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
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
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
