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  • sunclock command

    From Russell L. Harris@3:633/10 to All on Monday, February 09, 2026 06:10:01
    Sunclock would be useful to me, but after reading the man page, I am overwhelmed. The man page gives no example commands.

    I would like the map to show at least the times and major cities.
    That would help me coordinate work with an associate in the
    Netherlands.

    Would someone here who uses sunclock be so kind as to share with me a
    basic startup command?

    RLH

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Will Mengarini@3:633/10 to All on Monday, February 09, 2026 13:00:01
    * Russell L. Harris <russell@rlharris.org> [26-02/09=Mo 04:54 +0000]:
    Sunclock would be useful to me [...].

    I would like the map to show at least the times
    and major cities. That would help me coordinate
    work with an associate in the Netherlands.

    A much simpler approach might be the
    command "TZ=Europe/Amsterdam date".

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From David Wright@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, February 10, 2026 04:10:01
    On Mon 09 Feb 2026 at 03:50:37 (-0800), Will Mengarini wrote:
    * Russell L. Harris <russell@rlharris.org> [26-02/09=Mo 04:54 +0000]:
    Sunclock would be useful to me [...].

    I would like the map to show at least the times
    and major cities. That would help me coordinate
    work with an associate in the Netherlands.

    A much simpler approach might be the
    command "TZ=Europe/Amsterdam date".
    I run two clocks in the topright corner of the screen:
    xclock -strftime "%a %d"
    swisswatch -name swisswatch -title localanalogue -noshape
    On my laptop, I add another swisswatch when needed:
    TZ=Europe/London swisswatch -name swisswatch -title altanalogue -noshape Xresources makes them small and fvwm, my Window Manager, places them
    so they overlap, thereby eliminating or occluding the title bars.
    Cheers,
    David.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Russell L. Harris@3:633/10 to All on Tuesday, February 10, 2026 05:00:01
    Thanks, David.

    I live not far from Austin, Texas, but I keep all my computer clocks
    set to GMT, which is close enough to the Netherlands.

    But seeing the shadow move across the globe gives a better feel for
    how much time is available for a comfortable interface with the other
    guy across the globe. I hate to awaken him in the middle of the
    night.

    Regrettably, nowadays, many people use their smartphone for email and
    get a notification of incoming mail 24 hours a day.

    I am old enough to remember the time before the "smartphone" when a
    great advantage of email was that you could send or answer a message
    at your convenience -- even 3 am in the morning -- witn no need to
    worry about waking someone.

    My mail goes to my desktop machine; I try to check it once a day.

    And I am old enough to remember the day when, for the big city (urban
    Houston), the U.S. Post Office had morning and afternoon mail delivery.

    RLH

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From David Wright@3:633/10 to All on Monday, February 16, 2026 06:30:01
    On Tue 10 Feb 2026 at 03:52:09 (+0000), Russell L. Harris wrote:
    I live not far from Austin, Texas, but I keep all my computer clocks
    set to GMT, which is close enough to the Netherlands.

    But seeing the shadow move across the globe gives a better feel for
    how much time is available for a comfortable interface with the other
    guy across the globe. I hate to awaken him in the middle of the
    night.

    If you want to see a globe, xplanet might be a better package.
    Austin and the Netherlands are quite far apart, so you could
    start it with the Lat/Long of a point midway between, which
    would show both places nearer the centre.

    I started sunclock with just the command. That displayed a small
    sunclock/clock window with time at the bottom. I clicked the
    window and a sunclock/menu appeared. I clicked around on the
    letters: W displayed a sunclock/map, which is the thing you want.

    The default map showed a selection of cities, and clicking on
    the Paris dot makes it red and displays the time/sunrise/sunset
    at the bottom.

    As you know where Austin is, that's probably good enough for
    a start. Y plots the Sun and Moon if you want them. Z, for the
    Zoom window, is probably pointless for your usage.

    O opens an Option window. Clicking G and ' gives you an animation
    that could be useful for judging how much daytime you have in
    common with your associate. ' and J will stop and reset it.
    Plenty to be playing with.

    I used to run Xearth on Debian (buzz) in the 90's, but just for
    eye-candy and kudos. As for mobiles, people have to take
    responsibility upon themselves for muting them at night if
    that's how they receive their emails.

    Cheers,
    David.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.11
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)