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Why Edinburgh's Clock is Almost Never on Time (bbc.com)
Arrive in Edinburgh on any given day and there are certain things you can guarantee. One of which is, the time on the turret clock atop The Balmoral Hotel is always wrong. By three minutes, to be exact. From a report: While the clock tower's story is legendary in Edinburgh, it remains a riddle for many first-timers. To the untrained eye, the 58m-high landmark is simply part of the grand finale when surveyed from Calton Hill, Edinburgh's go-to city-centre viewpoint. There it sits to the left of the Dugald Stewart Monument, like a giant exclamation mark above the glazed roof of Waverley Train Station. Likewise, the sandstone baronial tower looks equally glorious when eyed from the commanding northern ramparts of Edinburgh Castle while peering out over the battlements. It is placed at the city's very centre of gravity, between the Old Town and the New Town, at the confluence of all business and life. Except, of course, that the dial's big hand and little hand are out of sync with Greenwich Mean Time.
This bold irregularity is, in fact, a historical quirk first introduced in 1902 when the Edwardian-era building opened as the North British Station Hotel. Then, as now, it overlooked the platforms and signal boxes of Waverley Train Station, and just as porters in red jackets met guests off the train, whisking them from the station booking hall to the interconnected reception desk in the hotel's basement, the North British Railway Company owners wanted to make sure their passengers -- and Edinburgh's hurrying public -- wouldn't miss their trains. Given an extra three minutes, they reasoned, these travellers would have more time on the clock to collect their tickets, to reach their corridor carriages and to unload their luggage before the stationmaster's whistle blew. Still today, it is a calculated miscalculation that helps keep the city on time.
This bold irregularity is, in fact, a historical quirk first introduced in 1902 when the Edwardian-era building opened as the North British Station Hotel. Then, as now, it overlooked the platforms and signal boxes of Waverley Train Station, and just as porters in red jackets met guests off the train, whisking them from the station booking hall to the interconnected reception desk in the hotel's basement, the North British Railway Company owners wanted to make sure their passengers -- and Edinburgh's hurrying public -- wouldn't miss their trains. Given an extra three minutes, they reasoned, these travellers would have more time on the clock to collect their tickets, to reach their corridor carriages and to unload their luggage before the stationmaster's whistle blew. Still today, it is a calculated miscalculation that helps keep the city on time.
It's CRAP.
Time has become irrelevant. You just do what your smart phone and apps tell you to do.
She was always fashionably late, so I started telling her we had to be somewhere an hour earlier. It's worked for 30 years.
Why not five or ten so people have even more extra time?
Stuff that mattered in 1902.
Some people I know set their car clocks a few minutes ahead to help them arrive on time. Every now and then I'll forget the quirk and think I'm late somewhere with them.
Stop setting your clocks incorrectly and leave when you need to like an adult.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Why the "Almost" then? If the time is intentionally fudged, is it ever accurate?
If you formalize the system, in this case having an accurate clock, people attempt to game the system by thinking they have more time than they do, because people are perpetual optimists.
If you deformalize the system, and have the clock represent an approximate value, they become concerned that they do not have enough time, and rush to get there early so that they will be on time.
Alternative Right.
I'm a disruptive eruptive innovative Silicon Valley genius. By reading this comment, you agree to my NDA.
See, I'm developing an app that will read the clock, adjust its time to the proper time and then display it on one's smart phone.
My IPO is in a month and I expect to raise several billion dollars.
Another world famous clock to attract Russian tourists on day trips from Moscow. :P
Eh, cool story, thanks?
This is a non story. It is known to the people that matter, those who live and work in 'Old Reekie'.
Oh, and it is "Waverley Railway Station". Mention "Train Station" to most people in the City and they'll wonder what planet you are from.
Yours, a resident of Leith.
with the clock in my car. Works great.
I worked with a guy that did this. Set his alarm clock ahead five minutes so he'd get up on time.
He was always late anyway, because he knew he had an extra five minutes and just slept in.
He eventually had his alarm clock thirty (!) minutes ahead and finally gave up.
She was always fashionably late, so I started telling her we had to be somewhere an hour earlier. It's worked for 30 years.
This sad technique also works for PhBs who's style is management by crisis. I once had a boss who had an "unexpected" crisis every couple of weeks - usually the big cheese was coming to review or such. Two week's work had to be done in the next week. Having been warned by previous burned-out victims, my progress report was always at least a week behind as actual productivity didn't seem to matter.
There was much moaning and pissing about impossibilities when his next "unexpected" crisis arose even though the milestone was already in hand. This seemed to please him more than my "somehow" meeting the crisis deadline. It was the most relaxed, and goofing-off work environment I ever had.
Should be 12 minutes differential; on September 21st, solar "noon" will be at 1:05 PM in Edinburgh, and at 12:53 PM in London. So there should be a 12 minute offset, not 3.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Oh, excellent. Not only are the trains now running on time, they’re running on metric time. Remember this moment, people, eighty past two on April 47th, it’s the dawn of an enlightened Springfield.
If everyone knows the clock is wrong (which they do now), they adjust accordingly, so they might as well have it keep the correct time now.
Why is msmash such a dumb cunt??
Whom the fuck cares about some flawed ass clock. This is not PBS bitch..
worthless.
go home
"click bait"
So, '3 minutes' to give people extra time? Is that 3 minutes slow for the traindrivers also to see, so that people have extra time to run for their train? (train leaves late), or 3 minutes fast so that people who think they have already missed it can still run along? (people hurry more than they need to). Should we read the text again?
If the clock is always 3 minutes off, then how is it "almost never" on time? It should be "never" on time.
...did anyone else hear David Attenborough's voice in their inner monologue while reading the summary?
To all you unhappy grouches:
This story leads into what could be a bit of interesting neuro-psych research. I know for a fact (Trigger Warning: Anecdotal Evidence Alert) that, even though my alarm clock has been 10 minutes ahead for at least 10 years, I still react to it by behaving as though it were correct time -- even while I consciously understand that it isn't.
I'm willing to (Trigger Warning Two) extrapolate and guess there are other folks like me.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
As a Edinburgh lad, I and thousands of locals know this....
Anyone looking at that clock (instead of any of a plethora of other timekeeping devices people tend to have available) will more than likely know it's fast and adjust accordingly. I keep my wristwatch five minutes fast in an effort to not be late for things; still doesn't stop me getting held up in traffic or from having to take an important call at inopportune times when I'm on a schedule.
It's a strange reference because the Dugald Stewart Monument is actually on Calton Hill. I suppose you could position yourself on the hill such that the Balmoral tower appears left of the monument but at that point you would be pretty much beside the monument. Now if you're on the hill looking down toward Princes Street then the thing that the Balmoral tower will actually appear to be left of is the better known Walter Scott Monument.
I've always hated that name change. "The North British Hotel" had a certain majesty to it, whilst "The Balmoral" sounds like a twee, semi-detached B&B in the suburbs with lace doilies under the jam jars.
Someone should set up an NTP server that does this.
They set the clock 3 minutes ahead which ruins all the jokes about the clock being 5.4E+10 meters away from town.
This made me think of Delta Burke in the show Delta.
There was an episode where she was so proud because she was "almost on time!"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103399/?ref_=nv_sr_8
This is just one of the MANY reasons that nobody cares about Scotland---just like they to keep blaring "Scotland the Brave" on those crappy bagpipes while drinking copious quantities of liquor in an attempt to assert how great they are; even though they have been invaded and put down countless times.