In the glorious utopian (comparatively) early internet Swatch thought a universal time system would be a good idea. Wikipedia has an article on it : Swatch Internet Time .
Here is a "@beats" clock in Processing :
import java.util.*; int oldbeats=0; Date trialTime; TimeZone cet; Calendar calendar ; void setup() { size(120, 120); cet=TimeZone.getTimeZone("Europe/Stockholm"); calendar = new GregorianCalendar(cet); } void draw(){ trialTime = new Date(); calendar.setTime(trialTime); int beats = floor( (calendar.get(Calendar.SECOND) + (calendar.get(Calendar.MINUTE) * 60) + (calendar.get(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY) * 3600)) / 86.4005529635 ); if (beats > oldbeats) { oldbeats = beats; background(255); textSize(40); fill(0, 102, 153, 204); text("@"+beats, 3, 60); } delay(1000); } void mousePressed (){ exit(); }