<first draft> Plot the passage of time on a polar system vs. this Cartesianish grid presently in use. Use the r axis for days, theta for months, or vice versa. (right? been a long time, forgive me)

Useful? Probably not. Likely hard to read as the date approaches the inner or outer limit for each year (or month, depening), but good for snob fuel, at least.</first draft>

The new idea and subsequent renaming are detailed below, namely a colored slinky-torus with a single bead that remains at the top whilst the torus turns to indicate the passage of time.
-- absterge, Aug 18 2001

(?) RADICAL! http://www.futurebird.com/rad.gif
Like this? If you'd like the vector graphic so you can scale it let me know [futurebird, Aug 18 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Another nice clock http://entries.the5k.org/365/t.htm
[angel, Aug 18 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

A clock that would go well with this... http://kbs.cs.tu-be...wd/board-clock.html
By our very own Bakesperson, Jutta. [StarChaser, Aug 18 2001, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Huh?

I thought this was going to be about a calendar with pictures of bears, eskimos, snow, etc.
-- Canuck, Aug 18 2001


could you draw us a picture?
-- futurebird, Aug 18 2001


I see this working out as a spiral, with January 1 at the middle, although some people might want it the other way around.

Give each day of the month (360/31)°, and black out the days that don't exist. In this arrangement, it wouldn't make much sense to write the day of the month on each day. Instead, the numbers would be written on the outside edge of the calendar. Days, or at least weekends, could be colour coded to provide a sense of what day of the week it is.

It probably wouldn't work out on a wall as well as it does in my head, but I think it'd provide a nice view of the continuity of the year - it'd remind you that the 1st of September really is the day after the 31st of August. Unfortunately, we're still left visualising years as discrete units of time - but given the way a lot of people behave at the turning of the years, that doesn't necessarily disagree with their view of events.
-- lobster, Aug 18 2001


hmm... I'm contemplating a whole new idea for this one, what say ye? Instead of having the days of the year displayed on a polar graph on a flat surface, put the whole ordeal onto a torus. Spin it about it's circular axis to get to a different month, rotate it to advance days. Let's see... 31 rings, twelve sections each... it wouldn't have to be any bigger than say a free-standing fan. And, lobster, it would give a very clear indication about the interconnectedness of years and months. The days of the week wouldn't appear, nor would holidays, but who cares about all that rot?

Yes, I am in love with tori. futurebird, I could indeed draw a picture, but I'd have no way to handle the 'us' part (estoy sans scanner).
-- absterge, Aug 19 2001


//estoy sans scanner//

That's right, you're on the road, aren't you? Glad you could come on board for a while, absterge.

I like the twisting torus innovation. If the current month's dates were displayed on the 'top' of the torus then one would be tempted to put a nice clock--an Analog Pager Clock, of course--in the center of the torus and hang the whole affair on the wall.

Or am I visualising it all wrong?
-- Dog Ed, Aug 19 2001


I didn't entirely see the point at first, but now that you're talking slinkies you're talking my language. Maybe just one bead, a sort of 'you are here' marker, which would migrate around the slinky (the fact that a slinky is a single piece of wire makes it ideal: Just cut and join the ends). If colours to represent seasons are desired, the slinky wire itself could be coloured.

This way there are no hard divisions at all. Months are left a little to one side, though; it's a solar calendar, not a lunar one. A different, non-slinky-based version might be needed to deal with the problems of readable display and leap years.
-- Monkfish, Aug 19 2001


Thanks, Ed. :) No, actually, I think you've very well got it. I think I actually might go for the clock embellishment, too, as long as it was downplayed chromatically. I was also imagining a *wince* digital display for the day of the week and year, since those are much more readily calculated and displayed digitally. Put it at the bottom of the clock as an unobtrusive little lcd rectangle, maybe. Would that ruin the whole analog kitsch?

I *really* like your idea, Monkfish. The 'you are here' bead winding along the path of the year. Very apropos of our miniscule existences, lazily trodding through these layered cycles.

Mmm, yes, futurebird. I'd say that's how it started in my head, but if you stare at it long enough, you can start to see it as a torus, which is much prettier, especially considering the geometric inconsistencies of each sector*cluster.
-- absterge, Aug 19 2001


Oh, Peter, come on, now. You know Tori! That saucy little bird down at that pub two Thursdays ago? Actually, for as much as I drool over redheads, I can't much enjoy Tori Amos. But more than one torus, that's the ticket!
-- absterge, Aug 19 2001


Beautiful. We need a computer prototype of this thing, then it can basically be thrown at some engineering type for RL implementation!
-- jabbers, Aug 20 2001


waugsqueke, I see the Sun moving along at a tremendous clip with the Earth moving around it--the combined motions as measured from a non-rotating point at the center of the Milky Way would be a curved helix just like a slightly bent Slinky, I think--unless the plane of the ecliptic just happens to be exactly parallel to the direction of the Sun's orbit around the Galaxy...
-- Dog Ed, Aug 20 2001



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