[Hales] has been on a mission for a while to make his own diodes and put them to use and now he’s succeeded with diodes made of sodium bicarbonate and water, aluminum tape and soldered copper.

Few mechanical clocks are silent, and many find the sounds they make pleasant. But the stately ticking of an old grandfather clock or the soothing sound of a wind-up alarm clock on the nightstand ...

A common display found on digital watches and readouts that looks like a series of 8s. Each digit is formed by selective illumination of from one to seven separately addressable segments.