Vetinari's Clock (2011)

Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago

Rygian

105 points

32 comments

waitingforfriday.comTechstory

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Clock DesignMicrocontrollersPsychological Manipulation

Key topics

Clock Design

Microcontrollers

Psychological Manipulation

The 'Vetinari's Clock' is a creative project that implements an irregular ticking clock inspired by Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, sparking discussion on its design, psychological effects, and technical implementation.

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01Story posted
Sep 1, 2025 at 11:29 AM EDT
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Sep 5, 2025 at 6:28 AM EDT
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16 comments in 96-108h
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Sep 9, 2025 at 10:48 AM EDT
4 months ago
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Discussion (32 comments)

Showing 32 comments

p0w3n3d

4 months ago

1 reply

I'm a musician, I couldn't listen to it for a longer time. Btw. site was killed by hn-first-page's effect. https://web.archive.org/web/20250625211705/https://www.waiti...

p0w3n3d

4 months ago

The web archive version has a dead youtube link, so I cannot tell for sure. But I looked around youtube and this version is so rhythmical I could listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkP1kM_7p7E

EDIT it was not youtube, got it from sources. It's here: https://odysee.com/$/embed/Lord-Vetinari_s-Clock/0b5f49b3f88...

mark_undoio

4 months ago

4 replies

In Cambridge we've got a clock called the Chronophage which is intended to be a sinister "eater of time" - the designer has done a good job of making it feel uncomfortable to look at. There's some detail here: https://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/secrets-corpus-clock

My memories of what I've heard over time:

* The grasshopper escapement actually is the demonic insect that sits on the top, "walking" around the serrated ring.

* Although it's backlit electronically it's actually a fully mechanical design - including all of the weird things it does.

* The Chronophage itself blinks its eyes unnervingly.

* It sometimes pauses or ticks slightly backwards, then runs faster to catch up again.

* On certain special dates it does extra weird stuff.

* The "chime" is a metal chain dropping into a box.

There were three made in the series, this was the first one. I've always found it slightly unappealing aesthetically but also compelling - there's no arguing with the fact that there's always a crowd of fascinated observers looking at it.

lproven

4 months ago

1 reply

> a clock called the Chronophage

Until recently there was one in the wall of a bar in Douglas here on the Isle of Man. Apparently, the inventor of the thing lives here. Another is in his home.

However that bar, the rather rough 1886, is now the Island's first Wetherspoons... :-/

2b3a51

4 months ago

1 reply

George Daniels, Roger Smith and this clockmaker John Taylor. Must be something in the tides?

lproven

4 months ago

1 reply

> Must be something in the tides?

Or the tax régime, I suspect, TBH...

2b3a51

4 months ago

Yeah, Daniels was selling watches for low 7 figures so VAT or other forms of purchase tax would have been a significant chunk of change. And income tax of course.

"Daniels claimed that there was little money to be made in watchmaking, but his lifestyle suggested otherwise. In 1982 he moved, for tax reasons, to the Isle of Man, where he bought a substantial Georgian house complete with tradesmen’s entrance and sweeping drive."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8846796/George-D...

bombcar

4 months ago

2 replies

How do you build a completely analog "random" system? Building a regular one is easy, building one that might seem random because of how many regular ones are tied together ... but true sources of entropy?

LeoPanthera

4 months ago

1 reply

I would imagine that analogue randomness is easier than doing it in a deterministic digital system. Surely there are all sorts of creative methods. Dice or coins in a box? A ball falling through a galton board? Sampling a double-pendulum? Floating particles in a heated liquid?

bombcar

4 months ago

1 reply

All of those things I know how to use - if I have some sort of digital measuring device watching/monitoring them.

How do I make a mechanical thing happen at a random time with a lava lamp?

The ball on the board with a hole might be something I could figure out …

addaon

4 months ago

> How do I make a mechanical thing happen at a random time with a lava lamp?

Use a heat lamp interrupted by the lava globules to activate a wax motor. If you get the angles right you can probably do this with the same light that runs the lamp itself, or you can put another lamp at a 90° angle (but will have to adjust the main lamp to keep the total heat at the level you want).

Or do similar with muscle wire; more temperature needed to trigger the actuator, but you can get them much smaller so the total heat can be smaller, if you run e.g. a collimated infrared laser as your heater across the lamp.

cluckindan

4 months ago

Heat and fluids are great sources of randomness, so you use a lava lamp.

Rendello

4 months ago

Wikipedia article with video:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Clock

renewiltord

4 months ago

I saw the one in Houston and it's quite fascinating. Not particularly unsettling unless you find bugs unappealing. Enjoyed the engineering for the device. Very cool and it looks cool too.

At first sight, it looks like some modern art piece but then you see the plaque that it's not an electronic clock (it has LEDs which made me think it was) and then it's cool!

proee

4 months ago

1 reply

Nice to see someone using a rightly-sized microcontroller for their project. Most hackers today throw an ESP32, or worse yet, a Raspberry Pi to handle the simplest of tasks. I suppose this is because the platforms are so readily available, but still there is something cool about using a teeny-tiny microcontroller.

defanor

4 months ago

I thought it is an overkill, though probably a convenient and practical one. But if one's aim is hacking with simpler technologies, a mechanical linkage (maybe something with a cam) should suffice for this task. Or an electrical circuit with simpler components, without digital logic in it.

NoSalt

4 months ago

3 replies

I have not read the Discworld series, but this sounds insidious as Hell!!! I love it.

B1FF_PSUVM

4 months ago

1 reply

I asked Google Gemini for book sources, got this: "The Vetinari Clock originates from Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books, specifically appearing in the waiting room of Lord Vetinari, a recurring character. It is first described in Feet of Clay and also features in Going Postal, where its purpose is to psychologically unsettle visitors by ticking irregularly while still maintaining accurate time"

LeoPanthera

4 months ago

Don't post AI generated content. If I wanted to read slop, I could generate it myself.

bombcar

4 months ago

2 replies

You're in for a real treat! I envy you.

Where to start, where to start ...

https://wiki.lspace.org/Reading_Order

NoSalt

4 months ago

Thanks!

bityard

4 months ago

I read the series on chronological order and enjoyed it. Getting to the end of the last book was sad, but on the bright side I read pretty slowly (a few pages a night before bed) and have a terrible memory for fiction so starting the cycle over and reading each book again in sequence is very nearly like reading them all again for the first time.

p0w3n3d

4 months ago

> insidious

Hereby I give you a watch from the Watch. Sergeant Detritus will guide you further.

andreareina

4 months ago

I love it. I kinda want it to be implemented as a LFSR though that would likely cost more in parts and power. The fixed tick interval isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

tenkabuto

4 months ago

Does anyone know of a place where I could buy one?

kingofmen

4 months ago

At last we have built the Torture Clock from the famous fantasy story, "Don't Build the Torture Clock".

pdpi

4 months ago

A bit of a Baader–Meinhof moment for me.

Adam Savage discussed on Youtube earlier this week[0] the Chinese water torture episode of Myth Busters, and mentioned an email he got some time after, from somebody who had apparently actually used that torture technique in practice, and this person stated that what really made it effective was tuning the drip so the drops were completely unpredictable.

So, with Vetinari's Clock, Pratchett once again managed to, as was his wont, humorously but accurately nail a pretty damn grim bit of real-world trivia.

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y2fDrv47U4

Applejinx

4 months ago

Far too great a disparity, but lovely to see all the same :) at least 60% of the ticks should be very close to normal to elicit a false sense of security and no more than 27% of the ticks should be WAY OFF, perhaps even less.

However, the principle is sound, and the execution is… timely?

amelius

4 months ago

Similar to a Geiger counter.

lproven

4 months ago

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43554442

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9216754

yayitswei

4 months ago

Awesome. I wonder if there is a pulse sequence that maximizes that feeling of randomness?

technothrasher

4 months ago

I may have the antidote for this clock. I've got 37 different mechanical clocks in my lab. I suspect the irregular ticks from this clock would get drowned out by all the unsynchronized ticking from the others.

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ID: 45093501Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 12:50:41 PM

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