Yesterday, I was trying to figure out “que hora est,” which I guess means “what time is it?” in some language. I don’t even know what language it is, but that’s not the point. I needed to get the exact time, down to the second, and I wanted it displayed nice and big on my screen.
So, I started by asking around. Someone told me about an “online clock” that supposedly shows the time with seconds, full screen, and even has a night mode. Sounds fancy, right? But when I tried to find it, all I got were a bunch of websites that didn’t really do what I wanted.
Then, I stumbled upon this thing called “*.” It claims to have the time for 7 million locations, in 58 languages, and it’s all synchronized with some atomic clock. Whatever that means. Anyway, it had the exact time displayed: “07:38:26 PM, Friday, January 10.” Not exactly what I was looking for since it is not today’s date. But it was accurate, I guess.
- Search for “online clock”
- Explore “*”
- Check if the displayed time is accurate
But here’s where things got interesting. I found out that “I lost track of time” is a common phrase. People use it when they miss appointments or mess up their schedules because time flies by without them noticing. Makes sense. There were even examples like “lo siento, no me fij en la hora,” which I think means “sorry, I didn’t notice the time” in Spanish.
Trying to get the current time
I spent a good chunk of my day on this. I was trying to understand how time works, especially on computers. Someone mentioned that time evolution is given by something called the “Hamiltonian.” No clue what that is, but it sounds complicated. And then there’s this whole thing about spacecraft like Voyager and Pioneer. They’ve gone beyond the planets, but not out of the solar system. Apparently, it takes about 22 and a half hours for a radio signal to reach Voyager 1, which is billions of miles away. It makes my head spin just thinking about it.
It is a long journey for me. But anyway, I just wanted to share my little adventure from yesterday. It was a lot of digging around and learning new things, even though I still don’t fully get it all. But hey, at least I know that “I lost track of time” is a thing, and it happens to the best of us. And I know that if I ever need the exact time, there are websites out there that can give it to me, even if they’re a bit more complicated than I expected.
