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Time to Dump Time Zones

nytimes.com

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Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#161

Post by RubyPinch »

iamdave wrote: post #153
arcticfox wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're correct. We call the 24-hour clock "military time" and basically no one uses it casually.

I do. Granted, I was in the military-I passively hate it when people call it 'military time' (passively meaning I mentally roll my eyes when someone says it), but I've been using it since middle school when I first even learned it was a thing. Mostly because it made sense right away. There are 24 hours in the day. Why are we recycling numbers in our time system? No really, why?

at a guess, its kinda the key size for hours

12/2=6, 12/3=4 work well, (with /4 and /6 being repeats of those)

24 hours doesn't add much on top of those divisions (you get /4 with a repeating /6 I guess)

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#162

Post by ajmurmann »

I have huge issues with DST and how we measure time in general (24hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds?! Who the f* came up with these crazy ass numbers?!). But what bugs me much more is the insane calendar. 12 Months with arbitrary numbers of days. That's just crazy. In the very least we could make it so that January to May have 31 days and the remaining months get 30. ideally we would switch to the positivist calendar. That would make everything date related trivial, easy to remember and calculate.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#163

Post by melvinmt »

minznerjosh wrote: post #61
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…

This hits the nail on the head. Abandoning time zones would only make sense if there were no more need for time translation. But you'd still need to translate for the sake of biological clocks, and without time zones it would become more challenging to communicate that translation. I would be in favor of doing away with DST and also eschewing AM/PM in favor of a 24-hour clock. I'm surprised this article didn't mentio…

> But you'd still need to translate for the sake of biological clocks

I fail to see what you mean. Do you mean your biological clock needs to see it's 12pm to believe that it's the middle of the day? Why can't your biological clock just settle on any arbitrary number?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#164

Post by baddox »

jedberg wrote: post #145
raldi wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Standard Time, it would have been dark out until 7:40am today here in SF. That's really tough on people (or children) who have to be at work/school by 9 or even 8. By mid-December, sunrise wouldn't be until almost 8:30. In Seattle, it would be dark outside until 9am. Losing an hour of sleep in the spring is rough, but I'd rather do that (and get an extra hour in the fall) than have to get ready in the dark al…

And yet even with DST, kids in Alaska manage to get to school despite the sun coming up at 10am. This whole "for the kids@ argument is the worst one. Most workers today would prefer going to work in the dark and having daylight after work. Even farmers will tell you DST doesn't make a diffence to them anymore (or ever). The animals get up with the sun regardless of what the clock says. I agree with OP -- in today's m…

You didn't actually make many claims to counter the "for the kids" argument. The fact that kids in Alaska do that is unsurprising, but how does it affect them? I think it's pretty uncontroversial to say that Alaska is not one of the most appealing places to live for most people, and all else being equal, I suspect kids and parents would rather the sun come up before school.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#165

Post by baddox »

ajmurmann wrote: post #158
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the parent comment seems like something a person who enjoys spending all their time in front of a screen might say. For anyone who's in to any (most?) outdoor activities, the extra evening daylight is likely appreciated. Where I live we can be rock climbing till 8pm on a week night all through December and January.

I like to go running before work. That was really annoying this spring because it finally was bright early enough to do that and then DST came and ruined it and made me wait another few weeks.

It's clear that no system of time is ideal for everyone.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#166

Post by AckSyn »

bonoboTP wrote: post #143
raldi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm more and more convinced that most humans just aren't wired to wake up at the crack of dawn. But ending Standard Time would make everyone get up one hour earlier all winter long.

No. School start could be shifted to 9 AM or 10 AM. The clock should show 12 at noon. The clock is not the problem. The problem is that people are required to start their day at a too early time. Fix: increment the time requirements.

I find this argument extremely short sighted. Why is starting work early in the day a problem?

And why is going to bed at a decent hour to give you an 8 hour sleep period before you have to wake up for work or school a problem?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#167

Post by barnacs »

emodendroket wrote: post #129
barnacs wrote: post #84

I'd go even further and divide every human settlement into multiple districts with schedules shifting gradually between them. Like, in one "district" of the city most people would be sleeping, it would be quiet and somewhat dead, while at the same time a few "districts" over in the same city businesses would be open, including banks, offices and other stuff on extremely strict schedules currently. Yet in another dist…

Sounds like a completely unworkable mess.

Why do you think so? I believe it would work better than the current system.

We could utilize roads, vehicles, parking space, other infrastructure, as well as manpower more evenly. Rush hours are a weird concept and painful for pretty much everyone every day - waiting in traffic or lines is not much of a joy. The fact that 9-5 workers all work at the same time means that any one worker doesn't have much chance to take advantage of what other businesses have to offer. Like, if you work exactly at the same time banks and government offices are open, when do you even run your errands? And why do we assume that from say 10pm to 6am everyone just wants to keep quiet and rest? Fck that noisy pub down the road, let's just shut it down already!

To put it another way, since we currently have no practical control over the passage of time, it would make sense to separate activities spatially instead.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#168

Post by iamdave »

RubyPinch wrote: post #161
iamdave wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. Granted, I was in the military-I passively hate it when people call it 'military time' (passively meaning I mentally roll my eyes when someone says it), but I've been using it since middle school when I first even learned it was a thing. Mostly because it made sense right away. There are 24 hours in the day. Why are we recycling numbers in our time system? No really, why?

at a guess, its kinda the key size for hours 12/2=6, 12/3=4 work well, (with /4 and /6 being repeats of those) 24 hours doesn't add much on top of those divisions (you get /4 with a repeating /6 I guess)

I'm not immediately understanding, what are the divisions for? Parts/portions of the day?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#169

Post by uryga »

barnacs wrote: post #123
kryptiskt wrote: post #24

So you want to abolish time zones ( https://qntm.org/abolish )

If I want to talk to Uncle Steve, I don't really care what time it is either here or there, or what it signifies. All I care about is whether we can communicate synchronously at the time or not. If he doesn't want to be disturbed for whatever reason, he can mute/turn off his phone and I can send him an asynchronous message. Problem solved.

If you care about his availability, I'd say his local time is a pretty good predictor :)

I used to like the idea of asynchronous messaging and thought it was the future of telephony/voip. But honestly, async is pretty annoying, because you have to wait ;). I guess what I'm trying to say is, synchronous things are easier for us. It's pretty gard for me to keep track of all the async text conversations I've got going on Facebook. Async is useful for some things, but it makes talking feel like work.

I guess CPS-based humans would be more suited for a networked world...

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#170

Post by AckSyn »

ajmurmann wrote: post #162

I have huge issues with DST and how we measure time in general (24hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds?! Who the f* came up with these crazy ass numbers?!). But what bugs me much more is the insane calendar. 12 Months with arbitrary numbers of days. That's just crazy. In the very least we could make it so that January to May have 31 days and the remaining months get 30. ideally we would switch to the positivist calendar. Th…

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/11/15/3364432.ht...

> Our 24-hour day comes from the ancient Egyptians who divided day-time into 10 hours they measured with devices such as shadow clocks, and added a twilight hour at the beginning and another one at the end of the day-time, says Lomb. "Night-time was divided in 12 hours, based on the observations of stars

and

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-divi...

If you had such huge issues, google was a quick fix for them.

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