6 ms·

Better would be to go to a single Zulu timezone nationwide. You just go into work an hour later in the central area compared to the east coast.

idbehold 9y ago
https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- kemiller 9y ago
  You are doing important work here.
- Nullabillity 9y ago
  If I'm thinking about calling someone I'll check their IM status, not look at the clock. If I'm going to a store I don't visit often I'll have to look up their opening hours on a map anyway. Whether that says it's 08-20 or 16-04 couldn't matter less. And that's before getting into the even more ridiculous stuff: > First of all, we need to straighten out some terminology. The terms "a.m." and "p.m." (ante meridiem and post meridiem) are strongly deprecated now, because they refer to the position of the Sun, not of the clock. So use 24-hour time? Somehow the rest of the world manages just fine. > So, you have to say "solar noon" to refer to the instant when the Sun is at its zenith, and "twelve hundred hours" to refer to the instant when the clock reads 12:00. Similarly "solar midnight" and "zero hundred hours". And you have to use the twenty-four hour clock, it's the only way to be unambiguous. 12:00 is just an arbitrary time anyway, and even now it might not have much to do with noon anyway, depending on where you live. Hell, look have a look at the arctic circle, where noon (or day/night) doesn't have much of a meaning anyway. > Even in the best case scenario, it is impossible to retroactively scrap time zones. The past will always exist, and the people who lived there will never adopt your new standard. Nor can all of past history be renumbered. The history of timekeeping will remain exactly as complicated as it always has been, and the zoneinfo database can never be abandoned. Do you also refuse to use epoch timestamps, because they can't represent dates before 1970? Sure, you'd need to handle zones for historical data, but that'd get progressively less relevant the further away from cutoff you get.
- EvanAnderson 9y ago
  That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that.
- tempestn 9y ago
  Your conclusion is a thing of beauty: > If it's any consolation, all of this is extremely unlikely to happen, since it relies on an international agreement between every single nation in the world. Or on China attacking and conquering the entire world and installing China Standard Time as part of a totalitarian regime, which is slightly less unlikely but still very unlikely.
- Asooka 9y ago
  This has nothing to do with DST.
- tzs 9y ago
  That's greatly exaggerating the difficulty of deciding if it is OK to call your Uncle who is about 165° east of you in a single time zone system compared to the current multiple time zone system. In fact, the procedure is the same in both systems: 1. Look at your clock. 2. Add 11 hours to clock time. 3. Ask yourself if it would be daytime at your location when your clock says that time. 4. If yes, call your Uncle. • Under the current multiple time zone system that works because clock time is close to local time. Step #2 computes the clock time at your Uncle's location, which gets you close to the local time at his location. Daylight hours are approximately the same in his local time as in your local time, aside from the seasonal variation which you can ignore if you allow yourself a reasonable margin of error (e.g., aim for calling him a couple hours or so after sunrise rather than shooting for the crack of dawn), so you can use your local time as a proxy for his [1]. • Under a single worldwide time zone system it works because your local time is about 11 hours behind his local time. The time you get in step #3 is what the time will be on your clock (and on his clock, and on everyone else's clock) when your local time is the same as his local time is right now. So if that clock time will be a good time for you to receive a call, now is a good time to try your Uncle. Of course, you probably wouldn't actually have to do any of that. Just as in his first example with the current time zone system where he Googles "time in melbourne" rather than looking at his clock and adding 11 hours, in the single worldwide time zone you would Google "local time in melbourne". In such a world, where local time can be quite a ways off from clock time, Google would surely recognize such queries and do the right thing. Heck, it might even assume you mean local time if you just did "time in melbourne" because in the single time zone there would be no need to Google for the clock time for a particular area. I'd expect "time in melbourne" to probably give something like "The local time in Melbourne is X at world time Y". That covers everything. [1] If you really are aiming for crack of dawn calling, then you will have to take into account the seasonable variation in sunrise relative to local noon, but you have to do that in both the multiple time zone system and the single worldwide time zone system.
mejin 9y ago
I like it that no matter where I live I can wake up at 6, stores open by 9, and lunch is at 12. Imagine every time traveling having to ask the locals what time things happen. Also, I don't think any politician will allow their state to be the state that doesn't have the same time as other countries in the same longitude
- starlig-ht 9y ago
  Arizona doesn't do daylight savings, while the Navajo Nation (surrounded by AZ) does, and so does Utah to the North.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
    And the Hopi Nation (surrounded by the Navajo Nation) does not.
    - colejohnson66 9y ago
      And then the Navajo Nation portion inside the Hopi Nation does
  - protomyth 9y ago
    > Navajo Nation (surrounded by AZ) Actually, it occupies area in 3 states. The Hopi Reservation is surrounded by the Navajo Nation.
- mattferderer 9y ago
  Most places I've visited vary from business to business. With all due respect, I don't know of anywhere that fits your 9 & 12 mold. When I travel I always need to look up the hours of businesses. Many also pick a day or two during the week to close or prepare. Many also operate dramatically different depending on the day you go.
  - brewdad 9y ago
    Ok but they do operate at a reasonable approximation. Sure a shop may open at 0800 in one town and not until 1000 in another but are there really places on earth where the shops tend to open at 0100 and close by 0900? Certainly there can't be many.
kemiller 9y ago
Good God, no. The time isn’t just an arbitrary number to help coordinate meetings, it communicates what time of the day/night cycle you’re experiencing, to a reasonable approximation. Having separate time zones may be annoying, but it forces you to think about others’ experience. If I say I was up last night til 4 in the morning, that tells you something.
- racer-v 9y ago
  Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximation thereof.
  - mcny 9y ago
    > Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximataion thereof. I too want the same time worldwide but I guess the best we can do is UTC. I mean we could do it but I fear we'd just be sweeping the ugliness under the rug. I don't want this kind mess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China > Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the ethnic divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time and most ethnic Uyghurs following Ürümqi Time.
    - incompatible 9y ago
      We already have UTC when you want the same time worldwide. Using UTC in everyday life would be somewhat confusing when travelling. I guess it would take quite a while to get used to things happening at a different time on the clock.
  - rocqua 9y ago
    I think the sunrise is a better fixture socially, and maybe the sunset is a better fixture biologically. Noon is just an easy to measure compromise for the above two. Social life and timing mostly revolves around how early you get up. "Its late" kind of means "I am behind schedule to get enough sleep before waking up". Biologically, we are programmed around sunlight. Whilst our mornings aren't really controlled by the biological clock (that is what the alarm is for), the evening really are. Besides, the for many people, the evening is what separates 'civil life' from 'private life'.
thephyber 9y ago
This is similar to China, which has 5 timezones wide and they have one standard national timezone. The US is far wider when you consider Alaska, Hawaii and the island territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It spans from UTC+10 (Guam) to UTC-10 (Hawaii / Aleutians).
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Why? You would still need to create a system to keep track of local time of day. Hey, guess what, we already have such a system, people already use it and are familiar with it, let's keep using it.
- austincheney 9y ago
  No, you don't need that. Many people think you need it, but only because they have never experienced the alternative. Once you try it you won't want to go back.
trumpownsyou420 9y ago
you should probably keep your opinion to yourself.
seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Erm, this is china. In Urumqi, the official time is still the same as Beijing but stores open and close much later. However, they still have an unofficial separate time that locals use to coordinate the meaning of noon, morning, and night.

idbehold 9y ago

https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish

kemiller 9y ago
You are doing important work here.
Nullabillity 9y ago
If I'm thinking about calling someone I'll check their IM status, not look at the clock. If I'm going to a store I don't visit often I'll have to look up their opening hours on a map anyway. Whether that says it's 08-20 or 16-04 couldn't matter less. And that's before getting into the even more ridiculous stuff: > First of all, we need to straighten out some terminology. The terms "a.m." and "p.m." (ante meridiem and post meridiem) are strongly deprecated now, because they refer to the position of the Sun, not of the clock. So use 24-hour time? Somehow the rest of the world manages just fine. > So, you have to say "solar noon" to refer to the instant when the Sun is at its zenith, and "twelve hundred hours" to refer to the instant when the clock reads 12:00. Similarly "solar midnight" and "zero hundred hours". And you have to use the twenty-four hour clock, it's the only way to be unambiguous. 12:00 is just an arbitrary time anyway, and even now it might not have much to do with noon anyway, depending on where you live. Hell, look have a look at the arctic circle, where noon (or day/night) doesn't have much of a meaning anyway. > Even in the best case scenario, it is impossible to retroactively scrap time zones. The past will always exist, and the people who lived there will never adopt your new standard. Nor can all of past history be renumbered. The history of timekeeping will remain exactly as complicated as it always has been, and the zoneinfo database can never be abandoned. Do you also refuse to use epoch timestamps, because they can't represent dates before 1970? Sure, you'd need to handle zones for historical data, but that'd get progressively less relevant the further away from cutoff you get.
EvanAnderson 9y ago
That's wonderful. Thank you for sharing that.
tempestn 9y ago
Your conclusion is a thing of beauty: > If it's any consolation, all of this is extremely unlikely to happen, since it relies on an international agreement between every single nation in the world. Or on China attacking and conquering the entire world and installing China Standard Time as part of a totalitarian regime, which is slightly less unlikely but still very unlikely.
Asooka 9y ago
This has nothing to do with DST.
tzs 9y ago
That's greatly exaggerating the difficulty of deciding if it is OK to call your Uncle who is about 165° east of you in a single time zone system compared to the current multiple time zone system. In fact, the procedure is the same in both systems: 1. Look at your clock. 2. Add 11 hours to clock time. 3. Ask yourself if it would be daytime at your location when your clock says that time. 4. If yes, call your Uncle. • Under the current multiple time zone system that works because clock time is close to local time. Step #2 computes the clock time at your Uncle's location, which gets you close to the local time at his location. Daylight hours are approximately the same in his local time as in your local time, aside from the seasonal variation which you can ignore if you allow yourself a reasonable margin of error (e.g., aim for calling him a couple hours or so after sunrise rather than shooting for the crack of dawn), so you can use your local time as a proxy for his [1]. • Under a single worldwide time zone system it works because your local time is about 11 hours behind his local time. The time you get in step #3 is what the time will be on your clock (and on his clock, and on everyone else's clock) when your local time is the same as his local time is right now. So if that clock time will be a good time for you to receive a call, now is a good time to try your Uncle. Of course, you probably wouldn't actually have to do any of that. Just as in his first example with the current time zone system where he Googles "time in melbourne" rather than looking at his clock and adding 11 hours, in the single worldwide time zone you would Google "local time in melbourne". In such a world, where local time can be quite a ways off from clock time, Google would surely recognize such queries and do the right thing. Heck, it might even assume you mean local time if you just did "time in melbourne" because in the single time zone there would be no need to Google for the clock time for a particular area. I'd expect "time in melbourne" to probably give something like "The local time in Melbourne is X at world time Y". That covers everything. [1] If you really are aiming for crack of dawn calling, then you will have to take into account the seasonable variation in sunrise relative to local noon, but you have to do that in both the multiple time zone system and the single worldwide time zone system.

mejin 9y ago

I like it that no matter where I live I can wake up at 6, stores open by 9, and lunch is at 12. Imagine every time traveling having to ask the locals what time things happen. Also, I don't think any politician will allow their state to be the state that doesn't have the same time as other countries in the same longitude

starlig-ht 9y ago
Arizona doesn't do daylight savings, while the Navajo Nation (surrounded by AZ) does, and so does Utah to the North.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  And the Hopi Nation (surrounded by the Navajo Nation) does not.
  - colejohnson66 9y ago
    And then the Navajo Nation portion inside the Hopi Nation does
- protomyth 9y ago
  > Navajo Nation (surrounded by AZ) Actually, it occupies area in 3 states. The Hopi Reservation is surrounded by the Navajo Nation.
mattferderer 9y ago
Most places I've visited vary from business to business. With all due respect, I don't know of anywhere that fits your 9 & 12 mold. When I travel I always need to look up the hours of businesses. Many also pick a day or two during the week to close or prepare. Many also operate dramatically different depending on the day you go.
- brewdad 9y ago
  Ok but they do operate at a reasonable approximation. Sure a shop may open at 0800 in one town and not until 1000 in another but are there really places on earth where the shops tend to open at 0100 and close by 0900? Certainly there can't be many.

kemiller 9y ago

Good God, no. The time isn’t just an arbitrary number to help coordinate meetings, it communicates what time of the day/night cycle you’re experiencing, to a reasonable approximation. Having separate time zones may be annoying, but it forces you to think about others’ experience. If I say I was up last night til 4 in the morning, that tells you something.

racer-v 9y ago
Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximation thereof.
- mcny 9y ago
  > Agree. Noon should be the moment when the sun is at its highest altitude in the sky, or a close approximataion thereof. I too want the same time worldwide but I guess the best we can do is UTC. I mean we could do it but I fear we'd just be sweeping the ugliness under the rug. I don't want this kind mess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China > Currently, timezone usage within Xinjiang is roughly split along the ethnic divide, with most ethnic Han following Beijing time and most ethnic Uyghurs following Ürümqi Time.
  - incompatible 9y ago
    We already have UTC when you want the same time worldwide. Using UTC in everyday life would be somewhat confusing when travelling. I guess it would take quite a while to get used to things happening at a different time on the clock.
- rocqua 9y ago
  I think the sunrise is a better fixture socially, and maybe the sunset is a better fixture biologically. Noon is just an easy to measure compromise for the above two. Social life and timing mostly revolves around how early you get up. "Its late" kind of means "I am behind schedule to get enough sleep before waking up". Biologically, we are programmed around sunlight. Whilst our mornings aren't really controlled by the biological clock (that is what the alarm is for), the evening really are. Besides, the for many people, the evening is what separates 'civil life' from 'private life'.

thephyber 9y ago

This is similar to China, which has 5 timezones wide and they have one standard national timezone. The US is far wider when you consider Alaska, Hawaii and the island territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. It spans from UTC+10 (Guam) to UTC-10 (Hawaii / Aleutians).

InclinedPlane 9y ago

Why? You would still need to create a system to keep track of local time of day. Hey, guess what, we already have such a system, people already use it and are familiar with it, let's keep using it.

austincheney 9y ago
No, you don't need that. Many people think you need it, but only because they have never experienced the alternative. Once you try it you won't want to go back.

trumpownsyou420 9y ago

you should probably keep your opinion to yourself.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Erm, this is china. In Urumqi, the official time is still the same as Beijing but stores open and close much later. However, they still have an unofficial separate time that locals use to coordinate the meaning of noon, morning, and night.