h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi -
New to the site so I'm not sure I understand this, but your pages have conversation links which give a time frame for the last posting (2 minutes ago, 3 days ago etc). In many cases this stated time is obviously wildly inaccurate - how is it arrived at? Should I expect an answer that includes an explanation of the difference between Absolute and Relative time? 2 minutes ago from when...

Regards, Steve

As far as I know, the system remains at one measurement until it can reach the next defined step. So it should be like this:
Real Time = Displayed Time
< 1 Min = Just Now
< 2 Mins = 1 Minute Ago
< 3 Mins = 2 Minutes Ago
...and so on up to...
< 60 Mins = 59 Minutes Ago
< 120 Mins = 1 Hour Ago
< 180 Mins = 2 Hours Ago
< 240 Mins = 3 Hours Ago
And so on, the days, weeks etc..

I do not know if there is any time lag. It's only just describing the time passed since something was posted. When a time is displayed (rather than a time difference), it seems accurate.

Remember, also, that this time is shown relative to when the page was displayed. If you look at a Conversation and leave the window open for an hour, then all the times shown will be an hour out. There's not a lot we can do about that.

The times are pretty accurate - try refreshing the page if you have a problem.

Mark

Many thanks to you both (and aren't you lovely polite people - I wasn't sure what to expect on this my first posting). I had in mind a conversation which I visited two nights ago, and then again the following night, when the same comment had apparently been posted 'two hours ago' on both nights. However, I'm currently unable to find it or any other examples. I'll know where to come, though, if I do stumble across any other examples - thanks again.
Regards, Steve

Odd - do let us know if you find anything bizarre, though if you do spot a problem, try a Refresh. If this fixes it it, you know you were looking at an old copy of the page, cached by your browser or ISP.

Mark

I remember something like this occuring during the changeover from Perl to Ripley. One of the servers was running on BST and not GMT and as a result, depending on which server you were currently on at you got wildly different times. Perhaps something similar has happened here, or maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic

Croz