Photos: The 10,000 Year Clock. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Apr 14, 2009 - 54 comments

The Antikythera Mechanism has been decoded. Two years ago, it was confirmed that the machine was capable of astronomical calculations. Now it appears there's just one more thing: 3D imaging of the machine made it possible to reconstruct the complete workings, and it turns out it was also capable of tracking the timing of the Olympic games. The findings were reported today in Nature. Previous Apple joke here, an incredibly deep post about it here, and a longer report from the New Yorker.
posted by one_bean on Jul 30, 2008 - 40 comments

Fasting may be the remedy for jet lag. By overiding your clock (audio interview 12 min) that prepares your body to eat, it is likely that you can reset your body's clock. Might this be the missing step in training yourself to be an early riser? via
posted by bigmusic on May 23, 2008 - 22 comments

An analog textual clock - An analog textual clock
posted by cillit bang on May 16, 2008 - 24 comments

Etch-a-Sketch Clock!
posted by tehloki on Mar 10, 2008 - 34 comments

The Kamusi project, an online Swahili-English dictionary site, has created the world's first clock that tells Swahili time. Not to be confused with the conceptual clocks of Tibor Kalman, like the Five O'Clock Clock, or Kalman's jumbled time clock tower The Swahili clock reflects an actual conceptual change that takes place for Swahili speakers. In Swahili culture the day starts at sunrise (unlike in the Arab world where the day starts at sunset, and in the Western world where the day starts at midnight). Sunrise in East Africa, being exactly at the Equator, happens every day at approximately 6:00 a.m. And for that reason, 6:00 a.m. is "0:00 morning" Swahili time. So the hands of a watch or clock meant to read Swahili time would always point to a number opposite to the number for the actual time as spoken in English. That is, the Swahili time anywhere in the world (not just East Africa) is delayed by 6 hours. [more inside]
posted by derangedlarid on Feb 25, 2008 - 26 comments

Behold the Uniqlock. (flash, sfw)
posted by boo_radley on Jul 27, 2007 - 65 comments

World Clock SWF application showing the time of day expressed in actual time, the number of species passed into extinction, barrels of oil produced, the temperature of the earth, prison population, world population, and deaths by various causes. Because, y'know, you weren't depressed enough already. Site also offers a number of free games, calculators and applications for your own site.
posted by psmealey on Jun 30, 2007 - 36 comments

Polar Clock Time and Date in a nifty roundabout of time.
posted by dhammond on Jun 6, 2007 - 32 comments

Always wanted to wake up with Stephen Fry? Now you can, with the - in itself quite interesting - VOCO Clock.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Mar 1, 2007 - 21 comments

The astronomical clock in the French city of Besancon is quite a mechanical marvel. Built in 1860, its inner workings are comprised of more than 30,000 interoperating pieces, driving 37 separate clockface gauges. It is one of the finest intersections between art & mechanics that I've ever come across.
posted by jonson on Jul 4, 2006 - 12 comments

The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich has some excellent online collections related to maritime history and technology, including telescopes, marine chronometers, sundials, and a whole lot more. Some stuff I've been looking at: John Harrison's chronometers (described in Dava Sobel's book Longitude), polyhedral sundials, and pocket globes.
posted by carter on Mar 15, 2006 - 4 comments

Timeline. I found this strangely riveting even though it is just a simple clock [flash].
posted by srboisvert on Aug 20, 2005 - 37 comments

Clocky. An MIT student has designed an alarm clock with built-in wheels and motion sensors. Upon hitting the snooze button, Clocky will roll of your nighttable, bump around your room, and hide, forcing you to have to get up and look for him instead of hitting the button again.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Mar 29, 2005 - 38 comments

Clear Sky Clocks. How dark is it going to be tonight?
posted by gottabefunky on Aug 27, 2004 - 3 comments

The exact time.
posted by semmi on Jul 30, 2004 - 17 comments

Click-clocks.
posted by pedantic on Jan 16, 2004 - 3 comments

I'm starting to think I was only one to ever buy a Rubik's Clock. The hours I spent trying to work it out, the effort I put in, whilst all along there's a simple solution to the infernal thing. While we're on Rubik's games, this man with an audiacious mullet has lots of tips on solving them, and another man can solve the Rubik's Cube in 16 seconds (.mpg file). Impressive, although his social life must have suffered...
posted by wibbler on Sep 28, 2003 - 16 comments

"They're like little electronic campfires." Nixie tubes were the face of atomic age electronics. Now, even though they are obsolete, there are enough left to have found new life as art with hobbyists. There is something aesthetically pleasing about typeset digital indicators that glow and move fore and aft as the digits change. What better way to watch the hours of your life slip by than on your very own nixie clock?
posted by jester69 on Sep 17, 2003 - 14 comments

Early Light Emitting Diode watches. From photos to advertisements. Commodore to Tiffany to Ragen Synchronar.
posted by four panels on Apr 16, 2003 - 14 comments

This handwritten digital clock is the best use of flash I've seen in a long time. Maybe ever.
posted by sklero on Nov 1, 2002 - 31 comments

The clock in the terminal at Grand Central has gone. Why do renovated public buildings always seem to lose so much character? Isn't it possible to meld the old with the new?
posted by feelinglistless on Mar 20, 2002 - 38 comments

Cool Clock: GMT.
posted by MiguelCardoso on Jan 9, 2002 - 18 comments

Stolen shamelessly from Tom: a charming clock, reminding us once again that "time" is an intellectual concept meaningless without human participation... (Don't miss the webserver, either.) Considering the depth and breadth - and apparent copious free time - of the MeFi community one would hope we'd be able to help fill in some of the still unphotographed minutes.
posted by m.polo on Jul 27, 2001 - 3 comments

Even if it didn't just plain old look neat [*large graphic*] the Clock of the Long Now is an awesome idea.
posted by bison on Oct 31, 2000 - 8 comments

Kit Williams gained a great deal of fame through publishing a puzzle book called Masquerade. He has produced some fine artwork besides (I was actually looking for a particular painting of a Morris Mini to supplement veruca's link). In addition to paintings, he has a fascination with clocks and mechanical devices.
posted by plinth on Mar 20, 2000 - 0 comments

The Dick Tracy age is upon us. Web access in a watch? Count me in, although I'd hate to have to learn yet another new language like WWML (wrist watch markup language, I just made it up) to make a watch-compliant version of MetaFilter.
posted by mathowie on Feb 24, 2000 - 2 comments

This is probably the coolest dhtml thing I've ever seen. An analog clock that follows your mouse. Simple, but addictive. [thanks medley]
posted by mathowie on Jan 30, 2000 - 1 comment