%w[ rubygems sinatra chronic ].each {|x| require x}
get "/utc/:time" do |time|; Chronic.parse(time).to_s; end
$.get("/time-thingy/utc/" + whatever, function(date) {
alert("your UTC timestamp is " + date);
});
I assume someone would not have a good NL date parser for their environment, or won't be able to run it for some reason, or would simply prefer Chronic.
A lot of stuff that seems pointless ends up being useful, and vice versa. Assuming it's on Heroku's free plan, it costs nothing to run forever, so why not? If it helps 10 people, it already beat most web pages.
and stopped looking.