Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderI think the biggest problem with time keeping systems is that they counts up, but our lives are not infinite. For us, time is really counting down. After trying to reconcile the solar year with decimal time in a way that made sense, I abandoned my effort and created a time keeping system with 1095 units of time of time per year (1098 in leap years). The units are 8 hours long, because no progress on hard problems is made…
This wasn't the first time someone tried to make something better than time zones and our silly days-weeks-months-years system, and I doubt it will be the last. It probably goes back much further, but I know that the French tried to decimalize time in the revolution when they were rationalizing all the other measurements. (see The Measure of All Things by Ken Alder, without question the finest nonfiction book Ive ever read.) The reason I think it doesn't catch on…
Back then swatch really blew it by not synching the zero with UTC. If the days had been UTC based, this might have taken off. This way, it was just a joke and that’s why it died quickly.
Oh god, I remember this. I had a Swatch at that time and they announced it very produdly. Of course there had to be a "@" sign, as this sign was a design element to hint anything related to the new and fancy multi media world of the internet. Despite I was maybe 10 yrs old at that time it was kind of obvious to me that this "novel time format" won't be of bigger interest for anybody.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 310
- Total comments
- 252
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-03-17 | Ask HN: Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | alexitosrv | 7 | 28 |
| 2014-01-12 | Swatch Internet TimeFirst breakout · Best thread | alexis-d | 103 | 96 |
| 2017-10-30 | Swatch Internet Time | simon_acca | 4 | 0 |
| 2018-02-05 | Swatch Internet Time (1998) | velmu | 86 | 78 |
| 2019-11-18 | Swatch Internet Time | vincefutr23 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020-03-04 | Swatch Internet Time | IndrekR | 2 | 0 |
| 2020-03-09 | Swatch Internet Time | notRobot | 4 | 1 |
| 2020-03-28 | Swatch Internet Time (From 1998) | tossAfterUsing | 1 | 0 |
| 2020-05-27 | Swatch Internet Time | katzeilla | 2 | 0 |
| 2020-09-02 | Swatch Internet Time | joering2 | 3 | 2 |
| 2020-11-20 | Swatch Internet Time | velmu | 1 | 0 |
| 2021-04-02 | Swatch Internet Time (or .beat time) | Bluestein | 2 | 2 |
| 2021-05-14 | Swatch Internet Time | augustocallejas | 3 | 0 |
| 2021-08-05 | Base 10 Time | kagitac | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-12-15 | Swatch Internet Time | tosh | 8 | 2 |
| 2022-06-06 | Swatch Internet Time | Grimburger | 7 | 2 |
| 2022-09-26 | Swatch Internet Time | kretaceous | 1 | 0 |
| 2022-12-31 | Swatch Internet Time | nickysielicki | 1 | 0 |
| 2023-01-13 | Swatch Internet Time | user3939382 | 1 | 0 |
| 2023-01-25 | Swatch Internet Time | cribbles | 2 | 0 |
| 2024-04-14 | Swatch Internet TimeLatest 20+ point return | redbell | 61 | 39 |
| 2026-05-12 | Swatch Internet Time | florianmari | 7 | 2 |