When does today begin? (not important, just strange)

This was posted 6 minutes ago (it's 1:02 in my time zone)

― akm, Sunday, June 28, 2009 12:56 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yesterday?

0:00 GMT, right?

All the polls get updated at 6 PM, US CDT for me.

What's your timezone set to Stan?

Also, one mistake people sometimes make in the UK is to set it to "GMT" instead of say "Europe/London"... GMT does what it says; it's GMT and doesn't take account of the fact that currently in the UK it's BST, which takes account of daylight saving.

I don't know if that's the issue... Maybe there's a bug. The computer ILX is running on is set to UK times, but that shouldn't make any difference, assuming there are no bugs - the software should localise itself based on what you've chosen in the time zone.

To answer the question, there isn't a specific time at which 'today' begins (notwithstanding any bugs); it should be entirely based on what you've set your timezone to.

Of course, if you're not logged in, then it won't know what your timezone is.

Stuff becomes "yesterday" when it was before the latest midnight London.

so I'm set to US/Eastern and right now StanM's original post is:

― StanM, Saturday, June 27, 2009 7:02 PM (14 hours ago)

but posts before 7pm Eastern, which is midnight London time, get marked as "Yesterday" immediately, which is what he's describing... a 6 minute old post with yesterday's date in London...

Afraid I don't follow that... It should say "Yesterday" if the post was made before midnight (and after 24 hours before midnight) in your set time zone.

If it isn't doing this, then there is a bug. I'll need to know what the time zone is set to, to try it out.

Then there's definitely a bug. It keys off of midnight London and not midnight [user time]... cuz like I said it's 10am here so today is only 10 hours old here but I'm seeing posts made "14 hours ago" and 15 hour-old posts are "yesterday".

OK, what is your time zone set to?

Oh, you said this. It's a bit confusing that post above. US/Eastern.

Hmm... You know I think the problem is probably that 'relative' times don't take account of time zones at all. The bug, I think is that the one exception to this is "Yesterday", which to get it right, it does need to know what your time zone is. So as you say, it's probably using whatever the box is set to (London time) as a way of working out where the rollover point from today and yesterday is.

I probably want to do two things here:

• If you're logged in, fix it so it behaves the same way as it does for UK time
• If you're not, just get rid of "Yesterday" and replace it with an "X minutes/hours ago" type thing

You know, when I wrote this stuff, back in 2006, I really did think it was likely not to work, because it screwed with my head a lot and I knew that it would work UK time, as that's what I was testing it with and was frankly surprised when no-one made any mention of it not working in other time zones - amazes me it's taken several years to come through!

you should've seen me counting on my fingers trying to write that confusing post... time travel is hard.

Okay, I've made a change here, which is difficult to test, but it should respect your local time zone when logged in - maybe you can tell me if it looks like it's working. Thanks.

Totally forgot about this thread, sorry. My time zone is GMT+1 , will check at midnight if ILX thinks it's been midnight as well, thank you!

(Timezone: Europe/Brussels, that is)

I hope this hasn't taken too much of your time, Keith - it's not THAT important, just a bit confusing sometimes.

I find this fascinating for some reason! I don't use relative times, though.

It's now 3 minutes after midnight in my time zone and I can confirm that you fixed it. Thanks!

yup, well done.

Cheers!

another weird time thing
http://i31.tinypic.com/2ykcnzd.jpg

it had forks's update 30 min ago (on a thread i had updated 1 min ago) on top, but everything below it is normal

That's just freaking me out

decelerated evolution

forks behind everyone else, news at 11

ow

lol all love to forks but it was too easy

keith -

http://i28.tinypic.com/xnz3op.jpg

also, when i click a board link from site new answers (ie, at the end of thread titles...last updated by blah blah blah on ___), it logs me out and takes me to the front page

whoops, actually it logs me out but still follows the link - when i click on 77 it logs me out and takes me to the front page since u cant see 77 if youre not logged in obv

Kevin, date stuff screws with my mind, so I'll need to figure that stuff out at some point, but the logging out - are you accessing the site not via www.ilxor.com?

also, when i click a board link from site new answers (ie, at the end of thread titles...last updated by blah blah blah on ___), it logs me out and takes me to the front page

i had this issue - there is somehow an extra / in the address linked to the board from sna page. but it didn't actually log me out... it just looked like it did? for example, i tried to post on a thread, it said i needed to be logged in, and then when i clicked 'login' it just let me post (bc i was still logged in apparently?).

no i definitely go through ilxor.com. i do post from my phone occasionally too, using the same account, but i never have to re-login for each device. somehow it knows to use the phone spreadsheet when i post from my phone and the OG stylesheet when i'm on my computer. as you can tell, i dunno what i'm talking about at all here, i figured everyone was having this problem

xp oh ok i'll try that t

the same thing has been happening to me as well

basically i click on a board name from site new answers and it takes me to the board page but it says that i'm logged out and none of the links at the top work so i have to type "www.ilxor.com" back in - i dont have to re-log in tho

yeah i just close the window and bring a new one up and i'm logged in again

Yeah OK, I think I know what's going on with the logging out/in stuff. I'll see what I can do.

What's up with this "X years pass..." thing in revived threads? Not that it bothers me or anything, but it seems unnecessary, since we can see the year in which the previous post was made.

Necessity is overrated.

I kind of like it!

OK I think I have fixed the logging out problem.

I like that "X weeks/months pass..." thing too, its like a "meanwhile...." in a cheesy soap. It made me grin.

OK I think I have fixed the logging out problem.

― Keith, Wednesday, July 8, 2009 7:24 PM (1 hour ago)

indeed. thanks!