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Let's take a moment to remember the guy who made sure we don't have to change Every Goddamn Clock today, David L. Mills, creator of Network Time Protocol (NTP) who passed last year.

My wristwatch is synced to my phone, which is synced to the internet, which knows that time it is right now thanks to David Mills. Cheers to his memory 🥃

cse.engin.umich.edu/stories/re

Computer Science and EngineeringRemembering alum David Mills, who brought the internet into perfect timeMills created the Network Time Protocol, which enables any device online to know precisely what time it is.

@jjcelery "Of course, it would be impractical to have all clocks on the planet synchronize directly with an atomic clock."

In the early '90s I worked with a guy whose dad worked at Intel. The guy I worked with wore a watch that would periodically sync itself to an atomic clock signal. My impression was that it did it by connecting to a cell service but thinking about it now if that's how it did it, its range must have been really limited given the tech of the day.

At any rate I don't think they were commercially produced, but there was a time when there was at least one demonstration product that embraced the impractical approach.

@theotherbrook @jjcelery
It probably used a Long Wave radio signal. Most digital wall and desk clocks (with sync) use the same standard.

@dec23k @jjcelery Yeah, that makes sense.

Maybe I should have thought of that at the time, since I'd previously spent a week in the field with my geologist father trying to use a device that purported to map subterranean metal deposits by triangulating off VLF stations used for submarine navigation. We could only get tuned to two stations though so in the end we just did some good ol' rod and chain surveying. I had some familiarity with the stuff being broadcast at those frequencies but I wasn't as curious about that watch as I would have been just a couple years later.