We got a binary clock at our trainstation. I love it, but most of the people think it's wasted money because they can't read it.

Don't tell anyone, but I can't read it either

@ThatDannyBoy my friends bully me for stuff like this

5:39PM? I admit that the time took working that out would have made me miss the train..

@fattymiller i get 17:57 but that could be just me

Endianness is unclear

I see 17h57 clear as the break of dawn🤔

I'm not even gonna lie, I had to stare at it for like 5 minutes before it made sense 😂

I understand binary, it just took a few minutes to figure out why there were two rows of lights 🙃😂

@fattymiller yup.

@resdac @Brunextra how did you get that?

Well the alignment is definitely wrong in my opinion, should be right aligned ... to match the hour bit 0 with the minute bit 0.

Other than that, I thinks it's neat but I would still agree if someone says it's a waste of money, because only a small percentage of people can read it, and even then it takes way too long ... unless you use binary multiple times a day, then you might have the patterns burned into your brain. But then the patterns in your brain would most likely be for 1 and 0 and not for light on and light off on some random forms.

@resdac @Brunextra

10001 = 17 ((1 * 1) + (1*16))

100111 = 39 ((1*1) + (1*2) + (1*4) + (1*32))

17:37

(or if you use 12hr: 5:39PM)

@MrMarlin do they ever activate the seconds?

Actually some people seem to read it as 17:57, which means bit 0 is at the left, in that case the alignment would make sense. But this makes the clock even confusing for programmers because generally in all practical cases (datasheets, C, etc.) bit 0 is the rightmost bit.

@qwerty77asdf You can get both values depending if bit 0 is the rightmost or the leftmost digit, see my comment.

@bootleg-dev ah, I see. That'd explain the alignment of the hours too...

That's weird.

That's the same as writing seven thousand and sixty three like: 3607

@bootleg-dev yeah, saw it :)

@qwerty77asdf Actually looking at the picture again it seems that the clock is visible from both sides of the window. Thus for the people outside it would look correct, with the proper alignment.

So what we got here is a clock which only a small percentage of people can read, takes a long time to read and in addition to that is ambiguous to read.

So either it is an art project, for example to express the way common people feel about technology (e.g. not understanding it), or someone wanted to be a fancy nerd. Depending on who paid for it, it is either wasted money, or an interesting art project ...

@bootleg-dev good perspective, that seems about right.

I agree with both you and the ppl. Its awesome, but i can't read it xD

@AlexDeLarge refer to @bootleg-dev's comment

@AlexDeLarge I started reading it from right to left, but then I noticed the left alignment and started again. 17:57 with MSB to the right, which is probably the correct way in this case, so the hours and minutes bits are aligned.

Well if you ever wondered if this was an efficient way to give the time, the amount of comments here should tell it isn't.

On the other hand it looks good

Looks good, doesn't works. You will miss the train when you are trying to resolve that shit.

Oh wow that overnight response 😮 of course you are all right. ^^ from the side i photographed it, it is the wrong way to read it from right to left. But as @bootleg-dev says, it is visible from both sides.

It also wasn't the idea to be a replacement for a real clock, but more an art installation. Btw. It cost 300'000 CHF and was paid by the city where the trainstation is. It was built in order to a complete station renovation.

@MrMarlin wow, I hope the entire renovation costed that much, and not just the clock 😁

@qwerty77asdf yeah the seconds are always running. I just took the picture at 17:57:00 ^^

@lucaspar Nono, just the clock. The whole renovation was multiple millions. The station is still under construction in some sections.

@MrMarlin Oh ok nice :)
Intentionally?

@qwerty77asdf no. Just walked up the stairs and wanted to share this with you guys, so i took a photo.

I read it as 17:39.
Amirite?

@MrMarlin can you create a GIF out of it? That would be awesome!

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- Yes!! +++

That'd be cool, I second that.

Will do so, when i am there the next time. Think that will be on Tuesday. Will create a reminder :D

@MrMarlin AWESOME!

And i will do it from the right side, so there won't be that much confusion. xD

@bootleg-dev @AlexDeLarge it is left aligned because from the other side of the glass it is right aligned 🤔😅
And form there way more people can see it.. So for myself it makes sense.

@AlexDeLarge you are welcome

Unclear Endianness, wasted money.

@Emphiliis yes, but people can see it from both sides, so from one side it's still confusing.

.

I love the idea but I can understand how 95% of people wouldn’t get it.

One thing they could have done is number the “digits” instead of using meaningless symbols like X and O:

1 2 4 8 16 32

Then you could at least figure out that all you need to do is add up the lit numbers in each row.

It would teach people binary counting and still be useful!

If it's not a 4x8 array of dots representing a unix timestamp, it's not really a good binary clock.

@bittersweet right, then people wouldn't just lose the next train, but the next 3 trains instead.

Nobody is late for their train. There are several "normal" clocks around the station. ^^ I think this artpiece is just representig the digital era.

@qwerty77asdf yeah i figured that since the thing has a float-left they did the same with the numbers 1 2 4 8 16 32 so then it is 1+8+16+32 =57

@lucaspar No... all we have to do is get people used to using Unix timestamps for their appointments. Easy!

Just by the comments trying to figure out we can clearly see it is wasted money indeed.

Outside view

Great idea or not: if the users cannot use the product, it's a useless product.

That being said, it's not said that this clock's only use is to tell time.

@lucaspar is there a crowd looking at it? Are they trying to read the clock?

@eeee apparently yes lol

The thing is you're seeing it as a product, but it's an art piece. It doesn't matter it's hard to read the time, if anything, that was the artist's intention.

@lucaspar a product nonetheless. An artist has produced it and the use would be an artistic one.

It's still easier to understand than Dutch people telling you it's 9:40 (10 minutes after the half hour before 10)

@oscarascal hey, thats not fair. Its also 20 minutes before 10. It depends on where you live. Or if you go crazy its five before a quarter to 10 🤣

Should have just installed 64 lights and count the seconds since epoch.

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- @qwerty77asdf

A bit delayed, but here the GIF of the clock.

@MrMarlin I made a little site to see what it looks like. If I were to use that train station I'd always get distracted by it and focus on it too much haha.

Fun to watch.

@MrMarlin that's really cool! :D

awesome clock, I'm definitely making I've for me.... eventually

@rsync

If we colonize the solar system, the 24h clock doesn't make sense anyway!

What's great about epoch timestamps is that you can split them in useful groupings: [153-6-6]--[6-4-656]

That is season 153 (116 days), sprint number 6 (11.6 days), and since the five last digits (100k seconds) add up to 27.7 hours... it's "day" number 6.

"Today is day 153-6-6" could be used if you don't mind slightly longer days. And who minds longer days? I certainly wouldn't! Almost 4 free hours per day!

Then there's block 6, spell 4, bit 656. I just love the word "spell" as in "a little while".

10k is a block of 2.77 hours. Such a block is an amazing unit of time for planning tasks and activities such as work shifts, dinners, travel times, etc.

The next digit is roughly 16 minutes, SUPER useful for things like coffeebreaks or meetings. "I expect this meeting to take from spell 67 to 69", that's half an hour.

Then the least significant 3 digits are 1.6m, 10s and 1s... easy!

@rsync

Well it would be metric time, because when you traveled for 0.2 blocks or 2 spells (2ks), and your speed was 30 m/s, you traveled 30 x 2k = 60 km.

And when someone works 2 blocks per day (about 5.5h), earns $50/block, that's $10k/season, but bills are $600 per sprint so you have $4k/season left to spend... Which is 40c per spell on average, or $40 per day. Budgeting becomes super easy.

Or download speed... 10MB/sec? 100GB will take a block.

Should've used BCD, tbh

Look at the gif, it's little endian.

@MrMarlin what city ist it?

@needToRoll St.Gallen, Switzerland

@Brunextra apperently not since it's 17:39

@fattymiller At least now I can confirm I am not wrong.