From this week's edition of Kevin Kelly's "Cool Tools" e-zine, guest editor Charles Platt on the World Time Clock from designer Charlotte Van Der Waals:
There are four variations of the World Time Clock design. (…)Each can be turned to one of 12 positions to indicate the time in selected global regions. I love the concept because I consider a regular 12-sided polygon (a dodecagon) to be the most aesthetically pleasing shape in nature. Maybe it's no accident that there are 12 hours in a day and 12 months in a year–also 12 pennies in an old English shilling, before the metric system came along and condemned us to the rule of 10, merely because we happen to have 5 digits on each hand.
Reader comment: Gdga says,
Would it be overly pedantic to point out that many parts of the world operate within a 1/2-hour time zone and therefore wouldn't be covered by this world time clock? The list includes all of India and Afghanistan, a swath of Australia from Darwin down to Adelaide, the island of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, and parts of Burma and Iran. Sri Lanka has recently decided to switch to a 1/2 hour time zone to align its business day with India. And then there is Nepal and the Chatham Island of Zealand, which are just 15 minutes different from their nearest neighboring time zone. And then there's daylight savings times around the world…
