Forget about clocks with minutes and seconds because Facebook seems to have invented a new time measure, namely the flick. On Monday, January 22, Facebook has introduced a new time unit. The social media company believes that the flick could be useful for programmers. However, users might want to use it too. The new tick-tock technique developed by Facebook is suitable for those who deal in inconvenient splinters of a second.
Programmers generally deal with laptop and phone screens which frequently refresh every few fractions of a second. For instance, in a video game which shows 60 frames per second, the software gets a time budget of 16.667 milliseconds to paint thousands of pixels. These pixels form the moving aliens, trolls, tanks and race tracks on your screen.
The flick is the new time unit
The flick does not only help when it comes to video games but also word processors and web browsers. Many software has to take into account this unit in order to make animations smooth as the user scrolls down. Using 16.667 milliseconds could be a drag sometimes since programs can suffer due to rounding errors. A flick is a 1/705,600,000th of a second.
Facebook has argued that this is a convenient unit for several different measurements. For instance, for a computer has to create every new screen frame in 11,760,000 flicks for 60-frame-per-second refresh rates. When it comes to high-end audio, the duration for measuring varying sound levels is 3,675 flicks.
Summing up
The new unit that helps us measure time is more useful for programmers and several software to develop their work. Facebook users might also use it, but not literally. However, you could download the open-source software of Facebook for counting in flicks. This will make you forget about your watch.
Image Source: NYMag