For those who don’t know, the accent indicates that the -ed ending is pronounced as a separate syllable, I.e. “a-curse-ed”. For that extra mysterious, old-timey feel!
4sak3n 13 hours ago [-]
Just like beloved is supposed to be pronounced (don't @ me Descriptivists).
What a ridiculous idea. As hard to read as it is dumb!
For a senior engineer like myself with decades of experience it is trivial to see how to fix this to make it much more readable.
1/ pick a sunny day
2/ at each hour, measure the bearing to the sun
3/ encode as a dict[str, float] e.g.
{“twelve”:180.00}
4/ sort the hours by dict.get
Voila.
As an added bonus, for some reason this ends up sorting the minutes and seconds too. (“# wtf?!”)
For now, I was only able to fix the hours when I could see the sun (eleven, twelve, and two to eight — I don’t get up very early and I like lunch). Patches form the arctic circle welcome :P
I also need to tilt my head a bit as eleven is at the top instead of twelve. Other than that I would say it’s a considerable improvement on the OP’s rather naïve implementation! Scoff!
eru 1 days ago [-]
Here in Singapore on many sunny days, the bearing is largely the same hour after hour. The sun just changes apparent altitude.
fellerts 1 days ago [-]
Jam a stick in the ground aligned with the earth's axis and take your bearing from the shadow's direction. Then follow GP's instructions. Never mind that we've reinvented the sundial...
eru 1 days ago [-]
> Jam a stick in the ground aligned with the earth's axis [...]
You mean place a stick flat on the ground? (Singapore is pretty much on the equator.)
marginalia_nu 1 days ago [-]
The closer you are to the equator, the taller the stick needs to be. If you're really close, the height requirements diverge, and the stick is at this point technically more of a space elevator[1] than a stick.
But don't lose hope, just tell Bezos that Musk wants to fund your space elevator, and vice versa, to goad one of them into funding your $10tn near-equatorial sundial boondoggle.
A space elevator is not aligned with the axis of earth's rotation. It sounds like what you are describing is a different device?
marginalia_nu 11 hours ago [-]
Why would a sun dial need to point in the north/south direction? It just needs to point up along the normal axis of the ground (assuming flat ground).
eru 10 hours ago [-]
From the original comment I replied to:
> Jam a stick in the ground aligned with the earth's axis and take your bearing from the shadow's direction.
marginalia_nu 5 hours ago [-]
Ah, that comment would be incorrect.
1 days ago [-]
rich_sasha 1 days ago [-]
You could make either method more secure by hashing the encoded time and displaying that.
Make sure to use a cryprographically-secure hash function and a strong salt.
cbdevidal 1 days ago [-]
Could someone please explain the minute hand? It says it’s Nine : Twenty-nine but the minute hand is pointing at the word Twelve.
AnotherGoodName 17 hours ago [-]
Arrange all sixty minutes alphabetically around the clock. Same for seconds. Twenty-nine is near the end of the alphabet.
The labels only relevant to the hours. For some reason the hour labels don’t align well to where the hour hand is.
cbdevidal 17 hours ago [-]
THAT explains it, thank you.
secretdark 13 hours ago [-]
I tweaked the labels when I was working on the combined mode, where I figured they make more sense as indicative of the general, combined alphabetical area. I hadn't considered they'd be confusing in the 3-hand mode. I've split the positioning of them between the two now. Appreciate the feedback!
It does make it _less_ accursèd now, which I feel could be either an improvement or a regression. I leave it to weigh on your consciences.
nDRDY 1 days ago [-]
I think the labels are pointlessly confusing.
secretdark 1 days ago [-]
I mean to be fair the entire thing is pointlessly confusing.
nDRDY 1 days ago [-]
Maybe, but the labels and hour markers that contradict the meaning of the hand positions is just perverse :-)
secretdark 13 hours ago [-]
I have changed it now (see another comment above.) But now it is less accursèd! Ah well.
nDRDY 11 hours ago [-]
Hmm. I wonder what it would look like if you added the corresponding "minute" labels (eight, five, four, etc) at the appropriate places. It might make it at least a little feasible to read the time!
Yeah, might add this as a toggle. Seems to be the bit that people ask about.
12 hours ago [-]
unholiness 1 days ago [-]
I love the fractal nature of this, where the big shape of one two three four... is then roughly repeated both on a slower scale (twenty thirty forty...) and on a narrower scale (twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four...).
I'm now wondering the hausdorf dimension of the graph of alphabetical numbers <n, and how other languages might compare.
alfanick 1 days ago [-]
Imagine the mechanical gears behind this if it was an analogue watch. So many funky curved gears in there.
throwway262515 1 days ago [-]
Syntax is wildly continuous with semantics, what’s the problem?
mnvsbl 1 days ago [-]
[dead]
Rendered at 20:03:40 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
For those who don’t know, the accent indicates that the -ed ending is pronounced as a separate syllable, I.e. “a-curse-ed”. For that extra mysterious, old-timey feel!
For a senior engineer like myself with decades of experience it is trivial to see how to fix this to make it much more readable.
1/ pick a sunny day
2/ at each hour, measure the bearing to the sun
3/ encode as a dict[str, float] e.g.
4/ sort the hours by dict.getVoila.
As an added bonus, for some reason this ends up sorting the minutes and seconds too. (“# wtf?!”)
For now, I was only able to fix the hours when I could see the sun (eleven, twelve, and two to eight — I don’t get up very early and I like lunch). Patches form the arctic circle welcome :P
I also need to tilt my head a bit as eleven is at the top instead of twelve. Other than that I would say it’s a considerable improvement on the OP’s rather naïve implementation! Scoff!
You mean place a stick flat on the ground? (Singapore is pretty much on the equator.)
But don't lose hope, just tell Bezos that Musk wants to fund your space elevator, and vice versa, to goad one of them into funding your $10tn near-equatorial sundial boondoggle.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
> Jam a stick in the ground aligned with the earth's axis and take your bearing from the shadow's direction.
Make sure to use a cryprographically-secure hash function and a strong salt.
The labels only relevant to the hours. For some reason the hour labels don’t align well to where the hour hand is.
For inspiration: https://www.alamy.com/clock-face-hour-dial-with-numbers-dash...
I'm now wondering the hausdorf dimension of the graph of alphabetical numbers <n, and how other languages might compare.