[erlang-questions] writing a delay loop without now()

[James Hague]

> More than that, the runtime enforces that now/0 returns monotonically
> increasing values, which makes it useful for timestamping events and
> ensuring they have a stable sort order.

Very useful...but not for now/0.  A function that returns the current
time shouldn't itself cause the time to change.  now() is make_ref
disguised as a clock.