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Cult of the Clock
I told an old man at a bar the other night that he should “probably just smash it” in reference to his watch:
If the application sounds like Big Brother, it does have more than a trace of surveillance to it, but you can control how you choose to have it behave. If you want, you can keep it very tame and just occasionally take a look at your log to get an aerial view of how much time you spend on non-work activities. In that case, it’s essentially a productivity tool.
Or, if you want to go a step further, you can choose to have MeeTimer attempt to deter from you from visiting sites that are helping you procrastinate and waste time. Note that it does not force you away from such sites; instead, it issues a gentle reminder.
They call them watches, but who is watching who and why?
November 1st, 2007 at 7:16 am
Yet. How long before these watches are compulsory and tase you for being late, or for otherwise doing ‘the wrong thing’? Like speculating thusly:
1) Remember, Chronos demanded child sacrifice. From an archeological perspective, time measurement began at the same, um, time as ritual sacrifice of children.
2) Time was (and still is) measured by cutting the circle into segments (arcs / archons / monarchy / architecture, and so on). It’s perfectly rational…
3) The archons were also known as the, wait fot it, Watchers
Sacrifice your watch, save a child!
PS. This guy has some interesting thoughts about Greenwich Mean Time (and some other stuff besides). You’ll have to dig.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:29 am
Call me Tommy Two-Post. I just remembered that remember is from the old tale of Isis reattaching Osiris’ member after Set had chopped him into pieces. Said tale had a lot to do with time-keeping (the cyclical made linear), in particular the prediction of the seasons which enabled agriculture and cursed civilisation, both of which arrived at the same time as the clock-cult kid-killing.
Old ground, yes, but fertile nevertheless,
From ten thousand years of red, measured tears.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:14 am
A Measure of Sacrifice by Nick Szabo, on the history of standardized timekeeping.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Well done! Sacrificing children to the God of Time means that through the measurement of Time you grow old.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:19 pm
The point about the Watchers may be the best angle of attack for this as well:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...itions-against-preserving-the-moment/
Though I’m at a loss at the moment how to connect them. Somewhere, I’m sure….
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:51 am
Watch the watch… you are getting sleepy.
Well that’s all very clever (and true) but they really did (do) kill actual real-life kids.
OMG WTF, not LOL.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:10 am
Good old Enoch:
10:7 …And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the
8 Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted
9 through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin. And to Gabriel said the Lord: Proceed against the bastards and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in
10 battle: for length of days shall they not have.
there’s probably more…