Time to Dump Time Zones

Post by zentiggr » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:38 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #385

acqq wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see even bigger error in his argument based on when "the Sun comes up" since it's dependent on the latitude even in the same time zone. He should ask somebody living close to the North pole. http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/longestday... "Reykjavik, Iceland Earliest Sunrise: 2:55 a.m. from June 18th through June 21st." (Reykjavik is 64° N) "London, United Kingdom Earliest Sunrise: 4:43 a.m. from Ju…

When I lived in London the seasonal variation in sunrise was just one of those things you lived with. Everyone gets wrenched by the start and end of BST, but generally if someone says "5pm" or "17:00" you get a seasonal sense of how much daylight that implies. I can't imagine the US - or anywhere else - being different, except possibly close to the poles. Absolute sun position matters a lot less than the felt relatio…

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

raldi wrote: post #493

Dylan16807 wrote: post #491

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Changing the day doesn't affect anyone much except calendar makers. Much less inertia there than with getting rid of DST. I certainly believe that congress would rather make a show about 'saving energy' than address the fact that it doesn't. That doesn't mean they are going against the "will of the people", but the people are half-informed at best. The question is what people would vote for in a popular election, wit…

> The question is what people would vote for in a popular election I totally agree. > with an entire 5+ minutes of research into the topic You're being condescending and dismissive here. I've acknowledged that many people agree with your opinion that an extra hour of morning sunlight all winter long is not worth the hassle of changing clocks twice a year; you seem to be saying that only an ignorant person could possi…

Post by undersuit » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

darawk wrote: post #17

Hmm...this is an interesting idea. However, the core of the argument seems to be this: > “The economy — that’s all of us — would receive a permanent ‘harmonization dividend’ ”— the efficiency benefits that come from a unified time zone. But this editorial is pretty light on actually supporting that. The basic argument seems to be that it reduces 'translation costs'. But..does it? What about the benefits of being able…

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

barnacs wrote: post #269

emodendroket wrote: post #237

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The reason why the clock became important in the industrial world was that it allows coordination of large, modern enterprises. I'm not sure how this system really solves this problem, nor do I understand why you need to start messing with time zones to have people live in an essentially pre-industrial way (you can just let them ignore the clock, after all).

Without time zones, we'd still have clocks and a universally consistent description of time, which allows for coordination. What specific problems are you thinking of that would harder/impossible to solve without time zones? I guess you're right that the things I describe would be possible with or without timezones. It's just that the premise of abolishing time zones is what made me question whether the heavy depende…

Post by jhildings » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 7:01 PM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #176

ci5er wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your impression is pretty much spot on. We have "military-time" and "24-hour time" available to us in all of our application configurations, but no-one seems to use it. I do because it helps me do time-zone translating transforms to/from UTC in my head more easily, but also because I keep failing to see that little "PM dot" or set the "PM Flag" whenever dealing with times in various applications or alarms. Verbally,…

"Verbally, speaking with USians, 15.00 is always pronounced "3pm"." It's like that everywhere in Europe. Nobody says 'see you at fifteen'. 24 hour clock is merely for writing things down. I mean it would already be an improvement if the US would catch up with that, just saying that a 24 hour clock isn't said out loud as such. (not disagreeing or anything with you I guess, just adding some information).