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Time to Dump Time Zones

nytimes.com

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Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#441

Post by mhenr18 »

hrktb wrote: post #109
salmon30salmon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who live in our Ivory Tower of the software industry that may be true, but the 9-5 concept is not outdated for a vast majority of working humans on the planet. Lets not project our reality onto the rest of the world.

I think this could be a good impetus to get rid of that. Right now the concept of 9-5 is often adopted by pure inertia even when there is no reason to do so. The day we'll have to all translate the current '9-5' to a different number, it will be a serious chance to reevaluate if that's appropriate. For instance my place has a requirement on being there around 9:30 in the morning even though we should be part of the "…

Don't forget that the people working in said public services also need to open holes in their schedules to access the services that other companies provide.

What kind of hour staggering were you thinking about to try and solve the scheduling problem?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#442

Post by imron »

tom_mellior wrote: post #386
imron wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Everything is offset a couple of hours So? The only examples the article gives are "sometimes it's light at midnight" and "sometimes the sun doesn't come up until 10am", both of which are absolutely normal for lots of people living in, say, not-entirely-southern Scandinavia. > and there is a kind of unofficial 'xinjiang time' that you have to convert to and from in your head So the problem is not the single time zo…

> So the problem is not the single time zone, the problem stems from having two time zones for (somewhat understandable, but still inconvenient) political reasons.

So once again ask yourself, why do two timezones exist when there is already one official one that everybody should use?

Timezones won't go away just because governments will it and then it becomes even more of a mess.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#443

Post by pavel_lishin »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #309
pavel_lishin wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I drop my kid off at daycare at the morning - 7:45 is the earliest they accept them. I don't have to be at work until 10, really. I've been doing a lot of thinking during my walks there, and I've concluded that school starts at 8am so that parents can drop their children off before then, and still make it to work on time. That's it.

This is an incorrect conclusion. The occurrence of both parents working has been around for less than 30 years. Before that, the mom used to stay at home, so she would take care of getting the kids ready for school, etc. And yet, school started around the same time then as well.

That's a good point, I didn't consider that.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#444

Post by mcs_ »

if the problem are the financial operations let them have a Time Zone.

Consideration, if you plan something at 8 am, who/what makes that possible? probably a clock! so:

1) reset the time, 2) start having business related time zone 3) start having speed related time operations

my clock tells me when i have to speed up or slow down to accomplish a task.

There are a lot of applications that can contribute to a better life:

Speed Clock for Uber! Speed Clock for development Speed Clock for ...

I mean, who cares about 2016 AC at this point? You can always have a coca cola party with gifts in some moment in the "year" if you want.

(Note: this idea is absurd and will never works)

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#445

Post by benjaminmhaley »

Actually we need local and universal time.

Say you have a meeting with remote participants. You want to know that it's at 9am UTC. With only that everyone knows when to meet. You also want to know that it's at 4am local time. That way you know that you will be asleep.

Universal time is useful for communicating. Local time is good for understanding whether people are likely working, eating, or sleeping.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#446

Post by eloisant »

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…

Yes indeed, I think it's easier when setting a conference call if I know it will be 3pm here, 10am there and 8pm over there than figuring out that "it will be in the middle of the morning for that person, late evening over there".

Also, when traveling I think it's much easier to adjust your body to a different clock that getting used to get up at some weird time and getting to bed at another weird time. To avoid jetlag you need to trick your body into believing in the local time, not your home time, so having the same time everywhere won't help at all.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#447

Post by lawless123 »

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…

What if the system described in the article was the current system? would we switch to time zones?

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#448

Post by taejo »

Lazare wrote: post #405

I remember when I thought the same thing. Then I spent a couple hours thinking about it, and realized what a terrible idea it was. In my day to day life, I often need to talk to fellow tech people (engineers, support, etc.) in my own time zone, but also in places such as Sydney (2 hours behind me) or California (20 hours behind me). As a society, we've agreed that tech people like that are generally working 9-5, give…

If you're only dealing with people geographically close to you, you might as well all agree on a convenient local timezone, with features like not changing the date in the middle of the work day.

Re: Time to Dump Time Zones

#449

Post by mark_l_watson »

The vote is in: I like the idea and my wife hates it :-)

I agree that using Earth Time would harmonize business and personal relations around the world. I work remotely, and time zone calculations for scheduling meetings, etc. are a small inconvenience, but why have any inconvenience at all?

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