This gets a bit detailed — which is where the fun is! — but in short it goes like this. We have two systems to measure time: our everyday one which is based on the rotation of the Earth, and a fancy-schmancy scientific and precise one based on vibrations of atoms. The two systems aren’t quite in synch, though, since the Earth counts a day as a tiny bit longer than the atomic clocks say it is. So every now and again, to get them back together, we add a leap second on to the atomic clocks. That holds them back for one second, and then things are lined up once again.

This has to be done every two or three years, so why not just adjust the length of a day or year or something? The detailed explanation is at Bad Astronomy. Link

This kooky yet innovative clock features a masked figure that contorts into the shape of numbers throughout the day, so your clock face becomes a miniature stage for interpretive dancers.

Called the Hone Hone clock, it is mesmerizing to watch, and will bring a sense of life to your boring old clock. Now, you’ll want to watch the seconds tick by all day!

Link –via Geekosystem

Space Alien Alarm Clock – $13.95

Are you endlessly searching for a way to defeat oversleeping? You need the Space Alien Alarm Clock from the NeatoShop. This fantastic alarm clock is shaped like the iconic arcade game character. The clock makes arcade game sounds and moves side to side when the alarm goes off. The Space Alien Alarm Clock is sure to inspire you to gain control of your sleeping patterns and score big points for waking up on time.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Clocks & Timers.

Link

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/09/space-alien-alarm-clock/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/28/time-twister/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/10/28/time-twister/#comments Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:59:52 +0000 Miss Cellania http://www.neatorama.com/?p=55033
(YouTube link)

I haven’t spent this much time watching a clock move in …a long time. Hans Andersson, who gave the Rubik’s Cube-solving robot, built this clock called the Time Twister.

Time Twister consists of two LEGO Mindstorms bricks communicating via Bluetooth. The master brick keeps track of the time and handles the minute digits. The slave brick handles the hour digits and the second indicator.

Read more about it at the Tilted Twister site. Link -via Laughing Squid

The train station in Osaka, Japan has a computerized fountain that spells out the time, announcements, and pictures in falling water. If you spend too much time waiting for the clock to display, you’ll realize what time it really is …time to find a restroom! See more pictures and video at the uploader’s site. Link -via Everlasting Blort

The Long Now Foundation is building a clock that is supposed to last 10,000 years, and chime with a different song every time it sounds. Danny Hillis invented the clock in 1995, saying

I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium. I want the cuckoo to come out every millennium for the next 10,000 years.

The 200-foot tall clock will be installed under a Sierra Diablo mountain on Texas land owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Right now, a robot is carving steps inside the mountain, and some of the larger clock components are being assembled. Read more about it at The Technium. Link to story. Link to website. -via Laughing Squid

Have you ever looked at a group of cheerleaders or acrobats and thought “I wish they would do something useful with all those fancy moves?” Well, now artist Billy Chasen has conceived The People Clock. It’s a digital web based clock where the digits are composed entirely of people. Instead of half past noon, now you can tell people it’s half past Susan. Link

Eye Clock – $34.95

Do you have trouble telling time? Well, this adorable Eye Clock from the NeatoShop is not for you!  This super fun Eye Clock is only for people who are actually proficient at telling time.

We are sorry that you suck at telling time.  Maybe you just need more practice.  Please don’t be sad. No one is good at everything.  Everyone know that telling time can be pretty tricky.

Be sure to check out all the awesome Clocks & Timers available at the NeatoShop!  Many of the Clocks & Timers are surprisingly simple to read.

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/19/eye-clock/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/18/doctor-who-retro-alarm-clock/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/18/doctor-who-retro-alarm-clock/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:59:52 +0000 Tiffany http://www.neatorama.com/?p=44829 Doctor Who Retro Alarm Clock - $25.95

Do you know a Doctor Who fan who has trouble getting up in the morning? Get them the very cool Doctor Who Retro Alarm Clock from the NeatoShop!  This fabulous clock features the 11th Doctor.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Doctor Who items!

Science Quiz Clock – $31.95

What time is it? It’s time to embrace your pop quiz anxiety with the Science Quiz Clock from the NeatoShop.  All that studying and scientific knowledge can finally be put to good use!

You should be very proud! It only took you 4 years of college to master the ability to tell time.

Be sure to check out all the cool Clocks & Timers available at the NeatoShop!

]]> http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/06/science-quiz-clock/feed/ 0 http://www.neatorama.com/2011/03/18/film-clock/ http://www.neatorama.com/2011/03/18/film-clock/#comments Sat, 19 Mar 2011 04:46:11 +0000 Alex http://www.neatorama.com/2011/03/18/film-clock/

The 35 mm film may be gone forever on its way out, but it can still live in our hearts and our night table as this digital (oh the irony) Film Clock ($99.95) from the NeatoShop. Shaped like a giant 35 mm cartridge film in yellow cassette, the Film Clock displays both the time and calendar in its "film leader" display.

Perfect for the photography lover in your life: Link | Gifts for Shutterbugs | F-Stop Watch

By Laughing Easy

What time is it? It’s about Pi/2 past 2Pi/3. You don’t need to know the geometric definition of this mathematical constant to know what time it is since it’s not a digital display.

Link - Via John Gushue

This web clock from designer Jack Hughes displays the time like all web clocks, but it also changes the background to correspond to the hexadecimal color value represented by the numbers of the digital time. Watch for any length of time and it will change, although sometimes quite gradually. However, when I looked up #110927, I got a completely different color. The colors may be set for a specific time zone. Link -via J-Walk Blog

If you were impressed by QLOCKTWO, but were put off by the price tag, you might want to make your own! The materials total less than $100, but you need a bit of know-how to pull it off. Instructables has your directions. Link -via a comment at reddit

Dotklok is an open source digital clock that can display the current time in a Pong style and many other animations.

The motivation for DOTKLOK was to combine in one clock a variety of ways to show time — such as with words, graphics, or retro game displays — while providing a platform on which others can further develop unique timepieces.

Link

This clock would be really neat for a puzzle enthusiast or anyone who wants a one-of-a-kind item on their walls. The clockworks come with five puzzle pieces attached and twelve more that you add in your own design. Link

Here’s the turntable clock, made from a recycled Garrard turntable by Etsy seller pixelthis. It’s sold out, but don’t let that stop you from admiring the cleverness.

Link

Estonian designer Pavel Sidorenko created fantastic wall clocks out of used vinyl records. This one above is my favorite, but don’t miss the one cut to look like a pipe-smoking penguin: Link – via Core 77

If you’ve ever fiddled with electronics, then you’ll recognize the photo above as resembling the classic Simpsons 260 multimeter. But rather than measuring currents, the oversized device is actually a clock!

Alan Parekh of Hacked Gadgets created this awesome clock that keeps time and outputs a calculated current to each meter to display the "current" time (get it?).

Check it out (with video clip of the clock in action): Link – Thanks Alan!

This outdoor musical object is allegedly a clock in Shibuya, Japan. It gradually opens sections of its outer wall to reveal mechanical instruments.

via Urlesque

This clock concept by Russian art collective Art Lebedev shoots a laser at sixty rotating mirrors to tell the time. Other clocks by this group that we’ve featured at Neatorama include the Verbarius Clock and the TaskWatch.

Link via technabob | Photo: Art Lebedev

The Aspiral Clock is a new type of clock developed by two London-based tinkerers, Will Aspinall and Neil Lambeth. The entire clock itself turns slowly over a twelve-hour period and a loose ball inside marks the current time.

Link via Make | Video about the Clock | Image: Aspiral Clocks

New York-based designer Ji Lee’s Redundant Clock uses hands oriented toward the hour markings for its hour markings.

Browsing around Lee’s website, I also found this interesting work of guerrilla art. Lee puts empty speech bubbles over public advertisements and then photographs what people write in them.

Link via OhGizmo!

The quantum-logic clock, which detects the energy state of a single aluminum ion, keeps time to within a second every 3.7 billion years. The new timekeeper could one day improve GPS or detect the slowing of time predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.[...]

Chou’s team is one of several racing to build an atomic clock that can replace the current international standard, the cesium fountain clock. The cesium clock loses one second every 100 million years. Chou’s is not the first quantum-logic clock, but his uses aluminum and magnesium ions, which makes it twice as precise as its predecessors that used aluminum and beryllium.

To keep time, quantum-logic clocks measure the vibration frequency of UV lasers. Unfortunately, the best lasers we can build veer off their normal frequency by about one tick every hour, Chou said. To keep the laser’s timekeeping precise, its vibration must be anchored to something much more stable.

Pictured above is Chou with his quantum logic clock.

Link | Photo: J. Burrus/NIST

Artist Mark Formanek and his team of seventy assistants set up a huge wooden digital clock in a Rotterdam train station. It’s completely manual and the digits must be changed every minute by the workers, which is precisely what they did for twenty-four hours. Video in Dutch (presumably).

Link via DVICE

I’m not sure how it works, but this 8-ft by 8-ft clock by artist Miss Moun displays the time by selectively lighting up words in a poem. Three words are always lit, and each word represents either the hour, minute, or second. The piece is entitled “6 Is for Blossom”, and you can view more pictures at the link.

Link via Gizmodo | Photo: Miss Moun

When you watch this video, you might think that this is a man standing behind a sheet of plastic, re-drawing the hands on a clock face every minute. Actually, this clock by designer Maarten Baas is a LED screen showing the artist doing precisely that on a continuous loop. The video is from the recent Design Miami fair, which ended on December 5th.

Link via Gizmodo | Artist’s Website | Design Miami

Students at the Technical University of Wroclaw, Poland, decorated the outside of their building with a giant LED clock that displays the time in binary. It consists of eighteen round windows, with green windows representing hours, blue windows representing minutes, and red windows representing seconds.

Link (in Polish) via Gizmodo | YouTube Video | Photo: Wroclaw University

Quentin Thiacourt of TOKI WOKI created this unusual web clock made solely out of browser scoll bars! The effect is quite mesmerizing: Link

Photo: Unica

Andreas Dober’s wall clock for the German luxury shop Anthologie Quartett cycles a bicycle chain to display the hour with copper digits at the top. A custom job, it prices out at $2,338.

Link via Make | Anthologie Quartett

Big Ben, the London clock tower, Westminster Palace clock tower bell, has a Twitter account. Online, it says the same thing it has always said in real life. The account was opened as a statement on the banality of Twitter, but Big Ben now has over six thousand followers! Come to think of it, this IS handy if you want to know what time it is in London. Link -via Blame It On The Voices

The melting clock in Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory is a familiar icon.  One can purchase analog and digital versions of these clocks, hand-crafted by artists, but it is also possible to create one at home by recycling an old vinyl LP and following a series of simple directions…

Step 2: Preheat your oven to 220F/100C and toss in the record for a couple minutes. When it’s thoroughly flopping about, yank it out and run to a table to do the next step.  Run! It hardens quickly!

Full directions are at Instructables, via Anything and Everything.

Link

This one’s a classic, but it’s still pretty nifty. Here’s a clock that uses an oscillating wand with LEDs and the concept of the persistence of vision to tell time and display messages. You can even program your own messages. Over at the Neatorama Shop: Link

The QLOCKTWO, created by the German design firm Biegert & Funk, spells out time in five minute increments. Four dots in the corners let you know precisely which minute it is. The clock retails in Europe for about $1,600.

Link via OhGizmo!

This Clock Clock by Humans Since 1982 uses 24 individual analog clocks to tell the time! Technabob explains:

It took me a second to figure out what was going on when I first got a look at this table full of analog clocks. But once I stood back from my screen, I realized that none of the clocks have the correct time and the whole thing is a macro timepiece that tells the time using 24 individual clocks.

Created by Swedish designers Humans Since 1982, the Clock Clock installation features 48 electronically-controlled analog clock hands which automatically rotate into the proper positions to form a giant digital display.

Link (with embedded YouTube clip of the clocks in action) – via Inspire me, now!

Three winners will be chosen to win a watch of their choice from Tokyoflash. Hurry, contest ends May 26th, 2009: Link – Thanks Paul!

Our pal Tokyoflash needs your help: they’re designing new (and very neat looking) clocks and are looking for feedback on some product development. Here’s a short survey of 9 different clock designs – are they interesting? Too complicated? Not complicated enough?

Take a look: Link – Thanks Paul!

Link via ThisNext

Link | Original website [in Russian]

A perfect last-minute gift, I think. Take someone’s favorite childhood book, convert to a clock, and voila! And thanks to this Instructable, you even have step-by-step instructions on how to do it. The creator has a cute blog with lots of other crafty ideas, too.

I’m sure most of you know at least something about the mysterious Antikythera Mechanism that was found at the bottom of the sea in 1901 near the island of Antikythera (from where the device took its name) and is estimated to have been built between 150-100 BC by an unknown builder. Famed for its mysterious and significantly advanced gear mechanism and complex build the Antikythera Mechanism was eventually found to be a computing calender and clock of sorts for the planets. Which may have been useful to sailors as would be evidenced by why the device was found among the carcass of a sunken ship.

Fast forward to the modern age and we find curator Michael Wright with the first fully functional working model of the Antikythera Mechanism in the World. To imagine that such advanced and complex machines were being built so long ago has fascinated and helped reshape ancient history and knowledge. The mystery concerning this device has increased as archaeologists and scientists wonder why they have only found this sole machine in the past century and why there is no recorded information regarding its creator.