Discussion
The Accursèd Alphabetical Clock
gorgoiler: 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 the clock to make it much more readable.1/ pick a sunny day2/ at each hour, measure the bearing to the sun3/ encode as a dict[str, float] e.g. {“twelve”:180.00} 4/ sort the hours by dict.getVoila.As an added bonus, for some reason I can’t explain 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 :PI 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!
alfanick: Imagine the mechanical gears behind this if it was an analogue watch. So many funky curved gears in there.
eru: Here in Singapore on many sunny days, the bearing is largely the same hour after hour. The sun just changes apparent altitude.
fellerts: 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...
gorgoiler: [delayed]
throwway262515: Syntax is wildly continuous with semantics, what’s the problem?
rich_sasha: 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: Could someone please explain the minute hand? It says it’s Nine : Twenty-nine but the minute hand is pointing at the word Twelve.
eru: > 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: 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.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
nDRDY: I think the labels are pointlessly confusing.
secretdark: I mean to be fair the entire thing is pointlessly confusing.
AnotherGoodName: 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: THAT explains it, thank you.
eru: A space elevator is not aligned with the axis of earth's rotation. It sounds like what you are describing is a different device?
pimlottc: > AccursèdFor 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: Just like beloved is supposed to be pronounced (don't @ me Descriptivists).
marginalia_nu: 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: 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.
nDRDY: Maybe, but the labels and hour markers that contradict the meaning of the hand positions is just perverse :-)
secretdark: I have changed it now (see another comment above.) But now it is less accursèd! Ah well.
nDRDY: 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!For inspiration: https://www.alamy.com/clock-face-hour-dial-with-numbers-dash...
secretdark: Yeah, might add this as a toggle. Seems to be the bit that people ask about.
