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Re:Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time by kivlad on Monday December 28, 2020 @05:58PM (#25564299)
This gives me a nostalgic reminder of when I used to watch Nickelodeon GUTS. Whenever a countdown timed challenge was about to end, I would hear the audience count down starting with "10" at maybe 10.7 seconds, "9" at 9.7 seconds, etc. Then after "1", there was a small period of awkward silence and murmurs from the audience before the siren blasted.

It's a good example of how measurement of time in terms of human perception differs from the pure mathematical sense, and rounding is a good compromise here (wherever it doesn't display fractional seconds).

Re:Why the iPhone Timer app displays a fake time by monkpit on Monday December 28, 2020 @09:31PM (#25566067)
I was thinking of the same phenomenon, but at school sporting events when the crowd would count down while watching the time on the scoreboard. The awkward pause between shouts of “zero!” and the actual buzzer.