bit I find interesting is the mechanism for the LEDs. Because of my way of thinking I had assumed that the LEDs would be controlled programmatically. It is actually a clever entirely mechanical implementation using vernier slits (3:42 in the Youtube video). I find it fascinating. I'll admit to having never heard of them so it has that whole "woah!" appeal for me.
Besides, I'm not into bling but this thing is ostentatiously cool and doesn't IMHO look half bad. I'd love to own one if it wasn't so loud as to annoy the neighbors. Oh and if it wasn't one of a kind and I had that kind of money to hand of course.
Some people don't seem to like it and that's fair enough. All the same I find it altogether novel.
Re:Awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Lights spiral out from the center, until it reaches the creature, and then it starts again.
Not true, it's not spiralling at all. Look closely at the video! I live just across the road from this clock, and since yesterday it has continuously drawn crowds. And the LEDs are behind the clock and permanently switched on - the sensation of the moving lights is created purely mechanically from two rotating disks with holes in them (one with 60 slots and the other with 61). The attention to detail in this device is remarkable: e.g. the "chronophage" grasshopper on top of the clock blinks with its eye (sometimes double-blinks), and this is controlled through a separate mechanical clock-work.
1m GBP? (Score:2)
For that much they could have at least made it a self-winding automatic. jeebus.
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The clock could have been put on a mounting which would have been slightly jostled by the foot traffic of passers by.
STEVEN?? (Score:2, Informative)
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AC, I don't understand your use of the word "move" in the context of a spacetime object. When looking at Einstein's block universe, all "time travel" means is that a particular world-line is not a monoparametric function of t.
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All you're doing is taking "change", like what is implicit when we talk about time, and reinterpreting it from a variable to a locus of its values over its entire domain.
There's a neat bit in Godel, Escher, Bach that illustrates this concept nicely, where he's got a picture of a dragon, which is cut up and folded into a 3d thing, and then a photo is taken of that 3d thing, and that photo is in turn cut and folded.
But in order for "time travel" to take place, all you need is a loop-de-loop shaped world-line.
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Uh, cite?
Oh, and BTW... Stephen Hawking is so often right and others wrong that if he believes in the possibility of time travel I'm willing to take his word for it in the absence of contrary evidence.
And yes: He's admitted he was wrong before. More the better.
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Excuse me. I think you may have lost your train of thought here. I would suggest you check your meds.
General relativity does not consider - neither a
who is it (Score:4, Informative)
Steven Hawking? or Stephen Hawking??? I've never heard of a Steven Hawking
Re:who is it (Score:5, Funny)
He's Stephen Hawking's non-union equivalent.
Re:who is it (Score:4, Informative)
Re:who is it (Score:5, Funny)
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It's all the matter that slowly escapes over time when Stephen Hawking gets sucked into a black hole.
It works, I just watched some of the video (Score:5, Funny)
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Just wait 8 hours. It's also a time excreter.
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You need not be concerned about the loss of that minute. That minute is still there, from now until time ends.
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How much did it cost to post the reply? Meh, I'm going to bed.
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I just love speaking a language where it's possible to say things such as "You can always sue the demonic grasshopper...", and not necessarily be a schizophrenic. We English speakers should probably be more appreciative of a language where nobody inventing the tongue could possibly have anticipated needing to say something like that, but when the need pops up, 'Bob's yer uncle' and English stretches to fit.
Just a clock (Score:4, Insightful)
Misleading description...from TFA:
Yeah, so the only think Hawking had to do with this clock is: he was a guest at its unveiling.
And the clock itself really isn't much of a clock. The only mildly interesting thing about it is the "time eating" grasshopper that travels around the outside.
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And if Hawking thinks this is cool enough to promote it, then it's probably wothwhile checking it out.
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gotta help out the homies...I went back and watched the video again (this time with the sound on) and the design inspiration for the concentric circles was very interesting, I must admit. Pity they couldn't have made it so it is accurate to the second...I'd still put it on my wall
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> "And the clock itself really isn't much of a clock. The only mildly interesting thing about it is the "time eating" grasshopper that travels around the outside."
This is a ludicrous statement, considering this is one of the most advanced mechanical clocks in existence (electricity is used simply for the lights and a motor to rewind the clock). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock [wikipedia.org]
:( Localized video........ (Score:2)
~
Relativity (Score:2)
Re:Relativity (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually, the quote about time spent with a pretty girl compared to sitting on a hot stove was the sound of Einstein resigning himself to international fame and celebrity, despite the fact that none of his fans actually understood any of his accomplishments.
LEDs (Score:5, Insightful)
He blew it. He sould at least have used a carbon-arc and hundreds of mirrors and lenses.
Re:LEDs (Score:4, Informative)
He blew it. He sould at least have used a carbon-arc and hundreds of mirrors and lenses.
Would you find solace in the fact that the LEDs are always illuminated, and only let light through when slits in a wheel align?
Re:LEDs (Score:4, Funny)
No. Best would be hundreds of oil lamps. Gas lamps might be acceptable as long as they used coal gas. Limelight might be acceptable.
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Jim Henson would be jealous (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm just disappointed... (Score:4, Funny)
... that the inventor isn't named "Reg"
"Time Eater" (Score:2, Funny)
Salad fingers? (Score:2)
Is it just me, or does the guy the the Youtube video sound exactly like Salad Fingers?
Only a chauvinist would say this clock isn't tech. (Score:5, Interesting)
It does appear to use blue leds - But there is no circuitry to control their 'flashing'.
This clock is a masterpiece of mechanical engineering.
The time is displayed with the lights by rotating a series of annular overlapping disks which have slots in them. The slots are precisely engineered in a "vernier" fashion, so they don't all line up at once, but only as the clock very subtly moves. There isn't a "seconds" hand, rather there is a "hand" that seems to rotate around the entire clock once per second, and it purely shows the rotation of the fastest outer annulus, with which the grasshopper escarpment engages.
The thing is, if this were purely "art" then it wouldn't work.
You're forgetting that all technologies are "art".
The defining feature that makes such things be labelled as tech rather than art is that tech works.
Tech doesn't just refer to "electronic". In fact if this clock were electronic, it would be one hell of a lot less impressive.
This clock works, (perhaps with a "bug" or two...) therefore it is tech. It doesn't "cop out" and use cheap and easy electronics, therefore it is impressive. It's designer shows he can make mechanical assemblies with such precision that it's dynamic motion can be used to keep time - a skill which is becoming rapidly lost with our current state of cheap electronics from China.
Is is Important Tech? Perhaps not, unless some circumstance conspires to require precise timekeeping in say an environment where electronics dare not go. Maybe some day we might need clocks that work near a lot of high energy ionising radiation, who knows.
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> It doesn't "cop out" and use cheap and easy electronics, therefore it is
> impressive.
It "cops out" by using LEDs instead of doing something clever with mirrors and sunlight or similar. They're an ugly anachronism.
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Its a clock going on a building... that has to be readable at night...
Mirrors and sunlight won't hack it.
Cool, maybe, but this is a case of an engineer actually knowing, designing and building to the requirements, not what is cool.
Unfortauntely I just missed it (Score:2)
I'm going to take a look at it Monday on my way to work. It looks quite cool in the videos I've seen.
Sorry if you want to know about time eaters (Score:5, Funny)
you actually can get the minutes back by reversing time [skybooksusa.com].
There are real time eaters out there, they exist beyond three dimensions and exist in several dimensional space. If you saw how they really look, you'd go insane like I did when I first saw them.
First learn about super strings [superstringtheory.com] and then we can discuss how the universe and multiverse actually work. Hawking got a lot of things wrong, the Hawking paradox was but one of them [newscientist.com] and the information and matter and energy does not simply disappear, it ends up in a different dimension. One you Terrans have not discovered yet. But keep guessing, you'll find it eventually and then learn how to reverse time.
Usual caveats seem to apply (Score:2)
The rotating cylinder, while an improvement in some respects, suffers from the same limitation as all other relativity compatible time travel schemes. You can only navigate to points in space time occupied by (certain areas of) the rotating cylinder. So while it would be cool to start one of these up, and maybe someone from the future could come out of it (unless future Luddites destroy it), it won't help to go back and change history.
And of course there is the usual practical caveat - the sheer size of t
Re:Usual caveats seem to apply (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting ideas, but just to let you know there will be electro-magnetic fields a human being will pass through with such a device that would stop the heart and fry the brain unless it was properly shielded. When anything goes through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, you have to properly shield it. Once you uncover the grand unified theory and prove that, you will discover how to shield against electro-magnetic fields to prevent damage. Another way is to convert the matter into energy, pass it through such a device, and then convert the energy back into matter after passing through, much like those Star Trek transporter technology if you don't mind your molecules being taken apart and put back together.
Black holes are not really black, there is a nano aspect to them in the lower dimensions that does not resemble a singularity as is commonly thought, and in some cases they are nicknamed as time eaters because they eat time and space as well as matter and energy, but regurgitate it back up in a different dimension as the Super Nova or high gravity that caused it to form punched a hole in our universe to a different universe or dimension, and the black hole appears hungry and eats all matter, energy, time, and space, to the observer, and the other end is somewhere else where everything it ate comes out eventually.
Paranoia is a survival trait, but how does a person from the future know they can trust someone in the past to not change things so their future won't exist anymore? Trust is a two-way street.
Still Chronodymanics and Chrononaughts haven't been developed or thought up yet, as this century is still stifled by atheistic and secular scientists who lack the imagination and do not even believe that such science or technology is possible and don't believe in the nano dimensions or other universes or dimensions, so they force their "version" of the Truth(TM) on us that nothing exists outside of our universe and that there are only three dimensions and completely ignore space and time as dimensions, ignore Spinosa and Einstein's theories on God and all the work on it that Hawking based on Einstein and Spinosa's work in "A Brief History of Time which explains the scientific theories that came from Christianity and religion and what God really is and the universe. That makes this modern science with a very myoptic "caveman" view of reality. But we are learning new information every year.
Ironically 4000 to 6000 years ago some of the beings who helped our civilizations gave knowledge of the universe and it was to be a user's manual for the "program" our machine (universe) runs but it got easily confused for religion when it was actually science and all of the parts the people 4000+ years ago couldn't understand rejected it and rewrote it so it made more sense to their "cavemen" mentality, but the philisophies and theories came to form ancient science and moved away from "magic" as alchemy evolved into chemistry, astrology evolved into astronomy, theology evolved into physics, etc and we got modern science thanks to the Aztecs, Babylonians, Jewish people, early Christians (Monks in a Monastery came up with scientific theories before Newton did).
God is a time traveler, he traveled back to the past to become his own son, and then traveled back to the beginning of time and became his father, and then traveled again and became the holy spirit, and has tried to change history for the good of humanity. In the original time line, Hitler won WWII, but God changed that, yet in doing so other bad things had happened, but not as bad as Nazi Germany controlling the entire world. This universe is an accident, really, The Devil worked for God and thought he could do a better job but started a war in Heaven that created this universe, and God has been cleaning things up every since. Since The Devil stole some of God's ideas, but flawed them, Jesus had to be born to try and fix things and set us back on the right path. We are all part of a program and don't know it.
Not everyone will believe me, most will
It also (purposely) only tells correct time... (Score:2)
...once every 5 minutes? Pray tell, why would that be? Not being new here, I made a valiant effort to not RTFAs, only to be drawn in by this teaser and succumb to the wiliest of temptations. Yes, I RTFAs, but I am no more enlightened than before...
Faster than the speed of light (Score:3, Interesting)
Notice how the intersection of the slots "moves" at a rate faster than the actual movement of the material having the slots. Now imagine something containing those slots moving at a speed approaching the speed of light relative to another stationary thing like it. You are located near the end the slot intersections are approaching. But from your perspective, the slot intersections would appear to be going away from you because the nearer intersection events arrive first.
John Harrison: Greatest Unsung Hero Ever (Score:3, Informative)
John Harrison's story chronicled in "Longitude" is the story of the greatest unsung hero of science and engineering since the Renaissance. Working on his own for nearly 50 years and in the face of fanatical opposition of the Board of Longitude Society he singlehandedly invented modern chronongraphy and all the particular horological advancements required up through the invention of electronic time pieces. To that end he solved the longitude problem which directly lead to British Naval supremacy as well as all commercial shipping and the advent of safe ocean passage without loss of life or cargo.
Oh Goody (Score:2)
Erm... (Score:2)
Cannot play media. Sorry, this media is not available in your territory.
WTF???
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Uh, maybe they use them since they are so visible? Maybe the idea of a clock face or any other LED panel is to make it visible without having to walk right up to it to read it?
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And for that matter, blue is not the only bright LED available.
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Your logic behind this statement? You're the one who said too many. If it were all wouldn't it still be too many?
My cell phone, however, does NOT need a blue LED flashing a bright spotlight on my bedroom ceiling every 6 seconds to tell me bluetooth is turned on.
There are multiple ways to approach this: turn off the alert (if possible),don't buy the product if that's such a big deal to you, turn the device in such a fashion that it doesn't illuminate you
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Although in this clock, there is a bank of hundreds of bright blue LEDs, all on the whole time, of which only about four have a purpose at any given time.
"Only consumes 60W." But the thing is, for the amount of actual illumination you get, that's actually disgracefully wasteful.
Re:Technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd call it craftmanship, engineering and art all rolled up into one.
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I've come to learn that when you combine craftsmanship and engineering, you end up with something that doesn't tend to break, and is almost always extremely useful.
Throw "art" into the mix, and you end up with something that is marginally useful, full of potential design flaws introduced for the sake of art that may cause it to break, and not terribly fun to look at.
This seems to fit. I put art into parentheses because I believe that a good craftsman is an artist. He makes the art seem invisible, and you
Re:Technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
"This is 100% art. It uses nothing more technologically noteworthy than a bunch of blue LEDs and a grasshopper escapement."
Because a mechanical timepiece isn't "technology?" Or does it only qualify as "technology" if it's less than ten years old?
"and the grasshopper escapement is almost 3 centuries old."
Does it no longer work? Has the warranty expired?
Without external communications capabilities (e.g. WWVB or NTP), I guarantee you that this clock keeps more accurate time than any timepiece you've ever owned.
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Does it no longer work? Has the warranty expired?
It still works, but I think it's fair to say that it no longer qualifies as "News for Nerds".
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Your guarantee... (Score:2, Informative)
There's nothing in the article to indicate what it uses as a timebase, except a comment about an "electric motor." AC line frequency, the same as my bedroom alarm clock? European line frequency can vary by seconds per day [utwente.nl].
Exactly what was your "guarantee," because I t
Re:Your guarantee... (Score:5, Informative)
"There's nothing in the article to indicate what it uses as a timebase, except a comment about an "electric motor." AC line frequency, the same as my bedroom alarm clock?"
The base is the grasshopper escapement, the entire point of the clock, what it commemorates, and what the article is all about. The motor is used to wind the clock's spring, which is released from tension at a steady rate by the swinging of the escapement.
And because you didn't RTFA in your effort to be a smart-ass, you've come out looking like a dumb-ass for not understanding the concept of a pendulum clock. This right here is an indicator of why the "technology" tag is appropriate for this: people here (such as yourself) don't know how it works.
Like a fool... (Score:2, Informative)
Escapement timepieces without pendulums are common (e.g. most any mechanical wristwatch, which uses a balance wheel), people have corrected pendulums with atomic sources (typically using magnetics to delay or accelerate the pendulum).
It is ac
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Without external communications capabilities (e.g. WWVB or NTP), I guarantee you that this clock keeps more accurate time than any timepiece you've ever owned.
Citation needed. Tone down the karma-whoring hyperboles to yourselves and stick to what you KNOW to be a fact.
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"Citation needed. Tone down the karma-whoring hyperboles to yourselves and stick to what you KNOW to be a fact."
A quartz timepiece, such as the ones used in just about all consumer clocks, watches, computers, cell phones, GPS receivers, etc. will typically gain or lose about half a second every day (up to 15 seconds a month) without correction. On the other hand, much smaller mechanical timepieces than this, which are substantially similar but don't have the luxury of relatively massive moving parts to eas
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While it is true that John Harrison made wooden clocks, his attempts to win the Longitude prize were all made of metal. You can see them in the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Re:Technology? (Score:4, Informative)
Just because it's been blinged up doesn't make the underlying mechanical mechanism any less impressive. Who says science can't be beautiful?
Yes, the LEDs are blue - but what other colour would you combine with gold? The bank of LEDs just provide a constant light source; the light show at the front (which could be mistaken for electronics) is achieved using vernier slits and lenses - that's genius.
Re:Technology? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who tagged this "technology"? This is 100% art.
I disagree -- this is definitely Technology as well as Art. There's no reason it has to be only one or the other. Besides, the ancient Greeks felt all technology was art. The word "technology" itself comes from the Greek root "techne" which means art or skill.
Not all technology is computers and transistors. Technology has existed and improved throughout the ages, from the ability to make fire and work with tools to the creation of the wheel. Clocks and geared mechanisms certainly make for interesting technology from large computers such as Babbage's Difference Engine [cnet.com] to portable devices such as the Antikythera mechanism. [guardian.co.uk]
It would be possible to even have "modern" technology without transistors although perhaps it wouldn't be the same as the high tech steam powered science of the Steampunk Genre. [wikipedia.org]
some of the effects are technically interesting (Score:2)
I mean, fundamentally, a giant mechanical clock with a large escapement on the outside functioning as both sculpture and working escapement is kind of cool, technologically.
Some of the variations that make this an art piece are also interesting technologically, though I haven't seen them all explained, mostly the ways it varies from operating in a purely predictable way "like clockwork". For example, the pendulum sometimes appears to catch slightly, the time lags backwards, then races ahead, etc.
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You miss the point -- it doesn't have blinking blue LEDs -- it has blue LEDs being used to backlight an *entirely mechanical* mechanism.
Put a floodlight behind it and you'd get the same effect.
Its an amazing piece of engineering, because its a carefully *mechanically* timed mechanism moving slits in an interference pattern behind lenses that creates an effect you'd expect from using electronics.
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It's funny that Slashdot runs articles about building a working Babbage style difference engine or reconstructing the Antikythera mechanism, and nobody complains that they're not news for nerds. Maybe the connection between this grashopper escapement and solving a big problem in oceangoing navigation is historically a little more esoteric.
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I guess I am ambitious because on my last case, I replaced the green LEDs with ultra-bright blue ones. In my defense, I also replaced the springs under the power and reset switches with some screen door closer parts, so the average 5 year old lacks the strength to push the buttons that are now so attractive since I put in those bright blue LEDs.
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The human Cubic who rotates a 4 corner stage family rotating metamorphic lifetime.
Earth is composed of opposite hemispheres which rotate in opposite directions - equal to a zero value existence (plus & minus). As entity, the opposite hemispheres cancel out. Earth exist as 4 - 90 degree opposite corner quadrants, but not as a 360 degree circle. Earth is Cubic opposites, nothing as circle.
And, thus, the clock keeps going.
Re:beautiful but (Score:4, Insightful)
Only on /. could you be modded Insightful for citing Time Cube.
the problem is the name (Score:5, Funny)
how is it keeping time while eating itself? i find it hard to understand
"Time Eater" is a very misleading name. It should really be called a CLOCK GOBBLER.
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You know, I read your comment and it was only when I had scrolled out a couple of posts that I reacted.
+1, coke-out-the-nose funny
the name (Score:2)
At 120 Watts, it should be called the "Energy Gobbler" instead.
Re:the name (Score:4, Funny)
"Time Eater" is a very misleading name. It should really be called a CLOCK GOBBLER.
At 120 Watts, it should be called the "Energy Gobbler" instead.
Apparently the sound it makes when the programmable alarm goes off is:
"Whooooooosh!"
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If "time is an illusion" then how can there be a 'first post', 'second post' etc. as without time there is no chronology.
QED: People claiming a 'first post' (or even more pathetically, a 'second') are just living in a massive pool of FAIL.
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I suppose it's the same reason
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News for the tasteless, kitsch that matters.
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If you look superficially at the whole clock, it could be seen as a dubious art piece. If you looks closer at the workings, it is art and technology. The grasshopper escapement is very interesting mechanically and beautifully simple. The vernier slits in the rotating dics, which are used to allow the led light out at the correct time is very clever.
As a nerd I found this very very interesting and worthy of publication.
Are we only allowed to appreciate future technology, or can we be awe-stuck with the techn
Re:Because /. Nerds Worship Hawking as God (Score:5, Funny)
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It's working for me. Are you using http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHO1JTNPPOU [youtube.com]?
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They have some of the craziest URLs on YouTube that I have seen. I can only imagine the huge nightmare of that design.
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I put a copy of the video here [ipal.org] for you for a while. Hurry up and get it before that server gets slashdotted.
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Nuremberg Eggs will be served immediately after a course of Versailles Croquettes.
They're "just following hors d'oeuvres."
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The clock only tells the correct time once every 5 minutes. The rest of the time it can run fast, slow, pause, etc. You can see this in the video near the beginning where it slows down very drastically, or near the end when it chimes the hour and is just going back and forth a few times before advancing.
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A running mechanical clock is correct never. A stopped mechanical clock is correct twice each day. Some would say a stopped clock is more accurate, and Einstein might agree.
Despite the obvious absurdity, I would have included works for geologic and astronomical time so the clock could (absent wear) show the correct time from The Beginning to The End. It would suit my Absurd Limit theory.
A clock that symbolically destroys current moments as the moving hand writes is outside both Einstein's philosophy an
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I may be wrong, but my impression is that the clock keeps precise time, but the ability to accurately read it from the dial was sacrificed somewhat for artistic reasons. Once every five minutes you get an alignment that you can be entirely sure is the current time, in between its an approximation that works best for the effect of the motion, etc.
That's the impression I got, at least, reading about the mechanism over the last couple of weeks.