3.days.ago, 2.hours.from_now etc without Rails?
I'm not sure if there's another gem available besides ActiveSupport, but it would be really straight-forward to make a small version yourself:
class Fixnum SECONDS_IN_DAY = 24 * 60 * 60 def days self * SECONDS_IN_DAY end def ago Time.now - self endend3.days.ago #=> 2011-06-18 08:45:29 0200from_now can be implemented like ago but with + self and weeks, hours etc. like days using different constants.
ActiveSupport has this functionality. It was originally part of Rails but can now be used separately.