Clock shows world time as a spiraling line graph

This is one of those design-y objects that is conceptually and visually neat but might be hard to justify in daily life. It shows world time via an arm that connects different time zones.

The Wrong Objects [via Dezeen]

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insert

Could you substitute some sort of map instead of the words and lines? It’s hard as hell to follow the lines halfway around the clock to figure out what time it is in, say, Islamabad or even Helsinki.

But I don’t know near enough about cartography and different projections to know if that might work.
- johnocomedy
  
  color coding each line would do the job
Cactaur

Like time zones spiraling down the toilet, so are the days of our lives.
Anonymous

Commentor #4′s website statement:

“The ONLY Official Site for Gene Ray/TimeCube.
Gene Ray is sole Authority on Harmonic Time Cube.
Collection of raw data on this Site will empower the
Greatest Book ever written. That includes Bibles and
Academic Scientific Books..

Began in 1997, and not 1 penny support.

(Gee… Now why would that be???)
Anonymous

This clock would be a great teaching tool for explaining the international date line.
Anonymous

I’m not buying one until they add support for daylight saving time. On second thought, I’m not buying one, but not a bad idea.
Anonymous

Where is Island?
- millrick
  
  between hawaii and new zealand, obviously.
  
  too bad there are no cities of note in eastern canada or central west mexico
- insert
  
  Island = Iceland. Note how it’s an hour earlier than London…
  
  Also, good call, johnocomedy and anon on the color coding…
  - jungletek
    
    Island = Ireland?
  - apoxia
    
    No, it’s 11 hours ahead of London. One less hour than New Zealand (Wellington). It will refer to one of the many hundreds (thousands?) of Pacific Islands between Hawaii and New Zealand.
Anonymous

They should have color-coded the rings… then it would be easy to follow around the circles.
You can PayPal me for the mod care of my email address. ;)
Anonymous

If each concentric circle had a color it would be simple to visually follow the color around the wheel to the dot.
The_Third_One

This clock has a label on it for Arizona. But Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time, so the clock would be wrong for it half the year, unless it was adjustable.
millrick

this is the perfect chronometer for my time machine.
i envision the spiral contracting as i accelerate through the ether.

i don’t see any way to wind the mainspring though….
Anonymous

If you really need to read the time in Bangkok, rotate the clock about 120 degrees and mount it diagonally. That’s the true genius of this design.
Anonymous

I can’t find Arkansas anywhere on this thing.
13enster

If it had little flags on the vertices themselves, it would be easier to follow!
cowtown

I get a spidey-sense that this just needs a tweak or two to be very useful in a hotel lobby or command center or or other place where people have the row of 4 or 5 clocks doing a similar job. I just can’t quite figure out what’s needed.
Anonymous

I dunno, I always liked the old fashioned banks of clocks you’d see in older cinema and television, each clock set to a seperate time zone. If display space is a problem, use digital displays, which are easier to read anyway.

If you absolutely must fit all the information onto one clock face, either use multiple sets of hands (in different colors to make it somewhat readible, despite the extreme clutter), or have reference points around the edge that move with the clock mechanism. You set the clock for local time, and a little wheel around the edge has all the time zones in order, with your local zone moving along with the hour hand. If you want to know the time in Zurich, you shift your gaze around the clock edge until you find the appropriate time zone and then you look at the number under that label, getting the hour. The minutes remain the same.

Really, this is just another backwards “concept” piece where someone says “Oh, that might LOOK nifty, now let’s try and make it actually have a USE.”

~Alja~
jeffbell

Can we infer that Islamabad does not follow daylight savings time?
eliterrell

CREATION IS CUBIC, but you are educated singularity stupid by academic bastards. Greenwich 1 day time is evil. Can you explain the 4 days rather than the 1 day taught? If not, you are truely stupid. To ignore the 4 days, is evil.

Sorry, that was all I could think of. There’s a LOT of racist crap on timecube.com these days.
- SamSam
  
  Man, timecube is still up? I need to check it out again some day.
  
  I think if the circles had been colored it would have been many times easier to read this clock. As it is, I can’t figure it out without tracing with my finger…
Art

This is very clever and unique concept.

Lately, there have been many contemporary clock face adaptations that are virtually unread-able (I have even designed some) but this puts a very understandable visual “spin” each subsequent time zone.

Though I do wish that the execution was more sophisticated.
- peterbruells
  
  Okay, I don’t get i. Can anyone enlighten me?
Anonymous

@eliterrell#4

Please allow me to be the first to respond…

What the Fuck????