Windy Knob and other Technical Terms

Pos at Niagaran Pebbles has a new car that tells him how much mileage he is getting on a constant, if not real-time, basis. He also has a digital/analog watch that is schizophrenic. The digital readout is accurate; but, the analog mechanism stops counting if the windy knob is pulled out. Don’t complain to me, that’s his technical description.

For anyone with time on their hands, here’s a site that will tell you about each and every part of a mechanical watch: Timezone.com. And it shows you drawings of the parts. For those of you more time pressed, the windy knob is composed of two parts, the crown and the stem.

As it turns out, until now I didn’t know what analog meant. You’ll note above that Pos described his watch as a combination of digital and analog. I referred to the traditional watch part as mechanical. It is but it’s also analog as it measures time continuously, rather than in “snapshots” as does a digital watch. So, if when Pos pulls out the windy knob, the analog mechanism becomes non-continuous and quits counting time, is it then digital? (Digital: adj. Describes any system based on discontinuous data or events.) If you want more and more serious, go here. Isn’t learning fun?