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I think the time would be ripe time for a second try at this . It's something tweaks to DST and Timezones* wont fix. I still struggle figuring out times global

by velmu 9y ago

I think the time would be ripe time for a second try at this . It's something tweaks to DST and Timezones* wont fix. I still struggle figuring out times globally, without good reason. Local time could still be the regular 24h, but for business meetings, etc. something like Swatch Internet Time would be great. * https://metropolitan.fi/entry/finland-seeks-to-drop-daylight-saving-time-from-eu-mulls-timezone-switch https://metropolitan.fi/entry/finland-seeks-to-drop-daylight...

Symbiote 9y ago
What problem does Swatch Internet Time solve? > for business meetings, etc. something like Swatch Internet Time would be great Let's discuss this on 2018-06-07 at 04:30, UTC. I thought Google would be the easiest source for a conversion, but for me a search for "04:30 UTC" gives a banner at the top, "17.30 Tuesday, in Denmark": https://www.google.dk/search?q=04%3A30+UTC https://www.google.dk/search?q=04%3A30+UTC So maybe one problem it solves, is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock.
- rhapsodic 9y ago
  >So maybe one problem it solves, is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock. I'm an American, and I was not aware of the "American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock." Please elaborate further.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    In Europe, most "official" times use a 24-hour clock (train schedules, etc.). This is almost never seen in America outside of the military and many Americans would need to stop and calculate what time "17:30" is.
    - znpy 9y ago
      Sidenote: AFAIK, UK also uses an AM/PM format for time, instead of the unambiguous 24-hour format.
      - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
        In typically British fashion we use both quite readily.
      - stordoff 9y ago
        Both are used, and it's fairly arbitrary which is used - bus/train times are usually 24-hours, general speech is usually 12-hour unless referring to something that is already in 24-hour time (but even then some people will switch them to 12-hour), and I see appointment cards, invoices etc. using both. It's definitely in keeping with how we mix meters/feet and pints/litres.
      - howard941 9y ago
        From what I gather watching UK TV there's also the charming and efficient use of "half X" to refer to thirty minutes after hour X.
    - rhapsodic 9y ago
      >In Europe, most "official" times use a 24-hour clock (train schedules, etc.). Uh, yeah, I'm well aware of that, as are most Americans I know. That's why I asked about "the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock". That must be a myth that non-Americans believe in.
  - eddieroger 9y ago
    I'm an American who chooses to use a 24 hour clock for all my digital ones, anyway, and didn't realize that American assumed anything about time like that. Instead, I assumed that it's up to the user's discretion, and they would set their computer settings appropriately (or not at all, since it's probably fine as localized), and in the case of Google, the computer would rely on those localization settings, as it did for "17:30 in Denmark."
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      > I assumed that it's up to the user's discretion, and they would set their computer settings appropriately My computer is configured correctly, but it's rather common for an application (especially a phone app) or website to ignore those settings, or to think it knows better. 04:30 UTC means 04:30 UTC, or 05:30 in Denmark. Not 17:30! The same can happen if I type something like "04:30 Catch flight" into an appointment in my Google Calendar. It is converted into a new appointment "16:30 Catch flight". It's not just Google. "Your Office 365 subscription will automatically renew on 1/19/2018." and the admin interface is a mix of date and time formats.
- michaelcampbell 9y ago
  > is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock. C'mon, stop. So edgy.
  - _jal 9y ago
    It appears you're unaware that many routinely countries use 24 hour ("military") time for many things. It isn't quite so extreme as that edgy metric system trendiness all the kool kids seem to be in to these days, but, uh, there is a world out there.
    - michaelcampbell 9y ago
      I'm quite aware, thanks. I was talking about the reddit-esque "shit on anything done in the US" nonsense.
endymi0n 9y ago
So you want to abolish time zones... (I see you don't, completely, but this one's gold in any case): https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- upofadown 9y ago
  That was silly. It reminded me of one of those "where did the soda go?" infomercials in that it assumed an extreme level of incompetence on the part of the viewer. All the difficulties of the product (time zones) were ignored while all the difficulties of alternative ways of doing things were exaggerated past the point of possible satire.
  - mseebach 9y ago
    It doesn't purport to give a balanced analysis of pros and cons, it's a (tongue-in-cheek) outline of the downsides that proponents of timezone abolishment never seem to consider. Perhaps the writing is silly, but there's nothing silly about the point the point that of course people will maintain the solar day for daily life, and abolishing timezones will basically break time for most people (especially those whose "midnight" (and so the changing of the date and name of day) will land during the solar day).
    - upofadown 9y ago
      Whatever happens, the solar day stays the same. Time zones actually break the solar day. Freed from the constraints of time zones the solar day becomes its own thing. DST is just an ugly hack piled on top of the mess time zones created in an attempt to go back a ways to solar time.
      - mseebach 9y ago
        No, DST has nothing at all to do with solar time. It's a hack alright, but it's not fixing any problem introduced by time zones.
        9y ago
niftich 9y ago
Swatch Internet Time and UTC solve the same problem: they both present a timezone- and locale-agnostic, almost-monotonous scale that's two-ways convertible with local times. Except UTC is more natural to reason about, because it looks like a local timestamp, and some people can do offset math in their head to approximate the real answer. You have to do much more conversions between Swatch Internet Time and local time, so you always need a tool. The applicability of timestamp conventions for setting business meetings is largely dependent on how easily one can look up the same moment across multiple IANA timezones [1]. For example, looking up how typical local working hours cascade between different timezones [2]. If multi-converters like this became mainstream, Swatch Internet Time may very well have been a hit. But it wasn't, and such a tool, even for UTC, remains hard to find. [1] https://www.iana.org/time-zones https://www.iana.org/time-zones [2] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=20180206&p1=179&p2=240&p3=102 https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=...

by velmu 9y ago

Symbiote 9y ago

What problem does Swatch Internet Time solve? > for business meetings, etc. something like Swatch Internet Time would be great Let's discuss this on 2018-06-07 at 04:30, UTC. I thought Google would be the easiest source for a conversion, but for me a search for "04:30 UTC" gives a banner at the top, "17.30 Tuesday, in Denmark": https://www.google.dk/search?q=04%3A30+UTC https://www.google.dk/search?q=04%3A30+UTC So maybe one problem it solves, is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock.

rhapsodic 9y ago
>So maybe one problem it solves, is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock. I'm an American, and I was not aware of the "American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock." Please elaborate further.
- ams6110 9y ago
  In Europe, most "official" times use a 24-hour clock (train schedules, etc.). This is almost never seen in America outside of the military and many Americans would need to stop and calculate what time "17:30" is.
  - znpy 9y ago
    Sidenote: AFAIK, UK also uses an AM/PM format for time, instead of the unambiguous 24-hour format.
    - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      In typically British fashion we use both quite readily.
    - stordoff 9y ago
      Both are used, and it's fairly arbitrary which is used - bus/train times are usually 24-hours, general speech is usually 12-hour unless referring to something that is already in 24-hour time (but even then some people will switch them to 12-hour), and I see appointment cards, invoices etc. using both. It's definitely in keeping with how we mix meters/feet and pints/litres.
    - howard941 9y ago
      From what I gather watching UK TV there's also the charming and efficient use of "half X" to refer to thirty minutes after hour X.
  - rhapsodic 9y ago
    >In Europe, most "official" times use a 24-hour clock (train schedules, etc.). Uh, yeah, I'm well aware of that, as are most Americans I know. That's why I asked about "the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock". That must be a myth that non-Americans believe in.
- eddieroger 9y ago
  I'm an American who chooses to use a 24 hour clock for all my digital ones, anyway, and didn't realize that American assumed anything about time like that. Instead, I assumed that it's up to the user's discretion, and they would set their computer settings appropriately (or not at all, since it's probably fine as localized), and in the case of Google, the computer would rely on those localization settings, as it did for "17:30 in Denmark."
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    > I assumed that it's up to the user's discretion, and they would set their computer settings appropriately My computer is configured correctly, but it's rather common for an application (especially a phone app) or website to ignore those settings, or to think it knows better. 04:30 UTC means 04:30 UTC, or 05:30 in Denmark. Not 17:30! The same can happen if I type something like "04:30 Catch flight" into an appointment in my Google Calendar. It is converted into a new appointment "16:30 Catch flight". It's not just Google. "Your Office 365 subscription will automatically renew on 1/19/2018." and the admin interface is a mix of date and time formats.
michaelcampbell 9y ago
> is the American assumption that everyone uses the 12-hour clock. C'mon, stop. So edgy.
- _jal 9y ago
  It appears you're unaware that many routinely countries use 24 hour ("military") time for many things. It isn't quite so extreme as that edgy metric system trendiness all the kool kids seem to be in to these days, but, uh, there is a world out there.
  - michaelcampbell 9y ago
    I'm quite aware, thanks. I was talking about the reddit-esque "shit on anything done in the US" nonsense.

endymi0n 9y ago

So you want to abolish time zones... (I see you don't, completely, but this one's gold in any case): https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish

upofadown 9y ago
That was silly. It reminded me of one of those "where did the soda go?" infomercials in that it assumed an extreme level of incompetence on the part of the viewer. All the difficulties of the product (time zones) were ignored while all the difficulties of alternative ways of doing things were exaggerated past the point of possible satire.
- mseebach 9y ago
  It doesn't purport to give a balanced analysis of pros and cons, it's a (tongue-in-cheek) outline of the downsides that proponents of timezone abolishment never seem to consider. Perhaps the writing is silly, but there's nothing silly about the point the point that of course people will maintain the solar day for daily life, and abolishing timezones will basically break time for most people (especially those whose "midnight" (and so the changing of the date and name of day) will land during the solar day).
  - upofadown 9y ago
    Whatever happens, the solar day stays the same. Time zones actually break the solar day. Freed from the constraints of time zones the solar day becomes its own thing. DST is just an ugly hack piled on top of the mess time zones created in an attempt to go back a ways to solar time.
    - mseebach 9y ago
      No, DST has nothing at all to do with solar time. It's a hack alright, but it's not fixing any problem introduced by time zones.
      - 9y ago

niftich 9y ago

Swatch Internet Time and UTC solve the same problem: they both present a timezone- and locale-agnostic, almost-monotonous scale that's two-ways convertible with local times. Except UTC is more natural to reason about, because it looks like a local timestamp, and some people can do offset math in their head to approximate the real answer. You have to do much more conversions between Swatch Internet Time and local time, so you always need a tool. The applicability of timestamp conventions for setting business meetings is largely dependent on how easily one can look up the same moment across multiple IANA timezones [1]. For example, looking up how typical local working hours cascade between different timezones [2]. If multi-converters like this became mainstream, Swatch Internet Time may very well have been a hit. But it wasn't, and such a tool, even for UTC, remains hard to find. [1] https://www.iana.org/time-zones https://www.iana.org/time-zones [2] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=20180206&p1=179&p2=240&p3=102 https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=...