Thanks for linking that. TIL: sorting rank is a function of timestamp and votes, so when the mods push a story back to the front page, instead of special-casing the behavior, they just (get a computer to) fabricate a submission timestamp that puts the story in appropriate place on the front page.

It's a clever hack, alright, but dang if I didn't start to think I was going crazy, because something felt off with timestamps and surely the mods wouldn't be silently messing with those...