Trust no clock

[cosmolinguist]

I have almost no idea what time it is anymore. I mean, I'm still thrown off by the fact that it's dark at five o'clock now. But that's just the beginning, these days.

The clock on my computer is at least ten minutes fast. I don't know how or why that happened, but I do know that it did something simllar a little while ago. I fixed it, but I cheated: I went into KDE, which I don't like otherwise, but I know how to change the clock. But that didn't work this time, it just crashed. And GNOME gives me an unhelpful error message. Oh well, it was a bad solution anyway; I don't like being dependent on the GUI if I can help it, but I haven't figured out how to change the time from the command line. Yet. I did try, though. Really!

(It's just as well; I learned in my CSci class yesterday that GUIs are cool and command-line things suck. Though, really, she was only talking about one of each. So basically she was telling us Windows is cool and UNIX sucks.)

As if this weren't bad enough, I lost my watch last week ... around the time I started to suspect that my computer might be more than ten minutes fast. Ten minutes is okay--I forget that it's not correct, and so it keeps me from being late for things--but some unspecified amount is bad, especially when I am lacking a wristwatch against which to check it.

So Monday, when I was in Target, I bought a new watch. I set it to the time of the clock-radio in the car I was in at the time, but when I got back to my room, I saw that it displayed the same time as the clock on my computer--which I know is wrong! I checked the clock in the next building I was in, and it was about 15 minutes behind the time on my watch. I moved the hands on my watch accordingly, and then found out that that clock was a little slow. Bah!

So, I think my computer is still only ten minutes fast. I still don't trust it, though. And I think I've got my watch straightened out. I don't know if I can trust it either.

After Sarah's alarm went off eleventy billion times this morning and we both finally got up, I wanted to know what time it was. So I pulled my clock off the shelf by our beds and looked at it. It said it was 3:20. Oh good, I thought. That's so helpful. Thanks.

I think time is out to get me. I've always been kind of suspicious of it, anyway; it passes so much faster when I'm with my boyfriend than it does when I am in class. I think it's just trying to mess with me now.

I think it's working, too.

Comments

[thewordnerd.livejournal.com]

You really need to snag a copy of rdate. Then run something like:

rdate time_a.timefreq.bldrdoc.gov

Works wonders. :)

[cosmolinguist]

I know; I obviously need help. :-) At least where the computer help is concerned, though, I need help in some fairly dumbed-down form, so I can make any sense out of it. But, I'm working on making more sense of my computer, with some small successes. And who cares what time it is, anyway? :-)

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

Apparently, you care what time it is. Besides, I already told you once how you set the time on your computer without using a GUI interface.

[cosmolinguist]

You told me about 'date,' which is nice; it tells me the time. But I couldn't figure out how to change it. And I did try!

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

Did you bother to read the man page? I would wager not. It shouldn't matter, though, because I even gave you the syntax to use to set the clock.

[cosmolinguist]

'Did I bother to read the man page,' ha. I couldn't say I tried if I hadn't done that much.

Anyway, I figured out what I did wrong then, and now it's fixed. Yay!

[xsilverfox.livejournal.com]

time.gov - that's all you need

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, like I can trust the government! :-D

Their silly Java animation apparently didn't work on my computer, anyway ... which is a little odd, since I haven't had problems with Java otherwise. Why people think they need Java to do everything is beyond me, anyway ... but that's a philosophical question for another day. :-)

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

not goverment! National Institute of Standards and Technology. They have a static version of the clock ... I guess they figured java ws the easiest way to have a counter that increments at one second intervals up to 60 ...

[cosmolinguist]

Yes, I know, I was just teasing silverfox. And ... it ends with .gov!

Okay, so I had a bunch of chocolate-covered espresso beans; forgive me.

I didn't think about the incrementally increasing seconds (but the static version I could actually see didn't have them, so that makes sense), that makes sense too. I'll be quiet now. :-)

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

the authortitative time I use when verifying a clock is nist.time.gov (http://nist.time.gov) Other than that I have an alarm clock that gets radio updates of the time from the atomic clock in Boulder, CO.

My computer also sets it self about 10-15 min fast. No matter how often I reset it to the correct time, it jumpts 10-15 min after an hour or three, then stays 10-15 min ahead. very odd.

Ironically, as i started reading your post, winamp decided to play Chicago - Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? ;)

[photomoviegeek.livejournal.com]

I more or less ignore clocks--routinely showing up 10-15 min. late for work or whatever other meeting I have to be at, and about 10-20% actually being on time...

but, having no day job, I get up pretty much when I want > 9 AM, & goto bed more or less between 11 pm & 1:30 AM...

wired magazine recently had a bit on how time worldwide is screwy...http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.11/start.html?pg=5

so the short of it is that time doesn't really matter... ;)

[rakafkaven.livejournal.com]

Your system clock is actually built onto the motherboard-- it's basically a wristwatch with no display. It's adjusted in BIOS setup, usually reached by holding DEL or one of the F# keys during boot. Software can go in and adjust the date and time, which is what's going on both when you change it yourself through a GUI or when you load software that grabs a time from the interweb and updates your system periodically.

Though a sufficiently hosed OS can cause the system time to be erroneously updated, it's much much more likely to have the little piezo-timer get out of whack, resulting in a clock that runs fast or slow. On a few occasions I've seen a mobo battery replacement help, but it's so rarely the problem that I don't think it's worth the effort to check. No reasonable method to fix it, but the aforementioned auto-update software is a decent workaround that will keep your system honest.

[cosmolinguist]

Wow. Cool.

My clock actually did end up ten minutes fast again less than a day later, but since I know actually konw how to fix it, it wasn't a big deal to change it. And it's been fine since then.

But my alarm clock still said 7:30 when I woke up at 8:45 this morning (for my 9:00 class). I still can't trust time completely, it seems.

[rakafkaven.livejournal.com]

I'll trust Time when he starts acting with my best interests in mind. So far, our interaction has been largely adversarial, with the onus of aggression on Chronos. I'm sure my passive-aggressive habit of completely ignoring Time hasn't improved the situation, but I'm waiting for at least a token of friendship before I start trusting or liking him.