The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[RealAlHazred]

It was completely overcast in Southern Ontario. I'm going to take a pic at 7:30pm and tell people it was the eclipse.

View attachment 356750

We went to Niagara Falls for it, and the weather cooperated very briefly...

 

[Gradine]

I dunno, does @CleverNickName make asinine reviews of movies with scientific accuracy issues?

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

(Do they make any that stop and still show a time instead of a blank screen?)

My parents' house has a digital clock from the 1970s that displays the time with numbered tiles that flip as the minutes and hours pass rather than on a display screen. So it will display a time even when the power fails, and will be correct twice a day if left to itself just like an analog clock will. Whether anyone still makes these old clunkers I couldn't say. The thing's actually louder than a wind-up spring-driven clock and has long since been banished to a basement workshop no one spends much time in, rather than being in my old room where it used to deprive me of sleep and break my concentration when reading throughout grade school.

Buzz-clack every single minute as long as it's plugged in. Gah.

(Has learning to read such clocks gone the way of cursive yet?).

It's surprisingly common to run into people who have never learned to read an analog clock, but that's not strictly a recent thing. My sister is in her 50s and still struggles with it. Much like cursive, I suspect if you don't get taught in your first few grades of school you'll never be comfortable with it - but I had a much better kindergarten than sib did, so she got the short end of things.

That happened to her a lot in school, not just on relatively harmless stuff like analog clocks. Combination of period sexism, lazy/inept teachers passing everyone without confirming the learning had taken, and what was probably undiagnosed ADHD. Really quite unfair, and it (along with some bullying she didn't tell anyone about for decades) contributed to her hating school until she got away to college where she excelled.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

So yeah, if you want a wall clock (which might just be an old person thing), it's going to be analog.

If anything, I'd expect the elderly and/or vision-challenged to be using digital wall clocks. The displays are generally much larger than the numbers on an analog clock face can be and you can get LED ones that stand out in darkness better. There are thousands of varieties of them on the market with prices comparable to analog clocks of similar quality.

Folks who habitually carry their phones everywhere may not be as likely to buy them (or watches) but that doesn't mean wall clocks are useless, especially when your house is shorter on horizontal surfaces than vertical ones.

I was just telling one of my younger coworkers that this is the fourth total solar eclipse I've seen, and she looked at me like I was some kind of oracle or wizard.

Her: How is that even possible!? They're so rare!
Me: They're not, though. There's a total solar eclipse somewhere on earth every two or three years.
Her: (checks Google) (surprised Pikachu face)

Sigh. Even if she didn't know that there have been news stories the last week about eclipse-chasers who have the time and money to travel to them. I recall seeing some gal in her seventies who claimed her count was in the forties.

I was waiting at a bus stop a couple of years ago when I heard a couple of college gals wondering why the moon had phases and how calendars could predict them so accurately. How they graduated elementary school without being taught that I don't know, but it took me five minutes with a couple of soda cans and the light on my phone to demonstrate the principal and (giving credit where it's due) they grasped it immediately.

Ignorance is generally curable.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If anything, I'd expect the elderly and/or vision-challenged to be using digital wall clocks. The displays are generally much larger than the numbers on an analog clock face can be and you can get LED ones that stand out in darkness better. There are thousands of varieties of them on the market with prices comparable to analog clocks of similar quality.

I don't think logic matters here so much as force of habit.

If you grew up in a household that had analog clocks on the walls and then raised your family in a household with analog clocks on the walls, you will likely A) continue to think clocks belong on your walls where you're living now and B) likely to think of analog clocks.

Amazon has 10 zillion analog clocks, most of them between $10 and $20. Someone's buying all of them, and I bet they're mostly Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.

 

[ichabod]

As a downside to the eclipse, the birds around here freaked out about it. Guess on whose car they decided to void their bowels?

 

[Scribe]

As a downside to the eclipse, the birds around here freaked out about it. Guess on whose car they decided to void their bowels?

 

[overgeeked]

Uncle Traveling Matt…

 

[MNblockhead]

I don't think logic matters here so much as force of habit.

If you grew up in a household that had analog clocks on the walls and then raised your family in a household with analog clocks on the walls, you will likely A) continue to think clocks belong on your walls where you're living now and B) likely to think of analog clocks.

Amazon has 10 zillion analog clocks, most of them between $10 and $20. Someone's buying all of them, and I bet they're mostly Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.

One way I know I'm getting older is that I like to have a clock on my office wall and wish conference rooms would still include them. I much prefer having a clock I can discreetly glance at or see out of my peripheral vision than try to glance at a wrist watch or, worse, a phone. I still take people looking at a watch or phone as a passive-aggressive cue to hurry and wrap things up, which feels rude in many situations. And, if you are going to hang a clock on the wall, Analog clocks just look nicer, IMHO.

 

[ichabod]

I used to have an analog clock on the wall of my cubicle. The fun thing about analog clocks is that you can get ones that run backwards. It used to drive people nuts.