Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Swatch Internet Time

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 103 posts

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#21

Post by Tomdarkness »

ComSubVie wrote: post #17

Lots of things would be easier if everybody uses the same time. It could stay the 24h/day time format, but timezones are a pain - I always have to recalculate them for local time. Why couldn't everybody work with UTC? And by the way: when will we finally get rid of the daylight savings time?!?

Consider this. Suppose I want to phone someone who lives in Japan and I live in the UK. Japan is +9 hours ahead of UK local time (GMT). Therefore I know if I phone slightly before lunch then I'll be phoning them in the evening.

Now suppose we all had the same time. If I phoned them just before lunch, which would mean shortly before 12:00 in the UK then I'd have to try and figure out what Japan would be doing at that time. Would 12:00 in Japan be early morning, late at night, would they be eating a meal, would they be at work? Now I have to remember where in the day different times are for different counties. However, with timezones all I need to remember is a numerical value and I can easily figure out where Japan is in the progression of a day (i.e morning, evening, night).

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#22

Post by 0xEA »

mertd wrote: post #20
ComSubVie wrote: post #17

Lots of things would be easier if everybody uses the same time. It could stay the 24h/day time format, but timezones are a pain - I always have to recalculate them for local time. Why couldn't everybody work with UTC? And by the way: when will we finally get rid of the daylight savings time?!?

How would you know if it is appropriate to call someone in some other part of the globe? One way or another you have to do a lookup. A) Everyone uses UTC. Now you have to know the business hours in Tokyo because it is not universally 8-6 anymore. B) Everyone uses local time. Now you have to know their local time.

As an example:

I don't know where you are, you don't know where I am. I tell you I am available from @300-@800 if you want to Skype today. Let me know which time is good for you.

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#23

Post by chmars »

ComSubVie wrote: post #17

Lots of things would be easier if everybody uses the same time. It could stay the 24h/day time format, but timezones are a pain - I always have to recalculate them for local time. Why couldn't everybody work with UTC? And by the way: when will we finally get rid of the daylight savings time?!?

Where it matters, UTC is widely used, for example in aviation. And local times - based on time zones – are representations of UTC too.

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#24

Post by 0xEA »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #2

I've always loved this idea. It just makes sense. People argue against the "circular notation" of a clock face and how it relates to 60 minutes/seconds, but all that analog stuff is dead.

I was a huge fan of this in '98. Was very sad to see it fail. I even wrote custom software for Litestep so you could see what beat time it was.

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#25

Post by chmars »

jber wrote: post #8

It was a nice idea but I think Swatch made a big mistake by taking their headquarters as the base to calculate it. It needed to be an independant concept to bring other companies/competitors on board.

It was probably mainly a PR idea, though a good one … on the other hand, from a neutral point of view, Biel/Switzerland is not really different from Greenwich/UK as a zero point.

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#26

Post by orbitingpluto »

ValentineC wrote: post #18
lampe3 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but all that analog stuff is dead." I still wear a analog Watch

Just curious — aesthetics aside, what other advantages do you think an analog watch provides?

"What exactly does it mean -- to wind a watch?"

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#27

Post by mertd »

0xEA wrote: post #22
mertd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you know if it is appropriate to call someone in some other part of the globe? One way or another you have to do a lookup. A) Everyone uses UTC. Now you have to know the business hours in Tokyo because it is not universally 8-6 anymore. B) Everyone uses local time. Now you have to know their local time.

As an example: I don't know where you are, you don't know where I am. I tell you I am available from @300-@800 if you want to Skype today. Let me know which time is good for you.

Which would be scenario A. You just did the lookup of finding that 0xEA's business hours are from @300 to @800.

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#28

Post by lampe3 »

ValentineC wrote: post #18
lampe3 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but all that analog stuff is dead." I still wear a analog Watch

Just curious — aesthetics aside, what other advantages do you think an analog watch provides?

It's a self-winding Watch so I don't need a Battery.

I grew up with analog Watches and reading them is not a problem for me but i understand the point to use Digital Watches.

I Personally don't like the aesthetics of Digital Watches ;)

Re: Swatch Internet Time

#29

Post by willholloway »

I think the biggest problem with time keeping systems is that they counts up, but our lives are not infinite. For us, time is really counting down.

After trying to reconcile the solar year with decimal time in a way that made sense, I abandoned my effort and created a time keeping system with 1095 units of time of time per year (1098 in leap years).

The units are 8 hours long, because no progress on hard problems is made in an hour.

I call it Maker Time:

The web site is @ http://willholloway.net/makertime.html A JSON API is @ http://makertime.willholloway.net/api/current

Checking the current Maker Time reminds me that I have 1060 - 349 (for sleep) = 711 opportunities to make cool things this year.

Post reply on HN