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Are the Americans Awake?

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Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#61

Post by izzydata »

delecti wrote: post #43

I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. It's cheating a bit with Alaska in the picture, but the US spans about twice the degrees of longitude as Europe, and it would still be solidly "wider" even if you limit to the lower 48 states.

I'm more perplexed that China decided it should only have 1 timezone. It also decided that timezone should be from the perspective of the eastern coast. When does the sun rise and fall for the western most people?

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#62

Post by JJMcJ »

delecti wrote: post #43

I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. It's cheating a bit with Alaska in the picture, but the US spans about twice the degrees of longitude as Europe, and it would still be solidly "wider" even if you limit to the lower 48 states.

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, also.

Hardly cheating. They are part of the United States.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#63

Post by OoooooooO »

pluijzer wrote: post #10

This site takes into account that Americans get there 8 hours of sleep though some quick googling revealed that the average American only gets 7 hours and 13 minutes of sleep. Just want to preach to those not getting there 8 hours, getting enough sleep really gives an enormous boost to mood, creativity, productivity and health. Give it a try :-)

Depending if the amount of sleep has a normal distribution in the USA using the average instead of the median skews the results.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#64

Post by mrweasel »

13of40 wrote: post #58
mrweasel wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scheduling meetings with Americans tend to get a little worse than expected, because they apparently think 9 - 17:00 is when you should be working, and not 8 - 16:00. So rather than having an afternoon meeting, you get to have a late afternoon meeting. I think I can find more people in Denmark working 7 - 15:00 compared to 9 - 17:00.

West Coast American here. Since I have to work with so many people from Europe, Israel, India, etc., my calendar looks like an impacted colon from about 8:00 AM PST to 11:00 AM PST, then I have all this free time after that to do "work". The problem is that erases things like "I'm going to hit the gym in the morning" and "I'm going to get this document polished up before the first meeting of the day". And when 11:00…

No no I can absolutely relate, it works the same the other way around. Once that 18:00 meeting rolls in my head is done, but it frequently becomes a question of whether or not I'm mildly inconvenienced in the late afternoon, early evening, or if my American colleagues are massively inconvenienced in the morning. In that case it's normally better that I just jump on that meeting from home.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#66

Post by ceejayoz »

JJMcJ wrote: post #62
delecti wrote: post #43

I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. It's cheating a bit with Alaska in the picture, but the US spans about twice the degrees of longitude as Europe, and it would still be solidly "wider" even if you limit to the lower 48 states.

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, also. Hardly cheating. They are part of the United States.

This gets complicated. State versus non-state, incorporated versus unincorporated territories, etc. Hawaii's an easy "yes" answer. American Samoa isn't by several possible definitions.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#67

Post by throwaway09223 »

cvoss wrote: post #60
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "decided" which is correct. With 24 hours a day and 360 degrees of longitude, it should be simply 15 degrees per hour. The number of time zone that a country has is a political choice, perhaps based on geography somewhat. The size of each time zone is also variable depending on the choice the government makes. * Look at China for example, one time zone. * India is the same with one time zone. * Mountain Time Zo…

And there's also the decision to use hour-aligned timezones. Why not half hours? Why not two hours? It's very much a conscious decision.

Why have time zones at all, and not simply recognize that day and night occur at different times in different places?

This part wasn't a conscious decision, because the reference frame of time and orbital mechanics were discovered long after the practice of timekeeping. We may have a similar problem on a galactic scale some day.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#68

Post by RegnisGnaw »

cvoss wrote: post #60
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "decided" which is correct. With 24 hours a day and 360 degrees of longitude, it should be simply 15 degrees per hour. The number of time zone that a country has is a political choice, perhaps based on geography somewhat. The size of each time zone is also variable depending on the choice the government makes. * Look at China for example, one time zone. * India is the same with one time zone. * Mountain Time Zo…

And there's also the decision to use hour-aligned timezones. Why not half hours? Why not two hours? It's very much a conscious decision.

There :30 time zones and :45 time zones. Oddly, no :15 time zones.

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#69

Post by justrealist »

zokier wrote: post #56
delecti wrote: post #43

I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. It's cheating a bit with Alaska in the picture, but the US spans about twice the degrees of longitude as Europe, and it would still be solidly "wider" even if you limit to the lower 48 states.

> I'm perplexed at the implication that we "decided" to have the number of time zones that we do, rather than just acknowledging the reality that the US is a fairly big country. Timezones are still a social construct, and decision made. Mainland China is wider than contiguous US, and yet it runs on single TZ.

Think about the concrete thing you're suggesting — making people 4 timezones away wake up early just to be aligned with bureaucrats! Eliminating timezones on its own does not make people wake up before dawn. Consolidating timezones while not forcing people into unnatural wake/sleep cycles accomplishes nothing.

You still would have to figure out when people in SF wake up!

Re: Are the Americans Awake?

#70

Post by chickenpotpie »

cvoss wrote: post #60
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "decided" which is correct. With 24 hours a day and 360 degrees of longitude, it should be simply 15 degrees per hour. The number of time zone that a country has is a political choice, perhaps based on geography somewhat. The size of each time zone is also variable depending on the choice the government makes. * Look at China for example, one time zone. * India is the same with one time zone. * Mountain Time Zo…

And there's also the decision to use hour-aligned timezones. Why not half hours? Why not two hours? It's very much a conscious decision.

1 hour is easy to remember, makes the math easier, and not so far apart that it creates radically different concepts of time for people on the extreme ends.

With one hour time zones:

* If someone is 3 time zones ahead, they're 3 hours ahead

* There are 24 time zones and 360 degrees neatly divides by 24

* 2 hours between time zones means that within a time zone, the sun rises on one side at 8 am and on the other side at 10 am.

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