Can you tell me what time it is?
When you were a kid you learned about the big hand, the small hand, etc...,
by now it seems obvious,
but it isn't.
Why do minutes have sixty seconds?, and days twenty-four hours?,
mostly to divide time in convenient groups,
but there are other ways.
Can you read the time here?:
... sure you can, seconds, minutes and hours.
That was easy, what about this?:
The seconds are grouped into tens of seconds and leftover seconds, the minutes the same.
Why would anybody want to read the time like that?.
It looks complicated, but stay with me.
Can you now tell the time here?:
What about this one?.
Can you tell where are the hours, minutes and seconds?:
That one had no AM/PM indicator.
In this version the last of the "hour" blocks is used as an AM/PM indicator
and the seconds are moved down to the corner (they look tiny!):
Another version, without AM/PM, tens of seconds or leftover seconds.
It is a real life wristwatch and and is made by Eleeno:
Can you handle more than two colors?,
the strings can be grouped in quartets:
or in decades:
Not only colors, but any kind of shape can carry meaning:
The following shapes are quite well known:
The point of the story is that ...
Information can be encoded in any way imaginable,
while maintaining its meaning.
And that the way can become the message,
specially in Japan.