3 ms·

This always felt like a marketing gimmick. I've never seen it actually used for anything, unlike UTC.

by fainpul 8mo ago

exegete 8mo ago
Most definitely marketing. It’s got the company name in it. I’m surprised other watch makers didn’t come up with their own time standards as gimmicks.
marvinborner 8mo ago
Even UTC+-0 I have seen rarely. AoE seems more common, especially for deadlines
- embedding-shape 8mo ago
  > Even UTC+-0 I have seen rarely Hover the timestamp here on HN and you'll see it at least once in your life time :) I'm guessing it's mostly developers, especially ones working internationally, who come across it every day. Others seem to prefer to convert between people's timezone, while we just send UTC+00:00 to each other.
  - globular-toast 8mo ago
    I was about to comment that it's not UTC, it's in my local time. Then I remembered my local time (Europe/London) is currently equivalent to UTC, so I have no idea what it's actually displaying (it's not indicated in any way). It's actually a problem in these parts that it's not obvious to us whether a time is in UTC or local time. I've found so many things displayed in UTC that people have assumed is local time then summer comes around and everything is off by an hour.
    - Symbiote 8mo ago
      Your comment currently says "7 minutes ago" and 12:03:56, yet here it is 13:11.
    - embedding-shape 8mo ago
      Yeah, the UI is slightly ambiguous about it, but FWIW I see the time as one hour off, which makes sense since I'm in +1 :) The API shows a unambiguous timestamp, which is the exact same value I see for your comment: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/46958592 https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/46958592 > created_at: "2026-02-10T12:03:56.000Z"
TapamN 8mo ago
The Sega Dreamcast online RPG "Phantasy Star Online" displayed the current time in beats.
- psyonity 8mo ago
  I _just_ got my dreamcast with PSO back online and was wondering what time it was displaying! Thank you for helping me discover the source of this little brainwurm.
- fainpul 8mo ago
  "And because Sega is working with Swatch, we wanted to encourage the use of the BEAT system." This was also marketing driven, it seems. Kinda telling, that they had timezone troubles, even when using Beat :) "The BEAT system that shows up on the game screen isn't just based on the Dreamcast settings -- it's sent over from the server. And because there are so many different servers in different time zones, it was a bit of a pain to get all of that unified." https://web.archive.org/web/20021208112249/http://www.sega.com/segascream/developers/post_interviews.jhtml?article=int_yujinaka https://web.archive.org/web/20021208112249/http://www.sega.c...
pndy 8mo ago
This comes from that short period where the Internet was meant to be the bonding agent for our global village bright happy future. And it was always portrayed as a solution for arranging meetings for you and your friends or business people on the other side of planet. I think the other idea from these times was abolishing phone numbers and using unified global email-like identifiers. And in a way we got this on social media - some people use same account names everywhere - not mention keybase, and we also have instant messengers on smartphones in our pockets.
- DuperPower 8mo ago
  it was an frutiger Aero thing also drum and bass

This always felt like a marketing gimmick. I've never seen it actually used for anything, unlike UTC.

by fainpul 8mo ago

This always felt like a marketing gimmick. I've never seen it actually used for anything, unlike UTC.

Most definitely marketing. It’s got the company name in it. I’m surprised other watch makers didn’t come up with their own time standards as gimmicks.

marvinborner 8mo ago

Even UTC+-0 I have seen rarely. AoE seems more common, especially for deadlines

embedding-shape 8mo ago
> Even UTC+-0 I have seen rarely Hover the timestamp here on HN and you'll see it at least once in your life time :) I'm guessing it's mostly developers, especially ones working internationally, who come across it every day. Others seem to prefer to convert between people's timezone, while we just send UTC+00:00 to each other.
- globular-toast 8mo ago
  I was about to comment that it's not UTC, it's in my local time. Then I remembered my local time (Europe/London) is currently equivalent to UTC, so I have no idea what it's actually displaying (it's not indicated in any way). It's actually a problem in these parts that it's not obvious to us whether a time is in UTC or local time. I've found so many things displayed in UTC that people have assumed is local time then summer comes around and everything is off by an hour.
  - Symbiote 8mo ago
    Your comment currently says "7 minutes ago" and 12:03:56, yet here it is 13:11.
  - embedding-shape 8mo ago
    Yeah, the UI is slightly ambiguous about it, but FWIW I see the time as one hour off, which makes sense since I'm in +1 :) The API shows a unambiguous timestamp, which is the exact same value I see for your comment: https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/46958592 https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/items/46958592 > created_at: "2026-02-10T12:03:56.000Z"

TapamN 8mo ago

The Sega Dreamcast online RPG "Phantasy Star Online" displayed the current time in beats.

psyonity 8mo ago
I _just_ got my dreamcast with PSO back online and was wondering what time it was displaying! Thank you for helping me discover the source of this little brainwurm.
fainpul 8mo ago
"And because Sega is working with Swatch, we wanted to encourage the use of the BEAT system." This was also marketing driven, it seems. Kinda telling, that they had timezone troubles, even when using Beat :) "The BEAT system that shows up on the game screen isn't just based on the Dreamcast settings -- it's sent over from the server. And because there are so many different servers in different time zones, it was a bit of a pain to get all of that unified." https://web.archive.org/web/20021208112249/http://www.sega.com/segascream/developers/post_interviews.jhtml?article=int_yujinaka https://web.archive.org/web/20021208112249/http://www.sega.c...

pndy 8mo ago

This comes from that short period where the Internet was meant to be the bonding agent for our global village bright happy future. And it was always portrayed as a solution for arranging meetings for you and your friends or business people on the other side of planet. I think the other idea from these times was abolishing phone numbers and using unified global email-like identifiers. And in a way we got this on social media - some people use same account names everywhere - not mention keybase, and we also have instant messengers on smartphones in our pockets.

DuperPower 8mo ago
it was an frutiger Aero thing also drum and bass