Finished wiring up the clock, and it seems to go fine. The video is pretty boring, I know, but I had to have some evidence of how I spent the past few weeks. :-) The tubes do have uneven brightness: the third one seems to have a blackened grill, and is dimmer even though it has a smaller anode resistor. The fourth also has a smaller anode resistor, making it a bit brighter than the first two.
Apart from some fiddly soldering with a fat wedge tip, this came together fairly easily. The next thing to do is sort out the software, rig up a case and see if Andrew T will part with another ts7260. I've yet to try out John Taylor's power supply, and am hoping I can run the whole show off the 5v the ts7260 is supposed to pump on the LCD port.
As for numeral systems, the answer is a big no — there are heaps of natural-language numeral systems in common use, even now.
Another Gene Tierney, and doesn't the colour film just love her. The plot is a bit too this-is-my-life to get excited about, though there are a few set pieces I found funny. I'm guessing they lifted those directly from the stage play. The Age of Innocence this is not.
Late-afternoon snorkel at Little Bay. Beyond the rocks the surf was quite rough, and indeed visibility was poor and I didn't see much. I had a group of tiny fish follow me around the bay, which they've done before when I've been there with Rob.