January 6, 2026
Epoch wars: seconds vs snark
Show HN: Is this the best epoch converter?
Simple time tool sparks a fuss: bookmarks, rule cops, and nanosecond nitpicks
TLDR: A free, polished time converter won quick fans for its simplicity and code examples, but the comments split into praise, rule-policing, and precision demands. Debates raged over adding micro/nanoseconds, supporting other systems’ clocks, and whether a one-liner in the terminal makes the whole site unnecessary.
A tidy, free converter that turns computer time (the number of seconds since 1970) into normal dates should be the most boring thing on the internet… and yet, welcome to the Epoch Wars. One fan cheered, “You sir just got yourself a bookmark,” swooning over the clean design and code snippets for JavaScript, Python, MySQL, and Postgres. But the honeymoon ended fast. A hall monitor stormed in waving the rulebook with “Don’t solicit upvotes” and a link, sparking a mini-drama about etiquette versus enthusiasm.
Then the precision posse arrived. One commenter begged for microseconds and nanoseconds—because in many systems, time is measured in ridiculously tiny slices. Another veteran grumbled the site is “fine” but barely scratches the surface, hinting at all the weird clocks out there (think Windows and .NET’s different reference points). Meanwhile, the command-line purists crashed the party with a classic “just use date -d @…,” dropping a mic and leaving.
So yes, the tool is sleek and supports seconds, milliseconds, UTC, local time, and ISO formats—and it’s super handy for going from machine time to human time. But the real show? Team Bookmark vs Team Actually vs Team Use The Terminal. Grab popcorn; time is a flat snarkle.
Key Points
- •The tool converts between Unix epoch timestamps and human-readable dates in both directions.
- •It supports seconds (10 digits) and milliseconds (13 digits) and auto-detects the input format.
- •Outputs are available in local time, UTC, and ISO 8601, with copy-to-clipboard and date/time pickers.
- •Languages and systems differ: JavaScript/Java use milliseconds; Unix/Linux, Python, PHP use seconds.
- •Code examples demonstrate conversions in JavaScript, Python, MySQL, and PostgreSQL, including handling milliseconds by dividing by 1000.