The point being, of course, that there weren’t actually any fleas there at all.

I said elsewhere that the Chronophage’s depiction of time being devoured seems really cool.
And then I added that, as recent medical research shows that many illnesses (including depression, obesity, insomnia, autism and Sundown Syndrome in Alzheimer’s patients, and more) are associated with poorly operating biological clocks, maybe it is we who are being devoured by time? At least “corporate standard time” — as compared with “local natural time” — i.e., “time” that is naturally defined as “time of local sunrise, local noon and local sunset”!

As modern working conditions and modern time-keeping (such as time zones, and Daily Saving Time) have more and more gotten in the way of our biological clocks knowing what they need to know to healthily regulate our circadian rhythms, perhaps it is time for us to get our bio-clocks back in sync with the flows and ebbs of actual day and night? Can’t hurt, and might help a lot. Which is why GreenTyme’s recently patented Synclecron is freely available on the Web at GTyme.org. And also why its mobile edition will soon be freely available for the browsers of iPhones, gPhones, BlackBerries, etc., via gty.me.

Come again? Hang out with many New Agers? I’ve heard this bogus accusation before. Usually means you missed the point.

I have an old automatic watch, a Buren, which at the time (1950s) was the thinnest automatic watch made. It’s worth about nothing, although it runs fine and keeps time to about 2-3 minutes a week. When all the watch batteries die, it’s still going.

If the cost of mechanical watches were a reflection of admiration for their engineering, I’d expect these older watches to be worth more.. so I agree, it’s mostly the ineffable wonder of branding that sells. Those watches are accessories, not timepieces: signifiers, as Kaleberg says.

Getting by day to day “on time” doesn’t take accuracy. Mechanical watches are interesting to look at, and very interesting to build. It’s art.

I do have something against a quarts watch: You’re probably already carrying around at least one other device that serves its purpose. You’re also probably in view of at least one more time piece (in fact if you’re reading this, you certainly are). A wristwatch no longer serves a purpose. What’s left is a testament to precision machining that is perfectly fine to admire.

I understand what you’re saying: The mechanical solution appeals to you because it has to be done right, whereas the quartz solution can be made to work almost any which way.

But isn’t it the mark of true sophistication and elegance in a solution that it is robust to variations and specific values? An analogy: I might be able to prove a particular result using either a complex calculation (in which I have to get every step right) or a simple symmetry argument. Which is more elegant?

I think in the case of watches what I admire is that mechanical watches manage to solve a difficult problem – making movement exactly repeatable and periodic – under very challenging constraints. Quartz watches, well, it’s like applying a sledgehammer to the problem. *I* could design a quartz clock, and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I could be sloppy about it – so the battery voltage isn’t quite right, so the resistors are a little off, so what, I just fiddle one pot and it keeps great time. Modern electronics provides such powerful tools, you can churn out zillions of cheap watches. But try to do the same thing with, essentially, pre 20th-century techniques, and it becomes extremely difficult. Solving hard problems is more impressive than solving easy problems.

A mechanical watch is almost the opposite of a Rube Goldberg machine: a Rube Goldberg machine does a simple task using the most complicated method available. A mechanical watch must be as simple as the task and the constraint (no electronics) allows or it just won’t work. And a mechanical watch that doesn’t work – whose hands don’t move – isn’t a solution to the problem at all.