|
|
| Author |
Message |
remmers
|
|
On the Nature of Time
| 
Jan 23 04:00 UTC 1994 |
Can you tell time? I can. I learned on the old-fashioned analog clocks with
hands that point to the minute and the hour. These clocks are still in
common use, but on the other hand there is the telephone. More and more,
phones are pushbutton; you hardly ever see a dial anymore. But people still
call it dialing, even when you push buttons. Our children will never have
even seen a true dial phone, except perhaps in a museum. But it will still
be called dialing, and they will wonder why. The precise notion of what a
clock is, or what a telephone is, that notion itself is becoming confused.
Is my microwave oven a clock? Well, I can tell what time it is by looking
at it. Is my vcr a clock? Well, I can tell what time it is by looking at
it. Is my computer a clock? Well, I can tell what time it is by looking
at it. You get the picture. Does anyone wind a watch or a clock anymore?
In 1952, I got a nice Swiss wristwatch that you had to wind. I used that
watch every day until 1978, when it finally stopped working. It stopped
working in the most wonderous way; maybe I should call it over-working.
Suddenly it speeded up. The second hand just whizzed around the dial,
and the minute and hour hands followed suit. It took it twenty minutes
to go through an hour. You see, I just called the face a dial. Should
you call it a dial if it is a digital watch? Well, I could have gotten
the watch fixed, but did not. Perhaps I couldn't have, really, because
people in 1978 were not using watches that you had to wind very much any
more. I might have had a hard time finding someone to fix it, or replace-
ment parts. So I retired it, sadly, and got a digital watch. But there is
no romance in a digital watch. No, there is not.
|
| 95 responses total. |
vidar
|
|
response 1 of 95:
|
Jan 23 04:26 UTC 1994 |
But it is a mincer way to tell military time than on an anolog.
|
jasmine
|
|
response 2 of 95:
|
Jan 23 21:51 UTC 1994 |
That is wonderful.
|
vishnu
|
|
response 3 of 95:
|
Jan 25 23:03 UTC 1994 |
<vishy says solemnly: "When I look at my vcr, I see a little blinking 12:00">
<vishy loves old clocks>
|
vidar
|
|
response 4 of 95:
|
Jan 25 23:15 UTC 1994 |
You still don't know how to stop that?!
|
rcurl
|
|
response 5 of 95:
|
Jan 26 06:40 UTC 1994 |
(The clock in the VCR does not make the VCR a clock. I am a horologist,
and know.)
|
carl
|
|
response 6 of 95:
|
Jan 26 13:24 UTC 1994 |
Now I know what I want to be if/when I grow up!
|
rcurl
|
|
response 7 of 95:
|
Jan 26 14:57 UTC 1994 |
It aint what it used to be. Once, one branch of horology, watch and
clock repair, was a fine craft - pratically an art - and the artisans
could earn what artisans in a similar craft - plumbing - could. Now,
it is a matter of replacing the board (or just the battery). The art
has returned to being nearly a hobby.
|
skeez
|
|
response 8 of 95:
|
Jan 26 23:26 UTC 1994 |
I have a G-shock digital. Not too romantic.
<women hate skeez!>
|
jasmine
|
|
response 9 of 95:
|
Jan 27 02:51 UTC 1994 |
Hey! I don't!
|
vidar
|
|
response 10 of 95:
|
Jan 27 17:43 UTC 1994 |
Yea, but we've known that for a long time.
|
jasmine
|
|
response 11 of 95:
|
Jan 27 19:43 UTC 1994 |
heheheh...
<jasmine blushes>
|
ziggy
|
|
response 12 of 95:
|
Jan 27 21:23 UTC 1994 |
heheheheheh.....
<ziggy eats a toad>
|
vidar
|
|
response 13 of 95:
|
Jan 27 23:13 UTC 1994 |
<vidar gives ziggy 40 lashes with a bicycle chain while wearing tight black
leather>
<vidar spanks ziggy for no reason whatsoever>
|
odie
|
|
response 14 of 95:
|
Jan 27 23:15 UTC 1994 |
A VCR that tells time is a clock! Anything that tells time is a clock,
a sundial, that computer voice when you call time, and anyone of your friends
that always has a watch, and always tells you what time it is. =)
|
vishnu
|
|
response 15 of 95:
|
Jan 28 00:05 UTC 1994 |
Shut up odie, you're wrong. A VCR is not a clock! Its a toad.
otherwise:
Spank Me too, Vidar! Pleeeeeze?
<*>
|
odie
|
|
response 16 of 95:
|
Jan 28 01:45 UTC 1994 |
Ohmigod vishnu, you're right. a VCR is a toad. I never thought of it that way.
Thank you for that brilliant insight.
Spank me three.
|
vidar
|
|
response 17 of 95:
|
Jan 28 02:19 UTC 1994 |
<vidar rips of odie's shirt and whips him>
<vidar spanks vishnu (again)>
|
odie
|
|
response 18 of 95:
|
Jan 28 03:39 UTC 1994 |
Thank you for that whipping vidar.
=)
|
scg
|
|
response 19 of 95:
|
Jan 28 04:25 UTC 1994 |
re 13:
Vidar, you don't wear leather while whipping somebody with a bike
chain.
You wear Lycra.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 20 of 95:
|
Jan 28 06:33 UTC 1994 |
If a VCR is a clock, the whole world is a clock, since the VCR is just
part of a network, connected to buildings, connected to the earth. But
then, come to think of it, the world *is* a clock,
|
odie
|
|
response 21 of 95:
|
Jan 28 14:44 UTC 1994 |
You think to much rcurl.
|
vidar
|
|
response 22 of 95:
|
Jan 28 17:59 UTC 1994 |
The universe is a toad!
|
vishnu
|
|
response 23 of 95:
|
Jan 28 18:10 UTC 1994 |
Well said, m'lord.
<*>
|
vidar
|
|
response 24 of 95:
|
Jan 28 18:25 UTC 1994 |
Thank you, Templar Hai 'Kaert.
|