Vicente ⁂vgarzareyna@mstdn.mxJul 7, 2026, 12:12 AM@sleet01 @lycanmatriarch "God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling." goes unreasonably hard
![XKCD comic (q.v. https://xkcd.com/2867/) titled "DateTime".
Two people are talking about computing time differences.
In frame 1, the left person says, "Event #1 happened at time T-sub-1"; the right person says, "okay."
In frame 2, the left person says, "Then event #2 happened at time T-sub-2"; the right person agrees with "Mhmm."
In frame 3, the left person asks, "How would you calculate how much time elapsed between T-sub-1 and T-sub-2?"
The comic then splits into two possible outcomes.
Frame titled "Normal Person": the right person answers, "T-sub-2 minus T-sub-1."
Frame titled "Anyone who's worked on datetime systems": the right person shouts, "It is impossible to know and a sin to ask!"
The secret text for this comic is, "It's not just time zones and leap seconds. SI seconds on Earth are slower because of relativity, so there are time standards for space stuff (TCB, TGC) that use faster SI seconds than UTC/Unix time. T2 - T1 = [God doesn't know and the Devil isn't telling.]"](https://cdn.fosstodon.org/media_attachments/files/116/874/436/443/381/863/original/3dd0745061918a43.png)
Jul 7, 2026, 12:12 AM