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Write open-source ebeats implementations, win $77.77

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Re: Write open-source ebeats implementations, win $77.77

#5
I started to write a comment that suggested 'Ebeats' was no better than just trying to popularize GMT/"Z" time for coordination. These Ebeats are GMT-based; their benefit is that by their format they can't be confused with TZ-based times; their problem is they don't mentally map to the old divisions like hours and minutes.

But the more I think about the problem, the more I suspect that the instant-distinction is the key success factor. I can imagine future calendaring software always showing both customary local time and Ebeats alongside each time-range. It'd still be hard to casually set an Ebeats meeting time, without your software open, but with software open it becomes easy.

The one refinement I would suggest to prevent day-rollover confusion would be to add an optional one-letter A-G prefix to each Ebeat time specifying the GMT day-of-week. Thus without including the whole traditional, locally-varying (2011-03m-31d) date or day-of-week (Thursday/Th/R), or relative phrasing ("Tomorrow"), any off-by-one day errors can be avoided.

By this convention, the Ebeats time right now is @d792. This time tomorrow will be @e792.

(A potential problem is that 'f' now means GMT Saturday. Moving the first-day 'a' back to Sunday makes 'f' line up nicely with Friday, but goes against ISO/international practice calling Monday the first day. I suppose another convention for getting a day-of-week 'check-digit' in would be a 1-7, but set off somehow to avoid confusion with beats... eg @4.792 or @4d792 or 4@792.)

Re: Write open-source ebeats implementations, win $77.77

#6
post #5

I started to write a comment that suggested 'Ebeats' was no better than just trying to popularize GMT/"Z" time for coordination. These Ebeats are GMT-based; their benefit is that by their format they can't be confused with TZ-based times; their problem is they don't mentally map to the old divisions like hours and minutes. But the more I think about the problem, the more I suspect that the instant-distinction is the…

Good points all around. We'll definitely consider a DOW prefix, for social time that really fits the usage.

Re: Write open-source ebeats implementations, win $77.77

#8
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 pizzas? I'm getting ripped off. For me that's 7 pizzas.

Where the hell are you guys getting your pizza from? Even with a retailmenot coupon, pizzas still come out to like $20 each.

My Dominos does a large 1 topping for $5.99.

Re: Write open-source ebeats implementations, win $77.77

#9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 pizzas? I'm getting ripped off. For me that's 7 pizzas.

Where the hell are you guys getting your pizza from? Even with a retailmenot coupon, pizzas still come out to like $20 each.

I'm doing Brooklyn's Best in arlington, tx or Rocco's Pizza in Fort Worth, TX, both around $8/pie.
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