311–320 of 326 posts
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For anyone wondering what that bizarre cover might look like: https://www.mytolkienbooks.com/tolkien-books/middle-earth/th... I can't find the lion...
Here's a variation with the lion, they removed it after his complaints https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IZy3SQYu8bQ/T3ByGLMH9BI/AAAAAAAAE...
By far the stupidest Americanization I've encountered is when Netflix changed "The Great British Bake Off" to "The Great British Baking Show". They are honestly recording 2 versions of every intro for this?
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> analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and night This is not supported by evidence. For one, it would make a 24 hour dial make more sense than a 12 hour one. For two, many early non-discrete clocks took the form of parallax observation or liquid flows and were not inherently circular. https://muslimheritage.com/the-clocks-of-al-muradi/ https://en.…
hourglasses and other similar devices are for keeping discrete times, not continuous times like in "it cooks in half of that" but they are circular inherently, when the top half falls to the bottom, we flip them and the cycle restarts. analog clocks started as 24 hours historically [1]. the division of days in 24 equal segments was well know since ancient history, we still use base 60 to measure time because that's w…
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hourglasses and other similar devices are for keeping discrete times, not continuous times like in "it cooks in half of that" but they are circular inherently, when the top half falls to the bottom, we flip them and the cycle restarts. analog clocks started as 24 hours historically [1]. the division of days in 24 equal segments was well know since ancient history, we still use base 60 to measure time because that's w…
If you limit the set of "analog clocks" to 24-hour dials, then yes, you have proven a tautology. If you look at the overall history of time device user interfaces then circular displays don't seem like such a slam dunk. I'll point you to Al Muradi of 1200's Spain again who often uses little doors or other time indicators. https://muslimheritage.com/the-clocks-of-al-muradi/
there are bizarre incantations of everything throughout history
Almuradi clock is still a *solar* clock hence it only works when the light rays hit it, so like a meridian, it can't show the full 24 hours rotation. in fact it's an half circle, because the earth rotates around the sun, the only approximation you can get is circular, of course there are meridians that do not display hours on an arc of circumference, but that's simply a design choice.
But at that time the fact that a day was of 24 hours was a long well known fact.
the point is that if your planet rotates around a star, the first thing beings living there would notice are the repeating patterns generated by light rays. Which are most probably shadows creating something like a circle (or an oval)
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Except you just gave up a lot of precision doing that conversion. 16:54 might be 5 minutes and 0.1 seconds or 5 minutes and 59.9 seconds. If you can get that same feel for 16:54:36 then sure, but I personally don’t.
How many analogue clocks do you have which you trust to be that accurate? One huge advantage of a digital clock (on a phone, anyway) is that it's NTP synced with an atomic clock - so it's highly accurate and will remain that way. I know that when I'm running for a train, I rely on my phone more than my analogue wristwatch - because the analogue clock is rarely perfectly accurate, and that matters.
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If you limit the set of "analog clocks" to 24-hour dials, then yes, you have proven a tautology. If you look at the overall history of time device user interfaces then circular displays don't seem like such a slam dunk. I'll point you to Al Muradi of 1200's Spain again who often uses little doors or other time indicators. https://muslimheritage.com/the-clocks-of-al-muradi/
of course there are bizarre incantations of everything throughout history Almuradi clock is still a *solar* clock hence it only works when the light rays hit it, so like a meridian, it can't show the full 24 hours rotation. in fact it's an half circle, because the earth rotates around the sun, the only approximation you can get is circular, of course there are meridians that do not display hours on an arc of circumfe…
No, Almuradi's works are powered by water and moved by gears. At least one used light to illuminate particular numbers, but the optical aperture was moved by gears.
>Which are most probably shadows creating something like a circle (or an oval)
During the course of the day the shadows make a half circle at best. Over the course of a year the end point at the same time of day makes an uneven figure eight, known as the analemma. At no point is there a circle or an ellipse.
Passive solar timekeeping has its limitations and the next phase of development was the water clock.
These simple water clocks, which were of the outflow type, were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. There were twelve separate columns with consistently spaced markings on the inside to measure the passage of "hours" as the water level reached them. The columns were for each of the twelve months to allow for the variations of the seasonal hours. These clocks were used by priests to determine the time at night so that the temple rites and sacrifices could be performed at the correct hour. [0]
If anything the circular three hand clock is a pragmatic method of indictors based on the method of power control. Looking at the Antikytheria mechanism for example, the back side shows a deep understanding of how the different cycles of time measures interact.
Going back to the original topic of "an alien digital clock written in alien language," to the degree that we could comprehend on what basis they kept time a time communication rooted in a sidereal period cannot be a given since the aliens might come from a tidally locked planet or one like Mercury which "rotates on its axis exactly three times for every two revolutions it makes around the Sun."[2] Even if they just used the Unix epoch time would look linear and relative; not circular.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
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That's not a fair comparison because you're comparing 24 hour time with 12 hour time. Granted, a digital clock won't tell you there are 60 minutes in an hour, but teaching analog time involves much more than that. For starters, you have to explain that for minutes, the numbers are in increments of 5.
What you need to do is take the numbers off the clock and start with only one hand. Then ask them if there is more or less time (since midnight) until lunch.
From my experience in the media industry some producers/higher ups like making arbitrary changes to a work/show/whatever just so they can say they had an impact, or to say that they made that change at the end, most of the time it ends up making the final product worst.
Happens in music. Producer will make arbitrary change and now they are a co-writer and qualify for royalties.
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I don't care one direction or the other, but for example Doctor Who is just fine without having to be redone and loved by people in America regardless of the accents. Is there a reason you'd love to see it redone outside of just having the show have more exposure in America? I can understand the sentiment.
Oh, no I definitely do _not_ want it redone. It's better this way. I love Puffin Rock too (an Irish show) and can't fathom that with American accents.
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I don't care one direction or the other, but for example Doctor Who is just fine without having to be redone and loved by people in America regardless of the accents. Is there a reason you'd love to see it redone outside of just having the show have more exposure in America? I can understand the sentiment.
Speaking of Doctor Who, David Tennant is the same role in the American remake of Broadchurch and he has the worst American accent I've ever heard. It's set in California and he sounds like he's from everywhere else at the same time.