I really don’t like these. It’s binary for each digit, so it’s really just a bad proxy for decimal numbers rather than being clean binary numbers. If it were roman numerals, I feel like it would be equally silly to separate the numbers this way: 15:39 -> I, V : III, IX.
I understand that it makes it hard to read if the binary numbers go high, but that’s why we don’t use them like this.
I have a watch that shows binary time. Two rows, I think 12 hour cycle, no seconds. Pretty easy to read, honestly. Also an absolute nerd gadget and I loved it.
My math teacher in high school had one of these, though he never mentioned what it was to us. I used to stare at it off and on during class, and eventually it clicked “Oh, it’s a clock!” After that, with some intense staring, I figured out the pattern and was satisfied. Asked the teacher about it later, and apparently I had taught myself binary.
That knowledge displaced whatever he was talking about that day. Hopefully it wasn’t too important.
For those who aren’t familiar, this is how you read this. Just add up the columns where there are lights.
* 8 * 8 * 8 * 4 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1So the last panel doesn’t have any 8s and is read like this. You add the columns.
- 4 4 - - 4 - - - 2 2 - 1 1 - 1 - 1And adding those columns gives you:
1 5 4 3 2 515:43:25
Fuck this, too much brain power needed to simply tell the time. I’ll stick with my smartwatch (FWIW I at least use an analog watch face 'cause although I’m dumb, I’m not that dumb).
This is the level of watchface I need to tell the time quickly
Damn, even in my native language that would be way harder for me than just numbers. The easiest is the traditional watch face lmao, I even process numbers to it to actually understand the time. Sure I can read that text fast, but processing the words into numbers and then into actual time takes like five times longer than just numbers to time…
My dude, this is not something you should be bragging about.
Not bragging by any means, more of a “my brain needs one less thing to worry about” situation.
I made a uni project where we had to program some old processor + simple display, so I made a roman clock. Was appreciated.
Wouldn’t it make more sense for the clock to have just 3 rows or columns? Hour/minute/second.
Yeah, this one is just messed up. They use binary to display the individual characters of a decimal number. This makes it wayyy harder to read than a proper binary clock.
My thought as well, but alas, this is what my dad’s looks like 🤷. Illustrates the point even better though, kind of.
I had a binary watch in highschool. They’re really not that hard to read once you know how. Practical? No. But they’re great for showing everyone you’re the biggest dork in the class.
I had the ThinkGeek circuit board binary watch like 20 years ago. Honestly, I only stopped wearing it because you had to push a button to light up the LEDs.
Mine might’ve been from ThinkGeek as well. I always loved visiting their website, before they became yet another pop culture store and got bought up by GameStop anyway.
In that case I might need one…
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
… and those who know at base n, “10” can represent literally any number.
Base 0, base pi and base i are interesting, though.
That’s why you always specify the base
1010
I hope they included that information on the cover of the Voyager golden record in case aliens want to understand our numbers.
10a
“10” can represent literally any number.
That sounds eminently practical. There’s NO way that would ever lead to any excess ambiguity! 😄
I’m sure I could learn to read this as quickly as any other clock, given practice. I saw one 45 years ago on the mantel in someone’s house. My nerdy teenage friend had learned how to read it and taught me. I didn’t have one to practice with, and quickly forgot. Forty-five years later, and I’ve never seen another one.
This display, as a clock interface for humans, makes no sense in the real world. Outside of showing it to people as a novelty.
If you want a cool clock that anyone can read, get a nixie tube clock.
Which timeline is it?
Considering current events; way out there
Bioshock Infinite, I think
I fucking love my nixie clock.
In college, I had a binary clock and a binary watch. They were great! I could read them just fine; everyone else couldn’t. Stopped using them because they were bright as hell! The watch doubled as a flashlight at times (depending what time it was). Eventually, the battery in the watch died. I think both were gotten from thinkgeek (back when it was good).
15:39? Then takes him 3 minutes
Seems to be, although that’s a very loose interpretation of what a “binary clock” means. Splitting the tens columns into a new digit is mathematically gibberish.
15:39:02 until 15:43:25, so more than 4 minutes.
It is afternoon, tho.
“If the first column has lights, it’s more than likely afternoon” lol
The true binary clock: afternoon or not-afternoon.
I mean, if you don’t need to know the precise time it’'s indeed useful and cool…but there are better ways to do it
Six columns of binary numbers each representing a base 10 digit to display three base 10 numbers is kinda stupid, but it is easier to read than just having three binary numbers I guess.
Wdym three binary numbers? Just one is enough. Make it a Unix timestamp so you can have a calendar built in!
Yeah, what kind of idiot needs repeating patterns in the time format for repeating times during a day? Just display the unix timestamp on the clock tower and be done with it.
Actually, having 64 bits arranged vertically on a tower seems neat.
When it’s a 24 h display like in the cartoon the digits must have more lights to represent numbers higher than 15. The clock in the cartoon only has four lights per column.
I’d prefer your version of this clock.
I mean, they obfuscated it by adding seconds. It’s really not that hard. Just takes a few seconds instead of a glance.
If that obfuscated something, it wasn’t on purpose… it’s just literally the clock in my dad’s kitchen.
It’s to make a nerdy thing more nerdy. But they really shouldn’t have added seconds to a thing that takes more than a second to read.
imho, the “seconds” bits are neat because you can see things change… Like, you see that it does stuff. Like the “seconds” hand on an analogue clock, it’s mostly practical to see that it’s working as expected.
I used to be able to read this & now I’m forgetting parts. I’m gonna have to look it up again.
I don’t know why he has such trouble. You really should only need 1 bit to determine whether or not it’s afternoon. Just look at the “afternoon” bit light. 🤷♂️
Doesn’t that turn on at 10:00
It’s afternoon, time to call it a day!
You only need four bits to represent 12 (actually 16), add 1 extra bit to double that for the am/pm bit. Any bit can represent anything you like if you encode it as such. 👍
Sure but if you’re on Binary time surely you’ve ditched the stupid AM/PM thing and use 24 hour time
It does sound counterintuitive, doesn’t it. It’s actually the opposite of what you’d expect, at least in my case.
When I wrote my own binary clock I first tried using one 5-bit word to visually represent 0–23, and another 6-bit word to represent 0–59. But I found it hard to quickly read at a glance. Especially the minutes.
I found the 4-bit representation of 1–12 simpler to read at a glance, and then use the 5th bit to represent am/pm. In fact, I could skip the am/pm bit completely, because who tf doesn’t know whether it’s before or after noon when looking at a 12h clock, unless you’re in complete isolation from the outside.
Then, obviously 6 bits for the minutes is even harder to glance, and more noise, so I made that into a 2-bit thing where the most significant bit is whether or not we are past the half hour, and the least significant bit represents whether or not we are past the 15 or 45-minute mark, which tells me which quarter of the hour we are in. It served me enough granularity to be on time for meetings etc. 😄
Yet they are abundant, esp. with Linux GUIs. Every clock applet has a binary option: digital, analog, binary. And fuzzy, which is what the yellow-haired guy is doing.
I made my own 😊
