In the grand scheme of things, a single human lifetime is a drop in the bucket. Even if we don’t like to acknowledge it, we all know the meter is running so to speak. Yet you’re still squandering your precious time on this Earth by reading Hackaday instead of doing something constructive. Of course nobody is burning up more time on this site than those of us who are writing it all, so don’t feel too bad.
To remind us that life is fleeting, [Dries Depoorter] has designed the Shortlife: a device that counts down until your expected departure date. Before you get too excited, it can’t predict the future. The gadget is programmed with the vital statistics for the individual user, and data provided by the World Health Organization is used to calculate how much of your estimated life expectancy has already elapsed. Some would find this information depressing, while others will no doubt look at it as a source of inspiration. Us? We just think its a slick piece of gear.
The Shortlife is made up of a custom PCB mounted to a marbled block of recycled plastic. On the board there’s an ATmega328 microcontroller, a MAX7219 LED driver, and of course the red LED segment displays. Three of them are the classic seven count, while the rightmost display sports fourteen segments for a bit of added accuracy. All the user has to do if they want to watch their remaining time slip away is plug the device into a USB power source and set the current time.
We’ve seen similar mortal countdown clocks in the past, but the Shortlife certainly brings a certain level of elegance to the idea. Plus we also like the fact that you’re just a line of code or two away from having the display tick down to some other date in the future when that whole existential crisis kicks in
Will it count borrowed time?
There are two comments about this topic I always considered reliant:
1) Your working life is about 3000 weeks.
2) Life is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer to the end you get, the faster it goes.
“Life is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer to the end you get, the faster it goes.” and even faster when you have a crappy life
Statistically I should have died 7 years ago based on my inherited health condition. For me this clock displays NaN :D
Maybe you are dead but just won’t lay down, you know, like Keith Richards.
Cool project, but what we really need is IDE plugins that display this same data, so we can think twice before starting another “Quick weekend project” that won’t be. Or even better yet, can we integrate this with neofetch for the distro hoppers?
What about displaying system uptime in millimort, the probability that the user would have died of natural causes since the last reboot?
Millimort, Millie and Mort, that covers the two sexes!
Counts down, depression sets in. Then one day it hits zero and… starts counting up! Elation blooms.
I made a similar widget for my Android phone. Instead of displaying percentage of elapsed life till now, it just displays hours until I hit 80.
A lot less depressing, to be very honest.
Very unhealthy clock. It will poison your mind and seed negativity. You might die earlier if you look at this clock too much. It puts a lot of stress in your poor brain.
Agreed! Was thinking exactly the same thing!
I think it depends on the person and their personality. Some people will definitely be depressed and stressed, while others will be motivated to do something with the time they “have left”. Personally I wouldn’t want this clock as I’d be in the former group lol.
Seems like a money grab, there’s no way there is more than about $30-40 in parts in this thing. Yet the price is well in excess of $150
What about clock drift?
See your doctor if it drifts more than 4 hours.