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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 nightm

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.

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.