General Questions

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Hmmm... watches are the one form of jewelry that are socially acceptable for males. I'm thinking of replacing my old Titanium self-winding Quartz with a newer one, but I can't find one I like at the price I'd like.

And yes, they're jewelry... your cellphone can keep more accurate time than most watches. But nothing is more fascinating than an over-engineered piece of mechanical clockwork with roots centuries old sitting on your wrist. It's the ultimate in mechanical geekhood... like wearing a pair of Weber carburaters around your neck. :lol:
 
I find that checking the time with a the phone is just like any other use for it - not exactly "friendly". Like going out to answer in the middle of a conversation, and like texting, it's distracting. A watch, however, is much simpler - a quick glance at it, and you know the time.
 
I have an atomic wrist watch that updates itself quite frequently so it's almost always accurate. My phone on the other hand is about three minutes off.
 
your cellphone can keep more accurate time than most watches.
I would love to see you try to explain that to an old railroad engineer. Trains didn't get into collisions because they were kept on schedule and those schedules were maintained by the pocket watches of railroad engineers. The accuracy of those watches was a matter of life and death (and also made it easy for bandits to know precisely when a train would be passing through).

I actually know some people with those watches that had been passed down through their family. They still work, and they are still accurate.

I have an atomic wrist watch that updates itself quite frequently so it's almost always accurate.
Don't you worry about the radiation causing wrist cancer? :sly:

Lame joke, I know, but I couldn't resist.
 
Who cares about a little radiation, when you don't have to worry about buying batteries for it ever again! :p
 
Ya I noticed my wrist still glows when I take my watch off at night but hey it's a conversation starter.
 
Two ear-rings. Because just one means you're metrosexual. Two ear-rings say that you're perfectly comfortable with your manhood, and not averse to wearing garters.

Now, see, I got my ears pierced in 1986. I was the first (and only) guy I knew for about 10 years (other than George Michael) who had both ears pierced. Before that, it was the old "left is right and right is wrong" scheme.

That's about all the jewelry I wear except for a very plain gold wedding band. I do wear a watch, but not the giant 3-pound hunks that most 'compensating' types do.
 
I would love to see you try to explain that to an old railroad engineer.

The cell phone tower is linked into a very accurate time standard and updates the cell phone before the cheap oscillator in the phone gets too far off.

Done.

I don't wear a watch.
 
Does any regular person actually need a hyper-accurate watch?
 
Oddly, I don't wear a watch either. When I get there is when I get there.
 
Does any regular person actually need a hyper-accurate watch?

No, but it prevents me from having to set it periodically or change the batteries (or adjust for stupid daylight savings time).

I found a while back that, as Famine points out, you really don't need a watch. There are clocks everywhere you go (you'd be surprised when you start looking for them), and other people wear watches, so they're more than happy to tell you the time. Plus, it's not that hard to keep track of time in your head.

My wife wears a watch, but it's barely functional. It only has a dot every 3 hours. She wears it as a bracelet more than anything.
 
The cell phone tower is linked into a very accurate time standard and updates the cell phone before the cheap oscillator in the phone gets too far off.

Done.

I don't wear a watch.
Now convince an old railroad engineer how that is better than his equally accurate pocket watch, some of which are still accurate after 100 years without benefit of signals from other locations.

Don't convince me, I use a solar powered divers watch that I set off of my cell phone. That can go places that my cell phone cannot, most notably 5 atmospheres deep, and does not require access to a man-made power source to maintain a charge. Sadly, I have yet to get it more than a couple of meters underwater.

Oh, and I have never had to open my watch to adjust the SIM card so that it will work properly.
 
Now convince an old railroad engineer how that is better than his equally accurate pocket watch, some of which are still accurate after 100 years without benefit of signals from other locations.

What are these pocket watches that you speak of? 100 years without being set and they're accurate to? A minute? I don't believe it. I'll take my cell phone every time over a 100 year old pocket watch that has never been set.

Besides, railroad engineers should be using GPS time.

does not require access to a man-made power source to maintain a charge.

What's the advantage there? In case nuclear war ends life as we know it? Because if it's to save money, I can tell you that you're better off not paying for a watch to begin with.
 
What are these pocket watches that you speak of? 100 years without being set and they're accurate to? A minute? I don't believe it. I'll take my cell phone every time over a 100 year old pocket watch that has never been set.
Like I said, I know of a few that still work just fine. My telecommunications professor had one from his grandfather that he used as his watch. Keep it wound and it works like a charm.

Besides, railroad engineers should be using GPS time.
They do now, as well as computerized warnings if one train is off schedule.

What's the advantage there? In case nuclear war ends life as we know it? Because if it's to save money, I can tell you that you're better off not paying for a watch to begin with.
Did I mention we had a 5 day power outage at work not long ago? You would be amazed at how many people did not have car chargers for their cell phones. Amazingly, the sun kept right on shining.

And in the time I have owned this watch I have been through three cell phones (next week will make it four, as I am due an upgrade). I would say that it has more than made up for its cost in that time (considering it was a gift).

And just to add to this, guess what was the only thing still working at home during the power outage....my antique wind-up clock. And for the record, the clock has maintained accuracy with the auto-updated clock on my PS3.

Say what you want about new technology and I will agree. I am a tech-geek. With everything in my house on standby I can watch my electric meter spin. But at the end of the day reliability falls on the things that were made with dedication by people who cared about the merits of one's own work.

I blame this love of technology, but trust in the old, on my growing up as a geek in a rural area of Kentucky.
 
Keep it wound and it works like a charm.
The only way a winding watch can be "accurate for 100 years" is if you never let it stop and it's still on the correct time. Otherwise it's just a matter of setting it to the correct time each time you wind it. ;)

I think you two are talking about different things -- you, about a watch that still keeps track of time correctly after 100 years, and Danoff, about a watch that still has the correct time after being left untouched for 100 years.
 
I think you two are talking about different things -- you, about a watch that still keeps track of time correctly after 100 years, and Danoff, about a watch that still has the correct time after being left untouched for 100 years.

I wouldn't say entirely untouched. But with regular winding, I still think it's impossible that a pocket watch is anywhere near accurate if left uncorrected for 100 years.

Of course if you correct it... or in other words give it "signals from other locations", then I can see a mechanical watch still keeping a relatively accurate time for a period, even after 100 years.
 
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Well, you know what I mean. :)

There's no way for a mechanical watch to pick up on leap seconds, so even if a literally perfect and ever-running mechanical watch were made 100 years ago, compared to the "official" world time it would be off by maybe half a minute or more.
 
I wouldn't say entirely untouched. But with regular winding, I still think it's impossible that a pocket watch is anywhere near accurate if left uncorrected for 100 years.
You know, I can't actually defend that as it is corrected by default due to time zones and daylight savings time, but the one my professor had only ever had to be "corrected" in the traditional sense when he forgot to wind it.
 
There's no way for a mechanical watch to pick up on leap seconds

Stupid leap seconds.

Two things the world could live without: leap seconds, and daylight savings time (what I mean to say is "standard time", but nobody would know what I was talking about if I said that)
 
Two things the world could live without: leap seconds, and daylight savings time (what I mean to say is "standard time", but nobody would know what I was talking about if I said that)
You know, I've thought about that, too. Standard time is useless. When we "fall back", all it does is plunge our late afternoon into darkness. Sure, it keeps sunrise from being at 9 AM, but who really cares? Most people drive to work in the dark anyway. I'd rather have a little bit of daylight left when I get home. None of daylight savings "benefits" are practical anymore.
 
Does any regular person actually need a hyper-accurate watch?

My mom bought me my watch for an xmas gift a couple years ago, that's the only reason I have the hyper-accurate watch.
 
One of the places you don't want an atomic watch is at school, (at least here) their clocks are always a few minutes different than the actual time. :lol:
 
Not to mention that the difference from normal time changes every day. I find a cell phone perfectly adequate.

You know, I've thought about that, too. Standard time is useless. When we "fall back", all it does is plunge our late afternoon into darkness. Sure, it keeps sunrise from being at 9 AM, but who really cares? Most people drive to work in the dark anyway. I'd rather have a little bit of daylight left when I get home. None of daylight savings "benefits" are practical anymore.

Maybe it makes sense for the rest of the country. Being so far north, between two mountain ranges and having so much cloud cover, the day is so short in the winter in Seattle that daylight savings time doesn't help much other than it being light out an hour earlier in the work day. I believe it was always light for my earliest classes here at Hope last year. Granted, though, that college classes don't exactly start all that early to begin with.
 
So having a small model of the sundial wouldn't work at all?

It would fall off the accepted time until leap seconds are implemented and the rest of the world catches up.

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Mechanical chronometers are extremely accurate, but they generally fall off the time after a few months... that's why high-end chronographs are a good business... rich people have got to have the newest, most accurate and frictionless movements. In general, the high-end ones are so accurate that you won't discern much difference over a year if you wind it regularly (heck, quartz watches can go off just as badly), but like Danoff says... a cellphone that adjusts itself to the service time, which adjusts itself to atomic time (if your service provider is dilligent) can keep time more accurately.

Despite this fact, I love my wristwatch. It's titanium, so it's light. It's self-winding, so it's relatively maintenance-free (though it does need lubrication and a new capacitor) and it's quartz, which makes it more accurate than the cheap mechanical ones I can get at the price I'm willing to pay.

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@Duke: brave man. I'm scared dickless of piercing needles. :lol:
 
My mom bought me my watch for an xmas gift a couple years ago, that's the only reason I have the hyper-accurate watch.

I wasn't saying it was bad to have one, i was just saying that for most people knowing the absolute exact time is unnecessary.

I have a high-ish end Omega watch with a proper mechanical self-winding 'movement'. It probably is extremely accurate, only i often don't wear it, especially on weekends, and it winds itself down through lack of movement. So i always end up re setting it anyway. :dunce:
 
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Not to mention that the difference from normal time changes every day. I find a cell phone perfectly adequate.



Maybe it makes sense for the rest of the country. Being so far north, between two mountain ranges and having so much cloud cover, the day is so short in the winter in Seattle that daylight savings time doesn't help much other than it being light out an hour earlier in the work day. I believe it was always light for my earliest classes here at Hope last year. Granted, though, that college classes don't exactly start all that early to begin with.

You're going backwards, unless you mean standard time. During Daylight Savings, it gets light LATER in the morning, and stays light later in the evening. The evening extension is the purpose for it in the first place. When Nixon extended Daylight time through the winter in the early '70s the sun came up sometime in second or third period at school. We boarded the bus in absolute darkness.

It also depends on which side of the time zone you live in as to whether Daylight or Standard works better for you at different times of the year. My home is 15 miles from the eastern boundary of the central time zone, so I experience the sun's position almost an hour ahead of my cousins in Oklahoma, who are also central time. In the winter it's dark before I get off work at 5:00, and has been dark for quite a while.
 
Three points:

1) It's actually Daylight Saving Time, not 'Savings'.

2) I have a grandfather clock built in 1785 that keeps time with the clock on my cable box (provided, of course, that it is wound every day). We run this clock all the time. I also have a calender clock built in about 1870 that puts 29 days in February every 4 years.

3) Piercing needles don't hurt much after a couple margaritas. But then again, I only got my earlobes pierced, nothing more, uhhh, sensitive.
 
2) I have a grandfather clock built in 1785 that keeps time with the clock on my cable box (provided, of course, that it is wound every day). We run this clock all the time. I also have a calender clock built in about 1870 that puts 29 days in February every 4 years.
Looking at this stuff it amazes me the difference in quality between then and now. The saying, "It works like clockwork," makes total sense.

This conversation has also made me curious about clock making as a hobby. It would be the kind of thing that you could look back on proudly when you finish a project. And it serves a much more realistic purpose than those baskets my wife keeps making.
 
Looking at this stuff it amazes me the difference in quality between then and now.

Well, it is amazing, but it's also rare. This clock is one out of how many that still run? And it probably represented a substantial investment to the original purchaser. Whereas anybody can buy a 5-dollar watch at Wallyworld that will keep equally accurate time.

That's not to take anything away from the quality of the 220-year-old Germantown, PA clockmaker who built this in 1785, because it was a technological marvel at the time.
 
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