Tempus Nectit Knitting Clock | Hacker News Reader

Tempus Nectit Knitting Clock

kylerank.in

114 pointsNoRagrets10 comments

> I have seen a number of wall clocks that feature the Latin expression Tempus Fugit or "time flies" and so I decided to name my project Tempus Nectit or the closest approximation I could find for "time knits."

Another option would have been "tempus texit".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/texo

(It's true that "nectit" is a direct cognate with English "knit" and is probably also a plausible choice. It could also be interpreted as "time ties", which has a nice unintended rhyme in English with the traditional expression!)

Yet another option here might be "tempus consuit" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consuo#Latin)

Although the translation would then be more literally about sewing than knitting, it feels like there's a neat pun that I can't find that's to do with the phrase "a stitch in time".

I have a soft spot for making silly things (e.g. the food button[0] or rotary mobile phone[1]), so this project tickles me so much. I love every step of it, and I love how 3D printing and electronics being cheap make these things possible.

Very well done to the author.

[0] https://www.stavros.io/posts/emergency-food-button/

[1] https://www.stavros.io/posts/irotary-saga/

That's a pretty cool idea; now I'm thinking of other "logging" clocks, e.g. one that will plot the current temperature or other environmental factors on a strip of paper over the course of a year, producing an annual receipt like the github commit visualisation. It doesn't even need to be checked every year, it could have enough paper and storage in it to log decades, assuming an infinite pen or long-lasting thermal paper; perforations might also work, but in that case, having monthly or annual punch cards would be cool as well, like one of these player piano books.

> assuming an infinite pen

Like a pencil?

In your experience, which happens more often (assuming continuous use): a ballpoint runs out of ink, or a pencil becomes dull/breaks?

This is something that has existed in laboratories for a long time to check temperature excursions. They have probably moved to digital by now, but it was a slowly rotating paper disk with a pen attached to a thermocouple. You could see when the freezer was opened and when it returned to normal.

My lab has one of these with paper monitoring the temperature of our cold room.

Something like this was used in Vernor Vinge's excellent "A Deepness In The Sky" novel!

This gave me a nostalgia hit from the early days of the internet, and is one of the reasons why I come to HN.

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