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Show HN: Time Flies

time-flies.koenvangilst.nl

401 pointsvnglst47 comments

A visualization of the passage of time using flies. Written in JavaScript with some HTML & CSS in one index.html.

The term "Tempus Fugis" is Latin for time flies, and is commonly seen on clock faces.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempus_fugit

Aeternitas manet!

fugit means literally "runs away/escapes" (useless trivia: it's just like in Bach's fugues which has to do with their structure).

I'm not trying to be pedantic here -- for some time I've been wondering how one would say (in classical latin) "time flies" as "the flies of time".

Can anyone with the knowledge of classical Latin help me feed that brain worm?

Is it Muscae temporis?

Can I use that phrase instead of tempus fugit? Like a friend named Mori, who used to finish all of his posts with "Memento Mori - remember Mori"

Muscae temporis is fine, and funny in its way :)

Perfect, thanks!

Refugees is the same stem.

I did not expect fugues and refugees to be etymologically related. You learn something new every day, I guess. Even if it's something you'd prefer you didn't know, like that apparently six-month-old eggs don't smell weird enough to get noticed...if they're in a closed drawer at least. (Yes, that happened a while ago. It lasted through a reorganization of the fridge, too! Fun...)

Fugitive, centrifuge...

> fugit means literally "runs away/escapes"

Reminds me of Atalanta Fugiens (1617), a book on alchemy considered an early example of multimedia.

> It is the first alchemical Gesamtkunstwerk that comprises music, images, poetry, and prose together in one piece.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atalanta_Fugiens

The title refers to Atalanta, who agrees to marry anyone who beats her in a footrace. Swift-footed Atalanta won every time, until Hippomenes cheats by throwing at her golden apples he got from Aphrodite.

I met an Italian person a while ago, who told me it means something like:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memento_mori

Miles Davis, 1953: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HJEfofdhwpc

And then there is my uncle, quoted as saying, "Tempus can go fug itself."

> Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

- Groucho Marx

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_flies_like_an_arrow%3B_...

Makes sense!

I never really gave it much thought. Just a fun word game.

Reminds me of the falling-blocks one, where IIRC he made the blocks 'spontaneously' create the necessary time by starting with them in the right order and then simply displaying it in reverse, due to the temporal reversibility of physics. So it simply looked 100% correct as somehow the blocks magically all bounced exactly right so as to turn into the time. If you did it 'forward', you'd be baffled, but it becomes trivial if you think like a Heptapod. :)

One could probably do the same trick here: start with the flies in the clock shape, then diffuse them, then display it in reverse. And stitch together each sequence by a bit of biased sampling to move each fly to its nearest counterpart in the next sequence? Then the flies magically assemble themselves into the time without ever moving unnaturally. "How do they know how to coordinate?! I just don't understand!" (Also a good analogy to AI diffusion models...?)

https://blog.oimo.io/2022/02/11/clock-core/

Very nice, simple and elegant. Would make a nice screensaver with a bit more movement.

Just add seconds for constant movement.

Adding a few more flies would make it even better. Hey the code is on GitHub, so we're all free to create our variations ;-)

This is the kind of idea that definitely started with the pun and then was worked backwards from there. Pretty funny.

Tip: you can click on the canvas to "disturb" the flies

Hilarious. Really wish I’d thought of this. Nicely executed.

True XD

Fun visualization.

First thought that this would be https://timeflies.buzz/ a fun game I played at pax this year, though I'm a little worried I played the whole thing.

Another nice stoic-inspired visualisation of a life clock:

https://lifeslay.vercel.app/

This is wonderful! I'd love something similar to this in my computer's time-display: random-noise until I click.

Curious, why?

I occasionally feel overly concerned with how much time each thing I'm doing is taking. As opposed to getting pleasantly lost in whatever it is that I'm doing. Of course it's useful to check-in on the time every so often or get calendar notifications to keep from missing events, but I realistically don't need to check the time every minute or two.

I love this! I wouldn't be surprised if this is the result of the author getting nerd-sniped somehow :-)

Nice.

<Spoiler> I would expect the phone shake to cause the flies to dispatch tho. <Spoiler/>

Nice feature request.

Something that would work well in the Harry Potter universe! Great work.

Initially I thought it's one of those optical illusions where you start seeing something in seemingly random buzz, just dynamically generated.

But do they like an arrow?

Imagine lit-up drones doing a countdown like this before New Year’s Eve!

Guaranteed to have been done in Asia already, an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIs8t3ro9Fw

Not at all similar to the one in this "Show HN" post but related:

London 2023 countdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FcDNi1HkfI&t=49s

London 2024 countdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2wBcCIlMGw&t=50s

Time Flies is something I would expect in Doctor Who.

That's super cool!

Now, I should port this to my smartwatch. Great.

This app reminds me of the marx brothers quote, “Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.”

Clearly the time flies should follow the mouse cursor.

They should change their behaviour as the pointer changes shape as you hover through various items on the screen

Is the dancing banana cursor still around?

"Time flies like an arrow, mouse cursor flies like a cursor"?

Referred to as a garden path sentence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

Having had friends who wrangled D. melanogaster, it reminds me of the smell of ether and yeast.

Could be a good test for future GPT intelligence but probably not hard

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