Facebook invents a new unit of time called Flicks
The company this week announced a new unit of time, because seconds, minutes and hours are just way too cumbersome.
Seriously though.
Dubbed the flick, it’s only slightly larger than a nanosecond, but is even more useful for those vested in video. And we all know video is the new cryptocurrency.
“We’ve launched Flicks, a unit of time, slightly larger than a nanosecond that exactly subdivides media frame rates and sampling frequencies,” the company’s Open Source account tweeted.
We've launched Flicks, a unit of time, slightly larger than a nanosecond that exactly subdivides media frame rates and sampling frequencies. https://t.co/w9SDBznXRE
— Facebook Open Source (@fbOpenSource) January 22, 2018
“When working creating visual effects for film, television, and other media, it is common to run simulations or other time-integrating processes which subdivide a single frame of time into a fixed, integer number of subdivisions,” Facebook explains on the GitHub page.
“It is handy to be able to accumulate these subdivisions to create exact 1-frame and 1-second intervals, for a variety of reasons.”
Nanoseconds, although the smallest unit of time, couldn’t quite achieve this, because maths. But the flick can.
Don’t worry, Facebook as a whole will still use seconds, minutes and hours to structure your day, but you may just want to switch to its new only-useful-for-videographer method of calculating time for fun.
Have a look at the GitHub project page for more information.
About Andy Walker
Camper by day, run-and-gunner by night, Andy is editor at Memeburn and prefers his toast like his coffee -- dark and crunchy. Specialising in spotting the next big Instagram cat star, Andy also dabbles in smartphone and game reviews over on Gearburn.
