Internet Clocks for Fun

No, I'm not writing about finding pictures of famous clocks like Big Ben. Let's look at some of the clocks that are programmed to display on web sites.

First, my all time favorite, the Industrious Clock from Yugo Nakamura. This clock displays years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds in a unique method — as hand-written numbers. By the way, time is reported in the 24-hour model used by most of the world, instead of the 12-hour with A.M. or P.M. to indicate morning or afternoon that is used in the U.S.A.

These clock numbers are not just images of numbers; we actually see individual images for each number, and when the number changes, we see a hand draw the next number!

Every second, you can see the hand draw the next digit. Every ten seconds, two hands draw the tens-of-seconds and individual seconds numbers.

Similarly, as minutes and hours increase, you can see up to six hands drawing six numbers. As you reach midnight, you see the date turn to the next day, and will see another one or two additional hands drawing their numbers.

The Javascript that runs this clock within your web browser shows your local time. In an even more interesting twist, as you resize your web browser window larger or smaller, the individual images also resize similarly.

Take a look at the Industrious Clock from Yugo Nakamura

Another neat clock from Yugo Nakamura is his ClockBlock. Conceptually similar to the Industorious Clock, the ClockBlock involves stacking blocks until they fall down at the point of incrementing the next digit.

Next, let's look at the PolarClock frorm Pixel Breaker.

This clock as a unique concept in a round clock — concentric circles. Each circle is partially complete representing the number of seconds, minutes, hours, day of the week, day of the month and month.

As an explanation, the outermost circle starts at the 12:00 position - top of the clock. As the seconds increase, the circle continues clockwise, so that at 30 seconds, we have a semi-circle, on the right side, from top to bottom. This continues until the seconds circle increments from 59 to 0, when the minutes circle extends a little bit more and the seconds circle springs back to the beginning and starts growing again.

Enjoy the Polar Clock at Pixel Breaker. I have not tried their downloadable PolarClock 3.0 screensaver for Mac and Windows, but I think I will...

Copyright © 2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.