This made me smile and in remembering cry. Thanks a ton kind stranger. It was a lovely stroll down memroy lane. I still have a few pieces from his collection that are near and dear to my heart.
The site has some really impressive technical aspects, but the educational angle is the most rare and special! The simplicity of the language and explanations disguise how difficult this is to do.
This is the original use of the internet- giving away free knowledge to people, perfectly suited for the medium of a website.
So your comment got me to take a closer look, and yeah, the author could certainly cut "in this article" and "in this blog post" from the third and fourth paragraphs.
Otherwise, yeah, this is an excellent piece of work. Reminds of that ancient, short, black and white film from General Motors that artfully demonstrates how differentials work.
If the HN commentariat knows of similarly excellent educational work that uses intuitive visual to explain software concepts, please do share.
I really enjoy cheaper vintage watches that call back to when everyone had one of them on their wrist.
Something about a semi-autonomous machine ticking away on your wrist, whether you're looking at it or not, using no electricity, is just intrinsically satisfying to me.
I got into watch servicing pre-covid, but never got into actual fabrication of parts. I mention pre-covid because it really got popular when everyone was stuck inside and there was a sudden loss of cheap ebay parts watches to pick from.
I had an automatic that was my "one and done" watch - a cheap Citizen diver - I wore it 24/7 until it started losing minutes per day. While looking into who or where I could fix it, I bought a G-Shock out of curiosity and never wore a mechanical watch again.
He also recently started a watch repair shop specifically catering to cases most watchmakers won't accept, might be worth checking out.
That said, I'll keep it in mind and maybe if I come across a windfall will apply thusly....
It has some great diagrams, but obviously nothing on these interactive animations (er, naturally, since it is a book).
However the author (Harold C. Kelley) has descriptions for the diagrams similar to a maths proof - like "Warning lever W is raised in position to engage the pin P ... The unlocking lever U lifts the drop lever D ..." - not easy to follow, but maybe if you have the mechanism in front of you!
The mechanics of a six-hand are similar, using the mechanism that is described here for the date indicator.
Another fun device, though more from an EE POV, are the solar+radio/GPS versions of the same. Automatics can hold power for a few days and need walking around to wind. Solar needs light (any light, though sunlight is always best) and hold power for over a month. Many higher-end models can self-set over radio time or GPS signals as well.
When the world goes tits-up someday, both classes of watches will suddenly become essential, and are already essential for people who spend a good amount of time "unreachable" for work or pleasure.
[0] Don't have radio coverage where you live? "There's an app for that" -- or several -- that simulate radio control signals.
Those who collect manual-winders tend towards trench watches, marriage watches converted from pocket or 1950-69 era vintage Omegas and the like - as the Timex/Hamilton/Seagull re-issues hold little cachet to a collector. The glaring recent exception being the appalling SwatchxAP collab with the hand-wound version the SISTEM51 movement, bringing the worst aspects of both manual wind movements and the unservicable and ultimately disposable nature of contemporary swatch movements.
Also just a huge fan of using the existing infrastructure of browsers - even older ones - in effective ways. Browsers have been quite capable for awhile now.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31261533#unv_31268444
Mechanical Watch (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38591084 - Dec 2023 (163 comments)
Mechanical Watch - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31261533 - May 2022 (413 comments)
We particularly want new cohorts of users to get acquainted with the classics :)
When users (or mods) link to previous threads, the intention is simply to share other troves of comments for curiosity gratification purposes.
The "gateway drug" these days seems to be Tissot PRX. Their quartz models are about half the price of their mechanical ones.
Very excited to get home and rebuild my keyless!
When this article was posted here earlier I got an idea that maybe wearing a mechanical watch for a while might help.
I bought a cheap mechanical watch. It needs manual winding daily. If you take it off your wrist it gets out of sync with the other clocks or just stops.
Few weeks with that clock convinced me.
I'm back to mostly wearing analog watches. Had an Apple Watch on my wrist for quite a long time, but something about analog appeals once more. No smartwatch beats an analog in the style department, and I see analog everywhere around me ('burbs of NYC)
https://www.google.com/search?q=bench+knife
https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-ihwnd7z21q/images/stencil/12...
https://diplomatwinders.com/cdn/shop/products/55035knife_102...
I think this should be used in schools.
Really easy to understand and instantly captivating.
Please do more topics!!! :)
Neurospiceys tread carefully.
<3
What if schools would provide children such marvel? Yes, that requires a sufficient time to achieve, but dear... it's just... a miracle...
Related: https://ciechanow.ski/archives (Bartosz Ciechanowski...)
In all seriousness I should read the cameras and lenses one again; it'll be useful to me now
I'm not sure why this is a mystery.
