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#clocks

6 posts5 participants0 posts today
Public
Telmo 🦕

Found an alarm clock. Paid €18 for the privilege of a design that doesn’t complicate what’s already perfect. There are plenty of €3 alternatives, but they insist on adding a light and a snooze button.

How on earth did people ever know what time it was before LED lights, or manage to start their day without endless “five more minutes” before getting out of bed?

Bless you, Casio.

#clocks#design#analog
Public
vga256

some time ago i discovered the 1940s General Electric Epicure 2QH2 kitchen wall clock and fell in love with the modernist face design

it took a few months, but i finally tracked one down today for $20 locally.

i was surprised to learn that the movement is continuous, so the hands sweep gently across the face instead of the harsh thok-thok-thok of cheaper movements

i’ll be taking this apart to remove the face plate and scanning it in for archival and clock repair.

#clocks#typefaces#design
Public
N-gated Hacker News

Scott Laird spent a month 🤯 trying to synchronize his #Linux #clocks and wrote 3800 words 📚 on it — because apparently, nothing screams "gripping content" like the minutiae of time sync accuracy. Spoiler alert: it's as riveting as watching paint dry 🖌️.
scottstuff.net/posts/2025/05/1 #TimeSync #TechWriting #GeekHumor #HackerNews #ngated

scottstuff.net · The Limits of NTP Accuracy on LinuxLately I’ve been trying to find (and understand) the limits of time syncing between Linux systems. How accurate can you get? What does it take to get that? And what things can easily add measurable amounts of time error? After most of a month (!), I’m starting to understand things. This is kind of a follow-on to a previous post, where I walked through my setup and goals, plus another post where I discussed time syncing in general. I’m trying to get the clocks on a bunch of Linux systems on my network synced as closely as possible so I can trust the timestamps on distributed tracing records that occur on different systems. My local network round-trip times are in the 20–30 microsecond (μS) range and I’d like clocks to be less than 1 RTT apart from each other. Ideally, they’d be within 1 μS, but 10 μS is fine. It’s easy to fire up Chrony against a local GPSTechnically, GNSS, which covers multiple satellite-backed navigation systems, not just the US GPS system, but I’m going to keep saying “GPS” for short. -backed time source and see it claim to be within X nanoseconds of GPS, but it’s tricky to figure out if Chrony is right or not. Especially once it’s claiming to be more accurate than the network’s round-trip time20 μS or so. , the amount of time needed for a single CPU cache miss50-ish nanoseconds. , or even the amount of time that light would take to span the gap between the server and the time source.About 5 ns per meter. I’ve spent way too much time over the past month digging into time, and specifically the limits of what you can accomplish with Linux, Chrony, and GPS. I’ll walk through all of that here eventually, but let me spoil the conclusion and give some limits: GPSes don’t return perfect time. I routinely see up to 200 ns differences between the 3 GPSes on my desk when viewing their output on an oscilloscope. The time gap between the 3 sources varies every second, and it’s rare to see all three within 20 ns of each other. Even the best GPS timing modules that I’ve seen list ~5 ns of jitter on their datasheets. I’d be surprised if you could get 3-5 GPS receivers to agree within 50 ns or so without careful management of consistent antenna cable length, etc. Even small amounts of network complexity can easily add 200-300 ns of systemic error to your measurements. Different NICs and their drivers vary widely on how good they are for sub-microsecond timing. From what I’ve seen, Intel E810 NICs are great, Intel X710s are very good, Mellanox ConnectX-5 are okay, Mellanox ConnectX-3 and ConnectX-4 are borderline, and everything from Realtek is questionable. A lot of Linux systems are terrible at low-latency work. There are a lot of causes for this, but one of the biggest is random “stalls” due to the system’s SMBIOS running to handle power management or other activities, and “pausing” the observable computer for hundreds of microseconds or longer. In general, there’s no good way to know if a given system (especially cheap systems) will be good or bad for timing without testing them. I have two cheap mini PC systems that have inexplicably bad time syncing behavior,1300-2000 ns. and two others with inexplicably good time syncing20-50 ns . Dedicated server hardware is generally more consistent. All in all, I’m able to sync clocks to within 500 ns or so on the bulk of the systems on my network. That’s good enough for my purposes, but it’s not as good as I’d expected to see.
Public *
Ingrid Hoeben Ⓥ 🇧🇪

iemand interesse in een antieke klok? :) 🕰️

of zeg maar: kolompendule

Hout (gevlamd mahonie afwerking) en metaal (messing en geel koper).
Goed onderhouden en werkend.

Hoogwaardig binnenwerk., 8-daags uurwerk
Uuraanduiding met bi-tonale klokslagen (bel)
Haalfuuraanduiding met enkele bi-tonale klokslag (bel)

35x28x15 cm (hxbxd)

antique clock Kolompendule Hout (gevlamd mahonie afwerking) en metaal (messing en geel koper). Goed onderhouden en werkend. Hoogwaardig binnenwerk., 8-daags uurwerk Uuraanduiding met bi-tonale klokslagen (bel) Haalfuuraanduiding met enkele bi-tonale klokslag (bel) 35x28x15 cm (hxbxd)
Kolompendule Hout (gevlamd mahonie afwerking) en metaal (messing en geel koper). Goed onderhouden en werkend. Hoogwaardig binnenwerk., 8-daags uurwerk Uuraanduiding met bi-tonale klokslagen (bel) Haalfuuraanduiding met enkele bi-tonale klokslag (bel) 35x28x15 cm (hxbxd)
#clocks#antiques#klok
Public
Michael Gisiger :mastodon:

”Howard Miller Co., which makes grandfather #clocks, wall clocks and furniture, said production will be phased out this year. The company will stick around in 2026 to sell its inventory. … Miller said #tariffs imposed by the #Trump administration have increased the cost of essential components that aren’t available in the U.S. The company employs roughly 200 people in Michigan and North Carolina.“

🤷

nbcnews.com/business/business-

NBC News · Time runs out for nearly century-old Michigan clock company due to tariffs, other factorsBy The Associated Press
Public
DoomsdaysCW

#RepairCafe starts #TechAmnesty to support #community

by Alexandra Bassingham, June 24, 2025

"A community project, which encourages people to bring in items to be fixed for free, has opened an amnesty point for unused #technology to be handed in and repurposed for others.

"The Repair Café, started by Biddy Hammond from Somerset, has helped hundreds of people since being set up in October 2023.

"It has two donation drop-ins a month, one in #BurnhamOnSea and the other in nearby #Highbridge. Items can also be donated at the information bureau on Burnham seafront.

"They now have almost 20 #volunteers, fixing items including #SoftToys, #upholstery, #electricals, and #clocks, which in turn, reduces items sent to #landfill sites.

"Ms Hammond said they are looking for an offer of a storage facility space so they can support the community even more

"Ms Hammond said it was after hearing a woman at a charity shop saying she could not afford to fix her iron, that she came up with the idea of opening a repair café.

" 'I thought it's such a simple thing to do to help people out and it's pointless buying a new whatever every five minutes, because items work for such a short while nowadays.'

"Repair Cafe volunteers also visit homes with a thermal imaging camera, to help people increase insulation with 'simple fixes in their homes like thicker curtains,' Ms Hammond added.

"She said after lockdown the repair cafe has built the community in quite a strong way, offering a service and a social space.

"Hugh Champion, one of the repair team, said: 'We have a good time, hopefully delight a few customers, and send them home with things they had written off that are back to working condition again.

" 'And people are so delighted when you help them fix something especially when it has high sentimental value,' he added."

Source:
bbc.com/news/articles/cly8n90v

www.bbc.comSomerset repair cafe's tech amnesty to support communityThe Repair Café was set up in 2023 to help community members fix home items for free.
#SolarPunkSunday#RepairCafesUK#RepairReuseRecycle
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