I just want to say, as someone who lives near such a bell, I'm grateful that they appear to observe "quiet hours" between 8pm and 8am. When I first moved in, I was worried it'd be dinging all night. Thank goodness that's not the case.

I just have car alarms going off for no reason at 4am to worry about.

I thought these were still common? Any time I'm near a church they do their thing every 15 minutes, banging one bell 1-4 times and then if it's 4 they bang another 1-12 times, signaling the time.

Well, not entirely, they're usually quiet during the night, but you get my point.

Didn't know people can't understand those anymore.

I used to live in a city with many striking clocks, which meant that no matter where you were in the city, you could probably hear a bell ring out on the hour.

I'm realising now how much I miss it. I remember times like drinking with friends into the wee hours of the morning, when we would hear a bell and then all fall silent as we counted how many chimes there were. If it was only 2, we would laugh and continue, but for four or more, we would wince and contemplate the future consequences of our choices.

Or while doing an all-nighter to get an assignment in before a morning deadline, how my handwriting speed would become a touch more frantic with each passing chime

I met someone the other year who didn't know the difference between cut and paste, and copy and paste

Edit: I agree with the last part of your comment especially. So often, I see people blaming GenZ for their lack of knowledge, but that feels unfair to me. From my perspective as a younger Millennial, it looked like society seemed to assume "oh, GenZ are digital natives, so they're naturally a whizz at all this computer stuff" and often assumed that it wasn't necessary to do much work to teach them how to use computers. Now that I've had more chance to meet GenZ folk in the workplace, I've heard this complaint from them a lot.

It's made me grateful for growing up as a Millennial. I was too young to experience the early days of computing, but at least I got to experience computers and the internet before they became the closed, walled-off gardens that GenZ grew up with

Please. Turn every school into a node in the network

Yeah, especially with schools being somewhat evenly distributed around cities - this could really help with coverage. I've only read about Meshtastic but I recall it's extremely low bandwidth so that would be a problem for the little dissidents.

Yeah I bet they're going to figure out mandatory education that's more interesting and fun than chatting with your friends and playing games. Lol

It's better to use an AVR for that. 6502 was a ridiculous kludge for the sake of slightly improved code density.

And yet, we still have analog clocks all around us. Seems to me we should know his to use them... Unlike a sextant.

Still, knowing what those things are and how they work just might be useful if something similar becomes important for some reason.

Those things should be known by at least enough of the population to bring them back and use them if everything goes apocalyptic.

If things start falling apart, I'm throwing in with the Amish.

I remember we were taught a segment on how to use an abacus and how they worked, because it demonstrated certain mathematical principles. Of course I don't remember now how to use one, but I'm sure that visual demonstration of the mathematical concepts helped us as we were learning math. In the same way, learning about analog clocks at a young age would probably help with learning about geometry/trigonometry, angles and degrees, arcs, etc.

pfff bet you were one of those poors with a bucket with a hole in it

It's wild to think that, "It's a quarter to 8," must be a mental exercise for some people. That is, instead of having an immediate understanding from being able to glance at an analog clock and think, "That's clearly 1/4 of an hour," it instead relies on a cognitive exercise that requires a knowledge of division and subtraction (60 divided by 4, then subtract the result from 60.)

Though I tend to think of time spatially, in part due to being raised with analog clocks. They're much easier for me to read and understand at a glance without having to process much. Reading a digital clock requires converting it to analog in my mind, because the spatial appearance of the hands is what my brain makes sense of. I sometimes hear from people who can't do that though, who instead have to convert the analog to digital in their minds. Which is fine, it just sounds much more "mathy" to me and like it takes more work than making sense of shapes. But to each their own.

Maybe not but technology connections is great.

Possibly the case here as well. I learned roman numerals in school enough to pass whatever was on tests

Note that there are multiple systems of writing them.

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

While subtractive notation for 4, 40, and 400 (IV, XL, and CD) has been the usual form since Roman times [citation needed], additive notation to represent these numbers (IIII, XXXX, and CCCC)[9] very frequently continued to be used, including in compound numbers like 24 (XXIIII),[10] 74 (LXXIIII),[11] and 490 (CCCCLXXXX).[12] The additive forms for 9, 90, and 900 (VIIII,[9] LXXXX,[13] and DCCCC[14]) have also been used, although less often.

The two conventions could be mixed in the same document or inscription, even in the same numeral. For example, on the numbered gates to the Colosseum, IIII is systematically used instead of IV, but subtractive notation is used for XL; consequently, gate 44 is labelled XLIIII.[15][16]

Especially on tombstones and other funerary inscriptions, 5 and 50 have been occasionally written IIIII and XXXXX instead of V and L, and there are instances such as IIIIII and XXXXXX rather than VI or LX.[17][18]

Modern clock faces that use Roman numerals still very often use IIII for four o'clock but IX for nine o'clock, a practice that goes back to very early clocks such as the Wells Cathedral clock of the late 14th century.[19][20][21] However, this is far from universal: for example, the clock on the Palace of Westminster tower (commonly known as Big Ben) uses a subtractive IV for 4 o'clock.[20][c]

They teach it but since they will not use this skill they will forget how to

The humor for me is realizing how old I am that the kid has never seen windows 98 before and tries to interact with it blind is so interesting. 

Yep, it seems to be the new American Way. I have one analog clock in our family room and I periodically ask my son the time. He's not always right, but he's pretty good.

I'm genX. I take him camping, hiking, biking and show him the plants and objects he can use when he needs them. Some of it sticks.

When society forgets the basic skills, a simple shock can bring it down. Permanently.

Every classroom I was in from kindergarten through university had analog clocks on the wall, so I was absolutely able to just glance. For years.

But since I haven't been in a classroom for so long, and I'm not surrounded by analog clocks anymore, I think I've mostly lost that ability and I've found that it takes me a couple of seconds nowadays to decode it.

It's definitely a skill that needs to be practiced to keep it up

How do you not read it at a glance? After 20 years you think you would just notice the general shapes, its all basically the same, especially if you simply round everything, which is what a lot of people do as time on an analog clock is rarely used super precise.

1/4 or 1/2 after or before, and almost.

Then what hour is the small hand approaching?

Quarter to 3.

Half past 1.

Almost 4.

Seems pretty simple. Unless you are used to 24 hours, then you would have to ignore or add 12.

It would just depend on how often you actually use them, it's just familiarity. If you had one in your house/classroom/office that you looked at whenever you wanted to know the time (as it used to be before digital), it would take only a quick glance. Your brain recognizes the shapes, just like it recognizes words in your native language immediately without figuring out the individual letters.

I think we've had 50/50% analogue and digital clocks at home. Analogue on walls and wrists, digital on microwaves and VCRs. I'm sure that helped make the connection.

I can understand that kids are not motivated to practice telling time from an oldskool watchface when they always have a digital clock in their pocket.

We recently switched cars. The previous one had a big digital display for the speed. My wife is completely unable to tell the speed from a regular gauge now.

Same here, it takes a fair bit of thinking, but can be done. Some people think it’s funny/sad that it needs processing time, but I never practice the skill, because I really never need to, so who cares? It’s never been something that has made intuitive sense to me, and has always been a struggle, but there have been digital alternatives nearly my entire life which are now far more common, so why bother getting better?

Yeah I graduated high school in 2019 and some of my classmates had a hard time reading analog clocks, in private schools lmao. It's definitely has increased with Covid and smart phones but kids who don't want to learn never do.

You didn't understand what I meant. I meant that those articles complaining about the youth have always existed