Time to Dump Time Zones • Hacker News Board

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#391

Post by Dayshine » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:33 AM UTC

tom_mellior wrote: post #390

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…

> If my friend on the other side of the country says "I woke up at 9 this morning", I have a pretty good idea of what that means. Do you really? If your friend called, said "I woke up at 9 this morning", then hung up, you wouldn't really know what that means. Usually your friend would embed this information in some context, like "I woke up at 9 this morning, but I had an important meeting scheduled for 9:30, and my c…

> "I woke up at 9 this morning",

Yes you do, you know he woke up possibly a little late, but didn't massively oversleep.

> "I woke up at 22 hours this morning,

Now I have no idea whether that's good/bad/early/late without a lookup table.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#392

Post by skc » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:34 AM UTC

roel_v wrote: post #176

ci5er wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your impression is pretty much spot on. We have "military-time" and "24-hour time" available to us in all of our application configurations, but no-one seems to use it. I do because it helps me do time-zone translating transforms to/from UTC in my head more easily, but also because I keep failing to see that little "PM dot" or set the "PM Flag" whenever dealing with times in various applications or alarms. Verbally,…

"Verbally, speaking with USians, 15.00 is always pronounced "3pm"." It's like that everywhere in Europe. Nobody says 'see you at fifteen'. 24 hour clock is merely for writing things down. I mean it would already be an improvement if the US would catch up with that, just saying that a 24 hour clock isn't said out loud as such. (not disagreeing or anything with you I guess, just adding some information).

We say "see you at 15" in Zambia.

Just thought I'd chime in here too.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#393

Post by HNSucksAss » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:36 AM UTC

tom_mellior wrote: post #390

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…

> If my friend on the other side of the country says "I woke up at 9 this morning", I have a pretty good idea of what that means. Do you really? If your friend called, said "I woke up at 9 this morning", then hung up, you wouldn't really know what that means. Usually your friend would embed this information in some context, like "I woke up at 9 this morning, but I had an important meeting scheduled for 9:30, and my c…

Yes, you do really.

Now if only we could get Apple to understand time zones and when NOT to use them: http://goldmanosi.blogspot.com/2016/03/apples-idiotic-time-z...

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#394

Post by PapaSlug » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:38 AM UTC

vidoc wrote: post #251

Very interesting article, I've wondered about a universal time several times, tons of pros and cons sure, but it's cool to think that people are thinking about such disrupting alternatives. Reminds me this cool episode of 99% invisible[1] where they talk about calendar design, in particular, Kodak company used a 28-day/13 month design calendar until the 70s and it turns out it was beloved by teams who were doing a lo…

Yes this was my favourite episode!

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#395

Post by jeroen94704 » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:40 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #273

This proposal focuses on timezones as names for hours and completely glosses over what the relationship is between timezones and days . Does Monday November 7th 2016 run from 00:00 UTC - 23:59 UTC? Do people in Sydney start work at 21:00 UTC on Sunday and come home at 17:00 UTC on Monday? Or do different places around the world have different times when they flip the calendar over? (in which case you've just recreate…

Excellent point. Getting rid of timezones would mean most people would have to switch to a different _date_ at some random point (determined by their longitude) during the day. Very impractical.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#396

Post by lmm » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:40 AM UTC

imron wrote: post #258

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…

Let's look at the single data point we have where this sort of system is in place - China. It's approximately as wide as the U.S. and it has a single timezone - Beijing time. As you can imagine, if you are living in Beijing, Beijing time works pretty well. It also works pretty well for everywhere else on the east coast. It's not so bad in the middle either. For the people living in Urumqi, or even further west such a…

Sounds like it's a problem in Urumqi precisely because there are people who use a different timezone (and because the question of which to use is politicized). If everyone used Beijing time, wouldn't all the problems in that article go away?

(I've only been to Urumqi once, but I found the being in the same timezone as the rest of China very convenient, particularly in contrast to earlier on the same trip when we arrived in Kiev 2 hours earlier than we'd expected and had to scramble to pack up our stuff and leave the train)

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#397

Post by usrusr » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:40 AM UTC

filmor wrote: post #387

Asooka wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having Sunday as the first day would mess up our week, because we call Tuesday, Thursday and Friday second, fourth and fifth respectively. If you really want 1st each month to be first day of week, either America will have to adopt Monday as first, or vary the day of week by region.

Wednesday is called "Mittwoch" in German, which is a shortened form of "middle of the week". Only works if Sunday is the first day of the week, though the common convention is also having the week start on Monday. Confused me quite a bit as a child :)

Middle of the working days part of the week, no need to go all American and make half of the weekend the beginning!

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#398

Post by fdgdasfadsf » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:42 AM UTC

powvans wrote: post #102

I've spent the last several years developing applications that have calendaring at the core, where users collaborate across timezones, and where proper timezone handling is expected. Just try to explain to everyday people just how hard the problem is, the technical in and out, the practical miracle that it all works in almost all the cases, that all the error prone complexity can be eliminated by acknowledging that i…

Except when you over-localize. It really annoys me when I am away for the weekend and my calender thinks all my appointments are an hour later/earlier than they actually are.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#399

Post by k__ » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:42 AM UTC

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…

Well, I think time zones just move the problem around.

With time zones, you have to calculate mentally WHEN someone in another time zone is awake or something like that.

Without time zones, you have to calculate mentally WHAT it means if someone says 14:30.

I don't know which would be easier in the long run.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#400

Post by k__ » Mon, Nov 07, 2016, 9:42 AM UTC

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…

Well, I think time zones just move the problem around.

With time zones, you have to calculate mentally WHEN someone in another time zone is awake or something like that.

Without time zones, you have to calculate mentally WHAT it means if someone says 14:30.

I don't know which would be easier in the long run.