slice-of-thai.com → Silliness → Bamboo Binary Clock
What would you do if you lived in a place where time doesn't matter, and you received a clock that only computer nerds could read? Why, you'd create the world's first bamboo binary clock, of course!
The Gift
Back in 2006, I received a "gift" in the mail that brings a whole new meaning to the term "disposable income:"
Yes, that's right, it's a sleek Discovery Channel crystal blue LED binary clock. Leave it to the Discovery Channel (or Sharper Image) to come up with a clock that only computer nerds can read:
I especially like the way the marketing geniuses at Discovery Channel have made the product's greatest weaknesses into features:
- Watch the constantly changing patterns in this light display. This promotion appears topmost on the front of the box: is this an admission that to most users, the product is a
$29.95 color organ? - After a few minutes' practice, you'll be able to read the time by adding the values of the lit LEDs in each column. After a few years' practice, I could learn to read the newspaper by running it through a shredder and then carefully piecing the shreds together using forensic analysis, but would I want to?
- High tech way to tell time! Yes, now I understand. It's like the Rube Goldberg interface to set the clock on your VCR, or the mushy, slow-ticking up/down button in lieu of a dial on your new digital thermostat, or Windows Vista—it's high tech, so it must be better!
While pondering the absurdity of it all, I noticed that my friend Paul was hanging out with a Pai local who had just shown him how to use a machete to slice a fresh stick of bamboo into tiny stalks that can be woven together to produce a bamboo mat.
Thus was born the revolutionary idea to adapt the little Discovery Channel clock to life in Pai.
We Can Rebuild It
Step 1 was to free the little guy from the confinement of his urbanite-sleek modern casing, and also de-solder the linkage for the 120V power supply (Thailand is 240V), replacing it with a 9V battery:
Like a baby finally unfettered from his wet, chafing diapers, already we could see the unit shine with joy:
Step 2 was to create the bamboo mat. First Paul started with a stick of bamboo from the jungle, at first splitting it coarsely using a few judicious whacks of the machete followed by a blade-twisting motion to open up the full crack:
Then Paul further sliced each stick into a narrow, flexible ribbon by pushing the bamboo into the machete blade using a surprisingly difficult motion that looks very easy when the locals do it:
Next Paul and I wove the strips into a criss-cross 3+3 pattern, punched holes in approximately the pattern of the LEDs, and filled the holes with translucent candle wax, along with 4 "mounting" blobs of candle wax on each corner:
Finally we mounted the binary clock onto the face:
The Bamboo Binary Clock
Thus was born the world's first bamboo binary clock:
It hung on the wall in a local restaurant for several months, confusing endless streams of guests and helping us all ponder the age-old question of why we would ever want a binary clock (let alone a bamboo one) in the first place.
