Making Time With the Watchmakers 257
PreacherTom writes "In the age of watches that have more computational power than Apollo 11's computer, one would think that the watchmaker has gone the way of the cobbler, the blacksmith and the Dodo. Quite the contrary. With the rise in interest for mechanical watches (especially luxury models), Rolex has sponsored a new school to train horologists in the arcane art. From the article: 'We were facing a situation today where we needed to foster a new generation of watchmakers,' says Charles Berthiaume, the senior vice-president for technical operations at Rolex and the Technicum's president 'Thirty to 40 years ago, there was a watchmaker at every jewelry store. That's not the case today,' he notes. Included are some remarkable examples of their training, dedication, and intricate patience as they take technology in an entirely different direction."
Definitely a trend .. (Score:4, Funny)
Ok, so... (Score:5, Funny)
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-nB
PreacherTom is an Astroturfer (Score:5, Informative)
Spread the word, perhaps?
Re:PreacherTom is an Astroturfer (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:PreacherTom is an Astroturfer (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the Editors care (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Really? Interesting. (Score:4, Insightful)
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What's screwed up about this is that it's actually an interesting article, but it's not enough for actual USERS to find what's interesting. They've got to lead us to it.
Screw you, BusinessWeek, and screw you, PreacherTom.
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No, not really.
He's what in the "old media" world we would call a "crier." He directs traffic to a given site, by saying how interesting it is. The fact that a given article actually is interesting should not be based in any way on who submits it -- be it a bored geek or a profit-seeking crier.
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So are you saying "No, not really: there is no such thing as astroturfing" or "No, not really: I know PreacherTom, and he's neither a paid shill or a figm
PreacherTom is not an astroturfer (Score:3, Interesting)
Whatever you want to call it it is very different than what is popularly recognize
Re:PreacherTom is a BizWeak Astroturfer (Score:2, Interesting)
BusinessWeak magazine? Come on, it is tabloid business journalism at its lamest; entertaining yes, informative sometimes, but rarely if you want in depth information about the topics it purports to cover. I have an MBA and while I could cite some monthly business periodicals in the papers I wrote for classes, Businessweek was rarely one of them.
The WSJ is much better, more accurate, and more insightful and has far more interesting articles in an
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So...he links to BusinessWeek and presumably makes some money doing so. This is somehow morally reprehensible? I really don't care where the stories come from, as long as they are interesting (i.e. News for nerds, stuff that matters). I have no problems if he manages to eke out of living submitting stories from BuisnessWeek, just like I have no problems with Slashdot making money from this website.
Now, if stories submitted by this guy
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And if he is working for Business week and being paid to do this, so what? Slashdot has editors and -they- are the filter/gate through which all articles must pass. If they don't approve it, it doesn't get posted. This isn't a site like digg where just anyone can post an
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This is from a shill. Check out the link. (Score:4, Informative)
Wishful thinking (Score:4, Funny)
Like "reliability"? Count me in!
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I refute your vibrating crystals.
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-nB
Jewler was wrong, I paid $125 for it
-nB
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To stand out from the crowds, you have to do something other people won't do, something dumb, like pierce your tongue or pay thousands for a hand-made wristwatch.
Yeah but.. (Score:2, Insightful)
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Many can't afford their own wares (Score:5, Interesting)
Why? I'd much rather work on nice stuff, even if I personally couldn't afford it, rather than work with cheap stuff.
Think about it, would you rather work in a shop turning out finely crafted watches you couldn't afford, or be on an assembly line cranking out plastic watches for Wal-Mart buyers?
I regularly write software that I can't afford, but I enjoy it, and it's a nice living.
What would really suck is working to create a product that you need but can't afford.
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Re:Yeah but.. (Score:4, Informative)
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Most of us can say something that sounds very similar, but doesn't mean the same thing at all.
Sylar (Score:4, Funny)
Well, just make sure they don't develop telekinesis and go on a power-hungry killing spree.
Seems appropriate (Score:3, Interesting)
- Albert Einstein
Today's WSJ had an article on the swiss industry (Score:2, Informative)
WSJ article at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116674321288757160
Swiss Watches Strike Export Record
Surging Demand for Luxury Lines Has Makers
Like Richemont Thinking About Capacity
By MARTIN GELNAR
December 22, 2006; Page B2
ZURICH -- Swiss watch exports hit a record in November, suggesting that big watchmakers such as Swatch Group
And together with luxury... (Score:2)
With extremely aggressive marketing.
Unfortunately.
I wonder, couldn't Rolex sue for trademark infringement or damaging brand reputation or something? These spammers make me loathe the name.
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Who still uses watches? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I'm pondering some 'integration' again - pick a watch with some other handy functionalities. Any suggestions?
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You don't have to go electronic to get extra features. In mechanical watches, these are called "complications." Just look for a watch with multiple complications, such as stop watch, day, date, week, month, year, moon phases, perpetual calendar, etc.
But be warned, when you get a quality watch with more than a few complications, you will be paying major money. The Patek Philippe Calibre 89 has 33
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My watch of choice is a quartz plastic Timex, with a nylon band. It's darn near indestructible (esp. with the nylon, rather than crappy leather or uncomfortable metal bands), pretty damn cheap, yet it has a huge face with analog hands. The only other thing I'd accept on a watch is a calendar, which I still need to fiddle with every other month, and only tole
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:5, Insightful)
The sorts of guys who wear suits as fashion statements are very likely to wear a watch as well. It's not so much about knowing what time it is as about wearing something pretty (and expensive) on your wrist. Your tie and your watch are the most expressive things you're allowed to wear.
Hey, I don't make the rules. I just talk about 'em. Me, I stopped wearing a watch years before I acquired a cell phone, and I don't wear any jewelry at all.
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:4, Funny)
May I introduce you to our range of nipple, penis and scrotum rings? I mean, who would know?
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That weird guy down the hall, who always has to pick the urinal right next to me...
Re:Who still uses watches? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't forget the men who wear those very expensive trophy wives on their arms.
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A short while ago I found out watches are more than utilitarian once I actually got a good one. Since I started wearing my Tissot, I couldn't conceive of wearing a Timex again. It's comfortable and I genuinely enjoy wearing it.
Moreover, I'd like to echo a point I saw in another response; it's a PITA to look for a clock, dig for a cell phone and wake it up, or check the computer monitor. It's just convenient to have the time on my wrist.
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Yes, because it's handy when you have to take a pulse, among other things. Especially on a house call. I guess I could always slap my pulse oximeter on the patients' fingers and get their pulse THAT way, but I'm just old fashioned. Plus there are other things (dysrythmias, respiratory rate etc) a watch is useful for.
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Since when do doctors still do house calls?
-b.
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_I_ do. I'm not in the US though. Price of a house call, about $30
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Hurray for antiques (Score:2)
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I don't know about all Slashdotters, but I sure do. It's just easier, as others have pointed out, to simply look at your wrist to check the time instead of trying to find your cell phone.
There's also an appeal in having a piece of technology that's functional, isn't prone to errors, and works using age old technology.
In the last decade or so, I've actually taken to collecting watches. Next to computers and stereo equipment, it's my biggest expensive hobby. I have a bea
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Run Linux on a 386 with 4 megs of ram using Elm to check your email, Lynx to browse web pages and have IrcII installed for messaging, and you're closer to the idea. Actually, a 386 might be a little overkill for that.
My watch is more than a watch (Score:2)
For the win!
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"Married" to your hobby, eh? You know, I really can't stand my ex wife, but I wouldn't go as far as to call her a venomous snake.. bah come to think of it, I probably would
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Dude, that looks ginormous and ugly. Instead, why *not* carry a cellphone?
-b.
When I was a kid in the early 60's (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought that was so freaking cool, to work on such tiny things like watches.
I had a Mickey Mouse watch that broke and I got to watch him repair it.
I was inspired by him (and other repairmen) to take stuff apart and see "what makes it tick"..
Another thing that was common when I was a kid, there were handymen repair shops where you took just about anything that was broken and the nice man would fix it. Toasters, vacuum cleaners, TV's, radios, whatever.
That's what I wanted to do when I grew up, be a handyman, to just fix broken stuff.
Now I'm older, have arthritis in my hands, my eyes aren't so good anymore, there's just no way I could do this sort of work anymore. That sucks because that's what I love to do more than anything, fix things, work on stuff..
My favorite TV show is "How it's Made" [discovery.com]
Re:When I was a khttp://vg.no/id in the early 60's (Score:2, Interesting)
This gets rather personal, so I'm ACing it: Be glad that you didn't. My dad worked for IBM for 40+ years. He repaired computers (and before that, typewriters). He started back when you would measure radio tubes for defective bits and replace them, all through the way to replacing defective chips on IC cards.
Today, nobody does that. You're a glorifi
Re:When I was a kid in the early 60's (Score:2)
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Many times, even if you found an expert of the subject, it's just not worth it or he'll conclude "scrap it, buy a new one". Sorry to rain on your parade but it's just not as glorious as it sounds.
There are still a few places where there's room for mechanical craftsmanship. High end Swiss watch repair, obviously. Me, I've been a locksmith for the last 15 years (except for those 2 years when my reserve unit got dragged off to Afghanistan, but that's another story), and I gotta say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Sure, there's all kinds of fancy electronic stuff now, but the majority of it comes down to working with the same kind of mechanical designs they've been making since Li
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insides of complicated watches (Score:2)
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Almost a watchmaker (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was 15 I lived with him to help on the farm since my Great Grandmother moved in with him. I asked for him to take me as an apprectice as a watchmaker (hey I lived there why not and I was good with guns, clocks, etc) besides my bedrrom was the "Watch Room"
He said he wouldnt mind at all and thought I could make short work of it but he warned me he saw no future in it, as all the watches were going electronic and I could probably never make a living at it.
Investing 8 hrs a day for 2+ years and not having it be a viable profession made my mind up , I decided not to
Last year I was in L.A. I REAL WatchMAKER (not watch repair man, hack, etc, but WATCH MAKER, who can from nothing but raw metal make a watch from scratch command UPWARDS of 250,000 a Year.
DOH ! I have my Grandfather last watch he wore every day, a Seiko, he loved it, it never needed cleaned, and kept perfect time.
The article is about as dead on as it gets......I wish I wish I wish......
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It is a truly sad situation today (Score:3, Interesting)
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I was always happy to pay it. Not only did he put in a new battery, but he also checked everything to make sure it's working fine, cleaned it and buffed the crystal. Money well spent.
But it is seriously sad. Not one jewelry store in town will dare to take the back off a Movado, even those who advertise that they repair watches.
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cz
OK, I've got to get into this (Score:2)
I'm not interested in watch making as a profession--I've been thinking of getting into it as a hobby. I've surfed around and looked at some of the tools you need--little lathes and other specialized tools that are hard to find because it's a "dying" art. That's what makes me find it interesting--it's technology, but because it doesn't require a multi-million dollar fabrication facility, it's potentially accessable to a hobbiest. Also, time pieces can be works of art, not just tech. It's funny, I don't e
Re:OK, I've got to get into this (Score:4, Funny)
Don't tell the government this, because you are obviously a terrorist.
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Small enough to fit in a... I know - a WATCH! Soon airlines will ban all timepieces on flights. Remember, it's not the size that counts.
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Haha! that's so ridiculous. If I'm a terrorist I wouldn't spend years learning how to build fine mechanical time pieces. I'd... well... nevermind what I'd do. However, given our current climate of color-coded civil rights violations, it wouldn't surprise me if this hobby put me on the... wait for it... watch list. Oh.... groan. Sorry, but I tried really hard to avoid watch puns in my parent post.
Luxury watches are big business (and fun) (Score:2, Informative)
Sigh.
A similar thing might well happen to analogue electronic engineers I suspect, with everything going digital these days. Why have a filter circuit composed of discrete components when you can program a DSP to do the same thing?
Or maybe not.
Balderdash (Score:2, Insightful)
This is utter nonsense. Jewelry stores had watch repairmen, most capable of no more than cleaning, adjusting, and replacing movements.
Making Time With The Watchmakers? (Score:2)
Arcane Examples (Score:2)
Thirty to 40 years ago, there was a watchmaker at every jewelry store. That's not the case today.
Maybe this [virginia.edu] will help explain why.
The Rolex statement (Score:5, Insightful)
And wearing a Rolex is the only thing I can think of that trumps driving a Jaguar for saying "I'm very rich and very stupid".
The Late Dodo (Score:2)
I was in a room with a Master of the Way of the Dodo.
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He'll have the last laugh when your mobile phone battery dies when you're hiking in B.F.E. BTW - does anyone make a wristwatch that syncs to a time source (cell net or whatever)?
-b.
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The watch I bought from him runs on batteries too. But when it stops, I suppose it will be right twice a day. Except at night in the BFE, when I won't be able to read it.
A lesson in history. (Score:2, Insightful)
Around 1700, it was very rare for a person to own a clock or a watch - something on the order of 1 in 35 prominent white males owned one. By 1800, most cities in New England had clock makers. These clock makers could produce only around a dozen clocks per year and they never did so preemptively. They would wait for an order to be placed and then take their sweet time to produce a clock. There was an old saying about the craft.. "No two clocks tell the same time," i
Video Watch (Score:2)
On it I have my limited MP3 collection and the Black Knight scene from the Holy Grail.
You wouldn't believe how many chicks find this sexy!
Blacksmith? (Score:2)
Aren't Rolex mass-produced? (Score:2)
Watches? (Score:2)
My brother's a watchmaker (Score:4, Informative)
There is such a demand for horologists at the moment it's crazy. Not just for watches, mind, but also for mechanical clocks.
Too many kids are soft courses at uni (art/media etc etc) that we're being left with a dearth of people who have useful skills..
Back to the topic? (Score:3, Interesting)
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Japan), I decided to check the Rolex website for information. It turns out that Rolex is light years ahead of most global companies. They are already embracing a new paradigm: Web 4.0.
Web 4.0 you say? Yes, indeed.
Web 4.0 is retro. The master site for Rolex has no email addresses. None. No email for the headquarters or any office in all their offices flung far throughout the world. No email for you today. It's pure genius. It took me back to my work-a-day world of the 1980s. We used to have businesses back then that managed to survive (and even thrive) without "IT guys." We used to talk on the phone, send letters, send telex or even use those new fancy FAX machines. We could just give the new guy a desk, a phone and some pens.
Think about it for a minute. Which is more frustrating: not being able to fire off an email, or not getting a reply to your email? Or, heaven forbid, a nonsense non-answer or automated "empathy mail like, "We are sincerely interested in your customer service experience and are commited to providing you blah blah blah blah..."
Nip that customer frustration in the bud instead of prolonging the agony of no, or nonsense answers, since you're only going to tell the customer to get lost anyway. The first thing it does for a comapny is eliminate the angst of having to read customer complaints. Who needs that first thing in the morning? It weeds all but the most determined whiners and complainers.
It also eliminates all the IT guys running around without ties having meetings in strange "geekspeak" going frantic about needing the latest version of ComExpRo 9000 version 23.01 beta ($24,000 license fee) and a new Sparkmaster Database Servoserver ($72,000) with 128 Megagoobers of chrome plated exhausts. Or something like that.
No internet. No email. No spam. No security problems. No spyware. No upgrades. No Vista!
And no maps to the office in Tokyo on the web site. If you can afford a Rolex, you shouldn't be sending emails or need maps anyway. Get your secretary to call and get directions. Bingo. If you don't have a secretary, get a casio. No, you should have enough smarts to figure out how to call and get directions.
Off I went to the Tokyo office. It just so happens that I was there about 8 years ago, so I vaguely remembered where it was. It was just a short walk from Tokyo station. Since I'm a guy (internal flawless GPS system installed), I asked my girlfriend to "confirm" my GPS at the station with a random person.
"Oh, the Rolex building? Sure, it's blah, blah, blah..."
It turns out that everyone in Tokyo has been to the Rolex service center since everyone bought several back during the bubble and they all need servicing eventually. I found it easily. I walked directly to the counter after being offered a friendly smile by one of the many friendly-looking counter ladies, only to be handed a plastic tag with a number. I turned around to see about a dozen Rolexers lounging around in leather chairs waiting for their number to be called. All reading Rolex catalogs and Rolex magazines (some were even post Y2K - Rolex had no Y2K problem...). They check your watch as you wait, then present you with an estimate to repair it.
When my number was called, I presented my cold, dead watch to the woman. She was holding it when she asked my if it had stopped. I said something to the effect, "Yes... see?"
She then asked me when it stopped.
Now, this is Japan and all interactions between strangers/customers/gods is formal and exceedingly polite. I formally and politely smiled as I pointed to the watch face and read off the time and date. Grin. Wink.
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Go to bed with a watchmaker, wake up with all your parts rearranged.
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