YHK - yet another hacker news clone

Did it just build.. a clock?

16 points DirkJanMeijer 3 days ago 24 comments

DirkJanMeijer 3 days ago | parent

I really needed a clock on my second screen. Needed it badly.

No! That is a lie. Clocks are everywhere already. Did not need it at all.

Also don't have time to build a clock. Imagine what I could have done with all that precious time spent on flip clocks, station clocks, you name it. I could have taught my son how to tell time.

Wait!

Did you build a really fancy flip clock!? Yes! I really like that one! That is not a lie.

Phone in landscape mode during cooking? Sure. Timeboxing during study. Alright alright.

But why did you (woow!) took all the effort to make the favicon a realtime clock? Did your agent do it? Didn't read the memo that token-maxing is so 2025?

Well, am I crazy? I liked building it anyway.

cowboylowrez 3 days ago | parent

ngl thats a nice looking clock!

DirkJanMeijer 1 day ago | parent

Thank you!

phyzome 30 minutes ago | parent

I am very confused about this comment and this submission.

gus_massa 2 days ago | parent

I was able to use the AI, guessing. After a while, I notices that the configuration says "Taal Kies je voorkeurstaal." and then something that looks like "Nederland" so I guessed it was possible to change the language. I suggest to add some icon like A文 there.

DirkJanMeijer 1 day ago | parent

Following your suggestion, I added the A文 icon.

Problem was: the fallback language was Dutch. Now it is English. Should make more people happy.

And why only 2 languages when I can add 22? In different locales? Ok.

So now the clock supports English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Chinese (Mandarin), Japanese, Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Estonian and Icelandic.

Should cover 3 billion people worldwide.

gus_massa 1 day ago | parent

I tried the Spanish version. I found no obvius error in the localization but the site only works for "nl" and "en"

https://theclock.online/es/classic/ --> error

https://theclock.online/en/classic/ --> ok

DirkJanMeijer 1 day ago | parent

Well it works on my machine but I guess it was the rate limiter. That should be more generous now. Can you try again?

As a bonus, I added a bunch of features like Stopwatch, Focus mode, World clocks converter and Daylight saving time.

gus_massa 1 day ago | parent

:)

zie1ony 1 hour ago | parent

Add webapp install option for mobile

hamburglar 36 minutes ago | parent

This alone just got it a place on my iOS Home Screen. I’ve always wondered why Apple never provided a simple full screen analog clock with second hand.

croisillon 1 hour ago | parent

the flip movement just appears a few times and disappear?

amelius 52 minutes ago | parent

Yes, I think animations are still bad here and there. Also in the menu (when you flip the seconds switch, the menu jumps instead of animates).

AI is not very good at animations yet, but to be honest I find the various animation APIs e.g. in CSS also quite convoluted and difficult to use even for human programmers. It's like the abstractions are wrong.

creaktive 1 hour ago | parent

One of my very first BASIC programs was an analog clock. That’s how I learned sine/cosine before being officially introduced to them at school… I’m deeply concerned about future generations of programmers and mathematicians.

yetihehe 31 minutes ago | parent

I only truly understood logarithms when I had to use them in a plot drawing module I had to make. But I started with BASIC and people at the time said that basic leads to less understanding from students. Now I've commercially developed in C,C++,Java and Erlang, so it seems that the kids will be all right. The curious ones will find their way to more knowledge also thanks to AI, because it can be the most patient tutor explaining everything in the way you understand the best.

kilroy123 55 minutes ago | parent

Weird, I just stumbled upon this one yesterday: https://clockfaces.com

kylecazar 50 minutes ago | parent

I'm thoroughly confused. Did what build a clock? AI?

The link is indeed to a clock (a nice one).

hmokiguess 29 minutes ago | parent

I am so confused as well

amelius 5 minutes ago | parent

We need a new category: "AI Shows HN".

carra 3 minutes ago | parent

Same here. What is special in this simple clock, and why does it deserve to be in the front page of HN?

jtvjan 36 minutes ago | parent

Too bad the stationsklok doesn't actually do the Swiss-style minute break ;)

hagbard_c 9 minutes ago | parent

I wondered when this reaction would appear. No, it doesn't run through 60 second s in about 58 seconds, waiting for the time sync pulse to start the next minute cycle because it doesn't need to since it has direct access to the accurate time. Adding this interval is just a single prompt away though, or - gasp - a few edits to the source.

amelius 4 minutes ago | parent

AI does something better than humans, and now you want it to break the implementation?

qwertox 34 minutes ago | parent

"it lacks the slight overshoot and recoil of the hands, when they progress."