4 ms·

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.
      - upofadown 9y ago
        The first letter of DST stands for "Daylight". In the world before time zones people basically used three references based on sun position, sun rise, sun set and noon. The introduction of time zones decoupled noon from the time when the sun was at the highest and was part of the process that led to people doing things by the clock and not the sun. Because sun rise and set vary with respect to time zone time DST was an attempt to partially allow people to just start doing things when the sun came up.
- goblin89 9y ago
  Chances of adopting a universal timezone are pretty much nonexistent for political reasons, and the switch itself would probably be a bit of a logistical nightmare. However, claiming universal timezone in itself would be any difficult to use does seem a bit disingenuous. Consider: in a world with timezones, all you need to know is what time’s in Melbourne right now, and what time Steve’s typically awake these days. In a world without timezones, all you need to know is what time Steve’s typically awake these days. What about 0000 hitting in the middle of the day? Well, a bar I recently went to is open “Thu–Sat 8pm to 4am, Sun 8pm to 2am, Mon–Wed off”. In a world without timezones I don’t think anyone would be confused by a sign like “Sun–Fri 2300 to 0500” at a post office or barber shop. We have tools to deal with timezones, so that complexity is pretty much hidden these days. That said, I can’t help but notice every now and then how leaky the abstraction is. Humans are not machines—more and more people work independently or on flexible office hours, many businesses are routinely open different times depending on the season even if the country uses DST, and so on.
  - Cyberdog 9y ago
    In Japan (and perhaps elsewhere in east Asia?), it's common to see, for example, a bar which is open from 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM to have a sign advertising its open hours as "17:00 - 26:00." It looks silly at first but the meaning is easy to understand.
    - goblin89 9y ago
      Nope, here in South Korea they seem to prefer this “THU 21:00—05:00” format at least from what I’ve seen. I feel like fully adjusting to the Japanese format should hardly take anyone more than a few days though, even if it’s someone like me who has this internally defined type “hour” mapping to a positive integer not larger than 23
  - lb1lf 9y ago
    > Chances of adopting a universal timezone are pretty much nonexistent for political reasons(...) -I was once told (and found it too amusing to verify the truth of it!) that as GMT took hold as the go-to global time reference, the French grudgingly complied, but referred to it as 'Paris time minus seven minutes and twenty-six seconds' or something to that effect.

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.
    - upofadown 9y ago
      The first letter of DST stands for "Daylight". In the world before time zones people basically used three references based on sun position, sun rise, sun set and noon. The introduction of time zones decoupled noon from the time when the sun was at the highest and was part of the process that led to people doing things by the clock and not the sun. Because sun rise and set vary with respect to time zone time DST was an attempt to partially allow people to just start doing things when the sun came up.
goblin89 9y ago
Chances of adopting a universal timezone are pretty much nonexistent for political reasons, and the switch itself would probably be a bit of a logistical nightmare. However, claiming universal timezone in itself would be any difficult to use does seem a bit disingenuous. Consider: in a world with timezones, all you need to know is what time’s in Melbourne right now, and what time Steve’s typically awake these days. In a world without timezones, all you need to know is what time Steve’s typically awake these days. What about 0000 hitting in the middle of the day? Well, a bar I recently went to is open “Thu–Sat 8pm to 4am, Sun 8pm to 2am, Mon–Wed off”. In a world without timezones I don’t think anyone would be confused by a sign like “Sun–Fri 2300 to 0500” at a post office or barber shop. We have tools to deal with timezones, so that complexity is pretty much hidden these days. That said, I can’t help but notice every now and then how leaky the abstraction is. Humans are not machines—more and more people work independently or on flexible office hours, many businesses are routinely open different times depending on the season even if the country uses DST, and so on.
- Cyberdog 9y ago
  In Japan (and perhaps elsewhere in east Asia?), it's common to see, for example, a bar which is open from 5:00 PM to 2:00 AM to have a sign advertising its open hours as "17:00 - 26:00." It looks silly at first but the meaning is easy to understand.
  - goblin89 9y ago
    Nope, here in South Korea they seem to prefer this “THU 21:00—05:00” format at least from what I’ve seen. I feel like fully adjusting to the Japanese format should hardly take anyone more than a few days though, even if it’s someone like me who has this internally defined type “hour” mapping to a positive integer not larger than 23
- lb1lf 9y ago
  > Chances of adopting a universal timezone are pretty much nonexistent for political reasons(...) -I was once told (and found it too amusing to verify the truth of it!) that as GMT took hold as the go-to global time reference, the French grudgingly complied, but referred to it as 'Paris time minus seven minutes and twenty-six seconds' or something to that effect.