5 ms·

Time.gif (2017)

216 points by metadat 4y ago

bingaling 4y ago
http push, baby! alternatively, trust the client timer, ship a full 86400 frame gif, and figure out a start-frame hack.
- bmacho 4y ago
  or just use javascript Date() object, and display it as text
- wongarsu 4y ago
  Or just generate 86400 gifs, each 86400 frames long, and have the server deliver the correct one depending on the current time. But that wouldn't be nearly as cool as generating and delivering the gif in real time.
- drewzero1 4y ago
  This is kind of what I was expecting. I tried saving the gif to see what happened, and it's empty! It's a pretty neat trick!
KingOfCoders 4y ago
We had a webcam streaming a model railroad you could drive with this technology, around 1995.
- stronglikedan 4y ago
  > streaming a model railroad you could drive Reminds me of this tank simulator from the 70s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQifPHcMLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQifPHcMLE
  - KingOfCoders 4y ago
    I saw that too! :-)
  - acidioxide 4y ago
    Interesting! It's so funny when he says that the computer was too old to maintain so they replaced it with raspberry pi - it's weird such big thing can be controlled by something so small
vehemenz 4y ago
Despite the author's caveat, the gif works in Safari (16.1).
- HellsMaddy 4y ago
  It doesn’t work in Safari for me (16.1)
  - def- 4y ago
    Try again, I think there was an unrelated issue. It load for me on Safari now, but runs super slowly in the beginning, so not as a real time clock.
    - dom96 4y ago
      Safari truly becoming the new IE
      - jagger27 4y ago
        Maybe in some ways. Back then devs seemed to care more about supporting IE a lot more than they do Safari now.
    - Jolter 4y ago
      Yep, it loads and ticks a bit slowly.
downvotetruth 4y ago
CSS & HTML No JS needs to be modified/forked to set current time: https://codepen.io/iliadraznin/pen/AjWWQr https://codepen.io/iliadraznin/pen/AjWWQr
- jaywalk 4y ago
  You'd have to add JS to get the user's local time, or use a dynamic backend to get the server's time.
1-6 4y ago
Learned that my iPhone limits webpages from refreshing when left alone or when scrolling. I need to zoom to get a page refresh.
udia 4y ago
https://hookrace.net/time.gif https://hookrace.net/time.gif returning 503 for me now
- def- 4y ago
  Author here, my bad. There was a DoS attack against this a while ago and I set too strict limits after that. Didn't expect it to hit Hacker News again. Should be fine now.
  - Kiro 4y ago
    What makes someone attack this?
    - def- 4y ago
      I'm running an online game on the side and am thus commonly the target of DoS attacks. I guess it's related to this.
      - Kiro 4y ago
        You mentioned in your blog post that you know who the attacker is. Do you know their motivation?
        def- 4y ago
        Destroying the fun for others and wasting time I figure. I received no demands or anything like that.
julianeon 4y ago
Great post. I wish there was a site where I could consume endless posts like this: A page or so of text, showing code, showing how to do something cool or useful using code. This one is perfect, in terms of my interests.
- notRobot 4y ago
  https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/02/this-svg-always-shows-todays-date/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/02/this-svg-always-shows-today... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704 https://research.swtch.com/zip https://research.swtch.com/zip https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12262470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12262470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342042 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1573218394358386688 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1573218394358386688 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1425264439624978435 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1425264439624978435 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1371974874856587268 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1371974874856... https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1368957384471810048 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1368957384471... http://aem1k.com/world/ http://aem1k.com/world/ https://github.com/mame/quine-relay https://github.com/mame/quine-relay https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24824977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24824977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4326164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4326164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16317458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16317458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16040723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16040723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719317 Not exactly what you asked for, but, some similar fun stuff.
  - Minor49er 4y ago
    I'm starting to doubt your username with how quickly you came up with such a great list
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
(2017) Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14996715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14996715
Thaxll 4y ago
Is it the post where OP actually fixed a bug in a record time? I think it was on Reddit.
- def- 4y ago
  Author here. The bandwidth usage was high with many open connections, I fixed that quickly by using LZW encoding instead of sending uncompressed data. I think you are referring to this thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6t8gpq/timegif/dlismvh/ https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6t8gpq/timegif...
  - Thaxll 4y ago
    Exactly, 5years ago already ... anyway I remember you fixed it in like 2 hours, great job.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mnutt 4y ago
A while back I had the pleasure of working on a system that generated large-ish (up to ~800x600, but typically low fps) personalized gifs at the rate of hundreds or sometimes thousands per second. It was fun balancing the various constraints, like encoding/flushing raw frames ASAP to keep latency and memory usage down, but also trying to do as many transparency tricks and size optimizations as possible without being allowed a second pass. (no global color tables, etc)
Ptchd 4y ago
> Compile with -threaded, otherwise GHC networking has problems with more than 1024 open connections.
rpaddock 4y ago
For years the US Naval Observatory would generate a precise .gif of the master time clock. Alas it seems the service has been discontinued, unless someone here can find the new home for the .gif generator. This is the dead link: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/nph-usnoclock.gif?zone=est&ticks=04 http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/nph-usnoclock.gif?zone=es... The last message from Tycho about the gif clocks: https://web.archive.org/web/20191015032841/http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191015032841/http://tycho.usno... The Precise Time Department is here now: https://www.cnmoc.usff.navy.mil/Our-Commands/United-States-Naval-Observatory/Precise-Time-Department/ https://www.cnmoc.usff.navy.mil/Our-Commands/United-States-N... They now refer Time Displays to https://www.time.gov https://www.time.gov
- rpaddock 4y ago
  I tracked down someone with knowledge of the old .gif generator, this is their reply: "Mr. Paddock: When we were directed to move our websites to a cloud-based system, we found that the animated GIFs and the SimpleTime Perl script were not compatible with the new server system."

Time.gif (2017)

216 points by metadat 4y ago

bingaling 4y ago

http push, baby! alternatively, trust the client timer, ship a full 86400 frame gif, and figure out a start-frame hack.

bmacho 4y ago
or just use javascript Date() object, and display it as text
wongarsu 4y ago
Or just generate 86400 gifs, each 86400 frames long, and have the server deliver the correct one depending on the current time. But that wouldn't be nearly as cool as generating and delivering the gif in real time.
drewzero1 4y ago
This is kind of what I was expecting. I tried saving the gif to see what happened, and it's empty! It's a pretty neat trick!

KingOfCoders 4y ago

We had a webcam streaming a model railroad you could drive with this technology, around 1995.

stronglikedan 4y ago
> streaming a model railroad you could drive Reminds me of this tank simulator from the 70s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQifPHcMLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQifPHcMLE
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  I saw that too! :-)
- acidioxide 4y ago
  Interesting! It's so funny when he says that the computer was too old to maintain so they replaced it with raspberry pi - it's weird such big thing can be controlled by something so small

vehemenz 4y ago

Despite the author's caveat, the gif works in Safari (16.1).

HellsMaddy 4y ago
It doesn’t work in Safari for me (16.1)
- def- 4y ago
  Try again, I think there was an unrelated issue. It load for me on Safari now, but runs super slowly in the beginning, so not as a real time clock.
  - dom96 4y ago
    Safari truly becoming the new IE
    - jagger27 4y ago
      Maybe in some ways. Back then devs seemed to care more about supporting IE a lot more than they do Safari now.
  - Jolter 4y ago
    Yep, it loads and ticks a bit slowly.

downvotetruth 4y ago

CSS & HTML No JS needs to be modified/forked to set current time: https://codepen.io/iliadraznin/pen/AjWWQr https://codepen.io/iliadraznin/pen/AjWWQr

jaywalk 4y ago
You'd have to add JS to get the user's local time, or use a dynamic backend to get the server's time.

1-6 4y ago

Learned that my iPhone limits webpages from refreshing when left alone or when scrolling. I need to zoom to get a page refresh.

udia 4y ago

https://hookrace.net/time.gif https://hookrace.net/time.gif returning 503 for me now

def- 4y ago
Author here, my bad. There was a DoS attack against this a while ago and I set too strict limits after that. Didn't expect it to hit Hacker News again. Should be fine now.
- Kiro 4y ago
  What makes someone attack this?
  - def- 4y ago
    I'm running an online game on the side and am thus commonly the target of DoS attacks. I guess it's related to this.
    - Kiro 4y ago
      You mentioned in your blog post that you know who the attacker is. Do you know their motivation?
      - def- 4y ago
        Destroying the fun for others and wasting time I figure. I received no demands or anything like that.

julianeon 4y ago

Great post. I wish there was a site where I could consume endless posts like this: A page or so of text, showing code, showing how to do something cool or useful using code. This one is perfect, in terms of my interests.

notRobot 4y ago
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/02/this-svg-always-shows-todays-date/ https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/02/this-svg-always-shows-today... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13823704 https://research.swtch.com/zip https://research.swtch.com/zip https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12262470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12262470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12264461 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18342042 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1573218394358386688 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1573218394358386688 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1425264439624978435 https://twitter.com/David3141593/status/1425264439624978435 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1371974874856587268 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1371974874856... https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1368957384471810048 https://mobile.twitter.com/David3141593/status/1368957384471... http://aem1k.com/world/ http://aem1k.com/world/ https://github.com/mame/quine-relay https://github.com/mame/quine-relay https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24824977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24824977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4326164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4326164 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16317458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16317458 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16040723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16040723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8602122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10719317 Not exactly what you asked for, but, some similar fun stuff.
- Minor49er 4y ago
  I'm starting to doubt your username with how quickly you came up with such a great list

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

(2017) Some previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14996715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14996715

Thaxll 4y ago

Is it the post where OP actually fixed a bug in a record time? I think it was on Reddit.

def- 4y ago
Author here. The bandwidth usage was high with many open connections, I fixed that quickly by using LZW encoding instead of sending uncompressed data. I think you are referring to this thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6t8gpq/timegif/dlismvh/ https://old.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6t8gpq/timegif...
- Thaxll 4y ago
  Exactly, 5years ago already ... anyway I remember you fixed it in like 2 hours, great job.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mnutt 4y ago

A while back I had the pleasure of working on a system that generated large-ish (up to ~800x600, but typically low fps) personalized gifs at the rate of hundreds or sometimes thousands per second. It was fun balancing the various constraints, like encoding/flushing raw frames ASAP to keep latency and memory usage down, but also trying to do as many transparency tricks and size optimizations as possible without being allowed a second pass. (no global color tables, etc)

Ptchd 4y ago

> Compile with -threaded, otherwise GHC networking has problems with more than 1024 open connections.

rpaddock 4y ago

For years the US Naval Observatory would generate a precise .gif of the master time clock. Alas it seems the service has been discontinued, unless someone here can find the new home for the .gif generator. This is the dead link: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/nph-usnoclock.gif?zone=est&ticks=04 http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/nph-usnoclock.gif?zone=es... The last message from Tycho about the gif clocks: https://web.archive.org/web/20191015032841/http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191015032841/http://tycho.usno... The Precise Time Department is here now: https://www.cnmoc.usff.navy.mil/Our-Commands/United-States-Naval-Observatory/Precise-Time-Department/ https://www.cnmoc.usff.navy.mil/Our-Commands/United-States-N... They now refer Time Displays to https://www.time.gov https://www.time.gov

rpaddock 4y ago
I tracked down someone with knowledge of the old .gif generator, this is their reply: "Mr. Paddock: When we were directed to move our websites to a cloud-based system, we found that the animated GIFs and the SimpleTime Perl script were not compatible with the new server system."