Alarm Clock Blog

The Problem Of Social Jet Lag

Online Clock — Sun, 20 May 2012 06:52:59 PDT

When the alarm is triggered on Monday morning, some people immediately get up to start their day. Others dread dragging their bodies out of bed for the long day ahead. The former would be classified as a morning type, and the latter would be classified as an evening type.

If you are an early morning person, you probably won’t have a personal need for the information in today’s blog post. However, it may help you understand those who insist on pounding the snooze button several times before waking up in the morning. If you are unsure as to whether you are a morning or an evening type, the New York Times has an interactive quiz that can quickly identify your biological time preferences.

The Concept of Social Jet Lag

Sleep cycles are biologically driven. Researchers refer to these cycles as our circadian rhythms. Researchers in Germany have discovered that interrupting circadian rhythms can result in something they refer to as social jet lag. Social jet lag is not something you get from flying, but the feeling can be similar to jet lag. When evening types get up early, they create sleep deficits that must be paid back over the weekend. These sleep deficits result in low energy levels that must be adjusted when time permits. This is where the problem begins. Sleeping at different hours on the weekend interrupts the circadian rhythm even further, and this results in social jet lag.

Social jet lag is more pronounced in evening types because the early types are not operating on a sleep deficit. The biological rhythms of early types work well with the demands of society. Most work and school environments start early in the morning and end in the evenings. Quite naturally, these are the times we should be at the peak of our energy cycles. Unfortunately, most of us seem to be at a lower energy level than we should be because of sleep deficits. Having to wait for the weekend to balance sleep deficits is causing quite a problem for society. There are negative health problems that are being associated with the lack of sleep. We have known that sleep deprivation has caused health problems for quite some time; however, social jet lag is a specific phenomenon that only happens to those of us who work a five day work week with two consecutive days off.

Negative Consequences of Social Jet Lag

The recent study has shown that if you are experiencing social jet lag, you are more likely to drink alcohol. Additionally, you are more likely to smoke cigarettes. You may also be at risk for obesity. According to Dr. Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich’s Institute of Medical Psychology, social jet lag can make you fat. The problems of inadequate sleep are far-reaching. The Roenneberg study surveyed the sleep cycles of people over a ten year period. The research team discovered that those who had differing weekday and weekend sleep cycles were three times more likely to be overweight(!). The greater the differences in waking and sleeping times between the weekday and the weekend, the more overweight the person tended to be. Roenneberg stated that when just one hour of sleep is lost, the probability of obesity increases by 33 percent.

Dr. Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich’s Institute of Medical Psychology

The Roenneberg study is in line with other sleep deprivation studies. For instance, a Boston study maintained that restricting your sleep and interrupting the body’s circadian rhythm decreased metabolism, and it caused glucose levels to spike after meals. The spike in glucose levels indicates that the pancreas is not producing the required levels of insulin. The Boston researchers said that this could translate to as much as 10 pounds of extra weight each year. This puts those who are sleep deprived at a higher risk for the development of diabetes.

Experts in sleep research have stated that getting the proper amount of sleep is an important factor in maintaining good health. They have stated that sleep should take place at night to maintain good health. People who are working late hours are laying the groundwork for future health problems. Modern conditions of excess work, pressure and not enough sleep will disrupt circadian rhythms. These disruptions cause the metabolism to react unfavorably. This unfavorable metabolic reaction causes a maladaptive response to modern life. Although the entire world cannot change for those who feel comfortable waking up at a certain hour, there is room for improvement by reasonably adjusting the start times for businesses and schools to include flexibility for those who experience social jet lag.

According to Roenneberg, 70 percent of the population experiences the phenomenon of social jet lag. Many people have varying degrees of social jet lag. The degree depends on each individual’s circadian rhythm. With such a large percentage of the population experiencing this problem, it’s obvious that something needs to be done so that the health risks are lessened for those who are operating on sleep deficits.

Roenneberg maintains that the problem of social jet lag is increasing. Modern society seems to be paying remarkably little attention to biological rhythms. The syndrome of social jet lag has not been recognized until recently. In an attempt to find out how extensive the problem actually is, Roenneberg’s team intends to compile a vast database on sleeping and waking behavior in humans. They will eventually produce a world sleep map. Roenneberg’s research team has already collected a lot of information concerning sleep and social jet lag. Their analysis reveals that people with severe cases of social jet lag are currently overweight. It appears that social jet lag is contributing to the obesity epidemic.

Son, You're Fat ! ...

Counteracting Social Jet Lag

The Roenneberg study results should weigh in on changing future starting times for work and school. This should help to ease the effects of social jet lag. It would also help if people began to spend more time outdoors in the open sunlight. When people fail to go into the open daylight often enough, their body clocks seem to shift to later rising times. This leaves them awake too late during the night and tired during the day.

Becoming involved in outdoor sports or exercise can help the problem immensely. Even walking around outdoors seems to help those who are suffering from social jet lag. In earlier societies, towns were situated so that people could walk to get groceries and goods needed for everyday survival. The advent of suburbs and cars produced a society that has little need for walking. These factors have taken humans out of the sunlight. This is causing many health problems.

Waking up naturally VS. Waking up via an Alarm Clock

We tend to spend most of our time indoors on computers, watching television and working or studying in office cubicles. The result of our technological advancements caused us to become sleep deprived. Getting outdoors is crucial to maintaining good health. Additionally, we should not ingest too much caffeine in the effort to wake ourselves up. Caffeine is another factor that can cause a sleep deficit. We all know people who cannot be spoken to until they have had at least two cups of coffee. These people don’t feel fully awake. They are trying to compensate with caffeine. This is a mistake. Caffeine is one of the biggest culprits of sleep deprivation. Of course, if you are an avid gamer, this can also cause sleep deprivation. Keeping the brain active can cause a sleep deficit. Perhaps limiting gaming to earlier hours will help in the effort to fall asleep at the proper time. We realize that this is easier said than done, but making the extra effort can keep you in good health.

Another sleep robbing product is soft drinks that contain caffeine. People consume several of these beverages daily, and they are literally losing sleep over them. It would be wise to limit these drinks because they may be shaving hours off of your sleep time. You won’t realize the price you are paying until the alarm goes off in the morning. Consequently, people will press the snooze button for as long as they possibly can. Some of them slap and bang the snooze button as though it’s an annoying insect that must be terminated. It’s safe to say that these people are evening types. Evening types always have an aversion to alarm clocks.

Starting the day with an alarm clock is a relatively new societal concept. According to researchers, this simply means that we haven’t slept long enough, and this is why we are chronically tired and need to be jolted from our dreams with an alarm clock. Of course, we certainly don’t think it’s a good idea to refrain from using our alarms. However, it would be nice if everyone enjoyed hearing the sounds they make. If you are anxious to start your day, our alarms should be music to your receptive ears.

Following some of the above suggestions will help you to cope with social jet lag. Perhaps after the sleep map emerges, we can look forward to an eventual societal adjustment that will accommodate those of you who have trouble getting up early in the morning. Feeling energetic during the day will certainly improve productivity. Additionally, it will increase the academic performance of students. Interestingly, Roenneberg suggests that social jet lag may be linked to those who have had trouble with achievement. Identifying the phenomenon of social jet lag may be an excellent tool for those who want to advance in life but can’t seem to reach the goals they have set for themselves.

It’s easy to deduce from the Roenneberg study that social jet lag can be the beginning of future problems with substance abuse. Knowing the initial cause can produce solutions to cope with social jet lag. We hope that the Roenneberg study continues to provide us with the information needed in the area of sleep deprivation. We look forward to hearing about new methods to counteract the problem!

Although we would all prefer to naturally wake up at the proper time, we will have to rely on our alarm clocks to start the day. For OnlineClock.net, this is excellent news. We hope that you continue to choose our fantastic selection of online alarm clocks to begin each day.

The Problem Of Social Jet Lag is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Sleep Paralysis And Beasties That Go Bump In The Night

Online Clock — Sun, 06 May 2012 03:44:44 PDT

If you have ever woken up and felt like you could not move, you might have experienced sleep paralysis.

This condition can be quite frightening. Seeing and hearing things that aren’t actually happening can be part of the experience. Many people have only experienced sleep paralysis once; however, some people have experienced it frequently. Some even have it several times during the night. Can you imagine waking up to find that your dreams have become reality? This is great if the dream is a pleasurable one, but it’s not so great if you are dreaming of being chased by a giant Sasquatch.

Thankfully, sleep paralysis is not a dangerous health issue. Although some people may seriously question their own sanity after this experience, it’s not a serious condition.

Defining Sleep Paralysis

Sleep paralysis is a condition that some individuals experience when passing between the stages of wakefulness and sleep. During these times, there is a feeling of an inability to move for a few minutes. Also, many have the simultaneous feeling of being unable to speak. Some have reported a sense of pressure or choking while experiencing sleep paralysis. In most of the cases studied, sleep paralysis is merely a sign that the body is not passing smoothly through the various stages of sleep. It is rare that sleep paralysis is linked to deeper psychiatric problems.

Treatment

Most people who experience sleep paralysis do not need treatment. There are those who experience anxiousness after the experience of sleep paralysis that may require future treatment. When someone has underlying conditions, treatments usually involve improving sleep habits, treating psychiatric disorders and taking medications associated with any other disorder that may be present.

Historical Causation

Through many centuries, the symptoms of sleep paralysis have been described in various ways. Often, sleep paralysis was attributed to an evil presence. In ancient times, demons were blamed for the condition. Later, the old hag featured in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet had been blamed for sleep paralysis.

In more modern times, alien abductions were blamed for the condition of sleep paralysis. There are many shadowy figures thought to be responsible for this condition in the past.

The Stranger

It has been reported that one of the scariest things about sleep paralysis is the perception that a stranger has entered the room. This stranger is usually visible to most who have had the experience, however, others only sense that the stranger is in the room.

Alien Abduction?

The stranger in the room is often seen as an alien who abducts their victims while they sleep. Sleep researchers conducted a study of people who believed they were abducted by aliens. Those who participated in the study were interviewed about their experiences, and researchers found many shared similarities between them. Their visions of aliens were accompanied by electrical impulses and flashing lights. Many had the feeling of levitating over their beds. Eight of the people in the study sought assistance from mental health professionals to recover additional memories about their experiences. During the sessions to recover memories, seven people in the study reported that their repressed memories revealed that they participated in hybrid breeding programs with the aliens. Some believed they had sex with the aliens, and some of them believed that their sperm or eggs were medically extracted by the aliens. There were also some that said they visited their hybrid offspring on the alien ships. All of the participants in the study reported being shocked and confused after their experiences. The researchers had difficulty in pinpointing precisely when the participants concluded there had been an alien abduction. It was difficult for most of the participants to see the aliens clearly in the darkness of their bedrooms.

Alien abductors: are they really there?

Most of the participants of the study attended hypnotic memory regression sessions. After the participants attended these sessions, they developed a clear mental picture of the aliens. Ironically, most of the characteristics remembered by the participants in the study fit modern cultural stereotypes. The aliens were seen as having large heads with almond-shaped eyes and gray bodies.

One of the participants thought the beings in her bedroom must have been angels. Then she talked to an acquaintance who informed her that they were aliens. Although you might find this hard to believe, very few of the participants in the alien abduction study were psychopathic. Of course, some had anxiety disorders and phobias. These disorders may have been acquired from the experiences of sleep paralysis. Unfortunately, researchers were unclear as to when these anxiety disorders of phobias actually developed among the participants.

Having the feeling of being abducted by aliens would scare the most placid individuals among us. It seems especially dreadful if people think they are part of a long-term hybrid birth study. This would indicate that the aliens may be back at some future date.

Experiencing sleep paralysis with the same alien abduction crew has to create some anxiety during waking hours. Can you imagine how hard it must be for them to go to sleep? They are probably wondering if this is the night the little gray men will take them into space to visit their hybrid offspring. The subjects of the study view their sleep paralysis experiences as a form of alien sexual assault. We’re not sure there is such a term; however, after reading about their encounters, it’s the best description we were able to assemble. Aliens in your room may be scary, but there are other sleep paralysis experiences that are just as scary.

Incubus and Succubus Experiences?

An incubus is a demonic creature that sexually attacks women in their sleep. A succubus is the same type of evil creature as the incubus, but the succubus attacks men while they sleep. The idea of these evil creatures dates back to the medieval lore of demonic nocturnal visitations. In one version of this scenario, the demon is able to become a human male or female in appearance. This demon can potentially impregnate a woman so that she will produce a demonic child. The demon would first take on the appearance of a female, known as the succubus, and she mates with an unsuspecting male victim. Once the demon captured his seed, he could then take on the male demonic form known as the incubus. The incubus can mate with a female who could be impregnated with the demon seed. Sleep paralysis can produce a dream of either of these demonic scenarios.

Many people who have had these encounters are quite convinced by a demonic explanation. The body remains paralyzed in order to prevent any actual acting-out of the dreams. The sexual aspect of the experience is attributed by the physiology of REM sleep. This can cause a certain physical excitement in men and women. Although sleep paralysis explains these experiences, it certainly lacks the powerful effect that a demonic explanation provides.

Among scientists who have had the same experiences, shaking the belief that demons are responsible for the experiences is quite difficult. Because of the physical symptoms of an erotic encounter, the perceived reality of the dream makes the experience a hard one to pass off as just a bout with sleep paralysis.

A sleep paralysis episode had a man in Rafael, California believing that he was attacked by a succubus. He had just ended a long-term relationship, and his ex had moved to another part of the country. He said that he was using the computer when he felt a tingling sensation on the back of his neck. The next thing he felt was something like a hand closing gently on his shoulder. He reached back and felt there was nothing there. After feeling secure, he closed his eyes. He then reported hearing a voice that said everything would get better. He asked the voice if things really would get better. As soon as the man finished speaking, he felt something like a kiss on the back of his neck. Shortly thereafter, he heard a voice that was reassuring to him. He then saw himself closing his computer and turning to face whoever was talking to him. What he saw was hard to describe in words. The creature was a cross between a goddess and a demon. He could not speak. The creature led him to his bed and asked him to lie down. He followed the creature’s instructions. The creature proceeded to lie down next to him. Running her hand down from his neck to his chest, she slowly removed his clothes. Well, you can imagine what happened next. He woke up, and the creature was still next to him. She whispered that she would be back to reveal who she was at a later date.

Since then, he hasn’t had a recurring experience. Obviously, this is a perfect example of a sleep paralysis episode. The encounter seemed remarkably real to the man; however, it possesses all the characteristics of sleep paralysis. Many people feel exhausted after these encounters with demons because of the physical nature of the dream.

In both Finnish and Swedish folklore, a mare causes sleep paralysis encounters. This supernatural creature is related to the incubus and succubus. The creature is a damned woman. She is cursed, and her body floats away while she sleeps. She visits the villagers and sits on their rib cages while they sleep. She causes them to experience horrible nightmares.

The folklore legend of the Old Hag

Folklore beliefs in Newfoundland, South Carolina and Georgia describe the scary creature as a hag who leaves her body at night and sits on the chests of her victims. The victims usually wake up terrified and has difficulty breathing because of the perceived invisible weight sitting on top of them. They are unable to move during the experience.

In Fiji, the experience is called the kano tevoro. This translates to being eaten by a demon. In most cases, the demon is the spirit of a recently departed relative that has come back to complete unfinished business. Often, people who sleep near the afflicted person shouts: Kano, kano! This translates to: Eat, eat! This is an attempt to prolong the spiritual possession to increase the chances of conversing with the dead relative. After the sleeping person wakes up, they are asked to chase the spirit away by telling them to leave. Sometimes, they chase them by shouting expletives for effect.

Consistency

In nearly every culture, there is evidence of sleep paralysis. The different explanations as to why the experience has occurred varies from place to place. However, the symptoms remain the same. Current research regarding sleep paralysis is ongoing, and we are confident that these studies will demonstrate that many strange sleeping/waking experiences can be attributed to sleep paralysis.

Having the experience of sleep paralysis can obviously be extremely frightening. If you have experienced a similar scenario in your own life, perhaps OnlineClock.net may be able to help. Try setting one of our loud beeping alarms. After all, not even an alien encounter could survive that loud sound! Our beeping alarms would chase the nasty creatures away before they overstay their welcome.

Until next time, Clock Fans, sleep tight…and don’t let the bed bugs bite!

Sleep Paralysis And Beasties That Go Bump In The Night is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Online Clock Has Circle Eyes

Online Clock — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:04:30 PDT

What happened to punk rock?

It actually paid attention to all those lyrics about the U.S. going downhill and went and moved…to Berlin…and created Online Clock.

We remember the first time we heard the Germs. It was in 1981 or 1982. All of the coolest kids at the University of Colorado at Boulder seemed to be from California and, more specifically, from the L.A. region. Many of them brought their record collections from home (real, vinyl records) and they introduced us to the glorious world of California Hardcore.

I’m Darby Crash
A social blast
Chaotic master
I’m Darby Crash
Your meccas gash
Prophetic stature

I’m Darby Crash
A one way match
Demonic flasher

Deep, deep, deep, in my eyes
There’s a round, round, round,
circle of lives

It’s a tame, tame, tame sort of world
Where you’re caught, bought,
taught, as it twirls…

I’m Darby Crash
A social blast
Chaotic master

Snap, crackle, pop
Snap, crackle, pop
Snap, crackle, pop-in here

Snap, crackle, pop
Snap, crackle, pop
Snap, crackle, pop-out there

The Germs, lyrics to “Circle One“

Darby apparently believed that everything goes in circles, kind of like in some kind of a Karmic trap. If that’s true, then we’re obviously all destined to repeat ourselves. And this is exactly what OnlineClock.net has done with the release of its new Circles Clock. Like all of our previous online alarm clocks, this one is simple. Real simple. You just visit it, choose your alarm time with a couple of clicks, and then leave the clock open in one of your browser tabs until the alarm time comes around. What could be simpler, right?

But what’s different about this one is the fact that it shows the time using a series of brightly colored, revolving circles.

Without going into too much detail, let’s suffice to say that this clock has been created in HTML5, without using Flash. It’d be quite easy to program such a time display using Flash…but easy isn’t interesting, and Flash is a dying technology. (Yes, we know our alarms still use Flash, but we are working on replacing them with HTML5 versions!)

What can be learned from using an online alarm clock in which the time is displayed using revolving circles? Well, how about the fact that time doesn’t stop…it keeps going around and around into infinity (that is, as long as we don’t blow up our planet).

If you think this point is trivial, then we beg to differ. We all get caught up in the details of our daily lives: our jobs, our mortgages, doing our dishes and taking out the trash. But we often forget to step back and realize just how cool it is to just be alive in the first place.

The Germs

How are we going in circles? How’s this for an example:

You’re born
You go to school
You get a job
You get married
You have kids
Your kids go to school
Your kids get jobs
Your kids get married
Your kids have their own kids
…(Rinse and Repeat)…

Sound circular? It is…but we’re not saying it’s all bad. If you like this kind of thing, then please: go for it…be our guests. But for us, there has to be something more. And that something more comes in the form of at least trying to do something creative to leave a mark behind when we’re gone…instead of just collecting a paycheck and then reproducing our specie, tucked away somewhere safe in the suburbs.

If Online Clock can do one positive thing for the world, we’d like it to make you all aware how important this particular moment is.

Go on out and kiss the first beautiful girl (or boy) you see…go and spend the money you’ve been saving on something that will make you happy…go and take the day off and spend your precious time doing something fun with your loved ones.

Because, at the sound of the tone, the time will be…NOW !

The Circles Clock with a "Germs Blue" Background

On another note, a couple of fans have asked us for a peek inside Online Clock World Headquarters.

At first, we really thought this kind of thing would be an invasion of our privacy and we just didn’t see the point. However, after a long time of debating whether or not we’d want to do this, we finally ended up getting out our trusty, old Flip Video Camera (these things were great!) and tried to make a go of it. (As usual…in the first take…) The results are pretty shaky-looking and altogether sketchy…but hey, this is punk rock, after all.

So, without further ado, here is a clip from inside the Online Clock World Domination Headquarters, giving all of you diehard fans an inside peek into the Lifestyles of the Not Rich or Famous:

If for some reason you don’t like the above video…we’ll be happy to refund you your price of admission (that was a joke…and boy, was it hilarious).

So until next time, clock fans, take it easy.

And, if it’s easy…take it twice!

Online Clock Has Circle Eyes is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Origins Of The 2012 Doomsday Scare

Online Clock — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 03:06:29 PDT

Doomsday predictions are nothing new, yet the origins of the 2012 doomsday scare are at best obscure. The most recent end of the world scenarios are the 1984 and the Y2K doomsday scares. The latest addition to a long, crazy line of doomsday predictions is the current 2012 doomsday scare. It is significantly different from the older forecasts in that there are so many theories about its origin that it is getting increasingly difficult to pinpoint one of them as the most authentic source!

Films made on the same themes such as Apocalypto and 2012 lend credence to this fear in all humans. Films such as these can sometimes lend to the creation of a mass hysteria, although they definitely do not give origin to such theories. But it’s safe to say that discussion and reviews of these movies on online forums makes others aware of these last day scenarios.

For people who do believe in the 2012 Doomsday Scenario, the Earth will cease to exist, the sun will finally blow out, massive meteors will strike the planet or the humans will resort to nuclear annihilation of an entire race. (Well, at least we’re glad that nothing serious will take place. ) The possibilities are immense and their are actually many true believers in such doomsday scenarios…but will in fact anything bad happen to the world in 2012?

Zecharia Sitchin's Book, "The End of Days"

Some people trace the start of the current Doomsday Trend to Zecharia Sitchin, who wrote extensively about the ancient Sumerian culture. Through his books he propagated that the ancient Sumerians knew of a small planet Nibiru. This is said to have a highly elliptical path around the sun. During the course of its revolution it would collide with Earth on December 21, 2012, the beginning of winter solstice. Sitchin introduced these concepts for the first time in his book The Twelfth Planet (1976).

Nancy Lieder and her book.

Nancy Lieder, the founder of the website “ZetaTalk”, carried forward the discussion of a planet Nibiru and called it the Planet X. The original doomsday according to her was to fall in May 2003. She later modified the prediction date of the apocalypse to 2012 to coincide with the last day of Mayan Long Count Calendar.

But, in the case of Nancy Leider, we’re talking about someone who has experienced contact with the following types of extraterrestrials:

Greek God: Described as humanoid, but “… made Arnold Schwartzeneger look like a 97 pound weakling”

Chicken Man: Described as looking “… just like a flesh-colored chicken without feathers.”

Tiny Man: “…stood about a foot tall, and was flesh colored with a rounded head and short limbs.”

Horned Toad Man: Described as being about 4 feet tall, wearing clothing, with skin covered large flexible plates similar to turtle shell.

Broom Stick Man: Described as “the very tall and skinny alien from Close Encounters”

Little Green Man: Less than 4 feet tall, skinny, green with a round head.

Slinky Man: Short, with stretchy neck, arms, and legs, “like slinkys”

Swamp Creature: A green version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon

Octopus Man: A body and tentacles like an octopus.

Bean Bag Man: A green blob with 2 eyes and a mouth in a round head, body surrounded by about 50 small claws.

Cockroach Man: A large, gray, bipedal cockroach.

Amoebae Man: A light green semi-liquid being with “no form or distinction”.

Vampire Man: 4 feet tall, stubby arms and legs, with two large tusks coming down from the face.

Dino Man: A small T. Rex, no taller than a large man.

Just sayin’

Many others believe that the 2012 Doomsday Myth began during the early part of 16th century in Europe. The first references of a Mayan leader was made by Christopher Columbus and this triggered interest in the Mayan culture. This is how the world was introduced to this apocalypse theory. However, what the Mayans predicted was perhaps the beginning of a new era or cycle after nearly 5125 years. Some others then interpret this as the end of the world that as we know it.

The most popular name associated with the Mayas and their “end of the world” foretelling is Jose Arguelles. A renowned scholar, he dwelt extensively on art and aesthetics and authored a book called The Mayan Factor: Path beyond Technology. It deals with all the aspects of Mayan calculations of time and the end of this world scenario. The book was well researched and found a few ardent supporters.

Today with the omnipresence of the internet, these views get spread like wildfire and unwittingly people are drawn into its circle (not to be confused with our NEW circles clock, please check it out!!!). As of late, there has been a mushrooming of sites that carry these predictions to a wide cross section of people. Each site adds its own versions and interpretations and embellishes it with countless other myths and conspiracy theories to spin a new idea. In the end, at most of these sites, the original stories get obfuscated and it gets increasingly difficult to trace back the beginnings of these theories.

Since the year of the predicted apocalypse has arrived, the different propagandists have become more and more vocal. Today it is most likely that an average person would have heard of the 2012 Doomsday Prophecy, either through the network of friends or colleagues. This is a hotly discussed topic this year. Blame it on the internet or the propensity of people to believe in doom prophecies of all kinds.

Nothing scares people more than the unpredictability of future events. The anxiety of the uncertain and the unknown drives a number of myths and prophecies around. With the passage of time, these assume gigantic proportions and it gets difficult to separate the fact from fiction.

Nostradamus, the most famous harbinger of dooms has possibly had nothing to do with this years prediction. However, he continues to be dragged into this controversy by over enthusiastic believers. He probably, for once, had nothing to do directly with the 2012 forecast but some continue to credit him with these predictions too.

The origins of the 2012 Doomsday Scare are at best ascribed to long dead scribes or to longer-dead cultures. These are prone to different analysis by different adherents of such theories. The exact date of the start of these prophecies is thus very difficult to ascertain and continue to dodge a reliable answer.

We at OnlineClock.net are saddened to see that so many people apparently believe that the apocalypse will take place in 2012. Our Doomsday Countdown Timer is intended to be fun, campy entertainment – nothing more!

The worst part of it all is that this fixation our culture is having on the 2012 Doomsday Prophecy is diverting all of our intention from the real danger.

Here of course, we’re referring to the arrival of the impending Zombie Apocalypse.

Origins Of The 2012 Doomsday Scare is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Time Boxing: What The Heck Is It?

Online Clock — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 09:15:28 PDT

What is Time Boxing?

Spending too much time on a given task can take a big bite out of anyone’s day. Some of us are perfectionists who will look at every single option or possibility before making a decision. Others may be faced with tasks that are so large they can’t decide where to begin. Also, there are always tasks that we would like to complete, but we can’t. They simply take too much time to get done. If you have ever fallen into any of the aforementioned categories, there is a time management technique that can help you. This technique is known as time boxing.

Defining Time Boxing

A time box is a fixed period of time that is established to accomplish a task. The date is usually set in stone and does not change. When time boxing is utilized in project management, a team estimates the scope of the task, and then they estimate how much of the scope can be accomplished within the time frame. This way, the project comes in on the scheduled date without fail. The scope of the project can be reduced accordingly, but the deadline never changes. The deadline is one of the most important aspects of time boxing. Many of us want to finish a task within a certain time, but we refuse to change the scope of the task to facilitate its completion.

Who Invented Time Boxing?

The first person to use the term time boxing was Scott Shultz of DuPont. It was introduced as part of his Rapid Iterative Production Prototyping project. This was a precursor to the Rapid Application Development. Later, software developers incorporated the time boxing technique to meet deadlines for specific projects that were time sensitive. For instance, computer games are usually promised to be on the retail shelves by a certain date. For developers who use time boxing, delivering by that date is a certainty. They may not be able to deliver every feature that they had imagined, but the development of the game will be complete. This way, they can never disappoint all of the avid gamers that anxiously look forward to the release of a new game.

The Advantages of Time Boxing

There may be several things that compete for your time. At any given moment, you may have numerous outstanding tasks that you need to complete. Time boxing can help you to focus on doing things that matter the most. It will assist you in realizing how much time you are spending on an open-ended task. The fixed time constraints can be an effective tool against procrastination. Time boxing can allow you to work on things during the free gaps of time you have between your commitments and responsibilities.

Some of you have the day filled with varied tasks. For others, the days are relatively unstructured. No matter how full your calendar is, everyone has null time. This refers to gaps of time between commitments when waiting on something or when experiencing bits of free time.

Using the Time Boxing Technique

You can choose to use your null time effectively. You can work on a relatively simple task that you know can be done within a short time. If you only have ten minutes, that might be just enough time to clear your email box or return a phone call. If you have 30 minutes, you can organize something you have been meaning to straighten out. There are many ways to use null time. The focus is getting things done within the designated time period. It doesn’t matter if you can’t do them to perfection. Completing the task is the goal.

Time boxing is one of the most commonly used time management techniques. This technique involves the separation of larger tasks from smaller tasks. If you choose to explore the possibility of using time boxing to manage your time, you must first choose a few tasks. After that, decide how long these tasks will take to complete. Once the number of tasks and designated times are worked out, set a timer at the beginning of each task. When each time period expires, you must stop. Then you can rest or get involved in another activity.

When using the time boxing method, every task that needs to be completed is approached individually with preset time frames. If there are remaining tasks to be completed after one timed attempt at each task, the process is restarted.

Additional Reasons to Use Time Boxing

By using time boxing, you will avoid missing windows of opportunity. Time really is a limited resource. If you don’t think of it this way, you will end up doing too little too late. If you feel like you spend all of your free time in one area of your day, you should try time boxing to manage your time.

You can use time boxes to cut a problem down to size. This will work well if you have a daunting task that seems too big for you to handle. Time boxes are a realistic way to handle these tasks. You can also use a time box to show how you are progressing. Rather than using all or nothing ways of thinking, use time boxing to make small progressions.

Many people have the problem of task switching. They get involved in completing a task, and they lose focus. Giving yourself a dedicated time to focus on a task will help you to avoid switching tasks. This method helps you to stay engaged during each task. If you find that you are wandering too much, cut your time box down a bit.

The time box technique will help you fine tune your results. Using a time box will also help you identify areas that need improvement. This can refine your approach to completing tasks. For instance, if you are not getting very much done in the allotted time frame, try a different approach. This will tune your efficiency and effectiveness. You might learn several ways to approach a task in the process. This fine tuning can help you to complete future projects that require a different approach.

With the time boxing technique, tasks are taken on one at a time by presetting the time periods. If any tasks remain after one attempt, the process is started again. This is a great method because there is a reward aspect that is built into the time boxing technique.

Other Time Management Techniques

There are several methods of time management that can be used to increase productivity. Time boxing is the most popular technique; however, the Pareto analysis and the POSEC methods are two other methods that can be used to focus on building good habits that will encourage a better use of time.

The Pareto Analysis

The Pareto Analysis is a statistical method used in decision making. It is used to select a limited number of tasks that will produce a significant overall effect. This analysis employs the Pareto Principle. The Pareto Principle is also known as the 80/20 rule. The idea of this principle is that by completing 20 percent of the work, you can benefit from 80 percent of the results. In areas of quality control or improvement, a majority of problems are experienced by just a few causes. This is known as the vital few versus the trivial many.

An example of a Pareto Chart.

The 80/20 rule can apply to just about anything. It is quite a different approach of time management than time boxing. Time boxing cuts out unnecessary or unproductive actions by adjusting your approach. The Pareto Analysis just cuts down on tasks in order to make a decision.

POSEC Time Management

POSEC is an acronym meaning to prioritize, organize, streamline, economize and contribute. This particular method dictates a general template that emphasizes an average person’s emotional and monetary security. By attending to personal responsibilities first, they can do a better job of handling collective responsibilities. This method is not as effective as time boxing. It is based on a prioritization rather than a looming deadline. This method can also be used along with time boxing.

The "Eisenhower Matrix" used in the POSEC Method of Time Management.

If you have problems with prioritizing in your life, combining the two methods can be beneficial.

The method operates by a sort of hierarchy of needs much like Abraham Maslow’s theory. The POSEC method has also been used in cloud computing.

Imagine the Possibilities

If you decide to use a time management technique like time boxing, you will find that it organizes your life in many ways. This method highlights an area of learning called metacognition. The term metacognition is defined as the ability to think about your thinking. This is the part of time boxing that allows you to change your approach to a problem rather than continuing to approach it in ways that are eating up way too much of your time.

Imagine how much work you can do in a given block of time. Time boxing is a great tool to make incremental progress on tasks that you can’t seem to complete. Time boxing will allow you to spend time on the things that you have been meaning to accomplish.

Time boxing can boost your ego (what ego, you ask?!). It can make you feel as though you are accomplishing something, and it can improve your reputation with friends and family. You can finally get to those things you have been promising your friends or loved ones that you would handle. Make a time box for them, and you can get these things done. Imagine how good that would make you feel!

Online Clock can help you do Time Management like a Box...errr, BOSS !

If you are thinking of experimenting with the time boxing technique, the free time tools offered by OnlineClock.net can help.

For time boxing methods, we especially recommend the use of our Countdown Timer and our Online Timer…or whatever Online Clock tool you prefer.

Just pick a task. Pick a deadline. Set your target date and time on one of our many time tools…and you’re ready to rock !

It’s that simple.

Time Boxing: What The Heck Is It? is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Six of the World’s Strangest Sleeping Bags

Online Clock — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 02:19:45 PDT

Though we really enjoy discussing time related topics, we thought we would blog about something a bit different this week.

We have decided to feature strange sleeping bags for your entertainment. Lots of us like to go camping, and these bags will surely stir up a good laugh among your campground friends!

The Great Sleeping Bear Sleeping Bag

For those of you who like to sleep "bear naked"... (sorry for that!)

The artist who designed this sleeping bag was inspired by a 2006 news story in Bavaria. Apparently, a bear escaped from the Italian side of the Alps and wound up on the Bavarian side. He was known as a problem bear because he was the first wild bear to show up on the Bavarian side in 170 years. He caused quite a stir, and lots of people had huge discussions about him. Area residents and the government met to discuss the problem bear. They talked about killing the bear for safety reasons. After some back and forth over the issue, they decided to hunt him down. The artistic creator had a great interest in the tragic story of the bear. The bear generated many ideas and emotions from the people of the area.

The artist wanted to make an object with the realistic look of a bear that was also a sleeping bag. He did this because he wanted to highlight the fantasies about wild animals as our friends. At the same time, he wanted to show the realities of nature. In essence, he was showcasing the big furry creature and our fantasies about them not matching reality. The reality is that they could easily swallow humans for dinner. Taking this into account, there is an additional use for the bag besides just sleeping in it. Just think about being out there in the woods. You are sleeping soundly, and a bear suddenly approaches. The bear may think that you are already being eaten, and he is too late! However, there is a more alarming perception that the bear may have. What if he thought you were a nice looking girl bear? It’s a scary thought. Let’s shake off that thought and move on to the next strange sleeping bag.

The Anatomical Sleeping Bag

Hmmm, wouldn't this be like promoting yourself as a BUFFET for any wildlife passing by?

This sleeping bag displays human organs. This one would be great to use at a Halloween sleepover. It looks just like a human would look without skin. We know this is a gross thought, but it is a fact. Come to think of it, it might be what you would look like if the above referenced bear got a hold of you. This sleeping bag would be great if it had a sound feature. Imagine if each time you moved around the bag made slushy noises. You really can sleep your guts out in this sleeping bag.

Another thought that comes to mind is how much more muscular it makes you look in the sleeping bag. Everyone can finally look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is one exception; you won’t have any buff skin. Maybe the male readers out there can finally attract the attention of that special woman they have been trying to impress. There’s nothing more attractive than a skinless muscular man! She is sure to look your way if you slide inside of this sleeping bag for the evening.

The Cadaver Sleeping Bag

Any budding medical examiners in the audience? Coroner, can I get a time of death for this John Doe, please?

Speaking of body bags, this sleeping bag is really creepy. It looks like an actual body bag with a picture of an autopsied human on the front. The torso is complete with the stitched Y-shaped incision. The picture of the cadaver features the bloodless skin color that appears after we die. This one is seriously sick and will no doubt frighten your camping buddies. The upside is that they may start to believe that you have a great future as a mortician. Well, maybe that isn’t an upside.

This bag may not be a good choice if you intend on sleeping alone. Whoever might wander into the area while you are sleeping might call the morgue. This may be how the term dead asleep got started. We wouldn’t recommend that you use this bag in the presence of your mom. She will seriously start to worry about you. She might even start to think that this sleeping bag could be the gateway to the Goth lifestyle for you. Even worse, she might think that you are fantasizing about sleeping in the cemetery or even the city morgue. Save this one for Halloween night, folks.

The Pizza Sleeping Bag

Is that a piece of vegetable, or are you just happy to see me ?!

This sleeping bag is handmade. The stuffing is made from recycled quilts, and the fabric is dyed to resemble cheese and pizza sauce. The lining is constructed of satin for comfort. The bag comes with optional pillows made to look like a piece of broccoli, an olive, a pepperoni and a mushroom. This bag is quite original and is made to order by a budding designer from Philadelphia. This young designer sells the bags on the Etsy shopping website. If you like pizza, this is the ultimate sleeping bag for you. Now you can satisfy your cravings while you sleep!

This creative designer will also sew the toppings on the top of the bag for a small fee. Additionally, if you have an idea for your own preferred topping, she is accepting feedback. Maybe she could throw in a little bacon pillow or an extra cheese quilt? With such a creative design, there are many ideas that can be tagged on to your slice of heaven. Sleep off those midnight munchies by ordering an extra broccoli pillow. This pizza sleeping bag is also vegetarian-friendly. For the meat lovers out there, our suggestion would be to ask for some extra pepperoni.

Chum Buddy 2 Sleeping Bag

Now it's time to sleep with the fishes, hehehe...

This sleeping bag is self-explanatory. You will be the chum. This bag went through a rather interesting metamorphosis. Originally, the bag looked much like a stuffed toy. It was bulky and didn’t function as a practical sleeping bag. After some redesigning, the new version is more functional. If you slide inside of this bag, you will look like you are being eaten by a shark as you sleep. You are sure to garner a few giggles with this sleeping bag. It’s too bad you can’t take this one to the beach without it getting it full of sand. It would work well camping down by the lake. It could be quite funny to pose in different ways while using it. Sleeping in it head first is one of the funny ways to use this bag. A little ketchup and a funny face can be a good prank on the campgrounds with this amusing bag. This blood thirsty buddy is handmade by the designer. Just think, if you use this bag, you will be sleeping with the fishes!

Cocoon Sleeping Bag

Hanging from trees, the Cocoon Sleeping Bag looks like something from the movie "Avatar".

Are you tired of not being able to hang from a tree or limb while sleeping? Take your camping experience to the trees and show off your brand new cocoon sleeping bag to your camping buddies! Shaped more like a raindrop than a cocoon, this neat little invention gives you a better sense of what it’s like to omit the ground as a part of your sleeping experience. This bag is very interesting. This bag has a latch that acts as a support system. You can attach the latch to your favorite tree limb.

Sleeping in this insulated cocoon is quite different from most other sleeping bags. It requires a hunched over position while you sit inside of the bag. It’s not exactly the best sleeping bag for windy nights. You really experience the feeling of hanging every time you have to toss and turn in this kooky cocoon. Not many people fantasize about swinging from trees, but if you want to monkey around with this one, it sounds like an interesting experience. It does a good job protecting you from the elements; however, you should be certain that there are no primates in the area. They might not like the fact that you are hanging around their tree.

We hope you have enjoyed our showcase of some of the world’s strangest sleeping bags!

We enjoyed featuring them as a fun way to sleep when a bed is not an option.

Here at OnlineClock.net, we like having fun talking about sleeping as well as waking up. It’s easy to set one of our alarms to wake you up in the morning. We will always here to start your day off at precisely the right time.

Six of the World’s Strangest Sleeping Bags is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

The Online Alarm Clock Turns Six Years Old

Online Clock — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 04:10:20 PDT

No, ladies and germs, Twitter is not the only website that has a big six year birthday this year.

On March 24th, Online Clock will have been online for a full six years and this blog post is a celebration of those six years and a bit of a look back at the highlights in Online Clock’s history up to now.

When you read about the highlights of OnlineClock.net being online for six years, please keep in mind: we’re not accountants and we don’t work in a bank…so some of the exact dates are pretty hazy. We hope that our approximations are accurate…

This year, at least for the months of January and February, Online Clock reached a real milestone in its history. According to Google Analytics, we had more than 3 million unique visitors to our site in each month! That’s a lot…and kind of puts us in the serious leagues, at least as far as traffic is concerned.

The One-Man Online Clock Army

How many of you reading this, or how many users of our various online clocks, realize that it’s really a labor of love done entirely by ONE PERSON ? I think it’s safe to say that it’s pretty unusual, for a site with the popularity of OnlineClock.net, that it’s all still being run by a single dude.

My name’s Tom, and I created the site as a hobby project while working as a web developer. You know: you learn HTML, you learn JavaScript and PHP, etc… what do you DO with those skills? Well, I came up with the idea for a website that would act like an alarm clock…and you would use it in your web browser. To the best of my knowledge, OnlineClock.net truly was the first and original online alarm clock! Prior to us, there simply weren’t any websites like it.

The original version of Online Clock: it was strange & kind of lame, but it was a great idea from the start!

Soon after we launched, however, there came a flood of imitators…

Today you can find literally dozens of “online alarm clock” websites. All we can do is hope that the word will get out there that we are the originals, and that all these other sites are just attempting to jump on the gravy train. What you do with that knowledge is of course your own business.

When we say that Online Clock is a labor of love, we really mean that. Sure, we earn a bit of money from advertising on our site. But we still have our day job…and aren’t even looking forward to a future when the site can be a full-time job.

Why?

By keeping our online alarm clock website a hobby, we remain free to literally do whatever the heck we feel like with the website. My rent and other bills are paid by my job. If I were to stop working and just try to live from the website, it would probably force me to monetize it much more than it is presently.

I like the site the way it now is: it has a minimum of advertising. I can’t promise that it’ll always stay that way…but part of me hopes so.

How many of you are able to create something that you really, really like…and then have it be used by literally millions and millions of people, and have it be self-sustainable? Well, I guess I’ve done exactly that with the creation of the original online alarm clock.

Online Clock Hardcore Logo

Do any of you remember all those hardcore punk bands that existed throughout the United States in the early eighties? They made their music. Some of them made records. Some of them even toured. But did they do all that in order to make a profit? No…the idea of getting “big” didn’t even enter into the equation. They were just trying to do what they WANTED TO DO.

I can relate.

Now, before I get all teary-eyed on you, I thought it’d be cool to try to create a rough timeline regarding the important highlights of Online Clock‘s six year existence.

Highlights from the First Six Years of the Original Online Alarm Clock:

March 24, 2006: Went online with the first version
March 28, 2006: The first blog writes about us! (Thanks guys)
September 7, 2006: Mentioned on Lifehacker
September 26, 2006: Made it to the front page of Digg !
September, 2006: Our original web hoster “kicks us off” of their web servers because we get too much traffic. Time for a dedicated server!
May, 2007: Created our Countdown Timer
January, 2007: Created our Online Stopwatch
November, 2007: The web hoster of our dedicated server FAILS big-time, and I’m required to switch web hosters while on vacation in the Canary Islands (using WiFi in hotel lobby!)
July, 2008: Joined Twitter
August 2nd, 2008: The owner of a competitor website threatened me with the Serbian Mafia (true story!…I have the email to prove it & proper authorities have been notified)
October 14, 2008: Published our first blog post on The Alarm Clock Blog
December 9, 2008: Joined Facebook
February, 2009: Joined YouTube
June, 2009: Created our Online Timer
September, 2009: Online Clock invents the world’s first web-browser based version of a Clock Radio (our PR Release on this came much later)
January, 2010: Created our Video Clock that lets you use almost any YouTube video as your alarm sound
February, 2010: OnlineClock.net moves to a Cloud Web Hosting environment to ensure maximum up-time and stability
June 10th, 2010: Online Clock is mentioned in a New York Times article
January, 2012: For the first time Online Clock has more than 3 million unique visitors in one month
February, 2012: Online Clock launches the world’s first online sleep sound generator alarm clock
March, 2012: Online Clock begins using a CDN, or content delivery network to deliver its images faster & more efficiently

When reading through these points you might have noticed that we were once forced to switch web hosters while on vacation. There I was, in the vacation paradise of Lanzarote on the Canary Islands, and the hotels there are lucky to have WiFi internet in the lobby (almost never in the hotel rooms themselves). So I was forced to spend about 24 hours non-stop on the hotel lobby’s sofa, uploading and testing OnlineClock.net on a new web server while the sun blazed outside and my girlfriend asked herself why she couldn’t have a boyfriend with a normal hobby.

Lanazarote: a beautiful place to switch web hosters from a hotel lobby sofa!

In truth, we have been through probably more than a dozen different web hosting companies. We started on a cheap shared server environment. When we made it to the front page of Digg.com (way back when that site was a big deal), our web server crashed repeatedly under the weight of the massive traffic .

Subsequently, our first web hoster kicked us off of their servers.

Digg, your better days may be behind you, but you helped give us our start and we LOVE you for it!

What you may not realize, when you sign up for a web hosting service, is that these companies reserve the right to simply kick you off of their servers if you get “too much traffic”. This means that, once your site gets popular, you can be prepared to have server problems and issues regarding finding a high-performance web hoster.

But these web hosting problems didn’t end once we’d switched to a “high end” dedicated Linux/Apache server, either…we ended up getting kicked off of many of these, with the reasoning being that the web hosters simply weren’t capable of running their servers effectively under so much traffic. (Usually, having too many concurrent users on Apache seemed to bring them down.) Of course, we also ended up switching web hosters voluntarily, once we discovered that some of these servers occasionally went down.

This was all pretty surprising, considering that our website is truly “lightweight”, consisting of mega-simple HTML, CSS and client-side JavaScript…I mean, you can understand this kind of thing happening to some complex, database-driven website…but to our simple online alarm clock, c’mon already, web hosters!

In our list of highlights, you might’ve also noticed that a competitor of ours once threatened us with the Mafia. This is an incredibly weird story, but it’s true! We still have the email to prove it…and it had me looking over my shoulder for some time, carrying a weapon.

A friend of mine is an ex-cop and I immediately asked for his advice on this. There is of course no way of knowing if the person who made this threat was serious…or if it was just an empty threat. Suffice it to say that…should I disappear, all of the people who know me will be immediately contacting the police, informing them about the email I received from this person (yeah, we know where YOU live also, you jerk). THAT has to be one of the most bizarre anecdotes in the entire history of Online Clock.

Don't like Online Clock? Then why not threaten to have its creator's legs broken?

If I were asked to come up with some useful advice for other budding web developers or Web 2.0 entrepreneurs out there, it would be the following…

Online Clock’s Advice To Burgeoning Web 2.0 Entrepreneurs

Make a SIMPLE website. People like simplicity. There is too much clutter in this world, and too much feature glut on the web.
Never register your domain name via your web hoster. Always use a separate domain Registrar, so you can switch hosters whenever needed.
Always carry around a full and recent backup of your site on your hard-drive, so you can quickly switch hosters whenever needed.
Consider developing your site from the very beginning on a cloud hoster.
Use Apache servers. We also HIGHLY recommend the wonderful LAMP platform.
Don’t even bother getting involved in this business unless you LOVE doing it. Getting a financial payoff is NOT EASY, and you must be prepared to put tons and tons of work into your projects that will probably never be remunerated.
Make a nice site that people will like and then become involved in social media.
Keep your day job (really…consider doing it as a hobby, just because you love doing it).

Well, there you have it, folks, a wrap up of the first six years of the original online alarm clock website.

To our competitors out there, or to anyone else considering creating yet another online alarm clock website…have fun. If you think you’re going to get rich and famous, then there’s a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to sell you…real cheap.

But, before we go…do you like our website…and do you find our various free online time tools useful?

Then there is one way you can reward us.

If you have a blog…please write about us. Contact us via this page to get any background information or images you may need. We’re also very happy to provide interviews.

If you are on Facebook or Twitter (and who is NOT on Facebook or Twitter these days?!), then please follow us or give our site a mention (our username on both sites is “OnlineClock“).

We don’t ask for anything more and we hope to be online for many, many years to come!

For those of you about to CLOCK (in the next six years and beyond) – we salute you !!!

The Online Alarm Clock Turns Six Years Old is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

The Cool Watch Sculptures of Dominic Wilcox

Online Clock — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:58:56 PDT

An artist by the name of Dominic Wilcox has caught our attention here at OnlineClock.net.

He has created tiny time-based sculptures using a series of vintage watches and model figures. He attached these tiny figures to the second and minute hands of the watches to form works of art.

These are really cool pieces of art that make people think. Just watching them operate causes most of us to stop and think about the messages they might convey to each one of us. Wilcox has created unique, animated scenes from his observations of life, and from both the imagined and real situations portrayed in his art.

Who Is Dominic Wilcox?

Dominic Wilcox is a British based designer who makes unique and innovative pieces of art, drawings and installations. His art has been on exhibit and published worldwide. Wilcox received a degree in Visual Communications at Edinburgh College of Art. He then lived for a period of time in Japan. He later received an MA degree at the Royal College of Art. Since 2002, Wilcox has been working on his own projects as well as major art and design commissions. He has been commissioned to work with Nike, Vipp and Esquire. In 2009, he began a Webby award nominated ideas site called Variations on Normal, where he places his sketchbook ideas and observations. He is always experimenting with new work and ideas.

According to Wilcox, he spends most of his time attempting to reveal hidden surprises that are embedded within the everyday things that surround each of us. Wilcox’s true interest is in certain areas of contemporary art, craft, and design. His work moves between different areas of creative expression. Some of his ideas are derived from observations of human behavior. He expresses them through the objects he creates. Below, we highlight a few pieces of Dominic Wilcox’s art depicted as depicted on clocks and watches.

Love & Protest by Dominc Wilcox

Love and Protest

As previously mentioned, Wilcox’s watch sculptures can be described as ideas he has derived from observing human behavior. For instance, in a time of many protests around the world, Wilcox sees individuals who are surrounded by the police while peacefully protesting as victims of armed repression. In the face of such repression, he characterizes the love between a soldier and a protester through a kiss. Wilcox fashioned two tiny figures of these two on the sweeping second hand of a stopwatch which is encased in very small glass dome.

UC Davis, 2011

Wilcox has spoken out about his opinions on peaceful protesters and how they have been recently treated. After watching protesters at UC Davis in 2011, he was disturbed. He is very unsettled when he sees people in positions of power abusing their power. To Wilcox, those who abuse their power lose all sense of humanity. He was very shocked to see footage of the pepper spraying of the UC Davis students sitting in a peaceful protest. He felt a need to capture the incident through his art.

Captured, 2011

Cameras and three people photographing and videotaping are portrayed on this piece. Wilcox reveals through this work that we are all being photographed nearly everywhere we go. Many cities have cameras on nearly every busy corner and everyone is being captured on tape for various reasons (especially in the UK, where he is from!). This piece makes us think about that. Just about everyone has a video camera on their phone. Many of us are captured on tape without even realizing it. This work by Wilcox is another glass domed stopwatch piece that shows people being videotaped while videotaping one another. It is an ironic piece of art. When think about it, everyone is watching you while you are watching them. Privacy can no longer be assumed.

Comfortably Oblivious, 2011

This work depicts two people who fail to give up their seat while an old woman with bags and a cane is walking around and around. Under the dome of this stopwatch, those interpreting this work of art will probably see the obvious. The people sitting are so into themselves that an old woman who can barely walk is being ignored while they are oblivious to her very presence. Obviously, it’s a statement on our selfishness as a society, and how unkind we have inadvertently become to those among us who are in need.

The Beautiful Game, 2011

This work is about the footballers who are into the monetary value of the game and consider that as their trophy. This piece depicts a footballer holding up the British pound symbol as three females compete for his attention. The message in this one is obvious. Sports have become all about the money and attention, and no longer for the love of the sport itself.

Many of Wilcox’s earlier works were also exhibited in London. The following pieces were put on display at Dezeen Space in Shoreditch, London.

London Looter

A hooded youth is placed on the second hand of a stopwatch. He is carrying a television while a riot policeman passively looks on. Wilcox had to walk across a street near where these riots took place while trying to get home in the evening. He remembers seeing a young boy carrying a television down a back street. He noticed that the police seemed unsure as to how to react, as they held their shields while the boy carried the television. For him, it was a sight he remembered and placed it in his collection of Moments in Time.

Watch Sweeper

This piece is a glass domed wrist watch depicting a man sweeping the numbers and hands of a watch with a broom. He is placed on the sweeping second hand of the watch. It is one of the lighter pieces in which to interpret his art.

The Unrequited Handshake

In this domed stopwatch piece, a man extending his hand in friendship is met with the folded arms of another man in rejection. As the piece goes around and around, one cannot help but think of the many instances when someone tries to befriend another and is rejected.

Adventures of a Young Vegetarian

This piece is depicting a pig with balloons tied to his back and floating up in the air as an older man tries to slice it with a meat cleaver. On the arm of the old man is a young boy hanging in the balance. This one is pretty obvious in nature. The boy is trying to save the pig from slaughter. This is the plight of many vegetarians.

Hide ‘n’ Seek

A girl with pigtails hides behind a tree as a boy searches for her in a game of hide and seek. This is another light-hearted work of art that is fun to look at, and to remember the games of childhood. For a lot of us, our childhoods are not that many years behind us. This piece brings us back to those times of innocence, and to the joy of playing with our friends.

The Sitting Man

This is another wristwatch piece that depicts a man sitting while going around and around on the hands of the watch, passing briefly over a chair. When looking at this piece, it makes one think that the act of thinking is time consuming. Time literally passes by while you watch the unending thought of the sitting man.

A Man and His iPhone

This domed stopwatch piece shows a man so engrossed in his iPhone that he is oblivious to everything going on around him. We all see this on a daily basis. Wilcox depicts this situation in an ironic way. On the hands of a domed stopwatch, he depicts a man staring into his phone. Simultaneously, a woman is passing by. The woman is shown holding up a boy lifting weights on her arm while balancing a monkey on his head. This is quite funny as you contemplate the meaning of Wilcox’s art.

The art of Dominic Wilcox’s Moments in Time make us think about things happening all around us each day. He has been thoughtful enough to display some of these time moments by the use of design and sculpture. It is obvious that Wilcox’s art is derived mostly through the observation of events. Some of them are real and some are imagined. It is as if some of his work is encapsulated for future analysis. If it’s not, it probably will be.

You can find pictures of his time art as well as many of his other works on his website. He is truly a talented man with much to say through the implications of his art. Some of his work has been placed for sale on his website. His time pieces are sold through the gallery Phillips de Pury & Company.

Here at OnlineClock.net, we appreciate the talent and the dedication it took to create Wilcox’s Moments in Time. We wish him continued success through his work with the art of time.

The Cool Watch Sculptures of Dominic Wilcox is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Early Traces of Online Clock

Online Clock — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 04:29:07 PST

On March 24, 2012, Online Clock will celebrate it’s sixth year of being online.

In the internet world, six years is quite a long time, and we thought it’d be fun to begin reminiscing about how we got here (to the point where we have about 3 million unique users each month), and to explore some of the early influences on what would later became the world’s original Online Alarm Clock website.

For those of you who don’t know already, Online Clock is a one-man show. The guy who developed and created it is the guy who is writing this blog post. Just about 100% of the code that’s on the website was written by me (in my old HomeSite HTML editor). It’s cool having a larger, more popular website that you can run by yourself, but it’s also a lot of work. Typically, I don’t go on vacations without being sure that there’s WLAN for my notebook. (This is not always so popular with my girlfriend :/ And it’s not always so easy when you don’t have anyone who can take over for you when you feel like taking a break from the site.)

Because Online Clock is a one-guy kind of website, its history and the things that influenced its creation are going to have a lot to do with me, personally…so I apologize in advance if this is not the kind of thing you want to read…but there you have it.

Growing up, I was the third son in our family…there were no sisters, only brothers. All of my brothers were interested in sports and cars and I was kind of the odd one, always more interested in sketching monsters and in creating things from bits of colored paper and the typical hobby paraphernalia that creative kids like to play around with. I had a kit that I’d created especially for making monster puppets.

Forrest J. Ackerman (in the middle!), creator of the original Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

At this point you’ve already heard me mention monsters twice…and, it’s true: monsters have always been a huge influence on myself and, in some way, on Online Clock. I was fascinated by Forrest J. Ackerman‘s Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, which my parents indulgently bought for me…as well as comics. Some of my best memories revolve around staying up late to see the late, late horror film that was presented on Friday nights in our small town in Wisconsin. The horror film had a “horror host” introducing it…similar to Elvira…except that this one’s name was Alexander and he was supposed to be an actual vampire. Suffice it to say that:

Monsters = cool.

Monster films = always happen at night. (Hence, the black background that you’ll always find by default on all of our Online Alarm Clocks.)

Morgus The Magnificient: Horror Film Host, Mad Scientist

Later on I moved around a lot, and discovered that just about every place had its own version of a horror host. Elvira was cool, but so was Zacharly in the New York area. My personal favorite was Morgus the Magnificient, who was actually a mad scientist / horror host who ran on Saturday afternoon TV in Manhattan when I later lived there. In between showing the movie, Morgus worked on some ill-fated mad scientist experiment in his lab.

Ray Harryhausen is a genius stop-motion animator of horror movies, and Famous Monsters of Filmland frequently featured articles on him. I loved all of his work (and I still do, actually) and couldn’t read enough about his techniques for making films. If you saw the Clash of the Titans film not too long ago, well, it was actually a remake and Ray Harryhausen had created the original film…which is actually much better!

A little later when we moved to Arkansas I enjoyed taking part, as a child actor, in various theater pieces at the University of Arkansas, and here it was cool to play minor roles in stage versions of The Hobbit and Peter Pan. In Junior High School I developed more of an interest in backstage stuff, working as the “special effects creator” for a version of A Christmas Carol, in which I had to make a small bell levitate in the air using invisible fishing lure.

If you ask me, all computer programmers are “special effects creators“!

So naturally, with such a strong interest in monster movies, I began trying to make my own, later on in school. Showing an extremely geeky interest in the minutiae of the horror film business and monsters on the whole helped me later get a full scholarship to a pretty cool exclusive prep school…

I was at prep school that I discovered punk rock, which was like monsters for the ears (really).

Punk rock, in the late 70s, was truly shocking at first, which is hard to believe in this day and age of punk being a fashion trend that you can buy at the fashion mall. The cool thing about punk rock was that many of these bands (if not most of them!) simply made the kind of music they wanted to make without caring if it’d be commercially successful or not. Bingo! That kind of hit home back in the time of progressive seventies arena rock!

One time, while waiting for the El train in Chicago, I saw a dude with a big safety pin pierced through his cheek. This was probably back in 1980, before anyone knew that “piercings” are supposedly a cool way to be trendy. And back then, if you wore black jeans…people thought you were getting ready for a funeral. People just did not wear black back then, except for punk rockers and funeral attendees. (Oh man, I would kill to have a record store as cool as the Chicago Wax Trax was back then!)

(Bleep!) Christmas by FEAR: One of the first punk records I ever bought.

What also was very cool with punk rock was its simplicity and minimalism. The guitar solos were suddenly gone and the tunes were cut short and to the point. And, because of this, they were tons more interesting than the long, droning, self-indulgent rock being played on the radio.

Simplicity and minimalism: that sounds like Online Clock again, right there…

I’ll never forget the first time I heard the song “Body Bag” by The Effigies played on the Bobby Skafish‘s Big Beat radio show in Chicago where I then lived. “What the HECK is this?!,” I thought, because unlike all of the music on radio (then AND now), it was not designed to lull its listeners into a la-la-la “everything’s all right with the world” kind of mood. No, instead, this was music designed to show the world in its full awfulness, and to wake us up out of our complacency.

Later at the University of Colorado (go Buffs!) I choose to follow my heart and study English instead of doing something more practical like getting a Business Degree. Books just interested me, and so it seemed cool to make reading good books the focal point of college. But just about everyone has to work…and for me, the question was, once I’d graduated, “what the heck do I DO with my English degree?!”

I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. I didn’t want to go to law school. So I thought, what the heck, I’ll become a famous advertising copywriter.

Though I gave it my best shot, it didn’t happen (advertising is a brutal business), so I eventually drifted into computer programming. And moving to Berlin.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Early Traces of Online Clock is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.

Should The Leap Second Go Take A Leap?

Online Clock — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 05:59:53 PST

Did you know that the world actually runs on two separate clocks? One is the atomic clock which is defined by the precision of electrons hopping around in atoms. The other is the traditional notion of a rotating Earth. These two schools of thought are at the very base of the argument of whether or not to keep the leap second. Everyone has heard of a leap year, but have you ever heard of a leap second?

Defining a Leap Second

Following the work of Louis Essen in the 1950s, the leap second was implemented in 1972. A leap second is one second, measured by atomic clocks which are added or taken away from Coordinated Universal Time, or the UTC. When the leap second is added or subtracted, it then agrees with the astronomical time within 0.9 seconds. It compensates for the slowing down of the Earth’s rotation and is exercised during the months of June or December.

Leap seconds are usually inserted as an additional second after 23:59:59 UTC. The extra second is the 61st second of the very last minute of the month. It is then written as 23:59:60 pm. If you use a 12 hour format, the time will read 11:59:60 pm.

The leap second is inserted at the same time worldwide. The actual time will therefore depend on your particular time zone. Only regions in the UTC time zone will add the second just before the stroke of midnight. For time zones that are east of the UTC, the leap second is added the next day. For time zones that are west of the UTC, the leap second is added earlier on the same day as the UTC. We know that may sound confusing, but it is exactly how our clocks are kept in synchronization.

Knowing When a Leap Second is Needed

We know whether or not a leap second is needed because someone actually declares that we need it. The IERS, which is the International Earth Rotations and Reference System Service, observes the rotation of the Earth and about six months in advance. Based on that observation, a message is sent out which reports whether or not to add the leap second at the end of June and December. The IERS schedules the leap second when needed. This keeps the difference between the atomic clocks and Earth’s rotation to below the 0.9 seconds that we mentioned earlier in this post.

Although knowing the reason why a leap second may or may not be needed makes perfect sense, there is a raging debate on whether or not to keep the leap second. Continuing to keep time with the Earth’s rotation seems sane, doesn’t it? To some, it is far from sane. In fact, some believe that it may be the craziest thing ever.

Abandoning the Leap Second: Arguments for and Against It

Approximately 700 representatives from nearly 70 nations will meet in Geneva to decide whether or not to abolish the leap second. The U.S. is the major supporter for abolishing the leap second. They insist that the addition of leap seconds, if botched or perhaps overlooked, could cause major problems if the world’s electronic systems depending on the exact time do not agree with one another. These electronic systems include computer networks, air traffic control systems, cellular networks and financial trading markets.

Doing away with the leap second will remove one source of a possible epic failure of the entire world’s computer networks. Geoff Chester, a representative of the United States Naval Observatory, the primary timekeeper for the U.S., says that the leap second will become a problem if it isn’t taken into account.

This sounds very serious doesn’t it? Examining what Geoff Chester said, it is pretty funny. He is stating that someone may forget to add the second and poof! The system breaks down. This is admitting that there may be future buffoons maintaining major electronic networks. Without resorting to cynicism, he has a point. Someone could forget to add the second. The result is chaos within any of the systems, and no one wants that. Here at OnlineClock.net, we want all computers to work, as well as planes, stock markets and cell phones. After all, it is in our best interests .

However, Britain, China and Canada do not agree with abolishing the leap second. They say that they want to keep the leap second, arguing that there have been absolutely no problems with inserting the leap second thus far. The most recent addition of the leap second was in 2008 and it did not pose a problem. The nations supporting Britain’s position insist that the worries over potential disasters associated with the leap second are greatly exaggerated.

"So, uhhh, if I turn this doohickey to the right, we GET a second, right ?!"

Do you recall the Y2K fear? If you weren’t aware of Y2K (or “The Millenium bug”), it was based on the fact that the dates on nearly all existing computers extended to December 31, 1999. There was a major fear that the world’s computers would fail and everyone would experience utter chaos because of having to adjust the dates on computers to the year 2000 and beyond. In fact, nothing happened. It was all an exaggerated scenario. People lined the streets in little tin foil hats on the eve of that particular New Year. Some of them were joking; unfortunately, others were serious and their little tin foil hats were real. Nevertheless, Britain does have a good point of contention based on past unfounded hysteria.

Defenders of keeping the leap second would like to keep it because they believe that the notion of time has something to do with the rising as well as the setting of the sun. If the leap second is abolished, the astronomical definition of time will rise from the dictation by the world’s atomic clocks. This will amount to a couple of thousandths of a second each day. These thousandths of seconds will manifest themselves into over a minute during a century. Someday, perhaps as far as 100,000 years from now, noon will occur at sunrise! Wow, now that is a strange thought, isn’t it? What they may not have considered during this future scenario is that time will change gradually; the future generations will consider noon at sunrise to be a normal thing, wouldn’t they? If you are thinking to yourself that it’s not normal, that’s because to us it is not normal to experience noon at sunrise. However, the next time you speak to a psychology major ask them to define normal for you. They are likely going to tell you that normal is a very subjective term which is decided by societies that vary among different civilizations and eras. Right now, noon at sunrise is weird; 100,000 years from now it could be considered to be normal.

Astronomers are very leery of the change. They maintain that if a software-guided telescope isn’t pointed in the proper direction, it might not capture the correct image, and updating the software could be a sizable task.

A Modern Problem

The problem of keeping or abolishing the leap second is a modern one. Only a few centuries ago, watches were set by the town clock tower, and time in each town was distinctly different from the next. This posed little to no problems because there wasn’t a need or even an ability to communicate with anyone else in the world. However, railroads changed that completely. There was suddenly a need to set time schedules that agreed throughout the countries. This is what led to the creation of time zones. But the length of what we know as a day and a second remained tied the actual rotation of the Earth.

An appointed group of experts at the International Telecommunications Union began the discussion over the leap second approximately eight years ago. They could not come to an agreement as to whether to keep or get rid of the leap second. The U.S. and Britain have been arguing over the years on this issue.

Discussions continue between the U.S. and Britain, and there is some hope of an agreement. If it is necessary, the elimination of the leap second would be voted on by of all of the delegates. In a poll that was conducted by the International Telecommunications Union last year, only 16 nations actually had an opinion on the matter. Thirteen delegates wanted to abolish the leap second; three wanted to keep it.

Before the meeting of the International Telecommunications Union, support for the British position was increased by briefing the other representatives around the world. These briefing explained Britain’s arguments in order to best understand and vote on whether to abolish the leap second.

Official Logo of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)

Probable Outcome

Future talks will focus on a better understanding of the larger social implications of the change. Hopefully, a decision that everyone agrees on can be reached. For now, the leap second will continue to be added into the timescale. This is because the ITU has put off a decision until 2015! So the next leap second will be at midnight, June 30th of this year.

When you think about it, it is kind of funny that we are arguing over a second. It seems trivial until you delve into what could happen if we forget. Lots of us would like to keep computers continuously working and to wake up at noon. This train of thought would dictate that we throw out the idea of a leap second. Many older people would disagree. People get up early and eat lunch at noon. Keeping the leap second will keep sunrise at dawn and noon when the sun is overhead, just as it has always been.

What do you think? Is it a plausible idea that time does not have to agree with the thought of when dawn or noon should be? The decision actually boils down to atomic time or astronomic time. We have discussed these types of time measurements at length on this blog. It is a matter of preference, but the leap second debate is a matter of possible disaster and a weird future according to generations past.

OnlineClock.net will continue to provide you with the precise time, which will include the leap second. We will also keep you apprised of any new decisions regarding the leap second. After all, time and its precisely measured seconds are at the base of our existence; you can count on us!

Should The Leap Second Go Take A Leap? is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.