12 ms·
Google Timer is back
- meken 4y agoResponse to this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32295674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32295674
- franze 4y agoand .... it's buggy try https://www.google.com/search?q=timer+724+years https://www.google.com/search?q=timer+724+years click on start, looses most of the time
- intrestingstuff 4y ago[dead]
- zatkin 4y agoWhen would you ever need a timer for 724 years?
- paxys 4y agoA bug is a bug. "Why would anyone ever do XYZ" is a separate discussion. And if you write software for a living you know that there is always that one user who will do exactly XYZ.
- bbertelsen 4y agoHyrum's law. How meta.
- kuboble 4y agoNope. Undefined behavior on obviously incorrect input isn't a bug in my world. ( might be in other circumstances )
- taftster 4y agoYou must be a C programmer.
- insightcheck 4y agoHaha. I was thinking along similar lines as kuboble, but then I'm someone in the process of trying to learn C. I agree, upon further thought, that at least an error message would be better for the user (e.g. "Maximum timer duration exceeded").
- dogecoinbase 4y ago"Undefined behavior consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be compiler engineers whom the language standard protects but does not bind, alongside developers whom the language standard binds but does not protect." (source: https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/1558181259314167808 https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/1558181259314167808 )
- diarrhea 4y agoI mean, the query is “timer $period”. It’s correct in its syntax, a period’s a period. It’s not asking for “timer TIMMY; DROP TABLES”. That’s incorrect input.
- nomel 4y agoIt's not incorrect input. It's incorrect handling of accepted input.
- JohnFen 4y agoUndefined behavior on obviously incorrect input is always a bug. Incorrect input should give you an error.
- sverhagen 4y agoSure, a bug is a bug, but the original remark was that the software was "buggy". I read "buggy" as riddled with pretty obvious bugs. If we're calling software "buggy" for having any bugs, then, I guess, nearly all software is "buggy" (and the word looses its usefulness).
- Jtsummers 4y agoAnything over 100 hours gets recalculated modulo 100, so 101 hours becomes 1 hour. But then the page title, which is meant to show the current countdown in the tab display, gets updated to show the full time, but weirdly formatted. So at least two bugs. Try "timer 101 hours". The page title will (very quickly) show "10:05:9x" where x is the 10s digit of the seconds. While the page itself claims it's a one hour timer (59 minutes and some seconds). So the actual time is in there somewhere, just showing up wrong in both places. It also doesn't seem to let me enter 30 minutes as a timer, but most other minutes times work. So, yes, it's buggy. EDIT: It's not actually modulo 100 hours, I should note. The display is showing it that way, but since it has the real time stored internally it still counts down. If it were actually modulo 100 hours then it would zero out a 100 hour (or 200 or 300...) countdown immediately, instead these wrap to 99 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds on the first tick. EDIT: For grins I'd started a 101 hour timer a bit over an hour ago before stepping away from the computer. Despite the display silliness, it actually will run for 101 hours. After the first hour the displayed time rolls back to 99:59:59 and the page title updates correctly. I also noticed that there's a progress bar below the timer, it correctly shows the progress within the 101 hour timer the whole time.
- sverhagen 4y agoThose sound like reasonable bugs, the original that we were responding to (724 years), less so.
- benbristow 4y agoWhen you're waiting for the answer to life, the universe and everything
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- efsavage 4y ago724 Test Engineers walk into a bar...
- anonu 4y agoMaybe to be reminded that were about 7% of the way through the life of the 10,000 year clock? https://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html https://www.10000yearclock.net/learnmore.html
- Tepix 4y agoDid they finish building it?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TrainedMonkey 4y agoSome kind of overflow, it resets timer to 40 hours. Same thing happens with 1 year, except timer is reset to 60 hours. Another interesting observation is that "timer 723 years" did not bring timer up, but "timer 722 years" did. Update: "timer 100 hours" works, but "timer 101 hours" does not. That is 100 hours is 144,000 seconds, does not seem to be anything special about this number.
- jefftk 4y agoSometimes it drops to 40hr, other times to 100hr. Haven't been able to figure out what the pattern is.
- buildbot 4y ago725 years causes it to glitch twice
- buildbot 4y agoI got it to reset twice in row by using 725 years, reset to 63 then 99!
- bhaney 4y agoIt can just only handle two digits in the hours place after the first tick. Any other digits get removed. 1 year becomes 60 hours because it turns 1 year into 8760 hours, then removes the "87" and leaves the "60" Edit: this seems like it's just a display bug and the original time is still preserved. If you search "timer 100 year 1 second" then it formats to "876000h 00m 01s", then the next tick shows "0s", then the next tick shows "99h 59m 59s" > Another interesting observation is that "timer 723 years" did not bring timer up That is weird. Even weirder that "timer 723 year" (singular) does seem to work.
- theophrastus 4y ago..and curiously, with the little speaker icon 'on', it produces no audio alarm for me, (firefox 103.0.2). Whereas this[1] one produces a quite notable sound. [1] https://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/ https://www.online-stopwatch.com/countdown-timer/
- willio58 4y agoThese days browsers make sure there's user interaction before audio plays. The other website you linked requires a click to start the timer, therefore meeting that requirement. If Google made this timer muted by default, and you had to click unmute, it would likely work. Ran into a related bug on a site I was working on the other day and had to learn this browser quirk the hard way.
- martin_a 4y agoI wouldn't be surprised if this was a "Chrome only" feature. In 2022 everything can happen.
- bmitc 4y agoIs it really buggy? Is it a feature that you need a timer of 724 years ... in a web browser?
- scoopertrooper 4y agoOP took things a little far, you can make it glitch at the 5 day mark. You may ask why I'd need a timer in my web browser for 5 days, and you be right to do so.
- bmitc 4y agoHaha. I'm not even for sure why I need a timer in the web browser at all. However, I will concede it is indeed rather buggy. A Google search of "timer 3 minutes" does nothing for me, as it just performs a normal search with no timer widget. A search of "timer 2 minutes" or "timer 4 minutes" works fine.
- cmelbye 4y agoI've noticed that the language parsing of these knowledge/assistant queries is a bit strange sometimes. A more subjective example is "10 lakh in USD". This isn't a perfectly formed query -- lakh is not a currency but a unit in the Indian numbering system. However, I think most humans would assume that I'm talking about converting Indian rupees and this is reflected in the organic search results. Google understands that I'm trying to convert currency but for some reason decides that I meant "10 lakh Euro in USD".
- margalabargala 4y agoAn obvious bug is an obvious bug, even if typical users don't often hit the bug. I can absolutely think of a reasons why someone would use this. For example, a DM in a role playing game might pull up a very long timer as a prop to show their players. I agree that "the number of times you want a 724 year timer to count to zero" is negligibly small, but that is a minor subset of "the number of times you want to show a 724 year timer counting towards zero"
- aeyes 4y agoAnd the title of the page shows something else and doesn't update.
- phailhaus 4y ago#wontfix
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- sixhobbits 4y agoI don't see it on mobile (Firefox Android) but do if I hit request desktop site, in case anyone is confused
- cma 4y agoGoogle cripples the site on firefox android. There is an extension called Google search fixer that adjusts the user agent to mobile chrome on Google searches make it not do that.
- jmkni 4y ago
- jacquesm 4y agoHolding out for Reader ;)
- rexf 4y agoIt will only come back if the universe runs in a loop.
- underyx 4y agoGoogling "mortgage rates" also stopped showing the interactive widget when the timer first disappeared. And now that widget is also back.
- sjs7007 4y agoFind my phone widget is also gone. Need to click through into the website now which for a person who constantly misplaces their phone is annoying.
- ProAm 4y agoAnyone placing bets on how long it lasts? Standard 18-24 months?
- dang 4y agoRecent and related: Google Timer is gone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32295674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32295674 - July 2022 (323 comments) Less recent but related: Google Timer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8436869 - Oct 2014 (34 comments) Google timer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429564 - Sept 2013 (154 comments) Now set timer on Google.com - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155243 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6155243 - Aug 2013 (11 comments)
- kylehotchkiss 4y agoEnjoy it before it goes back to the graveyard!
- yonrg 4y agoWow! So there is somewhere the killedbygoogle homepage. Do we also have a reincarnatedbygoogle site?
- TheMaskedCoder 4y agoHow are people supposed to use features like this if they get dropped and re-added from time to time? If I want a convenient timer, googling "set 5 minute timer" has no advantage if I don't know whether it will work or not. Inconsistency is an enemy of convenience.
- capableweb 4y agoI agree with you in general but not in this particular case. Best case scenario: you get a five minute timer running right away. Worst case scenario: you click the first link and get a five minute timer right away
- djbusby 4y agoFirst link would be ad-filled, SEO gamed bullshit.
- mlyle 4y agoYup, something undesirable that will probably still work while Google Timer is "down."
- sixstringtheory 4y agoBasically the first page of any Google search page is ads now. If I want a quick 5 minute timer, it’s just a “Hey Siri” away. Navigating to Google to type a query is strictly inferior.
- hacym 4y agoScrew those people for trying to monetize something you’re expecting to use for free. Your phone and computer have the capability to do timers. Why are you googling a timer with this attitude in the first place?
- nightpool 4y ago> Your [...] computer has the capability to do timers Source? At least on macOS, i'm not aware of any built in timer or stopwatch.
- zestyping 4y agoFor timing a meeting, try http://timeit.lol/ http://timeit.lol/ — it shows you an estimate of when your meeting will end, which will creep forward if you exceed the time allotted for the current agenda item. It was designed for standups, where each person gets 5 minutes to speak, but you can also add agenda items of varying length. You can also use it in count-up mode (http://timeit.lol/?0 http://timeit.lol/?0) to count how much time each person has spoken.
- gregmac 4y agoAnother good way to time certain meetings is using dollars: https://www.mcgurrin.info/mcc/meetingclock.htm https://www.mcgurrin.info/mcc/meetingclock.htm
- silicon2401 4y agoWhen it stopped working for me I just started using duckduckgo's timer
- ZainRiz 4y agoOP's link also shows how long until Google Timer is killed again
- lopatin 4y agoHere's a timer for when they'll shut it down again https://www.google.com/search?q=timer+2+weeks https://www.google.com/search?q=timer+2+weeks
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- djbusby 4y agoThis show count down from 35h? Isn't a week longer than 35h?
- sentientslug 4y agoIt's odd. At first it shows is 336 hours, 0 mins, and 0 seconds and then it counts down to 35:59:59. Clearly a bug.
- mongol 4y agoCrazy. I will stick with my phone's timer.
- awesomelvin 4y agoHuh that's weird. It actually shows the correct 336h for a few milliseconds first and then counts back from 35h. I wonder what's happening internally - messing up a timer shouldn't be that easy normally, right?
- purpleblue 4y agoMy kid used this all the time because I would give him timelimits on his Minecraft time. When it disappeared, he was in complete disarray but started to rely on Siri. I think he'll be happy to see it back up and running!
- llaolleh 4y agoProbably put it back so someone can put it on their promotion packet. El low hanging fruit.
- johnasmith 4y agoLooks like this was an actual bug, not deliberately removing a feature: https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1560010093294489602 https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/1560010093294489602 https://support.google.com/websearch/thread//152736727 https://support.google.com/websearch/thread//152736727
- tonetheman 4y agowho even knew they had a timer... Imagine being the person/team who worked on this knowing that most of the web will never see your work.
- rfrey 4y agoTrue, but someone at Google working on a public facing app, even if 99.99% of users never know it's there, will still have orders of magnitude more people using their software than most of us.
- scoot 4y agoMeh, just use Siri or Alexa - it's about all they're good for.
- ab_testing 4y agoI think it is back but it is still I tried for - Timer 4 minutes - Timer 5 minutes and it does work. But if with a running timer, I try to put a new timer let's say Timer 6 minutes, then it shows a normal search page.
- bishalpaudel 4y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=timer+1+century https://www.google.com/search?q=timer+1+century
- valentin_ivan 4y agohttps://www.timer-tab.com/ https://www.timer-tab.com/
- DiabloD3 4y agoSide note: I still can't synchronize a timer across Google Homes in the same location. For a purpose-built cloud frontend, it's not very cloudy.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]