Brad Hollerbach is the Director of Information Technology for the Southeast Missourian. His opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the newspaper or its editorial board. He writes this blog primarily for his own amusement and to parody the absurdities of the world we live in. He lives with his wife and two cats that don't really care for one another in Cape.

Ticked Off At Modern Technology

Posted Thursday, November 18, 2010, at 12:00 AM

I caught the end of an episode of Antiques Roadshow on PBS not long ago. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, it highlights unusual treasures that people bring to the show for free appraisals. The hour-long show usually culminates with some extra special treasure often worth tens of thousands of dollars.

This episode was true to form. The closing item was a watch that had been owned by the person's grandfather. It was a luxurious, feature-packed timepiece made by the Patek Phillipe company around 1914. The watch not only displayed the time, but the day, date, month and moon-phase as well. It even adjusted for leap year and was a stopwatch.

It was an amazing timepiece and it had an equally amazing value being appraised at a quarter of a million dollars.

I was thinking about this remarkable piece of machinery while recently setting the time on my Sony VCR. It was a nice VCR when we bought it several years ago.

But it can't keep time.

This baffles me.

Modern electronic equipment tells time by ticks where a tick is equivalent to 1 second. Or it is on most electronic equipment.

Apparently on our Sony VCR, a tick is equivalent to about .999976 of a second. That would be close enough for most things to be considered perfect. However, we are talking about a clock and timer and in the course of a month it will lose about a minute. That's not a good thing if you are trying to record a program.

Of course, I shouldn't have to worry about the accuracy of the ticks on our VCR since there are two options for setting the time -- manual and automatic. Theoretically, automatic pulls the correct time and date from the cable TV provider.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work on our VCR either.

I guess it would be one thing if this VCR were one of those off-off-brands like the ones you see for sale in grocery stores right before Christmas or at flea markets any time of the year and if the box it came in spelled Sony with two Ns rather than one.

If that had been the case, I could understand the timing mechanism not being perfect.

But it didn't. It came from a very reputable local big-box store and the box clearly spelled out Sony with one N.

This VCR is certainly making me consider replacing it with a DVR, one that hopefully comes with a timing mechanism crafted by Patek Phillipe.

For any trivia buffs, this is The Irony Of It All blog's second anniversary and the 299th episode.

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While we're complaining about television related things I've got a bone to pick with the networks. Even if the clock on your recorder kept perfect time it would still be difficult to set the recording timer because the cable networks no longer start and end programing on the hour. Sometimes shows start about 90 seconds early and sometimes they start a little late. My favorite show, Sons Of Anarchy on FX, comes on a bit late for my work schedule so I record it for later viewing on my DVD recorder that works exactly like a VCR. I have to set it to come on a couple of minutes early to make sure I don't miss any of the start and a couple of minutes longer in case it runs over. Why in the heck do they do that?

-- Posted by Data48 on Thu, Nov 18, 2010, at 5:42 AM
Brad, be prepared to face one of the great truisms of life. Electronic things are engineered and designed to confuse and aggravate every adult but not children. Otherwise nothing works as it logically shoould. Plus those damnable little buttons not made for American fingers.

-- Posted by voyager on Thu, Nov 18, 2010, at 8:31 AM
Brad - Consider yourself so very fortunate to only lose a minute. On the morning of daylight savings I set all clocks, electronic equipment, appliances, phones, etc to exactly the time. Just two weeks later, both alarm clocks show a differential of 6 minutes, the stove is 3 minutes slow, both my phone and my wife's phone (same phone, same carrier)differ by 4 minutes. No clock in the house (5 total) is in sync. The microwave is the primary offender, now being 11 minutes fast. But, the DVR an DVD recorder and a 20 year old VCR all show the same time. So I consider myself blessed in that area. Still haven't figured out how to reset the clock in the car - may have to take Rick's advice and use electrical tape.

-- Posted by ParkerDaws on Thu, Nov 18, 2010, at 8:59 AM
Buy a new car everytime we change the clocks...or read the manual.

-- Posted by Professor_Bubba on Thu, Nov 18, 2010, at 9:05 AM
You one-upped me there, Parker. My other clocks seem to keep time. I agree with you about the clocks in cars.

The time setting controls are so buried and often so convoluted it makes it virtually impossible to set the clock...

Pump the gas 3 times, hit the horn once, then after holding down the tuner knob on the radio for five seconds, you can set the time using the volume control... **** engineers!

Clock setting in cars is anything but intuitive these days (with or without the manual, professor bubba!)

Thanks for reading.

-- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Thu, Nov 18, 2010, at 2:32 PM
A friend has two Toyotas and showed me that Toyotas have buttons right next to the display that are marked H and M. Takes 2 seconds to change the time. That will be my next car brand!

-- Posted by ParkerDaws on Fri, Nov 19, 2010, at 6:39 AM
Not me, Parker. No Japanese junque. I buy German like in Porsche 911 Carrera GTS. Now if only I could figure out how to afford it.

-- Posted by voyager on Mon, Nov 22, 2010, at 9:47 AM

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