First, read this Wired News article: Ravenous Clock Runs Backward, Scares Children.
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Second…no, there is no second. This thing is AWESOME. The idea of a totally mechanical system being used to display always-on LEDs selectively is the best kind of anachronism: the fun kind. It’s doubly anachronistic in that the timepiece in question occasionally halts, slows, speeds, or even runs backward briefly, though it’s set to always return to the correct time on the five-minute marks. A mechanical clock using an archaic mechanism (grasshopper escapement) to mechanically reveal space-age components (light-emitting diodes) in a display that sometimes ignores the flow of time altogether, despite being a clock. Wow.
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For those who don’t know, I have had a thing for anachronisms for years now. It’s perhaps my favorite kind of fictional construction – the purposeful juxtaposition of elements that are wildly disparate but maintain the common connection to humanity, by drawing from two different periods of time to create a single unified whole. Two of my favorite fiction genres, Steampunk and Urban Horror, fall under the umbrella of anachronism.
If you haven’t seen the Firefly TV series or its companion film, Serenity, you’re missing out on one of the best anachronistic works in years: a sci-fi series which uses traditional Cowboy Western tropes to point up the disparity between a technological society and a pioneering one. Other great anachronisms have been the League of Extraordinary Gentleman comic (the movie was abysmal) and the Jedi of Star Wars fame: starships and swords, anyone?