[HN Gopher] Concentrichron: A clock and calendar made of concent...
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Concentrichron: A clock and calendar made of concentric rings
Author : mindbrix
Score : 156 points
Date : 2020-03-16 11:38 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| spectramax wrote:
| The cognitive load to be able to read the calendar is quite high.
| It took me a few seconds to tell what the date/time is. It's very
| cool, but I am not sure if this is good design.
| rijoja wrote:
| Good point but think of it like this how many years have you
| looked at the other type of analog clock, in comparison.
| spectramax wrote:
| I prefer boring that works vs. new that doesn't work.
|
| What would be cool if the new thing worked really well _and_
| it was different /interesting.
|
| This design is only the latter, hence the slight disdain.
| But, I applaud the work that went into it.
| amelius wrote:
| And every ten years you replace the year ring?
| [deleted]
| taherchhabra wrote:
| 3d prints anybody ?
| Vervious wrote:
| From a design point of view, reading this clock is strictly
| harder than reading:
|
| "2020 March 16th, Monday 10:50:48"
|
| and also provides no useful extra information, unlike a
| traditional clock face.
| spectramax wrote:
| Not sure why this is being downvoted. It's a fact - it's
| objectively harder to read.
|
| This criticism is valid and although the clock is super cool,
| it's bad design. Does that mean we shouldn't do projects like
| this? No. Is it important to highlight the problems with design
| like this? Yes.
| gmiller123456 wrote:
| "Bad design" is just your opinion, not objective fact. If
| every clock were designed specifically for its ability to be
| read easily, there would only be one type of clock, with high
| contrast colors, perhaps in different sizes.
|
| Good design involves trade offs. Many of those trade offs are
| opposing factors like form, function, cost, versatility, etc.
| And not all of those trade offs are worth it for everyone.
| E.g. adding a diamond to a watch will increase it's cost many
| times over and distract from reading the time. But that trade
| off is worth it for some people. Just because you don't like
| it doesn't make it bad design.
| spectramax wrote:
| Good design is about how a thing works, not what it looks
| like. This calendar and clock does not work well - I am
| willing to bet my entire life's savings in a psychology
| study that determines the reaction time to read the date +
| time of this calendar/clock vs. reading high contrast
| numbers.
|
| Functional trade-offs for "coolness" - I didn't read that
| memo in Design school, sorry.
| zentiggr wrote:
| I saw this and immediately and intuitively read the face.
|
| It clicked like no other clock design I've ever seen.
|
| I may be in a .001% of people who see this and truly grok
| it, but that's fine. I'd wear a watch again for this.
| Vervious wrote:
| Design is rooted in reality in the sense that it must be
| functional. My argument is that this particular design is
| wholly un-functional, and that the diamonds that HN is
| optimizing for - fancy animations, pretty concentric
| circles - don't seem to have much value when you think
| about it. At least diamonds hold their value.
|
| But I suppose, if one finds value in this not-quite-novel-
| application-of-javascript-animated SVGs, to each their own.
| zentiggr wrote:
| I'll counterpoint you and say my eye scanned the rings out to
| in and since the sequence is ISO-8601, like I prefer
| everywhere, it was immediately intuitive and VERY satisfying.
|
| As opposed to mentally shuffling other date formats into
| largest-smallest order, or (however well trained and immediate
| the translation may be) looking at a standard analog clock,
| this fits my thought process so very very well.
|
| I've seen in another subthread mention of klokers.com... if
| they adapted their concentric design to this layout I would
| consider wearing a watch again.
| kristopolous wrote:
| It's a hobbyist project, for delight and aesthetics
| Vervious wrote:
| But it doesn't mean we should upvote every hobbyist project
| to the top of hacker news - only the useful, interesting,
| good ones.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Use the search, 90% of them don't get voted up. I've worked
| for years on things in the dustbin of popularity
| Vervious wrote:
| Exactly, and my point it that this particular clock
| belongs in the 90%, not the 10%.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Vote and rank systems are fairly crude. Delight often
| takes precedence over depth, it's why you don't see
| academic papers or open access books on the front page
| often...
|
| I'm open to more nuanced and sophisticated rules, I've
| even built a few systems and tried to gain traction.
| However the crude single vote implements seem to be the
| only ones with staying power.
|
| I dunno, every day is a new context we could simply try
| again. Things can fail a dozen times and then something
| changes and makes it work. (For instance, on demand
| video, or YouTube, only took off when people had
| broadband and speedy enough computers to watch the video,
| it was probably the 20th company that tried this idea and
| the first to not eat shit)
| wcarss wrote:
| Very cool! I hesitate to self-link, but this is too related -- I
| have long had a similar but way smaller, less featureful (just a
| time-clock), and shoddily written design on my homepage:
| https://wcarss.ca
| oftenwrong wrote:
| I appreciate that you just have a "log".
| bhhaskin wrote:
| That is awesome!
| tjbay wrote:
| Reminds me of sculpture I used to walk by almost daily in grad
| school, Maya Lin's timetable.
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/3546093103/
| curo wrote:
| Just one more ring (2020s, 2030s...2110s) to drive home the
| vulnerable sense of mortality
| [deleted]
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Interesting. I wonder how it handles the number of days in a
| month being variable?
| _jal wrote:
| And leap years.
| kurthr wrote:
| Usually, (on smoothly geared watches) they jump past the
| intervening day(s) and start smoothly incrementing again. The
| counter example would be a year's leap second, which would need
| to delay.
| zbobet2012 wrote:
| Someone make me this watch, with an open center and gears. You
| can drop the year dial and maybe the seconds...
| zokier wrote:
| Not open center but https://www.klokers.com/en/3-watches
|
| Add few zeroes to the price and you probably could get a
| skeletonized one too
| agentultra wrote:
| It would be dope if someone could make this in brass.
| chin7an wrote:
| Would love to see the Clickspring channel on YouTube do a
| series on this. If you aren't familiar with Chris's work, he's
| got a series on a wonderful clock he made, mostly brass. Fun to
| watch. Apparently his machining techniques aren't great but I'm
| no machinist so doesn't matter to me.
| [deleted]
| nkrisc wrote:
| This would make a pretty awesome large format wall clock. Anyone
| know if anything like that exists? If so, I imagine it would be
| pretty expensive since it's value would mostly be aesthetic.
| BadOakOx wrote:
| Not the whole calendar, but just the clock part:
| https://www.amazon.com/Kikkerland-Wheel-Revolving-Wall-Clock...
| kazinator wrote:
| That wall clock would need to handle different month lengths
| somehow because the month ring can be 28, 29, 30 or 31 days,
| and provide for a way to add years to the outer ring.
|
| Probably regarding months, it would likely do what a lot of
| mechanical watches do: go to 31, and require manual
| intervention to set the day of month.
|
| That's kind of ugly because you have to rotate that wheel
| exactly to retain the fractional part of the day, which is hard
| to accurately other than at midnight.
| _Microft wrote:
| It is animated with Javascript by updating transform:rotation
| every ~30ms. Couldn't the current time be set with Javascript and
| the animation be handled with CSS animations? Maybe CSS
| animations are not accurate enough time-wise so that the clock
| would diverge from the actual time (or other bad stuff happens
| like animations being suspended while a tab has no focus. I'm out
| of web development for too long to know off-hand how that
| behaves)?
| delvinj wrote:
| Direct link http://www.concentrichron.com/
| adventured wrote:
| It's quite impressive, beautiful and smooth in motion.
|
| I have to second what someone else said, it could be made into
| an amazing wall clock (and even a small desk unit). There is a
| lot that could be optionally (settings) done to manipulate its
| aesthetic qualities in various directions to match personal
| preferences, times of day, events, and so on.
| arethuza wrote:
| Would be cool to replace the years with "Year in Decade",
| "Decade in Century", "Century in Millennium".....
| elefantastisch wrote:
| Or maybe just have year go from 00-99 and repeat as people
| commonly do anyway.
|
| Current implementation of year definitely doesn't make
| sense because it doesn't cycle.
| arethuza wrote:
| I admit I was probably influenced by thinking of
| _Anathem_
| zentiggr wrote:
| One of my favorite Stephensons.
| thebiss wrote:
| I have the complete OPPOSITE experience: the motion is jerky
| and inconsistent, like the seconds are struggling then catch
| up. (Firefox 74 on Windows 10 18363)
| metalliqaz wrote:
| Seems to be down from the load. Cool, though.
| charlieo88 wrote:
| On months with less than 31 days, when the third ring in hits the
| last day of the month, it just skips to the first?
| surewhynat wrote:
| My thoughts exactly, and what about leap years?
| russfink wrote:
| Agree to all - also, showing (continuous) progress within the
| year is eye opening.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Very cool!
|
| It's slightly marred by a typo: "Tueday" is missing an "s".
| Unfortunately I don't see contact info except a twitter handle,
| and I don't speak tweetish.
| mindbrix wrote:
| Many thanks! Fixed.
| Shtirlic wrote:
| Looks great, please add black theme and step/diamater size for
| seconds 5,10,15 seconds to reduce motion
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| This is cool. My friend and I once visualized our timeslot with
| our product roadmap on a circular timescale.
|
| For those looking for something similar on your devices, there is
| an app called "Circa" - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/circa-time-
| zone-converter/id96...
|
| Circa3 shows timezones, the overlaps, and your selected calendar
| events.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Looks reminiscent of a slide rule!
|
| Very graceful in how it shows the interaction between the
| different lengths and frequencies of cycles (eg, days of week,
| months)
|
| I wonder how they handle the changing number of days per month..
| always keep 31, and just skip the extras every other month?
| DougBTX wrote:
| They always keep 31, but skip past it:
| var fdate = (d.getDate() - 1.0) + fhours / 24.0;
| document.getElementById('date').setAttribute("transform",
| "rotate(" + fdate / 31.0 * -360.0 + ", 400,300)");
| ckluis wrote:
| It would be neat to add highlighting for each of the current
| parts.
| rekabis wrote:
| And the best thing is, if you read it from the top down, it's in
| ISO-8601!
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(page generated 2020-03-16 23:01 UTC)