I remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time - I loved the concept. Maybe if we switched to beats we wouldn't have an association for 'noon.'
Time to Dump Time Zones
31–40 of 555 posts
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#32So you want to abolish time zones ( https://qntm.org/abolish )
That is the best narrative I have read regarding time zones. Thanks!
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#33I'd be happy with doing away with Daylight Savings Time.
^This. Lets tackle the thing that's definitely a good idea, and much easier to manage before shooting for the metaphorical moon.
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#34This should be required reading for anyone thinking time zones are a bad idea: https://qntm.org/abolish
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#35The article is upside down. "Perhaps you’re asking why the Greenwich meridian gets to define earth time. " It doesn't. Everybody gets to have their own, proper time. In comparing times, we +/- based on an arbitrary spot, and that's it. Time zones are a great solution to a problem. People want their time in local terms. Everyone waking up and going to bed at different times is an utterly ridiculous concept. FYI - if y…
Time zones are an arbitrary construct anyhow - what makes 0800 morning and 1900 evening other than our understanding of that time means. They are all entirely human constructs. In business - abolishing time zones is a great idea - but in personal life.. maybe not so much - as a linked article pointed out - humans don't normally publish waking hours.
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#36mod: Can you please combine the three threads?
Merged.
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#37The article is upside down. "Perhaps you’re asking why the Greenwich meridian gets to define earth time. " It doesn't. Everybody gets to have their own, proper time. In comparing times, we +/- based on an arbitrary spot, and that's it. Time zones are a great solution to a problem. People want their time in local terms. Everyone waking up and going to bed at different times is an utterly ridiculous concept. FYI - if y…
Time zones are an arbitrary construct anyhow - what makes 0800 morning and 1900 evening other than our understanding of that time means. They are all entirely human constructs. In business - abolishing time zones is a great idea - but in personal life.. maybe not so much - as a linked article pointed out - humans don't normally publish waking hours.
So is time.
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#38[deleted]
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#39The article is upside down. "Perhaps you’re asking why the Greenwich meridian gets to define earth time. " It doesn't. Everybody gets to have their own, proper time. In comparing times, we +/- based on an arbitrary spot, and that's it. Time zones are a great solution to a problem. People want their time in local terms. Everyone waking up and going to bed at different times is an utterly ridiculous concept. FYI - if y…
The numbers are already arbitrary. Even within the US, where the east and west are 'only' three hours apart there are many who believe that only their timezone matters.
For conveying when in time something happened or will happen, using UTC properly is good. There is one singular number that can make sense to everyone. For all other things people perform a lookup, either in their mind or in some utility (paper or program) already.
Times for accounting (arbitrary numbers that presently have local offsets) could benefit from having the offset, and the need for specifying /what/ that offset is, removed.
There is no reason we //need// 9am to mean 'morning', we can use morning for that. Any 'time' that isn't a hard number is a loose social reference for local meanings.
Re: Time to Dump Time Zones
#40As this version of the thread seems to have more points I'll comment here. I completely agree with everyone using UTC for numeric time numbering. I DISAGREE, with remapping 'noon', 'midnight', 'morning', etc. All of the relative descriptions for when in the local solar day a thing is should be approximate local references. An example: 'lunch' and 'noon' would still be the time in the middle of the local solar day tha…
Regarding UTC: when I've tried (as a European) to coordinate online meetings with Americans (working in tech companies) using times given in UTC, it's gone wrong about 50% of the time. Usually caused by people confusing UTC and British Summer Time (UTC+1).
I am shocked when I meet an American who actually knows when to use PDT as opposed to PST. They also think they're being clever asking if I want to have a meeting at X:00 GMT when they mean BST (or Irish Standard Time, which is confusingly observer in Ireland in the _summer_, which is 1 hour ahead of GMT just like BST is).
Of course, when the S can mean either "summer" or "standard" one can forgive some confusion.