171–180 of 282 posts
But it's going to get increasingly easier to deal with time zones. Computers and artificial intelligence will see to that. So I don't see much impetus to get people to change this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might want to move to China. Even though the country "should" have 5+ timezones, it only has 1 (Beijing Standard Time).
How does this affect people living on Western borders in China ? Do they have really long days ?
Their days are only "long" in the sense that they probably go to bed after midnight. They still have the same average number of hours in a day as anyone at their latitude and altitude.
That is why all the over-complicated time systems are dumb. You don't actually give yourself more time. You over-complicate reality to suit cultural norms like "the sun rises at 6am" despite the fact most people will grow up never moving that far from where they are born. If the sun rose at 1am people would sleep from 4 to 12, not try to force a standard time schedule of 6am sunrises on an entire population. They already don't - people get up generally around their sunrises everywhere on Earth - they just change clocks to make that sunrise always be around 6am.
Time zones and DST are an accommodation for moving across time zones so no matter where you go you can use the clock as a reference to solar noon, except in the dozens / hundreds of instances where you cannot. The consequence is that the complicated system is hard to track, makes cross-zone communication and scheduling a nightmare, and causes legitimate accidents when people do not know where the date lines are, when the times change, how they change (I think there is a stretch of Russian border where you can go 3 hours forward and backward in time in about 100km).
> The problem? Florida doesn’t have the authority to adopt daylight saving time year-round. > The federal government controls the nation’s time zones, as well as the start and end dates of daylight saving time. States can choose to exempt themselves from daylight saving time — Arizona and Hawaii do — but nothing in federal law allows them to exempt themselves from standard time.
we're all familiar with the article in the constitution that gives the federal government the power to decide for states how to set their clocks, i assume. i guess you can always count on the times to advocate for centralized power
Here's an example. Suppose I'm driving down the highways, and I arrive at some town and I decide to stop for lunch. I see a parking space, but it says I can't park there at certain times. But every city in the country sets its own clocks. How do I figure out what time it is? That's a pain, right?
I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.
You might want to move to China. Even though the country "should" have 5+ timezones, it only has 1 (Beijing Standard Time).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun fact, Nepal's timezone is UTC+5:45.
Many historic timezones have 15 minute offsets. In the era before American railroads synchronized timezones to the hours, Louisville, KY, as one example close to home, was often UTC-5:45. (It's GE's fault that Louisville and consequently most of the US I-65 corridor wound up EST rather than CST.) I don't expect to win arguments that the city should return to UTC-5:45, but I make them anyway to amuse myself.
I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.
I'd rather they just remove numbers from most 'clocks' (for humans) and instead define things like "morning" "lunch" "evening" as official designations relative to UTC (but humans would normally not see that offset) and list times like... (City) Morning + 2.5 hours
Fun fact: noon comes from “nona hora” (ninth hour), which actually was mid-afternoon.
I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.
I'd rather they just remove numbers from most 'clocks' (for humans) and instead define things like "morning" "lunch" "evening" as official designations relative to UTC (but humans would normally not see that offset) and list times like... (City) Morning + 2.5 hours
I wouldn't mind everyone moving to UTC. Sure, only people in Greenwich would be able to eat lunch at 12 noon. But at least it would simplify my life as a programmer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But why do we need to change the time on the clock in order to have this? Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months.
> Just go into work an hour early, and leave an hour early. Boss, clients, etc won't allow me to. > If it is a matter of coordination, have an official government statement that summer business hours adjust during x - z months. That's exactly^H^H^H^H effectively what DST is.
That makes _them_ the problem; anyway the local government should publish a one minute notice: "Remember I'ts # PM., it's time to leave work!" (on TV+radio+twitter) and that's it.
I'm torn on this. Yes, having a shift of a full hour in a week is obnoxious. However, the natural sun up and sun down time changes so dramatically in its own, that it is hard to really complain about it. If anything, I could see society moving to a time more based on when the sun comes up. Yes, there are difficulties scheduling something with someone across distance on the earth. But... I don't see a practical soluti…
The dramatic shift is in northern locales but not so much in southern ones