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future::clock

Experiment in time and visual numerical/temporal-patterns

Overview

I’ve been a time-nerd ever since wanting to stay up past my bed-time to see what happened to the clock when it hit midnight. Did it go to 24:00 or 00:00? My Dad actually let me stay up which I couldn’t believe, and then I went and fell asleep before I could find out! (I didn’t get to see what happened for a good number of years after that).

future::clock is an experiment in number patterns, an indulgence of a simple pleasure in patterns - in this case the arrangement of digits, be they sequential, palindromic, or some other emergent placement. For example, 11:11:11 11/11/11 or 12:34:56 07/08/09 (I actually missed that one in 2009, but enjoyed this year’s, if only to 8 significant digits!).

And before you ask… yes, I know it’s a little bit on the “special” side.

Implementation

This visual clock face allows you to set dates in the future, along with a message to be shown when that time arrives, and a URL link to share with the world. There are two sets of markers - target time shown in orange, and the current time, animating as it progresses, shown in green.

It didn’t take long to write this in AS3, with wonderful atmospheric music composed and performed by audio wizard Gary Lock (opens new window).

So...

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