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Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

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Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#151
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand how that would save energy. Did people work 7am-3pm days or something?

The idea behind DST is that it shifts working hours into daylight hours during the darker months. This would theoretically cut down on energy use for lighting during those hours. Of course offices, factories and even schools still use artificial lighting even during daylight hours. And now the energy use of artificial lighting is much lower than back when everything used filament.

I thought the main idea behind it is (or used to be) that kids can go to and return from school in daylight.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#152

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

Nah. Any solution you come up with that accounts for how humans actually use time will just reinvent time zones. Could they be more cleanly specified than they are? Sure. But that's just an artifact of grandfathering in historical practices.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#153

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

Unless you can propose a proper way to locally represent time where a person is currently present in relation to the position of the sun then no, time zones will never go away. I know time zones suck for us as programmers but it's a practical way to separate different regions that will experience different times of day differently. As long as we have clocks and times with "midnight"s and "noon"s, time zones will exist. I assume once we truly become an interplanetary species and colonise multiple planets, we will begin to use different methods of time since 24 hour/365 day clocks are going to be an Earth only thing but that's for future scientists to decide. There were proposals for daylight savings to go away but that seems to have disappeared into the ether for some reason.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#154
post #129

The article says that "Nuuk is in Greenland, and is part of the greater EU cinematic universe." It is correct that Greenland is part of Denmark, and Denmark is a member of EU. But Greenland voted several years ago to stay out of the EU.

Which is why it's part of the greater universe, not the regular one.

In that case Greenland is accompanied by their 'sister country' The Faroe Islands, that has a similar status wrt. Denmark and EU.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#155

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

You could also argue that different languages need to go away. Would make everything easier.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#156

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

Unless you can propose a proper way to locally represent time where a person is currently present in relation to the position of the sun then no, time zones will never go away. I know time zones suck for us as programmers but it's a practical way to separate different regions that will experience different times of day differently. As long as we have clocks and times with "midnight"s and "noon"s, time zones will exis…

Just because you personally are used to a specific type of clock doesn’t mean you can’t imagine a different kind. Submarines use 24 hour clocks and give no hecks about where the sun is.

The solution is to just use UTC. That’s it. That means in NYC you’d get to work at 13:00 and go home at 21:00, which used to be 9am-5pm. That’s it. Your whole transition has been completed. The rest is just what your calendar says. Niece’s recital on Thursday at 19:00, beers with Greg at 23:00 on Friday, etc. It really isn’t hard to imagine.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#157

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

> Timezones are 19th century thinking. We can do better.

That's why I only use Swatch™ Internet Beats [1] for timekeeping.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a @583.32 meeting to get to.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#158
post #155

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

You could also argue that different languages need to go away. Would make everything easier.

It is much harder to do. We all speak the same 24 hour clock and it is not a culturally significant thing. It would be nice if everyone could understand everyone but there is something to be lost by losing languages. There is absolutely nothing to be lost by doing away with timezones.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#159

I know this is a popular sentiment here but it bears repeating: timezones need to go away. Time according to timezones measures the position of the sun. Except when we clearly decide with daylight savings time that we don’t care about the position of the sun, we just want it to be a certain time. When the sun is directly over NYC it is usually 1pm or 2pm, depending on time of year, but 5pm or 6pm in London. Why? Are…

Nah. Any solution you come up with that accounts for how humans actually use time will just reinvent time zones. Could they be more cleanly specified than they are? Sure. But that's just an artifact of grandfathering in historical practices.

See my reply to a parallel comment.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#160
post #129

The article says that "Nuuk is in Greenland, and is part of the greater EU cinematic universe." It is correct that Greenland is part of Denmark, and Denmark is a member of EU. But Greenland voted several years ago to stay out of the EU.

Which is why it's part of the greater universe, not the regular one.

Also, geographically it belongs to North America. Not Europe.
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