The Accursèd Alphabetical Clock (boat.horse)

by ohjeez 27 comments 63 points
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27 comments

[−] gnabgib 30d ago
As a Show HN (40 points, 15 days ago, 27 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47571401
[−] pimlottc 29d ago

> Accursèd

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 28d ago
Just like beloved is supposed to be pronounced (don't @ me Descriptivists).
[−] gorgoiler 29d ago
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 29d ago
Here in Singapore on many sunny days, the bearing is largely the same hour after hour. The sun just changes apparent altitude.
[−] fellerts 29d 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...
[−] rich_sasha 29d 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 29d 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.
[−] unholiness 29d 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

[−] alfanick 29d ago
Imagine the mechanical gears behind this if it was an analogue watch. So many funky curved gears in there.
[−] throwway262515 29d ago
Syntax is wildly continuous with semantics, what’s the problem?
[−] mnvsbl 29d ago
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