by mark_undoio
4 subcomments
- In Cambridge we've got a clock called the Chronophage which is intended to be a sinister "eater of time" - the designer has done a good job of making it feel uncomfortable to look at. There's some detail here: https://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/secrets-corpus-clock
My memories of what I've heard over time:
* The grasshopper escapement actually is the demonic insect that sits on the top, "walking" around the serrated ring.
* Although it's backlit electronically it's actually a fully mechanical design - including all of the weird things it does.
* The Chronophage itself blinks its eyes unnervingly.
* It sometimes pauses or ticks slightly backwards, then runs faster to catch up again.
* On certain special dates it does extra weird stuff.
* The "chime" is a metal chain dropping into a box.
There were three made in the series, this was the first one. I've always found it slightly unappealing aesthetically but also compelling - there's no arguing with the fact that there's always a crowd of fascinated observers looking at it.
- A bit of a Baader–Meinhof moment for me.
Adam Savage discussed on Youtube earlier this week[0] the Chinese water torture episode of Myth Busters, and mentioned an email he got some time after, from somebody who had apparently actually used that torture technique in practice, and this person stated that what really made it effective was tuning the drip so the drops were completely unpredictable.
So, with Vetinari's Clock, Pratchett once again managed to, as was his wont, humorously but accurately nail a pretty damn grim bit of real-world trivia.
0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y2fDrv47U4
- At last we have built the Torture Clock from the famous fantasy story, "Don't Build the Torture Clock".
- Nice to see someone using a rightly-sized microcontroller for their project. Most hackers today throw an ESP32, or worse yet, a Raspberry Pi to handle the simplest of tasks. I suppose this is because the platforms are so readily available, but still there is something cool about using a teeny-tiny microcontroller.
- I'm a musician, I couldn't listen to it for a longer time. Btw. site was killed by hn-first-page's effect. https://web.archive.org/web/20250625211705/https://www.waiti...
- Far too great a disparity, but lovely to see all the same :) at least 60% of the ticks should be very close to normal to elicit a false sense of security and no more than 27% of the ticks should be WAY OFF, perhaps even less.
However, the principle is sound, and the execution is… timely?
- I have not read the Discworld series, but this sounds insidious as Hell!!! I love it.
- Previously:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43554442
Related:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216754
by technothrasher
0 subcomment
- I may have the antidote for this clock. I've got 37 different mechanical clocks in my lab. I suspect the irregular ticks from this clock would get drowned out by all the unsynchronized ticking from the others.
by andreareina
0 subcomment
- I love it. I kinda want it to be implemented as a LFSR though that would likely cost more in parts and power. The fixed tick interval isn't as bad as I thought it would be.
- Awesome. I wonder if there is a pulse sequence that maximizes that feeling of randomness?
- Does anyone know of a place where I could buy one?
- Similar to a Geiger counter.
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