4.0423 Watches (8/140)

Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Fri, 24 Aug 90 22:40:55 EDT

Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0423. Friday, 24 Aug 1990.

(1) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:11:56 CDT (24 lines)
From: "Bill Ball" <C476721@UMCVMB>
Subject: in defense of digital watches

(2) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 22:22:46 EDT (12 lines)
From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

(3) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:21 PDT (13 lines)
From: Robert Kirsner <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: watches

(4) Date: Friday, 24 August 1990 0205-EST (19 lines)
From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn)
Subject: Backward, turn backward, O Time

(5) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 1990 9:15:58 GMT+0400 (19 lines)
From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: RE: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches (4/82)

(6) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 16:07:32 GMT+0100 (11 lines)
From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@ri.osf.fr>
Subject: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

(7) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 10:52:45 EDT (26 lines)
From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA>
Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

(8) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 15:45:20 EDT (16 lines)
From: Jane Andrew <ST402834@BROWNVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:11:56 CDT
From: "Bill Ball" <C476721@UMCVMB>
Subject: in defense of digital watches

Ok so my Casio is one ugly little bugger. However it remembers all my
friend's phone numbers and my relative's birthdays. If I used Watts
numbers or calling credit cards I could have it dial the numbers for me.
My motto is: use technology to fight technology (in this case having to
remember more and more numbers). Analog watches are not much help in
the fight.

Perhaps the watch manufacturers should produce an Ivory Tower edition.
A beautiful numberless analog face with the electronics behind it to tell
one the mostly recently forgotten appointment, and a built-in thesaurus
of archaic usage (in the language(s) of choice of course).

BTW: I am left handed so I wear my watch on the right hand. Although I
barely write anything by hand anymore so it doesnt matter much (look at
it this way-- computers have lessened the need for the rest of the world
to suffer through the handwriting of us lefties (and yes, I am well
under 40)).

((( Bill Ball c476721@UMCVMB ) Dept. Pol. Sci. ) U. Mo.-Columbia )

(2) --------------------------------------------------------------26----
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 22:22:46 EDT
From: Robert Hollander <bobh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

Hey, Ruth, if you're left-handed, how come your smile face shows up
;-) and not (-; ??

Bob Hollander
bats right, throws right
male
watch: ambidextrous, but worn on left wrist except when using (preferred)
pocketwatch
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------30----
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 20:21 PDT
From: Robert Kirsner <IDT1RSK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: watches

My defense against those who refuse to wear watches at all (digital or
analogue) is to suggest in classes that those who don't are marginally
retarded, are unable to tell time, and hence go around asking the rest
of us "HEY WHAT'S THE TIME, DUDE?" Of course now that digitals have
been around for awhile, there is a backswing to analogue watches. Al
Capp had it all figured out. In LI'L ABNER, once people had REAL shmoos,
they could easily be talked into thinking they needed plastic shmoos and
chocolate shmoos. But I haven't seen anyone wearing sundials yet.

(4) --------------------------------------------------------------30----
Date: Friday, 24 August 1990 0205-EST
From: TREAT@PENNDRLS (Jay Treat, Religious Studies, Penn)
Subject: Backward, turn backward, O Time

We are raising an entire generation that cannot be trusted to read an
analog timepiece--that is, if my own children are at all typical. My
daughter is on the honor roll at an award-winning high school, but last
year she had great difficulty learning how to tell time in her high
school French class, because she couldn't decipher the analog clock
faces which were provided as though they were self-explanatory glosses
to the corresponding French phrases!

Has anyone else had to explain to a teenager what it means when
the big hand is on the nine? Or what "quarter till" means?

Some day, I'll tell her I know how to use a slide rule.

Regards,
Jay C. Treat, Religious Studies, University of Pennslyvania
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------31----
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 1990 9:15:58 GMT+0400
From: Judy Koren <LBJUDY@VMSA.TECHNION.AC.IL>
Subject: RE: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches (4/82)

I wear a watch on my left hand, the hand I write with. "Righties" also
wear it on their left. Watches are made to be worn on the left hand,
that's why; wear it on the right and the knobs face up your arm. Ever
tried to wind an old-tyme watch or set the time on a quartz one with
your left hand while wearing it on the right?

I realise watches are made that way for right-handed people, but see no
disadvantage to having the hand that wears the watch wield the pen. If
anything, you can see the time more easily while you're writing, which is
sometimes an advantage. (Of course you have to wear it with the face on
the outside of your wrist, not, as some people do, with the face on the
inside so they can take surreptitious peeps at it with their hands meekly
folded in their laps while the boss rambles on.)

Judy Koren
(6) --------------------------------------------------------------34----
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 16:07:32 GMT+0100
From: Stavros Macrakis <macrakis@ri.osf.fr>
Subject: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

Knurled knobs on a heavy gold chronometer certainly shout "macho", but
minuscule sheet-metal or rubber buttons on light Casios scream "nurd".

Digital or analog seems secondary, although correlated.

Interestingly, lunar phases on watches don't appear to be
female/feminist/feminine but simply "stylish". Why?
(7) --------------------------------------------------------------38----
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 10:52:45 EDT
From: "Adam C. Engst" <PV9Y@CORNELLA>
Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

I was glad to see the final posting from someone (Ruth) saying that she
did wear a digital watch after all those postings from people who see a
major philosphical problem with digital watches. I personally like a
digital watch that can act as a stopwatch to hundreths of a second, keep
at least 8 laps in memory, includes a timer with count-down repeat,
count-down/count-up, and an alarm. I like knowing that it is 11:57
because it takes me 8 minutes to get to place X and I have to be there
at 12:05. I also like having the day, date, and European-style time
becuase I occasionally forget the day or date completely and would be
lost without my watch. A watch also has to be durable, shock-proof, and
waterproof, because I wear it except when sleeping and refuse to take it
off just because there is a stream in my way. For the record, I wear it
on my right hand with the face pointing in - a habit left over from high
school where the face could easily be scratched on the brick walls one
walked past between classes.

One potentially valid question to ask is the age of the wearer. I may be
younger than most Humanists at 22 and having grown up in the digital age
I find that it fits into my life much more seamlessly than many older
people I know. Same thing with other digital creatures like computers...

Adam Engst
(8) --------------------------------------------------------------22----
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 90 15:45:20 EDT
From: Jane Andrew <ST402834@BROWNVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0412 Digital vs. Analog Watches

I gave up on digital watches about 5 years ago--whenever I worked up the
least sweat the crystal went blank. Very annoying. Probably a better
quality one would have worked ok, but they're all so ugly.

You can tell I grew up on the analog side of the great divide: I was
absolutely shocked (in 1985) to meet a 9 year old who couldn't read a
regular clock. I was working at a swimming pool; he came up and asked
what time it was, and I grouchily told him to go look at the clock for
himself. He shame-facedly confessed that he couldn't read it because
it wasn't digital--that's the only kind of clock they had in his house.
Has anybody else met kids like this? (Goes right along with kids who
can't tie shoes because all they have is the velcro-fastened kind!)