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Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

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Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#51

Post by rue »

drdaeman wrote: post #45
furyg3 wrote: post #28

Can we all just have a 24 hour clock based on GMT, no other timezones, and no daylight savings time? It seems a whole lot easier to change our time format just once and get used to it... instead of half of us changing the clocks twice a year, the other not, drawing all these weird lines all over (grumble India grumble), and keeping track of it all.

First, most humans are extremly reluctant to any changes. You see, US are still using imperial units and Fahrenheit scale. Second, timezones are used for globally-recognizable time of a day. No matter where you are on Earth, 08:00 (by 24-hour scale) is certainly in the morning, and 20:00 is evening.

It's true that 8:00 can be considered morning, but I think that's useful in fewer situations than one might think. You can't know, for example, whether I'll be at the office anywhere near that time so you'll still need to ask if you want to get a hold of me.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#52

Post by meese_ »

zeteo wrote: post #46
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! Even better! "Metric time" - a minute has 100 seconds, an hour 100 minutes, a day is 10 hours (100,000 seconds). Makes perfect sense on a space station so we'll have to face it sooner or later.

Well while we're at it, what's the fetish with 10? We should use powers of 2 for everything :)

Powers of ten are easy to manage in base 10?

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#53

Post by salvadors »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #49
rue wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It can also be explained as a matter of simple efficiency: Currently when synchronising something, two pieces of information must be known (the time, and the timezone). If using a single timezone, only one is required (whether it's night or day at either end is inconsequential, only the party at that end really needs to worry about it and can provide a range of hours suitable to them).

This is absolutely incorrect. Except in the singular example of arranging telecommunication across timezones, you have to maintain MORE information under this system. When I currently travel, I can make the assumption that any restaurant will be open by 11 AM, that I have to check out of my hotel by 11 AM and that I can't check in until 3 PM. In your system, standard store hours have become a random regional fluctuat…

You obviously don't travel much.

There is huge variation in these sorts of things worldwide. See, for example, http://www.spanish-town-guides.com/Opening_Hours.htm

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#54

Post by rue »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #49
rue wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It can also be explained as a matter of simple efficiency: Currently when synchronising something, two pieces of information must be known (the time, and the timezone). If using a single timezone, only one is required (whether it's night or day at either end is inconsequential, only the party at that end really needs to worry about it and can provide a range of hours suitable to them).

This is absolutely incorrect. Except in the singular example of arranging telecommunication across timezones, you have to maintain MORE information under this system. When I currently travel, I can make the assumption that any restaurant will be open by 11 AM, that I have to check out of my hotel by 11 AM and that I can't check in until 3 PM. In your system, standard store hours have become a random regional fluctuat…

I don't know which of us is “correct”, but I disagree with your opinion on the matter.

You're making an assumption of a standard time of day when stuff's open (I agree, 11:00 is a reasonable assumption). I can, however, make that same assumption. In your travel model, the traveler must know the timezone (and work with assumptions from there). In my mode, the traveler would need to know the “standard daytime hour” and work with assumptions from there.

So, both require one piece of info when traveling, but a single timezone wins out when synchronising.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#55

Post by tophercyll »

rue wrote: post #48
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! Even better! "Metric time" - a minute has 100 seconds, an hour 100 minutes, a day is 10 hours (100,000 seconds). Makes perfect sense on a space station so we'll have to face it sooner or later.

http://decimalti.me There's a few ways to do it: as you can see, I like to use the 1/100 as the base unit (it's a little under 15 minutes in current reckoning) and go decimal beyond that since you have a neat percentage as a result, and you can drop off precision as needed.

We often (jokingly) measure time in kiloseconds around my office. As rue points out, that's just a bit over fifteen minutes, so its actually a useful unit.

"See you in the conference room in 2 ksecs..."

Put a bunch of geeks together too long and this is what happens.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#56

Post by drdaeman »

exit wrote: post #50
drdaeman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, most humans are extremly reluctant to any changes. You see, US are still using imperial units and Fahrenheit scale. Second, timezones are used for globally-recognizable time of a day. No matter where you are on Earth, 08:00 (by 24-hour scale) is certainly in the morning, and 20:00 is evening.

your second point seems interchangeable with the difficulty of knowing what timezone some random location falls into. i think it might be slightly worse in that "solar noon"-zones would stick to straight bands.

Yes, it certainly is. But combined with the first point, it explains why such change just won't happen (unless something really extraordinary happens).

When I think about it, I find it quite depressing how many nice things are out there, we just can't have because of overall human inertia and reluctance to accept any major changes.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#57

Post by ELV1S »

zeteo wrote: post #46
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! Even better! "Metric time" - a minute has 100 seconds, an hour 100 minutes, a day is 10 hours (100,000 seconds). Makes perfect sense on a space station so we'll have to face it sooner or later.

Well while we're at it, what's the fetish with 10? We should use powers of 2 for everything :)

We should also use base-8 number system! http://infoverse.org/octomatics/octomatics.htm

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#58

Post by presidentender »

Semiapies wrote: post #11
pig wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmers work whenever they want.

And people haven't been using farm schedules to justify DST for several decades. It's now supposedly about electricity use.

It's about continuing to justify what has always been a bad idea of which the powers that be refuse to let go.
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