What time is it?

March 9, 2013 5:46 PM

I've been curious ever since I started seeing stuff like "Posted 2¾ hours ago". What's the MeFi human-friendly time interval algorithm? And seeing this finally drove me to ask this question — what's the difference between "Just posted" and "Moments ago"?
posted by benito.strauss to MetaFilter-Related at 5:46 PM (23 comments total)

Here's pb's answer to this question from a while back - the very-short-interval phrases are random.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 5:52 PM on March 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Yep, there's no difference between "Just posted", "Moments ago", and "Fresh". They're chosen randomly if something was posted less than one minute ago.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:11 PM on March 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

I was also wondering where you stop breaking it down to the ¼ hour. I've written getUserFriendlyTime() [and getUserFriendlySizeFileSize()] a few times and just kind of guessed when to change resolution.
posted by benito.strauss at 6:28 PM on March 9, 2013

If the difference is less than one hour it breaks down into quarter hours. More than that and you get "2 hours ago", "3 hours ago", etc.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:38 PM on March 9, 2013

oh, now that I see that it's not quite right. If it's between 1 and 6 hours you get quarter hours. Anything over six just gets the hour, so it'd be "7 hours ago", "8 hours ago", etc.
posted by pb (staff) at 6:40 PM on March 9, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks, that's what I was wondering.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:08 PM on March 9, 2013

Posted 3 epochs ago
posted by shakespeherian at 7:18 PM on March 9, 2013 [2 favorites]

Posted in the time it takes you to forget the way her hair smelled.
posted by The Whelk at 7:38 PM on March 9, 2013 [23 favorites]

I still have the pillow in a plastic bag I will never forget
posted by ook at 8:17 PM on March 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

I still have her head in a plastic bag I will never forget
posted by XMLicious at 10:46 PM on March 9, 2013 [4 favorites]

Sadly, a head keeps much less well than a pillow. Don't ask how I know this.
posted by wierdo at 12:56 AM on March 10, 2013 [1 favorite]

Well that's why you pickle them in quicklime and shrink them. Duh.
posted by XMLicious at 1:04 AM on March 10, 2013

I was going to drop in with a quip, but I think I will quietly see myself out instead.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:22 AM on March 10, 2013 [5 favorites]

Pickled pillows don't shrink terribly well in ¾ of an hour.
posted by sciencegeek at 7:18 AM on March 10, 2013

AskMe: How do you get rid of a pillow with a head in it?
posted by HuronBob at 8:42 AM on March 10, 2013

First, be smart from the very beginining.
posted by The Whelk at 9:18 AM on March 10, 2013 [3 favorites]

So, do these time intervals only show in Recent Activity?
posted by young sister beacon at 9:45 AM on March 10, 2013

You put the pillow away with that disposed of body from eons ago.

In other news, time.
posted by infini at 10:11 AM on March 10, 2013

So, do these time intervals only show in Recent Activity?

Yeah, that's definitely the most conspicuous place we use them. We also use them in the Contact Activity sidebar and some profile-related pages like the "favorited by others" page.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:12 AM on March 10, 2013

Posted four moments ago.
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:42 AM on March 11, 2013

So can we add some more?

I vote for 'hot as a biscuit'.
posted by winna at 8:18 PM on March 11, 2013

"Steaming fresh like a musk ox turd on the slopes of the Canadian Arctic Cordillera on a bright and still morning in early summer."

Also, we need to get a recording of Sir David Attenborough reading that and the option to play it with the MeFi Music control, just in case the text alone doesn't properly convey how utterly fresh and full of potential your comment is, its story yet untold.

Like the turd, who knows how many people will step in it? How many favorites will it get? Will it be the first shot in a flame war that wreaks chaos and leaves the mods screaming in despair and rending their hair, what little they have left? Or a gleaming, alabaster exemplar of a comment that will move hearts, arch in curiosity and inquiry the eyebrows of even the most jaded and apathetic among us, and its soul ascend to that Valhalla where the hero-comments tread and feast neverending and legend says that the img tag lives again in crowning glory.
posted by XMLicious at 11:15 PM on March 11, 2013

*swept away instantly immediately infinitely by moving words on screen*
posted by infini at 11:55 PM on March 11, 2013