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I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

arstechnica.com

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Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#11

Post by Frost1x »

I’ve had a Phillips “atomic” alarm clock beside my bed for 23 years that just sets based on radio signal and auto restores if the power is lost, to which it has a backup 9v battery.

There’s a time zone setting offset slider and a DST slider. I basically touch it twice a year, maybe another if I move time zones. I’ve only had to touch it for DST (never switched time zones). Takes me conservatively 10 seconds to find and flip, so it’s taken me 460 seconds or a little under 8 minutes in the past 23 years to do time adjustments.

While these efforts are definitely fun hobby projects, there are cheap reliable solutions out there with minimal intervention that consume the NIST radio signal for time.

Just for anyone interested who wasn’t aware there’s some “old school” time broadcast solutions out there too besides NTP: https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-di...

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#12

Post by Retr0id »

skippyfish wrote: post #5

I can't decide how I feel about this article. On one hand, it's great. It's great that the author wanted to get something done, and thanks to the marvels of modern tech, they could do it with very little effort. But on the other hand... gosh , this was about the simplest software engineering challenge imaginable (toggle some I/O pins) and the simplest design task imaginable (make a featureless rectangular box). And t…

Edit: retracted, but left up for context

The article itself appears to have had help from an LLM, too.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#13

Post by jherskovic »

Retr0id wrote: post #12
skippyfish wrote: post #5

I can't decide how I feel about this article. On one hand, it's great. It's great that the author wanted to get something done, and thanks to the marvels of modern tech, they could do it with very little effort. But on the other hand... gosh , this was about the simplest software engineering challenge imaginable (toggle some I/O pins) and the simplest design task imaginable (make a featureless rectangular box). And t…

Edit: retracted, but left up for context The article itself appears to have had help from an LLM, too.

Go look at the editorial policy from Ars. Lee just writes like that; it's his style, it always has been.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#14

Post by lee_ars »

Retr0id wrote: post #12
skippyfish wrote: post #5

I can't decide how I feel about this article. On one hand, it's great. It's great that the author wanted to get something done, and thanks to the marvels of modern tech, they could do it with very little effort. But on the other hand... gosh , this was about the simplest software engineering challenge imaginable (toggle some I/O pins) and the simplest design task imaginable (make a featureless rectangular box). And t…

Edit: retracted, but left up for context The article itself appears to have had help from an LLM, too.

nope. i was using em-dashes and semicolons before they were cool.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#15

Post by defrost »

ghostly_s wrote: post #4
pseudohadamard wrote: post #2

There have been mass-produced don't-need-setting clocks for just under a hundred years now, the first Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clock, https://atmos-atelier.de/en/atmos-uhr/ , being produced in 1928. You don't wind them up, you move a lever across to unlock them and then they keep running by themselves. The du Millénaire model won't need resetting until 3000AD, although perhaps that range may be a tiny bit optimistic.

These aren't even self-setting, let alone self-adjusting. They are merely self-winding.

In fairness "merely self-winding" is quite the existential ambition for some.

* http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/mouse.html

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#16

Post by Retr0id »

lee_ars wrote: post #14
Retr0id wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: retracted, but left up for context The article itself appears to have had help from an LLM, too.

nope. i was using em-dashes and semicolons before they were cool.

I believe you (and sorry, I do think I was wrong), but for the record I wasn't judging based on punctuation.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#17

Post by lee_ars »

Retr0id wrote: post #16
lee_ars wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope. i was using em-dashes and semicolons before they were cool.

I believe you (and sorry, I do think I was wrong), but for the record I wasn't judging based on punctuation.

Look at it this way: LLMs are trained, among other things, on quality professional prose. I've been writing for Ars for almost 14 years at this point.

I don't sound like LLMs. LLMs sound like _me,_ lol.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#18

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #2

There have been mass-produced don't-need-setting clocks for just under a hundred years now, the first Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clock, https://atmos-atelier.de/en/atmos-uhr/ , being produced in 1928. You don't wind them up, you move a lever across to unlock them and then they keep running by themselves. The du Millénaire model won't need resetting until 3000AD, although perhaps that range may be a tiny bit optimistic.

Hooking that up to NTP would be quite a project.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#19

Post by Animats »

It's a clock. Does it really have to have remote updating, a command line interface, an Internet connection, and HomeKit integration? That's too IoT.

I have three La Crosse clocks that run off the NIST time signal out of Boulder, CO, and need their AA battery replaced maybe once a year. The real challenge is running such a thing on a small battery for a year.

I once made a small clock that displayed "A LITTLE AFTER SIX" and such, changing its text every five minutes. Needed a power connection, though.

Re: I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated

#20

Post by adamisom »

lee_ars wrote: post #17
Retr0id wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you (and sorry, I do think I was wrong), but for the record I wasn't judging based on punctuation.

Look at it this way: LLMs are trained, among other things, on quality professional prose. I've been writing for Ars for almost 14 years at this point. I don't sound like LLMs. LLMs sound like _me,_ lol.

fwiw the article doesn't sound LLM to me whatsoever, so opinions def vary!
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