It's just a matter of time

  Big Ben with Dali clock sculpture 
  Originally uploaded by lightbody.

If you're an American who doesn't live in Arizona, you just Fell Back to make up for Springing Forward last April. My laptop knew to fall back-- it adjusted its internal clock in the wee hours of Sunday. My cell phone knew to fall back too, as did my desk phone at work. So did my VCR, and TiVo, and even the weird little device Sidra hid in my office that plays a tinny, beeping version of "My Heart Will Go On" every day at 6:12 pm. But you know what didn't know to fall back? My clocks and watches.

That's right. The devices I have whose sole function is to tell time don't do as good a job as devices that only tell time as a sideline. That counts as irony, right?

Okay, there is one exception: My SmartSet clock radio knows when to fall back or spring forward. However, despite its cleverness and its ability to set itself after power outages, it is constantly ten minutes fast. I live with that error for the same reason many people set their clocks fast deliberately-- to fool myself into being less late. I'd replace it with a clock that syncs via radio to an atomic clock, but it has a really handy dual alarm that can be set for just Mon-Fri, just Sat-Sun, or all week.

But you know, now that I think about it, a clock being able to adjust itself twice a year is no great shakes. And now that I think about it, my computer, cell phone, desk phone, and watch never even agree what time it is. When it's time for a 10 am meeting here at the office, I have no idea when to go, because all my sources are telling me something different. And even if I did know, no one else in the office is going to show up at 10 on the dot either, except by luck.

I know that time is relative, and can speed up or slow down according to your frame of reference, but aren't we yet to the point where the majority of timepieces can sync up wirelessly into some semblance of accuracy? Actually, now that I'm sounding to myself like Paul Kedrosky, I'll just say it: There is a big opportunity out there for the person who invents a wireless atomic-clock sync chip cheap enough to put in gumball-machine watches but dependable enough to put in Big Ben.

Note that I'm only talking about timepieces for human consumption-- automated and electrical systems can continue at the beat of their own throbbing cesium atom, and we certainly don't need to cause some Y2K-style situation. But I'm a graphic designer; I like for things to line up and be consistent. And while die-hards will be free to continue setting their own clocks ten minutes ahead of Siry Universal Time, I hope our children will grow up in a world where the cinematic cliché "Let's synchronize watches" has become nonsensical.

Comments

[Sklep]

haha Yeah you have right.