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Maybe I'm the contrarian. I don't mind timezones at all. The thing that throws us for a loop is changing the timezone either temporarily due to some custom (Day
by apaprocki 10y ago
Maybe I'm the contrarian. I don't mind timezones at all. The thing that throws us for a loop is changing the timezone either temporarily due to some custom (Daylight Savings, Ramadan, elections, etc.) or permanently with little notice (populist tendencies in governments).
I maintain timezone infrastructure and what I'd rather see is an international treaty that all changes to country timezones require some standard period of notice. Even 90 days would be better than what we have now. Getting international politicians to care about timezones seems like a losing proposition before even starting, so I was imagining a "hack" to an existing treaty. The best one I could think of was an amendment to the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Perhaps if governments were made aware that screwing with, say, DST 3 days before it is about to go into effect would violate some treaty, they would shy away from that behavior. I know that's something the IATA could get behind.
- the_watcher 10y agoNo, you aren't contrarian. Remove timezones, and it still doesn't help me sort out if it's morning in Italy yet, or if business hours have started. In fact, it's more difficult, since I'd then have to figure out what Italian business hours are.
- stouset 10y agoYou still have to figure out what Italian business hours are in the current system. Do they show up to work at 9? 8? 10? I don't know, do you?
- aomega08 10y agoMost schools and public offices open at 8 am. Factories and offices usually run business from 9 to 18, but YMMV ;)
- the_watcher 10y agoI know that Italian business hours do not start at 18:00:00. That's absolutely not a fair example.
- inimino 10y agoIt becomes slightly easier. You need to know when morning is in Italy (the time zone offset in the current system, in the new system this would be a "solar offset") and when businesses open. It would become a little easier because you and an Italian would both use the same numbers to describe those two facts.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lmm 10y ago> No, you aren't contrarian. Remove timezones, and it still doesn't help me sort out if it's morning in Italy yet, or if business hours have started. In fact, it's more difficult, since I'd then have to figure out what Italian business hours are. It's the same amount of effort either way - either you look up the timezone for Italy or you look up the business hours for Italy. The difference is there are fewer opportunities for mistakes. In particular if you get the lookup wrong (e.g. you looked up India instead of Italy by mistake), the other party notices your mistake and can correct you.
- the_watcher 10y agoNo, if someone tells me it is 10 am in Italy, I know what time it is there. If you tell me it's 17:00 UTC, I have no idea what that is without looking it up.
- lmm 10y ago> if someone tells me it is 10 am in Italy, I know what time it is there. Right, but they've still had to look it up. And if they looked it up last week, they'll be wrong this week.