Utahn. Dad & Husband. Likes camping, music, trivia, law.

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  • 28 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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    1. Yes, some extreme shocks can harm mechanical watches.
    2. No, I don’t know how much. I’m sure there are some people out there who’ve done some sort of calculations. But I feel like what we see and hear are just estimates, speculation, anectodal bias, or other shoddy evidence (maybe check Watchuseek). Just like the Reddit pic you sent – it shows beat up gears from a chronograph with a warning about golfing. Down the post, the OP says he’s a watchmaker and that watch came in from someone who claimed that they wore it playing golf. But guess what? There was also rust on the parts. The OP said “oh, that was due to a bad seal, not related to shock”. So how are we supposed to believe OP’s opinion that the teeth were damaged due to shock but that other evidence of damage was due to a separate cause, that ALSO didn’t cause or contribute to the teeth and gear damage? Shoddy arguments to me. And sports watches were made to be worn while doing sports–they were worn that way before the advent of modern quartz watches and G-Shocks. But of course they’re probably not the ideal watch to wear, since we have quartz watches that can deal with shock better.
    3. Yes, modern watches have some form of shock protection. How much really does depend on the watch.
    4. Would I wear a mechanical watch while biking? I guess it depends. It depends on the quality of the watch (in some ways, a higher quality sports/dive watch should withhstand shock better, because it’s going to have more shock absorption built in, but on the other hand, if your watch is expensive, are you really going to put it in a risky situation?), it depends on how bad your roads are, really, and it depends on the cost.
    5. Let’s just say this-- I bike commuted for about a year, and I almost always wore a mechanical watch. I went over potholes, and all of my watches survived. BUT, (a) I mostly wear dive-style watches, even to work, and (b) none of my watches cost more than $1000. So I’m willing to take those risks.

    TL;dr-- yes, shocks might cause harm to mechanical watches. The amount of shock that can cause harm, and the risk of harm, are hard to calculate. Whether you decide to wear a mechanical watch while biking is a decision you have to make based upon your risk tolerance.













  • There’s a joke about attracting people who like working pipes and experiencing organs that I’m sure you’ve told a thousand times… Though I don’t know a ton about pipe organ-only music outside of the common Bach stuff, my favorite classical piece is Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony, and I really like Percy Grainger’s “The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart” (though the more I learn about him, the more I’m not sure I can like Percy Grainger…). I’ll subscribe! Good luck with your community!




  • I’m glad you’re coming clean. I kinda hope that you go back and delete the fake stories, or at least make clear they’re works of fiction.

    Why?

    Because people are stupid. They hear an urban legend about a psycopath putting razor blades in apples and all of a sudden no one can have anything but individually wrapped candy during halloween. People overemphasize anectodes to establish political views or actually make policy changes. Academics troll reddit for evidence to support theories. And “news” “reporters” pull stuff from Reddit and report it, often as fact. If it implicates criminal activity or child abuse, that might cause authorities to get involved needlessly.

    Maybe your stories aren’t such that they would impact policies, or change political views, or impact lives. I’m sure some of it is just harmless fun (though, when I’d participate in forums like AITA with fake posts, it sure did annoyme), and to some extent, people should be smarter about responding to shitposts. “Throwaway because my friends know my main account” should be a big, red flag. And I’m glad you got to work on your writing skill and voice. I hope you can use it productively in the future, and I wish you the best of luck. (But think about deleting or editing your posts!)




  • He was processed in New York, too. I’m going to guess that he’s going to go through this process at least once more (in Georgia). I don’t think he’ll need to be fingerprinted and processed again if there are other federal charges while these are pending, but charges related to Jan. 6 might change his bail or conditions of release.