Nice job. The Pong one was a nice touch where the ball traveled within a second from each paddle. I also enjoyed the interactive fiction game clock. It doesn’t really have much to do with time, but I still appreciated how the little descriptions changed over time.
Looking through all of these, you can definitely start to see patterns in themes. For example, it’s a clock but in a different language. Or it’s a clock but wrapped around a classic game - I think I saw Nine Men's Morris, Mancala and Scrabble among others.
I made the Chamber of Clocks [1] about half a year back which is a set of 12 different clockwork visualizations that I came up with so I was curious (and a bit trepidatious) when I saw this post. I was rather relieved to see that Opus 5.5 left to its own devices didn't create a single thing that resembled any of the ones I came up with.
The closest might be the Ctesibian water clock, but mine is significantly more elaborate, modeled as a 3D physical water wheel.
There’s another one I’ve seen floating around on HN — the Triclock [2] — which is particularly nice as well and worth checking out!
I agree that Claude did tend to repeat certain themes. If someone wanted to extend the gallery to the thousands of clocks while maintaining the variety, they would probably need to seed the model with some original ideas. (Whether those ideas could come from a model or would need human taste is an interesting question.)
Also, Claude’s realizations of some of its ideas are a bit rough. If I wanted to create a standalone widget for a clock I particularly liked, I would spend more time with Claude (or another model) refining and polishing it first.
Nevertheless, considering that nearly all the ideas came from Opus and all the graphics are created with pure code, I remain impressed with what it was able to do.
I was interested in seeing how many different ideas Opus could come up with with minimal direction from me. I don’t plan to use any of those clocks myself.
There really is a cheapness to the designs I can't quite put my finger on. Even if you had told me a human made them, I'd still assume the designs are knockoffs of something better.
Many (most?) things are rendered without image files.
I think it's the overall flattened look, use of overly simplistic gradients, bland fonts, animations that feel dead, etc. The lack of details all adds up to feeling cheap. It's not any one of them in particular, nor something I'd be able to advise on. That needs a human designer. It doesn't take much sophistication to notice it, though.
Yes, I as noted at the top of the README, Claude wrote it all. Excerpts from my prompt to it: “Please compose a markdown file that I can put in the README.md for the repository explaining how this page was created and how it is structured (including how the images are generated).... Be clear that all of the coding and writing was done by Claude Opus 5.5.... Make the explanations plain and straightforward, with no boosting or bragging.”
It’s cool, but i think the actual use case of this, if someone is wasting your time you can share the 500 clocks and they can choose whatever they like to understand how important time is.
Nice job. The Pong one was a nice touch where the ball traveled within a second from each paddle. I also enjoyed the interactive fiction game clock. It doesn’t really have much to do with time, but I still appreciated how the little descriptions changed over time.
Looking through all of these, you can definitely start to see patterns in themes. For example, it’s a clock but in a different language. Or it’s a clock but wrapped around a classic game - I think I saw Nine Men's Morris, Mancala and Scrabble among others.
I made the Chamber of Clocks [1] about half a year back which is a set of 12 different clockwork visualizations that I came up with so I was curious (and a bit trepidatious) when I saw this post. I was rather relieved to see that Opus 5.5 left to its own devices didn't create a single thing that resembled any of the ones I came up with.
The closest might be the Ctesibian water clock, but mine is significantly more elaborate, modeled as a 3D physical water wheel.
There’s another one I’ve seen floating around on HN — the Triclock [2] — which is particularly nice as well and worth checking out!
[1] - https://clocks.specr.net
[2] - https://triclock.franzai.com
Very nice! I particularly like that pi clock.
I agree that Claude did tend to repeat certain themes. If someone wanted to extend the gallery to the thousands of clocks while maintaining the variety, they would probably need to seed the model with some original ideas. (Whether those ideas could come from a model or would need human taste is an interesting question.)
Also, Claude’s realizations of some of its ideas are a bit rough. If I wanted to create a standalone widget for a clock I particularly liked, I would spend more time with Claude (or another model) refining and polishing it first.
Nevertheless, considering that nearly all the ideas came from Opus and all the graphics are created with pure code, I remain impressed with what it was able to do.
80% of these are hideous. Why choose 500 instead of whittling it down a bit but having the quality bar a bit higher?
Your 20% will be different to each of our 20%. So the OP did the right thing, freedom of choice by 500.
I was interested in seeing how many different ideas Opus could come up with with minimal direction from me. I don’t plan to use any of those clocks myself.
There really is a cheapness to the designs I can't quite put my finger on. Even if you had told me a human made them, I'd still assume the designs are knockoffs of something better.
That “cheapness” is because the designs are created programmatically in JavaScript, with no image files used.
Many (most?) things are rendered without image files.
I think it's the overall flattened look, use of overly simplistic gradients, bland fonts, animations that feel dead, etc. The lack of details all adds up to feeling cheap. It's not any one of them in particular, nor something I'd be able to advise on. That needs a human designer. It doesn't take much sophistication to notice it, though.
Claude’s summary of the prompting process and page design is here:
Was the README written by Claude too? I was expecting the usual Claudish, but it looks far more like normal human English.
and a helper library U
Perhaps Utility library would fit the name better.
Yes, I as noted at the top of the README, Claude wrote it all. Excerpts from my prompt to it: “Please compose a markdown file that I can put in the README.md for the repository explaining how this page was created and how it is structured (including how the images are generated).... Be clear that all of the coding and writing was done by Claude Opus 5.5.... Make the explanations plain and straightforward, with no boosting or bragging.”
Gosh, these are so enticing yet such a let down.
For example, the Lorenz Attractor which, apparently, doesn't have anything to do with the clock.
490,000–670,000 tokens each session a bit much, no?
Yes, I got carried away. It used a big chunk of my Max subscription tokens for this week.
“Some die of thirst while others drown“ - MM
Once again, impressed by Opus 5.5 for a job well done. How much did this cost you?
A significant proportion of my Max subscription for this week. In the README, Claude estimates a total of about 15 million tokens.
It’s cool, but i think the actual use case of this, if someone is wasting your time you can share the 500 clocks and they can choose whatever they like to understand how important time is.
Amazing. Thanks for sharing.
this was almost interesting
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