Show HN: I made an online Unicode Cuneiform digital clock | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: I made an online Unicode Cuneiform digital clock

oisinmoran.com

110 pointsOisinMoran34 comments

I got the idea to pay homage to the people who gave us base-60 time, and in the process discovered that Cuneiform is in Unicode.

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If you like weird clocks, I've got a collection of them here [0] which includes two others I've made—the QR Code Clock (probably my stupidest design of anything to date), and the vague clock (which is always correct and accurate but as it is just a single rotating "6" is only really legible at 6 and 9 o'clock)

Currently working on my first physical one!

[0] https://lynkmi.com/oisin/Clocks

This one is good

https://github.com/BarkyTheDog/catclock

The QR one is oddly pleasing to me for some reason. I kinda want to make an e-ink version that is just minutes and hours now

Thank you! By all means, I'd love to see it. I actually have a programmable watch [0] that I want to put it on. And the ultimate goal is a non-screen-based hardware version of this.

[0] https://watchy.sqfmi.com/

That sounds like this guy's mirrors https://www.smoothware.com/danny/

Ooh wow! I've seen one of these in the Microsoft HQ in Seattle and saw a video about the pom pom one but didn't know it was the same guy. And there's so many! Thank you, this is great.

My little contribution to the online clock world is a Japanese Shaku Dokei that I made while I was researching them to add one to my physical collection. I ended up finding a nice Tokugawa shogunate clock from about 1750, which is very similar to the one I digitally created, though my digital one works a heck of a lot more reliably!

https://timebygone.com/

This is great, just added it to my collection! Thanks for sharing

These are beautiful, each in their own right. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you! Yeah I love a good curated list. If you'd like to make your own lmk and I can send you a lynkmi invite

Nice to see the Mengenlehre clock in Berlin. Coincidentally, directly in the adjacent Europa-Center is also the clock of flowing time, which I found fascinating as a kid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_Flowing_Time

this one looks traditional, but its run by a tuningfork https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/projects/electromechanical-c...

which is based on this

https://hackaday.io/project/177317-tuning-fork-clock

I absolutely love this, bonus: I can now read Cuneiform numbers, if I ever need that.

Suggestion: You can potentially show the Cuneiform time in the url.

sent at: 𒌋:𒎙𒐛:𒐏𒐗

Just by watching your clock for 1 minute I learned Cuneiform numbers! Thank you! :)

Nice! This makes me appreciate the improvement roman numerals had over cuneiform: that a symbol isn’t repeated more than three times so it’s easier to read at a glance.

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

This is why VIII and IX are easier to parse than 𒐆 and 𒐇 (though grouping them by 5 does help)

It seems that of all the numbers (needed here), the symbol for 20 (𒎙) is the only one that doesn't render on Android. Very odd. It does seem to be the last used codepoint (U+12399) in the Cuneiform block (U+12000–U+123FF) and they seem to stop rendering from U+1236E (on Android) which leaves 43 symbols un-rendered.

Anyone any idea why that might be?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_(Unicode_block) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_Numbers_and_Punctuat...

sent at 𒌋𒐖:𒐐𒐕:𒌋𒐗

Okay, in the interim I have a shipped a fix for Android (seems fine on an iPhone emulation) that uses two tens like so "𒌋𒌋" (looks like <<) instead of one twenty "𒎙" (also looks like << but a bit tighter). This is definitely one of the weirdest patches [0] I've ever done—changing how an ancient language is displayed based on the specific type of incomprehensibly advanced technology it's being displayed on—but I guess that's what Sundays are for.

[0] https://github.com/OisinMoran/OisinMoran.github.io/commit/15...

Cuneiform is still a wedge issue.

Well, I can report that 𒎙 isn't rendering on Windows 10 either. Your "sent at" renders fine. Whatever it is, it isn't specific to Android.

I assume it's mostly down to fonts, but I don't know why a font would implement some of the cuneiform block without doing all of it.

U+12399 was not an assigned code point until Unicode 8. The other code points were in Unicode 7.

https://i.ibb.co/6RBrwZpz/firefox.png

Firefox 139.0.4 on Arch Linux

I guess the Arch in Arch Linux isn't for archaeology then :(

You just don't have the required font.

You'll need to install the `noto-fonts` package to get NotoSansCuneiform-Regular.ttf (amongst others)l I'd recommend also installing `noto-fonts-cjk` to enhance your web experience.

Can't the web page embed the font?

Because Google has mostly stopped updating the font stack on Android.

See bug report https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/366415133

I always liked the esthetics of Wharton studio clocks. There is an OSS implementation at https://github.com/bobek/sdg_wharton_miniclock

Ooh these are great! I think I just saw one of these somewhere recently and liked it, so it's great to have a name. Thank you!

The visual appeal is undeniable ;)

Thank you! I am quite happy with how it turned out and looking at it now reminds me a bit of the clock in Lost when it turns to Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

Sumertime! Great naming choice!!

Interesting, that it's all standard base-10. A Number system based on 12 could have been a good fit for a base-60 time.

Babylonians/Sumerians invented base-60, and didn't have special characters for 10, 11 (and maybe 12)? Really?

The Babylonian's base-60 is more a base-10x6. All math was indeed in base-60, but the writing used groupings of tens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_cuneiform_numerals

Germanic languages have special words up to 12. So I'm really surprised that the Babylonians didn't have a special symbol for 12. Something like that would have been really nice for a clock.

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