#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

use vars qw($SECOND $MINUTE $HOUR $DAY $WEEK);

$SECOND = 1;
$MINUTE = 60 * $SECOND; # i know, i know
$HOUR = 60 * $MINUTE;
$DAY = 24 * $HOUR;
$WEEK = 7 * $DAY;

sub get_lapse
{
        my $last_here = shift;

        my $difference = time - $last_here;

        my @params = ();

        if ($difference >= $WEEK) {
                push @params, $WEEK, 'week', 'weeks';
        } elsif ($difference >= $DAY) {
                push @params, $DAY, 'day', 'days';
        } elsif ($difference >= $HOUR) {
                push @params, $HOUR, 'hour', 'hours';
        } elsif ($difference >= $MINUTE) {
                push @params, $MINUTE, 'minute', 'minutes';
        } else {
                push @params, $SECOND, 'second', 'seconds';
        }

    # assume $difference is positive
        my $lapse = int($difference / $params[0] + 0.5);

        sprintf "%d %s ago", $lapse, $params[$lapse == 1 ? 1 : 2];
}

my $last_here = time - $DAY - 10 * $MINUTE;

print get_lapse($last_here), "\n";
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since i presume vroom can get the timestamp easily enough, hopefully this code is a full enough implementation that this feature can be added (that is if people would actually say what they think of the idea).

i think that weeks are fine for the chunkiest granularity, but months could be added if necessary. the main problem with that being that months differ in length.