Thursday, July 17, 2003
I have this thing about time. I want to be accurate -- really accurate. I've run across many people who want to set their clock five or fifteen minutes fast. They always say they won't be late that way. It seems to me that if you know the clock is fifteen minutes fast, what difference does it make.
I used to try and get WWV on my shortwave at 5 Mhtz and set my clocks by that. It was nice, but sometimes it's hard to get the station especially over a shortwave set. A couple of years ago I bought one of those self-setting clocks. It sets itself via a radio signal that it checks on every so often. It was relatively cheap, $30 or so, and it is accurate. It sits in the TV room and I usually use that for setting my clocks. The other option is to use an Internet program to check in and set the computer clock. That's one cool thing about Windows XP where it has it's own time check program built in.
Another bit about me and time is that my digital clocks all have to be the same. The same, needless to say, accurate time. It drives me nuts when my VCR displays 5:43 and my computer shows 5:45 and my wrist watch is at 5:44. Every so often I have to run around and get them all close to each other. Most keep pretty good time except for my VW New Beetle. It gains about a minute every couple of weeks. It is maddening when the NPR news comes on and my car clock shows 13:01. And yes, I like the 24 hour format. I guess it's 22 years of the USAF rearing its head. Besides, I don't have to worry if I'm doing something at 5a.m. or 5p.m. when I know it's 1700 hours.
One last thing. Setting my alarm. I hate to set it at an even time like 9:30 or 8:45. I always set it for 7:27 or 10:04. I just think I'll get up better if I don't have to wake right on the hour. This goes with setting my microwave as well. I never set it for 1:30 or 4:00 minutes -- it has to be 1:33 or 3:58 minutes. I always try to use different ending digits so I don't wear out the 0.
2fers: http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html and http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java
I used to try and get WWV on my shortwave at 5 Mhtz and set my clocks by that. It was nice, but sometimes it's hard to get the station especially over a shortwave set. A couple of years ago I bought one of those self-setting clocks. It sets itself via a radio signal that it checks on every so often. It was relatively cheap, $30 or so, and it is accurate. It sits in the TV room and I usually use that for setting my clocks. The other option is to use an Internet program to check in and set the computer clock. That's one cool thing about Windows XP where it has it's own time check program built in.
Another bit about me and time is that my digital clocks all have to be the same. The same, needless to say, accurate time. It drives me nuts when my VCR displays 5:43 and my computer shows 5:45 and my wrist watch is at 5:44. Every so often I have to run around and get them all close to each other. Most keep pretty good time except for my VW New Beetle. It gains about a minute every couple of weeks. It is maddening when the NPR news comes on and my car clock shows 13:01. And yes, I like the 24 hour format. I guess it's 22 years of the USAF rearing its head. Besides, I don't have to worry if I'm doing something at 5a.m. or 5p.m. when I know it's 1700 hours.
One last thing. Setting my alarm. I hate to set it at an even time like 9:30 or 8:45. I always set it for 7:27 or 10:04. I just think I'll get up better if I don't have to wake right on the hour. This goes with setting my microwave as well. I never set it for 1:30 or 4:00 minutes -- it has to be 1:33 or 3:58 minutes. I always try to use different ending digits so I don't wear out the 0.
2fers: http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/index.html and http://www.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Eastern/d/-5/java
