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   Simon Brooke (simon_brooke@mastodon.scot)'s status on Sunday, 06-Jul-2025 01:51:03 JST Simon Brooke

   • Catelyn

   @catgirlQueer @vashti As I myself wrote, years ago,

   "At nanosecond resolution (if I've done my arithmetic right), 128 bits will represent a span of 1 x 10²² years, or much longer than from the big bang to the estimated date of fuel exhaustion of all stars. So I think I'll arbitrarily set an epoch 14Bn years before the UNIX epoch and go with that. The time will be unsigned - there is no time before the big bang."

   So, yes, if you're content with nanosecond resolution...

   https://github.com/simon-brooke/post-scarcity/wiki/cons-space#time

   • Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Poul-Henning Kamp (bsdphk@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 06-Jul-2025 01:51:01 JST Poul-Henning Kamp

     in reply to

     • Catelyn

     @simon_brooke @catgirlQueer @vashti

     Fun fact:

     Until 1972-01-01Z we used rubber-time, because astrometry is not nearly as constant as most people seem to think.

     But it is worse than that.

     We literally have no idea how long nanoseconds took before 1958-01-01Z

     If you go back before observations of solar eclipses, we even barely know how long days took.

     Any epoch before 1972-01-01Z by defintion causes wrong timekeeping.

   • Embed this notice
     Poul-Henning Kamp (bsdphk@fosstodon.org)'s status on Sunday, 06-Jul-2025 01:51:01 JST Poul-Henning Kamp

     in reply to

     • Catelyn

     @simon_brooke @catgirlQueer @vashti

     Also:

     Until we ditch leap-seconds, we cannot predict how many seconds there will be until some timestamp in the future, since that depends on what the director of the Paris Observatory decides twice a year.

     And on top of that, time-zones are political decisions, so even without leap-seconds, it is anyone's guess how long time there is to 2026-01-01 09:00 in Mississippi.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     kmohrf (er/he) (kmohrf@social.tchncs.de)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Jul-2025 04:46:33 JST kmohrf (er/he)

     in reply to

     • Catelyn

     @simon_brooke @catgirlQueer @vashti it would be incredibly funny if "there is no time before the big bang" would ever end up in that famous "Falsehoods programmers believe about time" blog post 😅

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 09-Jul-2025 04:50:34 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Catelyn
     • Poul-Henning Kamp

     @bsdphk @simon_brooke @catgirlQueer @vashti Time zones are just presentation layer and not part of the core problem here.