Show HN: 500 clocks in one 6.3 MB HTML file by Opus 5.5 (tkgally.github.io)
Lately I've been testing frontier models by having them create self-contained web pages that display clocks--sort of my personal version of Simon Willison’s pelican-on-a-bicycle metric.
I have been particularly impressed by the variety, interest, and quality of the clocks created by Claude Opus 5.5. Over the course of several sessions in the Claude chat interface, I had it build a total of 500 clocks.
Claude’s summary of the prompting process and page design is here:
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[ 0.38 ms ] story [ 11.8 ms ] threadLooking 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
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 know a lot of people who are even switching over from using more traditional GenAI (NB / gpt-image / etc.) in favor of driving entire mockups with Opus 5.5. If you give it tool usage like the Blender MCP it gets even more impressive... though in my personal tests the resulting topology can be kind of hit or miss.
For example, the Lorenz Attractor which, apparently, doesn't have anything to do with the clock.
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.
What you like will not be what I like.
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.
The original idea to ask for clocks came from Claude itself. After Opus 5.5 was released, I asked it for ideas for interesting projects to try, and clocks was one of its suggestions. Some of the later prompts included suggested themes, but those came from Opus, too.
The only instructions that originated with me were striving for variety, making the page self-contained, randomizing the display sequence, and putting the clock names and explanations behind mouseovers/clicks. Even the controls at the top of the page were added by Opus on its own initiative.
I wish there were more posts like this on HN showcasing the creative possibilities of AI.