-={ Sunday, 01 May 2016, 18:20:11.694869204 +1000 }=-

Hey Tony!

 TL> unless you run your own GPS locked time server on your LAN.

Even then I'd suspect nanosecond accuracy to be a tad out of reach. 
microsecond maybe.

 TL> I use the date command a lot

Me too.

 TL> YYYYMMDDHHMMSSS.sssssssss

  date --date='{at}1462090811.694869204' +%Y%m%d%H%M%S.%N

produces,

  20160501082011.694869204

 TL> simple and easily converted with the date command into anything we
 TL> like.

Yes.  I believe the Bluewave offline format used a 32-bit signed int
unixtime in seconds which has a shelf life which expires in 2038. 
Syncronet uses an unsigned int which extends the shelf life to Febuary of
2106.  The 'date' command uses a 64-bit float which has a shelf life good
up to the year 2147485547 which is over two billion years from now.  Our
unixtime is good up to 67768036191676799.000000000 seconds which is
definetly overkill methinks.  :-)

In an attempt to make messages truly unique, the addition of nanoseconds
furthers that cause despote it's accuracy being doubtful.

Life is good,
Maurice

... Don't cry for me I have vi.
--- GNU bash, version 4.3.42(1)-release (x86_64-atom-linux-gnu)