A couple of train station WTFs



  • A flexible definition of "on time"

    A flexible definition of on time

     And sometimes they break altogether

    Config info displayed



  • @maspiers said:

    A flexible definition of "on time"
    Taken at 20:19 the day before the train is due? After all, there is no leading 0 and no AM/PM, so there is no way to tell if this is morning or evening.

    (TRWTF is why anyone would want to get up before 07:00 to go to Bradford of all places... Still, if you do have to go there, at least there's less chance of getting mugged or randomly attacked when the scum is asleep. If I sound cynical, chalk it up to having had too much contact with the Bradford end of the World.)



  •  @TarquinWJ said:

    Taken at 20:19 the day before the train is due? After all, there is no leading 0 and no AM/PM, so there is no way to tell if this is morning or evening.

    That's only the case in weird countries. UK is 24h by default, so no leading 0 required. (yes - that wasn't true some years ago, but now it's hard to find any official time in the 12h format)



  • @viraptor said:

     @TarquinWJ said:

    Taken at 20:19 the day before the train is due? After all, there is no leading 0 and no AM/PM, so there is no way to tell if this is morning or evening.

    UK is 24h by default, so no leading 0 required.

    Then ... there was a rail strike on the day that the picture was taken, and the next train really would be at 06:41 the next morning. Nobody else is waiting on the platform, because they all knew about the strike. Given the number of strikes going on, it makes perfect sense, right?

    Of course, if you don't like that suggestion, the next suggestion is; there were repairs being made on the line so all trains were cancelled that day.

    After that, the clock at the bottom is a world clock that rotates through different timezones. Or it's showing the ratio of passengers per seat in the upcoming train (8 passengers per 19.36 seats) - or the opposite (for every 8 seats, there are 19.36 passengers - this sounds like rush hour on the British rail network).

    Or perhaps there's another potentially valid reason to have the information on that sign being "correct". Maybe you can come up with something better.



  •  The real WTF is that you put your finger in front of the lens when taking that first picture.



  • The real WTF is my alarm clock: It uses both zero padding AND only supports 12H times! So at the moment it's 06:21 which means 6:21pm. A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 



  • If you're looking at your alarm clock and you don't know whether it's morning or evening, I put it to you that you have bigger problems.



  • @Iago said:

    If you're looking at your alarm clock and you don't know whether it's morning or evening, I put it to you that you have bigger problems.
     

    "Problems" such as being a totally fun guy to drink with?



  • My bed room is dark. Very dark. 

    I've once slept through to the afternoon without too much trouble, and then thought it was noisy for 4am. After taking a leak, I noticed my mistake. I rang in sick that day, a little later than expected.



  • @Evo said:

     The real WTF is that you put your finger in front of the lens when taking that first picture.

     

    How do know that's his finger?



  • @SQLDave said:

    How do know that's his finger?

    Stay classy.



  • @Mole said:

    My bed room is dark. Very dark. 
     

    I can't imagine a bedroom that is so dark --  not even by choice -- that one cannot distinguish mid-day from mid-night.

     

    Unless you're a film photohgrapher and lack space and need to consolidate.



  • @Mole said:

    A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 
     

    Wow, we really are on opposite sides of the world. My alarm clock has a period illumination for PM (and nothing for AM) though it is as noticeable as any other LED on it.



  • @dhromed said:

    I can't imagine a bedroom that is so dark --  not even by choice -- that one cannot distinguish mid-day from mid-night.
    In Scandinavia, it is light for most of the night during summer. Even as far south as Oslo, the night can be just 2 hours long in summer, and for that whole night, you could walk around without needing streetlights. Many bedrooms have blackout blinds and curtains so you could convince your brain that it really is night, and you need to sleep. 04:00 and 16:00 looked pretty similar with them open (looks like day time), or with them closed (looks like night time). Annoyingly, it's also so hot that you want to keep the windows/curtains open to let some air in. During winter it's the opposite effect, so 04:00 and 16:00 both look like night without needing the curtains closed.



  •  I can now imagine it.



  • @Iago said:

    If you're looking at your alarm clock and you don't know whether it's morning or evening, I put it to you that you have bigger problems.

    ...Unless you're trying to set it/set an alarm, in which case the outside light level would be pretty useless.



  •  With the blinds and shutters open, it's quite bright. But with them both closed, it's very dark. 



  • @Mole said:

    shutters
     

    I can't imagine why you have shutters.



  • @dhromed said:

    @Mole said:

    shutters
     

    I can't imagine why you have shutters.

    In case of air strike.  Let's see those Strukas find him now!


  • @dhromed said:

    @Mole said:

    shutters
     

    I can't imagine why you have shutters.

     

    You don't have to imagine. I have some pictures from before he got shutters.



  • @SQLDave said:

    @dhromed said:

    @Mole said:

    shutters
     

    I can't imagine why you have shutters.

     

    You don't have to imagine. I have some pictures from before he got shutters.

    Can you send them to my home email address?  I suspect they're not safe for my workplace.  We kangaroo-on-donkey-S&M-shit-porn directors have standards, you know.


  • @Zemm said:

    @Mole said:

    A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 
     

    Wow, we really are on opposite sides of the world. My alarm clock has a period illumination for PM (and nothing for AM) though it is as noticeable as any other LED on it.

    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zemm said:

    @Mole said:

    A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 
     

    Wow, we really are on opposite sides of the world. My alarm clock has a period illumination for PM (and nothing for AM) though it is as noticeable as any other LED on it.

    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.

    Mine does 24-hour, because I'm not a terrorist.


  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.

    At which point in this fascinating and insightful discussion of alarm clock AM/PM indicators are we allowed to break out the "cool story, bro!" pic?

    I decree: now.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.

    At which point in this fascinating and insightful discussion of alarm clock AM/PM indicators are we allowed to break out the "cool story, bro!" pic?

    I decree: now.

    Obviously I hit a nerve with my AM/PM alarm clock.  Clearly you love 24 hour alarm clocks.  It's okay, you can admit it.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

     

    Obviously I hit a nerve with my AM/PM alarm clock.  Clearly you love 24 hour alarm clocks.  It's okay, you can admit it.

    The only way to resolve this is with a poll.


  • @bstorer said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zemm said:

    @Mole said:

    A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 
     

    Wow, we really are on opposite sides of the world. My alarm clock has a period illumination for PM (and nothing for AM) though it is as noticeable as any other LED on it.

    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.

    Mine does 24-hour, because I'm not a terrorist.

    Twenty-four sounds like a terrorist number to me.  You need a good, patriotic number like 13 (colonies), 50 (states), or 36 (our only good President).


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @bstorer said:

    The only way to resolve this is with a poll.
    Can we have decimal time and binary clocks as additional options?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Twenty-four sounds like a terrorist number to me.
    No, way.  24 is a pretty cool guy.  Eh fights terorrists and doesn't afraid of anything.@morbiuswilters said:
    36 (our only good President)
    I think you have a typo there: Reagan was the 40th President.  Oh, wait, you obviously weren't counting those pansies Carter and Wilson, Cleveland's second term, or Van Buren, the clog-wearing Dutchman.  Never mind, then.



  • @PJH said:

    Can we have decimal time and binary clocks as additional options?
    Clearly you're in need of
    Fifteen past ten
    [Mod: Now with overflow: auto! -bs]


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ender said:

    Clearly you're in need of ["quarter to eleven," despite the caption stating otherwise]
    Strange you should mention that - my work laptop has the desktop clock set to display fuzzy time. Screen-shot tomorrow, if anyone's sad enough to be interested in such a thing....



  • @PJH said:

    @ender said:
    Clearly you're in need of ["quarter to eleven," despite the caption stating otherwise]
    Strange you should mention that - my work laptop has the desktop clock set to display fuzzy time. Screen-shot tomorrow, if anyone's sad enough to be interested in such a thing....
    What, and risk derailing a scintillating conversation about AM/PM indicators on alarm clocks?



  • @PJH said:

    @ender said:
    Clearly you're in need of ["quarter to eleven," despite the caption stating otherwise]
    The caption is quite correct - it's just uncommon to tell the time this way nowadays (uncommon enough that several native speakers make the same mistake), and I'm not sure if English has an equivalent way of saying the time (an approximate translation would be "quarter of eleven").



  • @ender said:

    @PJH said:
    @ender said:
    Clearly you're in need of ["quarter to eleven," despite the caption stating otherwise]
    The caption is quite correct - it's just uncommon to tell the time this way nowadays (uncommon enough that several native speakers make the same mistake), and I'm not sure if English has an equivalent way of saying the time (an approximate translation would be "quarter of eleven").

    We would say "quarter past eleven", "half past eleven" and "quarter to (or til') eleven".  I hate people who tell the time like that, though.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    We would say "quarter past eleven", "half past eleven" and "quarter to (or til') eleven".  I hate people who tell the time like that, though.
    I know of those, and there are analogs for them in Slovenian (except for half past hour - we only have half to hour). The time shown in my picture uses unusual (somewhat archaic) wording.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @ender said:

    @PJH said:
    @ender said:
    Clearly you're in need of ["quarter to eleven," despite the caption stating otherwise]
    The caption is quite correct - it's just uncommon to tell the time this way nowadays (uncommon enough that several native speakers make the same mistake), and I'm not sure if English has an equivalent way of saying the time (an approximate translation would be "quarter of eleven").
    The caption may be a correct literal translation, but it loses a lot in that translation. Google Translate(currently translating as 'quarter to eleven' or 1045 as most would understand it) lead me astray. This seems to explain the confusion:


    (10:15) Ura je četrt čez deset
    (It's quarter past ten)

    (10:15) Ura je deset in četrt
    (It's ten and a quarter - means the same as above obviously. This is a form not heard often, it does exist though)

    (10:15) Ura je četrt na enajst
    (It's a quarter "on" eleven - now here it get's tricky. While it still means the same as the above two sentences, here we said it quite differently. I think the easiest way to remember this form (which is used most commonly I guess) you can imagine it like - the hour has made a quarter of the way from ten to eleven.)
    (It then goes on to explain 1030 and the difference between "Ura je pol enajst" (half [on the way to] eleven) and the uncommon "Ura je deset in pol" ('ten and a half'))

    In (at least UK) English, "X to Y" means there's X left to reach Y, not X on the way to Y. (UK) English uses "X past (Y-1)" to convey the latter meaning:

    1010 - ten past ten
    1015 - quarter past ten
    1030 - half past ten
    1035 - twenty-five to eleven
    1045 - quarter to eleven
    1050 - ten to eleven

    (Also acceptable is 'ten-fifteen', 'ten-thirty', 'ten-forty-five' - more common with the younger generations for whom learning to read analogue clocks doesn't appear to have been high up on the primary school (< 9 yrs old) curriculum.)

    And thus ends my education in the Slovenian Language for today...


  • @PJH said:

    And thus ends my education in the Slovenian Language for today...



  • Man, I remember that time I installed KDE and there was this fuzzy clock feature that got fucking fuzzy as hell. 

    It was down to "morning," "noon" (I think), "afternoon," "evening," "night." 


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @belgariontheking said:

    Man, I remember that time I installed KDE and there was this fuzzy clock feature that got fucking fuzzy as hell. 

    It was down to "morning," "noon" (I think), "afternoon," "evening," "night." 

    Just messed about with the setting on mine - it is currently: "Middle of week"



  • @belgariontheking said:

    It was down to "morning," "noon" (I think), "afternoon," "evening," "night." 
     

    I hope you could customize it, to add times like "fuck o'clock" and "clobberin' time" and more of these things, which people are now undoubtedly going to provide.



  • @PJH said:

    it is currently: "Middle of week"
     

    It's the 21st century!



  • @dhromed said:

    @PJH said:

    it is currently: "Middle of week"
     

    It's the 21st century!

    "At the sound of the tone, the time will be: before the Rapture."


  • My alarm clock has 24 hour time, but the radio has a little LED indicating AM/FM. Where does that fit in?



  • @davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

    My alarm clock has 24 hour time, but the radio has a little LED indicating AM/FM. Where does that fit in?
     

    Toyota.



  • @dhromed said:

    @belgariontheking said:

    It was down to "morning," "noon" (I think), "afternoon," "evening," "night." 
     

    I hope you could customize it, to add times like "fuck o'clock" and "clobberin' time" and more of these things, which people are now undoubtedly going to provide.

    Does Miller Time come before Clobberin' Time?



  • @dhromed said:

    @davedavenotdavemaybedave said:

    My alarm clock has 24 hour time, but the radio has a little LED indicating AM/FM. Where does that fit in?
     

    Toyota.

    Ah right, explains why I can never get the damn beeping to stop...



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @dhromed said:

    @belgariontheking said:

    It was down to "morning," "noon" (I think), "afternoon," "evening," "night." 
     

    I hope you could customize it, to add times like "fuck o'clock" and "clobberin' time" and more of these things, which people are now undoubtedly going to provide.

    Does Miller Time come before Clobberin' Time?

    Does the screen refresh fast enough to show 'fuck o'clock'?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zemm said:

    @Mole said:

    A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 
     

    Wow, we really are on opposite sides of the world. My alarm clock has a period illumination for PM (and nothing for AM) though it is as noticeable as any other LED on it.

    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.

     

    Assuming you people are not joking, and don't have those clocks that set themselves from radio signals, how do you know what the dot is supposed to represent, and why does it even matter? As long as your alarm setting has the appropriate dot or lack thereof compared to what you see when you look at the time, it seems to me that the dot can mean either AM or PM.

    Edit: it occurred to me that it might be labelled, although I once had a clock with an AM/PM light with no label. In any case, you can still ignore the label and make it mean whatever you want.



  •  @otm shank said:

    Assuming you people are not joking, and don't have those clocks that set themselves from radio signals, how do you know what the dot is supposed to represent, and why does it even matter? As long as your alarm setting has the appropriate dot or lack thereof compared to what you see when you look at the time, it seems to me that the dot can mean either AM or PM.
    A valid point, however....

    When there's a light in the room, the LED has a label.  In the dark you can't see it, so you just learn which one it means.



  • @otm shank said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Zemm said:

    @Mole said:

    A small, almost unoticable period illuminations at the bottom of the last digit if it's AM. 
     

    Wow, we really are on opposite sides of the world. My alarm clock has a period illumination for PM (and nothing for AM) though it is as noticeable as any other LED on it.

    Mine illuminates for PM, too, with nothing for AM.

     

    Assuming you people are not joking, and don't have those clocks that set themselves from radio signals, how do you know what the dot is supposed to represent, and why does it even matter? As long as your alarm setting has the appropriate dot or lack thereof compared to what you see when you look at the time, it seems to me that the dot can mean either AM or PM.

    Edit: it occurred to me that it might be labelled, although I once had a clock with an AM/PM light with no label. In any case, you can still ignore the label and make it mean whatever you want.

    Yes. YES! And then you can view the flashing 'am' light as an affirmation of your existence. Everytime I look at my clock from now on, it will be telling me that I am.


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