Like a cuckoo clock, but with Twitter... so not really like a cuckoo clock at all, actually.
March 20, 2012 9:40 AM   Subscribe

"Nearly every second, a user on Twitter tweets about what time it is." Chirpclock makes use of this as an interesting way of keeping track of the time.
posted by quin (36 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
What? They do? Why?
posted by cmoj at 9:46 AM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


That's actually kind of cool. #12:48.
posted by chococat at 9:48 AM on March 20, 2012


"Oh, wow, it's almost 3:00 and I haven't gotten any work done!"

Like that.
posted by MexicanYenta at 9:48 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


More like, nearly every second a user includes the time in a tweet. It is a pretty neat effect though.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:48 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I was getting tired of this analog watch, and I've already discussed all possible meteorological conversational permutations with my colleagues...So, perfect!
posted by obscurator at 9:49 AM on March 20, 2012


actually, many of the tweets are numbers other than time that HAPPEN to correspond to a clock number (such as Luke 12:48)...

Thanks, but I'll just look up at that little clock on the menu bar of the macbook.
posted by HuronBob at 9:49 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


The three bars on the bottom of the screen are cool too. I think I am going to write up a little app that displays three bars in the system tray as the hours minutes and seconds pass.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:52 AM on March 20, 2012


What? They do? Why?

I've given up on finding answers to these questions regarding anything done on Twitter.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:55 AM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


Funny, it uses local, 12-hour clock. Which means for me here in the UK right now, most of the tweets are in Chinese.
posted by iotic at 9:56 AM on March 20, 2012


Yeah, that's fun, but I watched for a while and didn't see a single one that was someone "tweeting about what time it was." Actually, I was surprised--you'd think there'd be a few more ironic "It's 10.02 and I'm sitting here breathing. Updates to follow" tweets.
posted by yoink at 9:56 AM on March 20, 2012


Recommended listening for aural and visual pleasure combined. Because well, you know.
posted by Algebra at 9:57 AM on March 20, 2012


Though I realize efficiency isn't really the point, this seems like a Rube Goldberg device that has 42 steps for lighting a fire, and it all starts with striking a match.
posted by crunchland at 9:58 AM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


I love this, it's quite cute. For a more mundane list of Twitter clocks, see twitter-clock-favourites, one of three lists maintained by a fan of Swatch Internet Time. Fuzzy Clock is kind of fun.
posted by Nelson at 9:59 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


Strangely, this seems to be a countdown to the "Hunger Games."
posted by cjorgensen at 10:02 AM on March 20, 2012


I actually think it's cool, like chococat said, the way the three bars on the bottom track the seconds, minutes, hours. And the little icons of the Twitterers show up in the corner, too.

Clever idea.

yoink: Yeah, that's fun, but I watched for a while and didn't see a single one that was someone "tweeting about what time it was." Actually, I was surprised--you'd think there'd be a few more ironic "It's 10.02 and I'm sitting here breathing. Updates to follow" tweets.

I'm now tempted to log in to Twitter and post some ironic time-specific comments, just to change the metric.

Like, "It's 1:03, do you know where your children are?"
posted by misha at 10:03 AM on March 20, 2012


Can anyone recommend a site that explains what the hell people do on Twitter? I have an account, and follow a few bloggers, but all it really shows are when they update their blog. TIA.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 10:04 AM on March 20, 2012 [3 favorites]


#ScrewedUp #Clock by #Injecting #Incorrect #Times into #Tweets
posted by clvrmnky at 10:08 AM on March 20, 2012


It's the world's first clock powered by inanity.
posted by malphigian at 10:10 AM on March 20, 2012 [4 favorites]


It would be really neat if it could figure out the time using Twitter. Alas, I think it is just doing a search against Twitter with the current time.
posted by smackfu at 10:15 AM on March 20, 2012


10:15 on a Saturday night. Need to get that leaky tap fixed. #Waiting
posted by Babblesort at 10:19 AM on March 20, 2012 [7 favorites]


You think that's cool? How about if you find a mention of every time in movies and turn it into a real-time clock.
posted by DU at 10:24 AM on March 20, 2012


Ugh, terrible link. Try this one
posted by DU at 10:25 AM on March 20, 2012


Yeah, almost all of the ones I saw were actually Bible verses.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:31 AM on March 20, 2012


I have a personal time & twitter tic, so this is of interest to me.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:31 AM on March 20, 2012


DU: "You think that's cool? How about if you find a mention of every time in movies and turn it into a real-time clock"

I'd flag it as a double.
posted by barnacles at 10:37 AM on March 20, 2012


Though I realize efficiency isn't really the point, this seems like a Rube Goldberg device that has 42 steps for lighting a fire, and it all starts with striking a match.

That pretty much describes most recent technology, at least as concerns the internet.
posted by bongo_x at 10:38 AM on March 20, 2012


It looks like some Twitter clients automatically add the time to posts, which is really weird. They could try and figure out a way to filter those out.
posted by roll truck roll at 10:40 AM on March 20, 2012


Oh duh, I just realized this is displaying results in my local timezone. They must be running this in Javascript in my browser? That's cooler than I realized at first.

(Also, when did Metafilter become so old? "What do those crazy kids use the Twitters for, anyway?" is a baffling sort of way to start a conversation about a Twitter project.)
posted by Nelson at 10:42 AM on March 20, 2012 [2 favorites]


This site is obviously keeping its own clock, and then searching for relevant tweets to use to display it. From the description I thought it would be using tweets to determine the current time, which would be kind of cool as an AI project.
posted by whir at 10:49 AM on March 20, 2012 [1 favorite]


I love all of the [american] high-schoolers who are so excited that's it's 2:05 now.

And now it's 2:06 and it's in different languages and I don't understand anymore.
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:06 AM on March 20, 2012


The first two that came up for me in English:

It's 1:02 and these kids are already running me ragged.

Eggs at 1:03 #Swag


along with many others in Spanish and Chinese.

Yeah, I would like a clock that took advantage of this somehow. A lot.

Navelgazer: "Yeah, almost all of the ones I saw were actually Bible verses."

Even as a not-really-Christian... in fact, maybe because of this fact... this would be a feature for me and my imaginary clock, not a bug.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:08 AM on March 20, 2012


2:14 was a constant stream of religious quotes being RT. Still an amusing idea.
posted by jermsplan at 11:14 AM on March 20, 2012


Something tells me they never have a problem finding samples for 4:20.
posted by JoanArkham at 11:18 AM on March 20, 2012


Something tells me they never have a problem finding samples for 4:20.

Or 5pm, which, sadly and thanks to me, even my 10 year old knows is Beer O'clock.
posted by chococat at 1:08 PM on March 20, 2012


So this is an automated search of Twitter using the time value, and showing a different hit for every second.

Pretty neat. This sort of fluidity with leveraging found values is pretty impressive although once you understand how it's done some of the magic falls away, like most neat tricks.

I also like this ahem..."Skygazer" device that takes a photo of the sky every five minutes and averages out the light value over time. (It's also by Mike Bodge).
posted by Skygazer at 2:05 PM on March 20, 2012


I just saw lots of flashing 8:00s. Which is fine because that matches my computer's time. Except in 'real life' it seems to be 11:01.

I spent quite a bit of time each day trying to figure out the time it seems. I often ask google, as I work in a school also full of broken/stopped clocks and incorrectly programmed computers..
posted by bquarters at 8:04 PM on March 21, 2012


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