WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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It’s time…

00:00:01.335 --> 00:00:02.534
for a simpler video.

00:00:02.974 --> 00:00:07.727
See, time is a precious commodity for me at the present time.

00:00:07.727 --> 00:00:11.303
There’s just a lot going on at the same time for me right now,

00:00:11.303 --> 00:00:13.572
and timing hasn’t been great.

00:00:13.572 --> 00:00:17.168
In times like these, I’ve found that talking about clocks

00:00:17.168 --> 00:00:18.845
works most of the time.

00:00:19.285 --> 00:00:21.489
Anyway, let’s not waste any time

00:00:21.489 --> 00:00:22.434
and get a move on.

00:00:22.434 --> 00:00:23.561
Tick tock.

00:00:23.715 --> 00:00:26.552
As I’m sure you’ve gathered from the thumbnail and the words below it,

00:00:26.552 --> 00:00:29.410
this video’s about these clocks.

00:00:30.510 --> 00:00:32.165
Are these still popular?

00:00:32.891 --> 00:00:34.115
I think so.

00:00:34.555 --> 00:00:36.349
But, now that I think about it,

00:00:36.349 --> 00:00:37.941
maybe not so much anymore.

00:00:37.941 --> 00:00:42.341
I mean, they're no longer the default Android wallpaper on, like...

00:00:42.605 --> 00:00:43.649
all of them.

00:00:43.649 --> 00:00:46.332
Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I like them.

00:00:46.332 --> 00:00:49.096
And while aesthetics are the main reason I like them,

00:00:49.096 --> 00:00:51.297
a close second is how they work.

00:00:51.297 --> 00:00:54.929
These clocks are a lot simpler than they may seem at first glance,

00:00:54.929 --> 00:00:56.624
but very clever.

00:00:56.624 --> 00:00:57.790
To understand them,

00:00:57.790 --> 00:01:01.975
we’ll first need to learn about latent heat 
and the refrigeration cycle.

00:01:02.415 --> 00:01:03.195
Kidding!

00:01:03.195 --> 00:01:04.765
Haha, got you there.

00:01:04.765 --> 00:01:06.264
I sure am a stinker.

00:01:06.264 --> 00:01:07.375
But here’s the thing:

00:01:07.375 --> 00:01:09.327
once you know how these clocks work?

00:01:09.327 --> 00:01:10.667
You’ll flip!

00:01:10.667 --> 00:01:13.466
Flip clocks like these are digital clocks,

00:01:13.466 --> 00:01:15.815
but they’re also not at all.

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Sometimes called analog clocks with digital displays,

00:01:19.281 --> 00:01:22.838
these have much more in common with an ordinary clock like this

00:01:22.838 --> 00:01:25.440
than they do a digital clock like that.

00:01:25.440 --> 00:01:30.000
All this thing really is is a 24 hour clock
with weird hands.

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I was hoping you’d flip to eight o’clock right there.

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C’mon, do it.

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Do it.

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Do it.

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Do it.

00:01:39.614 --> 00:01:40.114
Do it.

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[CLACK]

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There we go.

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First try!

00:01:43.830 --> 00:01:44.570
Take a look.

00:01:44.570 --> 00:01:45.940
Here’s a normal clock.

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It’s got two hands!

00:01:47.562 --> 00:01:50.958
Some even have a third hand which we call
"the second."

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It’s great.

00:01:52.205 --> 00:01:55.456
But for now all we care about is the hour
and minute hands.

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Now the job of every clock like this out there
is to move the hands slowly and deliberately.

00:02:01.297 --> 00:02:03.515
How that’s accomplished isn’t important
right now

00:02:03.515 --> 00:02:06.150
but the minute hand makes one revolution every hour

00:02:06.150 --> 00:02:09.560
and a bit of gearing slows that
down by a factor of 12

00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:13.767
so that the hour hand makes one revolution every 12 hours.

00:02:13.767 --> 00:02:16.112
Notice that the hands are stacked.

00:02:16.112 --> 00:02:18.942
The minute hand is in front of the hour hand.

00:02:18.942 --> 00:02:20.774
It has to be for the gearing to work,

00:02:20.774 --> 00:02:23.531
and that’s really convenient for a flip clock.

00:02:23.531 --> 00:02:26.634
See, imagine the clock’s hands were…

00:02:26.634 --> 00:02:27.847
thick.

00:02:27.847 --> 00:02:29.921
The minute hand could be extended out,

00:02:29.921 --> 00:02:32.655
and the hour hand could extended inward.

00:02:32.709 --> 00:02:35.870
Now imagine that instead of hands they were drums.

00:02:35.870 --> 00:02:40.549
And now imagine that the clock were turned
so that the edges of the drums were visible.

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Now we’re gettin’ somewhere!

00:02:42.689 --> 00:02:44.578
We’ve now got two drums,

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one of which rotates once every hour,

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and the other rotates once every twelve.

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Ah, but I’d like an AM/PM indicator please

00:02:51.547 --> 00:02:53.991
(or maybe 24 hours if that’s your jam)

00:02:53.991 --> 00:02:57.058
so let’s make one of them take a full day to go ‘round.

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What have we accomplished?

00:02:59.429 --> 00:03:03.114
Well, we could print the numbers 00 through
59 on one of the drums,

00:03:03.114 --> 00:03:04.725
then the hours on the other,

00:03:04.725 --> 00:03:06.935
and have some sort of viewing window.

00:03:06.935 --> 00:03:11.345
But that would be really silly and take a
huge clock to be readable at a distance.

00:03:11.345 --> 00:03:14.466
To be clear, clocks which used three drums

00:03:14.466 --> 00:03:17.882
as seen in this incredibly convenient stock footage

00:03:17.882 --> 00:03:22.734
were a thing, but we’re talkin’ about the flippy kind today.

00:03:22.734 --> 00:03:28.574
What if instead, we loosely attach a series
of cards to the drums and hold them up like this?

00:03:28.574 --> 00:03:29.937
Like a Rolodex!

00:03:29.937 --> 00:03:31.651
Some of you know what those are.

00:03:31.651 --> 00:03:35.352
Attach the cards so that they can swing at
least 180 degrees,

00:03:35.352 --> 00:03:38.389
and by holding the edge of one of them so that it’s vertical,

00:03:38.389 --> 00:03:42.906
the adjacent card will be hanging down and their edges will meet in the center.

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Print numbers on these cards so that the numbers
span two of them

00:03:46.861 --> 00:03:49.868
and you’ve made a numeric display.

00:03:49.868 --> 00:03:53.823
Speaking of displays, some of you might now be thinking about the classic

00:03:53.823 --> 00:03:58.220
split-flap display of train station and airport departure boards of yesterday,

00:03:58.220 --> 00:04:01.585
FastPass distribution and return clocks of yestertoday,

00:04:01.585 --> 00:04:06.297
or that new one you can buy which is connected to the cloud because of course.

00:04:06.297 --> 00:04:09.671
I say that snarkily but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want it.

00:04:09.671 --> 00:04:13.346
This is on a really low level the same sort
of technology,

00:04:13.346 --> 00:04:16.108
but those displays are often alphanumeric

00:04:16.108 --> 00:04:18.845
and sometimes even more complicated than that.

00:04:18.845 --> 00:04:23.039
And they have much more in-depth mechanics and control circuitry.

00:04:23.039 --> 00:04:25.545
The way they show things is the same,

00:04:25.545 --> 00:04:28.961
but the technology behind them is a lot more involved.

00:04:28.961 --> 00:04:30.609
I’d like to talk about them some day,

00:04:30.609 --> 00:04:32.047
but that day’s not today.

00:04:32.047 --> 00:04:35.662
Today it’s this, and this is just a clock.

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Anyway, as the drum...

00:04:37.785 --> 00:04:39.631
well actually now it’s more like a wheel.

00:04:39.631 --> 00:04:41.271
As the wheel is turned,

00:04:41.271 --> 00:04:44.925
the card being held up slowly gets pulled downward.

00:04:44.925 --> 00:04:47.601
The little catch holding it up doesn’t move with the card

00:04:47.601 --> 00:04:50.195
so eventually the card that’s currently out front

00:04:50.195 --> 00:04:53.114
slips past its little finger and…

00:04:53.114 --> 00:04:53.744
flip!

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The next card is revealed.

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Look from the side and you can see how the cards intermingle.

00:04:59.114 --> 00:05:03.602
That catch is placed on a line roughly tangential to the front edge of the wheel,

00:05:03.602 --> 00:05:07.591
which not only ensures the two cards visible are proudly right out front,

00:05:07.591 --> 00:05:12.129
but causes the upcoming and ongoing cards to bunch up neatly.

00:05:12.129 --> 00:05:15.267
As they make their way around the back they
get turned upside-down again

00:05:15.267 --> 00:05:16.665
and bunch up once more,

00:05:16.665 --> 00:05:18.410
waiting for their minute of fame.

00:05:19.026 --> 00:05:20.936
And that’s all that’s going on here!

00:05:20.936 --> 00:05:24.870
This wheel operates just like the minute hand of a normal clock.

00:05:24.870 --> 00:05:29.216
It’s just turning slowly, making one complete rotation every hour.

00:05:29.216 --> 00:05:33.816
It becomes a digital clock simply by creating a choke point using this catch,

00:05:33.816 --> 00:05:36.202
which forces the cards to bunch up at the top

00:05:36.202 --> 00:05:38.542
and get displayed one at a time.

00:05:38.542 --> 00:05:44.422
When sped up you can see how the exposed face
appears to be moving continuously downward.

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That is effectively what’s happening as
we’re seeing the front edge of a rotating wheel,

00:05:49.107 --> 00:05:52.770
and the gap between two cards is at
the surface of the wheel itself.

00:05:53.298 --> 00:05:57.429
So, naturally, the other side of the clock is just an hour hand!

00:05:57.429 --> 00:06:00.848
But there are two special things going on here.

00:06:00.848 --> 00:06:04.779
One is that it’s geared in a 1:24 ratio to the other wheel

00:06:04.779 --> 00:06:07.228
so that this rotates once per day.

00:06:07.228 --> 00:06:10.157
But with only 24 cards,

00:06:10.157 --> 00:06:12.717
that would leave a large gap between them

00:06:12.717 --> 00:06:16.673
and thus a lot more of the upcoming card would be visible.

00:06:16.673 --> 00:06:19.643
You can always see a bit of the next card,

00:06:19.643 --> 00:06:22.281
and 24 just isn’t enough to cover it up

00:06:22.281 --> 00:06:25.056
without seeing part of the actual text.

00:06:25.056 --> 00:06:26.360
That’d be ugly.

00:06:26.360 --> 00:06:29.048
So instead there are 48 cards.

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Each hour has two cards so that the next card
is more completely covered.

00:06:33.604 --> 00:06:35.503
You can see, if you look carefully,

00:06:35.503 --> 00:06:41.389
that sliiightly more of the next card is visible on the hours side than the minutes.

00:06:41.389 --> 00:06:45.448
And with only 24 cards that gap would be twice as large.

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You might think, then, that those hour cards
flip at the bottom and top of the hour,

00:06:49.691 --> 00:06:51.641
but you’d be wrong!

00:06:51.641 --> 00:06:56.952
They actually flip somewhere around twenty
and fifty minutes past the hour.

00:06:56.952 --> 00:06:59.136
That might sound entirely silly.

00:06:59.136 --> 00:07:01.458
After all, if it flipped at 50 minutes

00:07:01.458 --> 00:07:06.495
you’d have a clock go from saying 11:50 AM to 12:51 PM

00:07:06.495 --> 00:07:07.619
and that’s no good,

00:07:07.619 --> 00:07:09.368
in fact entirely unacceptable!

00:07:09.368 --> 00:07:10.533
Simply not up to snuff!

00:07:10.533 --> 00:07:11.364
Inadequate!

00:07:11.364 --> 00:07:12.391
And so on.

00:07:12.391 --> 00:07:16.038
Nevertheless, that’s exactly what the hour
card does.

00:07:16.038 --> 00:07:17.520
But there’s a catch.

00:07:17.872 --> 00:07:20.184
See, we simply don’t have the precision

00:07:20.184 --> 00:07:23.085
to make the hour card flip exactly on cue

00:07:23.085 --> 00:07:28.008
with the transition from 59 minutes to 00 using an ordinary clock movement.

00:07:28.008 --> 00:07:30.368
At least, not by itself.

00:07:30.368 --> 00:07:34.885
The hour cards are in fact deliberately misaligned
from the minute cards

00:07:34.885 --> 00:07:37.129
so that they flip much too early,

00:07:37.129 --> 00:07:40.944
and a clever little second catch prevents the second hour card

00:07:40.944 --> 00:07:45.334
from revealing the next until the minute card 59 has flipped.

00:07:45.334 --> 00:07:49.300
Take a look, here’s the clock showing mmhm:55.

00:07:49.300 --> 00:07:53.744
The hour card has actually already slipped
past the initial catch,

00:07:53.744 --> 00:07:57.631
but this little finger thing is holding it back once more.

00:07:57.631 --> 00:08:01.620
Starting at about 40 minutes you can see the
finger start to move.

00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:05.050
Built into the minute wheel is this little
ramp thing.

00:08:05.050 --> 00:08:11.169
As the wheel turns it pushes on this piece
here which connects to the catch via a pushrod.

00:08:11.169 --> 00:08:15.818
Once it’s in place, the second hour card
cannot fall beyond the catch.

00:08:15.818 --> 00:08:18.861
At some somewhat random point near the fifty
minute mark

00:08:18.861 --> 00:08:20.853
it will fall from the main catch,

00:08:20.853 --> 00:08:24.644
and in fact you can see it leaning slightly
forward once it does so,

00:08:24.644 --> 00:08:27.761
but it doesn’t really matter when the second card falls

00:08:27.761 --> 00:08:31.097
so long as it’s after that catch has moved into position.

00:08:31.097 --> 00:08:33.074
As we get close to 59 minutes

00:08:33.074 --> 00:08:36.752
you’ll see that the ramp thing is no longer pushing on the catch.

00:08:36.752 --> 00:08:43.230
Instead, it hands that duty off to this little
flag protrusion on the 59 card itself.

00:08:43.230 --> 00:08:45.457
By the time we’re at 59,

00:08:45.457 --> 00:08:48.674
that’s the only thing pushing the catch to the left.

00:08:48.674 --> 00:08:51.598
So, once the 59 card falls,

00:08:51.598 --> 00:08:52.838
the catch is released,

00:08:52.838 --> 00:08:54.875
so the hour card also falls

00:08:54.875 --> 00:08:59.444
revealing the next hour at the same moment 00 is revealed.

00:08:59.444 --> 00:09:02.781
This not only ensures satisfying synchronization,

00:09:02.781 --> 00:09:06.637
but reduces the need to go overboard with precision manufacturing.

00:09:06.637 --> 00:09:11.477
So long as the hour card flips after the catch
has moved but before it’s been released,

00:09:11.477 --> 00:09:12.480
it’s OK,

00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:17.478
and that gives about a 20 minute margin for
error in alignment between the two wheels.

00:09:17.478 --> 00:09:20.539
Isn’t this just the neatest idea you’ve ever heard of‽

00:09:22.387 --> 00:09:24.327
That’s hyperbole, yes,

00:09:24.327 --> 00:09:28.543
but this really is just the guts of an ordinary analog clock

00:09:28.543 --> 00:09:34.085
sandwiched between two very weird hands with a bit of support hardware.

00:09:34.085 --> 00:09:37.851
The main difference between these clocks and
something like this one

00:09:37.851 --> 00:09:40.683
is that they have motors which continuously move,

00:09:40.683 --> 00:09:44.398
rather than the stepping action typical of quartz clocks.

00:09:44.398 --> 00:09:48.652
That means they don’t tick, they just sort of… rattle a bit

00:09:48.652 --> 00:09:50.336
and click every minute.

00:09:50.336 --> 00:09:53.801
Some flip clocks do have typical tick tock
movements in them,

00:09:53.801 --> 00:09:55.516
for what it’s worth.

00:09:55.516 --> 00:09:58.581
Whether these have an actual quartz movement is unclear,

00:09:58.581 --> 00:10:02.683
but these two keep decent time so I think that’s probably the case.

00:10:02.683 --> 00:10:05.587
However, these large clocks take D cells

00:10:05.587 --> 00:10:09.068
so I imagine the motor is larger than that which you’d find in a

00:10:09.068 --> 00:10:11.366
quartz-but-smooth-second-hand clock,

00:10:11.366 --> 00:10:12.852
which do exist by the way.

00:10:13.732 --> 00:10:15.299
Does anybody know what I’m talking about here?

00:10:15.981 --> 00:10:17.936
Doesn’t matter, new paragraph! \

00:10:17.936 --> 00:10:21.141
This style of clock isn’t without weaknesses, though.

00:10:21.141 --> 00:10:25.399
Even assuming you have a clock which keeps perfect time over a day,

00:10:25.399 --> 00:10:29.790
each minute flip will be just a little bit off.

00:10:29.790 --> 00:10:33.099
The way the clock works and its imprecise manufacturing

00:10:33.099 --> 00:10:38.819
means that the timing between flips is somewhat random and never exactly a minute.

00:10:39.545 --> 00:10:41.823
I mean, not *that* random

00:10:41.823 --> 00:10:45.212
but put a seconds reference next to one and you’ll see that

00:10:45.212 --> 00:10:48.598
it’s not exactly consistent when it flips.

00:10:48.598 --> 00:10:51.254
This also means that if you’re the kind of person

00:10:51.254 --> 00:10:54.493
who hates having multiple clocks in the same room

00:10:54.493 --> 00:10:57.166
which don’t show the exact same time

00:10:57.166 --> 00:10:58.267
(like me)

00:10:58.267 --> 00:11:01.973
you’re not gonna want to display a collection of these together.

00:11:01.973 --> 00:11:04.027
They will never stay in sync.

00:11:04.489 --> 00:11:09.331
Perhaps their most serious drawback is that
the mechanism is one-way only.

00:11:09.331 --> 00:11:12.067
To set the time you can only move forward,

00:11:12.067 --> 00:11:15.299
which means that in the fall when we do that thing with the clocks,

00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:20.436
you either need to set it forward by 23 hours 
(which is quite a chore)

00:11:20.436 --> 00:11:22.675
or take the battery out for an hour

00:11:22.675 --> 00:11:25.071
and try your best to remember to put it back.

00:11:25.071 --> 00:11:29.021
And even just setting them from the start
is its own kind of annoying.

00:11:29.021 --> 00:11:32.893
Usually you need to overshoot the actual time by a minute

00:11:32.893 --> 00:11:37.016
because the mechanism will roll back slightly when you let go.

00:11:37.016 --> 00:11:41.788
For the kind of person who can’t stand clocks
being more than a few seconds off

00:11:41.788 --> 00:11:42.998
(like me)

00:11:42.998 --> 00:11:44.636
that’s not ideal.

00:11:44.636 --> 00:11:48.397
But I do love the way these look so I put up with it.

00:11:48.397 --> 00:11:53.322
These new clocks are, of course, a retro revival of an old thing.

00:11:53.322 --> 00:11:55.920
The flip clock has been around for many decades,

00:11:55.920 --> 00:12:01.461
but being battery-operated is a fairly new implementation from what I can tell.

00:12:01.461 --> 00:12:06.552
Previously they’d operate on AC power and
use a synchronous motor to keep time.

00:12:06.552 --> 00:12:09.435
That’s actually a fantastic time reference,

00:12:09.435 --> 00:12:11.647
between power outages anyway.

00:12:11.647 --> 00:12:14.205
Let me show you one.
[I Got You Babe plays faintly in the background]

00:12:14.205 --> 00:12:16.503
Is that Sonny and Cher?

00:12:16.503 --> 00:12:19.869
This Panasonic alarm clock is a flip clock.

00:12:19.869 --> 00:12:22.434
It’s the only thrift store flip clock I still have

00:12:22.434 --> 00:12:24.659
but like all of them I’ve encountered

00:12:24.659 --> 00:12:27.763
it has a design on a little wheel that's attached
to the motor

00:12:27.763 --> 00:12:30.049
so that you can tell it’s actually running.

00:12:30.049 --> 00:12:31.228
Clever.

00:12:31.228 --> 00:12:35.263
It also featured a tiny dial light so it can be viewed in the dark.

00:12:35.263 --> 00:12:36.313
Clever.

00:12:36.313 --> 00:12:38.138
(unfortunately it's burnt out)

00:12:38.138 --> 00:12:42.722
And it is also fundamentally no different
from regular old analog clocks,

00:12:42.722 --> 00:12:45.136
even down to the alarm function.

00:12:45.136 --> 00:12:51.329
You know how lots of basic alarm clocks have a third
(or fourth) hand that you use to set the alarm?

00:12:51.329 --> 00:12:53.210
This is exactly the same,

00:12:53.210 --> 00:12:57.179
but rather than a hand it’s this little wheel indicator.

00:12:57.179 --> 00:12:59.656
You set the alarm to the time you want,

00:13:00.184 --> 00:13:02.808
and somewhere deep in the depths of this mechanism

00:13:02.808 --> 00:13:08.006
there’s a switch that gets tripped when the displayed time and the set time agree.

00:13:08.006 --> 00:13:09.735
Why am I bringing this up?

00:13:09.735 --> 00:13:15.096
Because Groundhog Day presents this alarm
as going off exactly at 6:00 AM

00:13:15.316 --> 00:13:17.885
and that is not how it works!

00:13:17.885 --> 00:13:21.140
The actual time that you set this alarm to go off

00:13:21.140 --> 00:13:23.398
is merely a suggestion.

00:13:23.398 --> 00:13:26.659
Yeah, there are discrete clicks when you turn this wheel

00:13:26.659 --> 00:13:30.119
and that might make you think that there’s some precision in this mechanism

00:13:30.119 --> 00:13:31.678
but, nope.

00:13:31.678 --> 00:13:33.132
There's no precision at all,

00:13:33.132 --> 00:13:37.986
and it will probably go off at least five minutes earlier than you actually set it.

00:13:37.986 --> 00:13:43.370
It’s just like how no matter how straight
you attempt to point the alarm hand on a clock like this,

00:13:43.370 --> 00:13:48.313
the displayed time will almost never
match precisely when the alarm goes off.

00:13:48.709 --> 00:13:53.265
The mechanism in here just isn’t tied to
the when the numbers flip at all,

00:13:53.265 --> 00:13:56.420
it’s just gonna go off when it decides to goes off.

00:13:56.420 --> 00:14:00.546
Groundhog Day blatantly misrepresents this alarm clock!

00:14:01.184 --> 00:14:04.335
This is the sort of movie pedantry I live for.

00:14:04.753 --> 00:14:10.898
So, of course I did a test to find out exactly
when this alarm would go off if set to 6:00

00:14:10.898 --> 00:14:14.593
and at least here it was actually remarkably close.

00:14:14.593 --> 00:14:16.588
Only a few seconds early.

00:14:16.588 --> 00:14:19.561
[radio switches on]
Now, I used to use this alarm clock

00:14:19.561 --> 00:14:23.968
every morning and I wrote the script based on my memories of that time,

00:14:23.968 --> 00:14:28.058
and it’s fair to say I was overselling the inaccuracy here

00:14:28.058 --> 00:14:34.823
but the point remains that the cards flip independently
of the actual alarm mechanism.

00:14:35.214 --> 00:14:38.148
That little fact can just fit its way into your brain

00:14:38.148 --> 00:14:42.350
and bother you every time you watch Groundhog Day as it does me.

00:14:42.350 --> 00:14:44.010
You’re welcome!

00:14:44.164 --> 00:14:46.834
So why did Groundhog Day do it that way?

00:14:47.120 --> 00:14:51.281
Well, almost certainly because somebody on the production team figured out

00:14:51.281 --> 00:14:54.085
that having the alarm go off at 5:56

00:14:54.085 --> 00:14:58.263
would annoy far more people who don't know the intricacies of how these clocks work

00:14:58.263 --> 00:15:01.310
than it would satisfy the insufferable nerds like me who do.

00:15:02.190 --> 00:15:04.525
Or perhaps even more likely…

00:15:04.525 --> 00:15:07.578
it’s just way more satisfying and artistic license was taken.

00:15:08.194 --> 00:15:13.000
The clock we see on-screen is actually a prop
clock built for the film.

00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:17.877
See, in 1993 alarm clocks like this were already well
out of fashion

00:15:17.877 --> 00:15:21.100
and this model was almost certainly deliberately chosen

00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:25.358
to reinforce the “tacky and outdated” nature of the hotel.

00:15:25.358 --> 00:15:28.442
But, setting these clocks, as we've established,

00:15:28.442 --> 00:15:30.124
is an absolute pain.

00:15:30.498 --> 00:15:34.525
Especially since you can’t go backwards after a missed take.

00:15:35.383 --> 00:15:37.218
So, to make production easier,

00:15:37.218 --> 00:15:43.517
a special clock was built that just goes back and forth between 5:59 and 6:00 on cue.

00:15:43.517 --> 00:15:48.191
You can actually see here that the card behind
00 is another 59.

00:15:48.191 --> 00:15:50.712
That is definitely not the top of a one.

00:15:50.712 --> 00:15:54.556
Another giveaway is that the whole thing jerks
when the cards flip

00:15:54.556 --> 00:15:56.683
and that is just not right.

00:15:56.683 --> 00:15:59.402
Here’s what it actually looks like.

00:15:59.402 --> 00:16:00.887
But anyway, that’s it!

00:16:00.887 --> 00:16:02.769
It’s time to go.

00:16:03.913 --> 00:16:05.811
I like these clocks quite a bit

00:16:05.811 --> 00:16:10.207
and there are a number of inexpensive options out there in various styles these days.

00:16:10.207 --> 00:16:12.276
I will say that, from my experience,

00:16:12.276 --> 00:16:15.007
you probably want to avoid this cheap one.

00:16:15.007 --> 00:16:17.565
I’ve had two at various points over the
years

00:16:17.565 --> 00:16:21.394
(whichever factory that produces these has been going for more than a decade it seems)

00:16:21.394 --> 00:16:24.927
and they both failed within just a couple of months.

00:16:24.927 --> 00:16:27.792
This model has a radically different mechanism
from these

00:16:27.792 --> 00:16:33.367
and the hour cards actually do sort of get jerked forward like the Groundhog Prop Clock.

00:16:33.367 --> 00:16:36.690
Both clocks I bought stopped flipping the hour at all.

00:16:36.690 --> 00:16:38.033
Which was a bummer.

00:16:38.253 --> 00:16:41.802
This is actually the second of the same exact
model that I’ve purchased

00:16:41.802 --> 00:16:45.361
and both of them work perfectly (I gave the other one away).

00:16:45.361 --> 00:16:48.070
This model appears to have the same exact
mechanism

00:16:48.070 --> 00:16:50.772
and it’s been going strong for more than five years.

00:16:50.772 --> 00:16:52.914
I just purchased this one.

00:16:52.914 --> 00:16:56.183
This is in no way a Victrola.

00:16:56.183 --> 00:16:57.954
Wish that branding wasn’t there.

00:16:57.954 --> 00:16:59.954
And it also works fine, but when I got it

00:16:59.954 --> 00:17:02.413
the 43 card was installed incorrectly

00:17:02.413 --> 00:17:05.811
and was causing some binding in the adjacent numbers.

00:17:05.811 --> 00:17:09.771
Luckily it was easy to fix simply by removing
and re-inserting that card.

00:17:09.771 --> 00:17:13.730
Oh and I’ll leave you with one other bit of clock pedantry.

00:17:13.730 --> 00:17:15.263
These clocks?

00:17:15.263 --> 00:17:18.660
When they’re stopped it’s only right once a day.

00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:21.332
Think about that, idiom writers!

00:17:22.300 --> 00:17:24.874
♫ punctually smooth jazz ♫

00:17:27.580 --> 00:17:29.716
And while aesthetics are the main reason I
like them,

00:17:29.716 --> 00:17:32.860
a close second is the faaaaa

00:17:32.860 --> 00:17:33.882
See, we….

00:17:34.564 --> 00:17:35.698
See, we simply.

00:17:36.292 --> 00:17:39.099
See, we simply … don have the be deh de buh.

00:17:39.099 --> 00:17:44.830
And a clever second catch prevents the second
hour card from revealing the next until BLEUH

00:17:44.830 --> 00:17:48.394
...card from revealing the next…

00:17:48.394 --> 00:17:51.496
This is a very clunky sentence, and it’s
a very long one.

00:17:51.496 --> 00:17:56.918
To understand them, we’ll first need to
learn about latent heat and the refrigeration cycle.

00:17:57.424 --> 00:17:59.354
[laughs] 
I knew I would break!

00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:02.190
Ughhhh…

00:18:02.190 --> 00:18:06.278
...we’ll first need to learn about latent heat and the refrigeration cycle.

00:18:06.278 --> 00:18:08.282
[breaks again]

00:18:08.282 --> 00:18:10.103
There’s no way I’m gonna get through that!

00:18:12.501 --> 00:18:15.100
So what'd you think?

00:18:15.100 --> 00:18:19.005
Isn't it a scandal what the production team on Groundhog Day did?

00:18:19.005 --> 00:18:23.007
Misleading millions of people about how clock radios using Flip Technology work?

00:18:23.007 --> 00:18:26.070
The damage to our society is incalculable.