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Are the Americans Awake?

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Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#121

Post by mjswensen »

throwaway09223 wrote: post #72
izzydata wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more perplexed that China decided it should only have 1 timezone. It also decided that timezone should be from the perspective of the eastern coast. When does the sun rise and fall for the western most people?

Why shouldn't we have one timezone? Why not have one worldwide timezone? The sun rises and sets at different times according to both latitude and longitude. Timezones only handle longitudinal daylight adjustments. We already deal with plenty of incongruity around daylight. Why not embrace the variability and let go of the idea that we can predict daylight based on the hour alone? Let people localize the time to disco…

I used to want this too, until I thought about what it would be like to have a date/weekday change during waking hours for most of the world. I suspect that would cause even more problems than the timezone headaches.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#122

Post by retrac »

cvoss wrote: post #60
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "decided" which is correct. With 24 hours a day and 360 degrees of longitude, it should be simply 15 degrees per hour. The number of time zone that a country has is a political choice, perhaps based on geography somewhat. The size of each time zone is also variable depending on the choice the government makes. * Look at China for example, one time zone. * India is the same with one time zone. * Mountain Time Zo…

And there's also the decision to use hour-aligned timezones. Why not half hours? Why not two hours? It's very much a conscious decision.

Probably because we like round numbers.

But there are half-hour aligned time-zones. Newfoundland is -3.5. It's currently 11:20 am here in Toronto and 12:50 pm in St. John's. Then there's the Chatham Islands of New Zealand with a quarter hour offset at UTC +12:45.

There are also regions where two bordering time zones change by more than 1 hour. At the Pakistani-Chinese border you gain or lose three hours.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#123

Post by mrguyorama »

pc86 wrote: post #39
Workaccount2 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sleeping 7 hours instead of 8 gives you ~30 extra waking hours a month. I always get caught up on that, for better or worse.

What good are 30 more hours if they (and the others) are less productive, more irritable, and overall less enjoyable? Why not just sleep 3 hours a night and get 150 more hours every month? People need different amounts of sleep, and the same person needs different amounts at different times. Just aim to get what you need.

Well one thing people never seem to openly mention is that sleeping that extra hour a night only makes me more productive for my boss, and doesn't really improve my life more than 30 extra hours of doing whatever I want. I don't think, for most people, that single hour of sleep will be the deciding factor of anything

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#124

Post by retrac »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #54
delecti wrote: post #43

I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. It's cheating a bit with Alaska in the picture, but the US spans about twice the degrees of longitude as Europe, and it would still be solidly "wider" even if you limit to the lower 48 states.

It is "decided" which is correct. With 24 hours a day and 360 degrees of longitude, it should be simply 15 degrees per hour. The number of time zone that a country has is a political choice, perhaps based on geography somewhat. The size of each time zone is also variable depending on the choice the government makes. * Look at China for example, one time zone. * India is the same with one time zone. * Mountain Time Zo…

China's time zone is interesting, mostly a reflection of the fact that like 80% of the population lives in a north-south strip along the coast, largely within one "natural" time zone. The further you are from the east coast, the weirder it is. It may be 7 am in both Beijing and Urumqi, but everyone in Urumqi is still asleep because the sun won't be up for a couple more hours.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#125

Post by pc86 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #123
pc86 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What good are 30 more hours if they (and the others) are less productive, more irritable, and overall less enjoyable? Why not just sleep 3 hours a night and get 150 more hours every month? People need different amounts of sleep, and the same person needs different amounts at different times. Just aim to get what you need.

Well one thing people never seem to openly mention is that sleeping that extra hour a night only makes me more productive for my boss, and doesn't really improve my life more than 30 extra hours of doing whatever I want. I don't think, for most people, that single hour of sleep will be the deciding factor of anything

You're the one talking about the job/boss, not me. You can be productive at things at home too!

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#126

Post by morelisp »

The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, possee comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officeholders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#127

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

We should have 1 timezone for the entire planet. Having the same time be different times at different spots on earth just makes things more confusing and causes problems. When I coordinate between timezones I don't even use time, I use delta time (for example "The call is happening 22 hours from now").

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#128

Post by chickenpotpie »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #118
chickenpotpie wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't it? I was explaining why 1 hour as the standard makes sense instead of 30 minutes or 2 hours. The :45 time zones would still be an issue for 30 minute intervals and :30 and :45 are still an issue for 2 hour intervals

But the 1 hour is not a standard, we have many places with :45 and :30 time zones. For example, Newfoundland is -3:30 time zone. Nepal is in a +5:45 time zone.

Again, I never said it was the standard. I was saying why 1 hour offsets make more sense than 15 minutes or two hours. I never said different offsets don't exist, I said why they make less sense

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#129

Post by leetcrew »

laserlight wrote: post #116
leetcrew wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

timezones don't need to perfectly predict whether the sun is up to be useful. when I set a meeting with a colleague in India, I don't really care whether the sun is up. it will almost surely be down for at least one of us. I am just trying to pick a reasonable time where they don't have to end work too late, and I don't have to start too early. having everyone roughly align their work day to 9am-5pm in their local ti…

I don't get how the problem would be harder with a universal timezone. Currently, I have to look up which timezone India is in and find a good time that works for both of us. In a universal timezone, I would have to look up what time noon is in India and find a time that works for both of us.

so the high level problem here is "how can I infer a locale's working hours without asking every individual?"

the current solution is to set an explicit expectation that people work 9-5ish in their local offset.

is your proposal to do the same thing, but the expectation is that people work noon-4 to noon+4, or something like that? I don't see any major advantages to that, but I do see one major disadvantage: solar noon occurs at a different time every day. of all the arbitrary markers to align schedules with, this seems like a pretty bad one.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#130

Post by shpx »

ooterness wrote: post #91
throwaway09223 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't we have one timezone? Why not have one worldwide timezone? The sun rises and sets at different times according to both latitude and longitude. Timezones only handle longitudinal daylight adjustments. We already deal with plenty of incongruity around daylight. Why not embrace the variability and let go of the idea that we can predict daylight based on the hour alone? Let people localize the time to disco…

Why even use time that's linked to the rotation of our home-planet? That's as geo-centric as it gets. Just count the number of seconds since the GPS epoch in a galaxy-centered inertial frame. This post was made at 1,373,034,914.

A second is one 86400th of a rotation of our home-planet
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