5 ms·

Sadly I didn't have enough time to read the whole article... But I wish we could all just use one time. For some, midday would be 12, and for others it might b

by blunte 8y ago

Sadly I didn't have enough time to read the whole article... But I wish we could all just use one time. For some, midday would be 12, and for others it might be 19, but we already all use the same dates regardless of whether February is winter for one location or summer for another.

masklinn 8y ago
Congratulation you jokester, you're the second paragraph of the "Timezones" section.
hinkley 8y ago
Maybe when we are an interplanetary civilization, but then only if the balance of financial power shifts off of Earth. We are still trying to dig ourselves out of old systems where “today” and “yesterday” are logically different and we hide the problems by assuming most users are asleep at midnight. Most new systems don’t have this problem but older ones equate “tomorrow” with “start of business the day after tomorrow”.
snarf21 8y ago
I completely agree. It isn't like we don't deal with this already planning a flight to/from Vegas or having a call with someone on the other coast. Plus we can also get rid of the abomination that is daylight savings. I think there is a simple plan that isn't disruptive. Simply require that all times be listed in both formats. For example, 9:00 am EDT (13:00 UTC) for all printed times on all signs, etc. moving forward from some day in the future. Eventually, we can drop the first as people adjust. (This is already how we re-number or rename highway exits)
- blunte 8y ago
  Until we get rid of daylight savings times everywhere, dual representations will still require a lot of effort to provide.
- henrikschroder 8y ago
  > Eventually, we can drop the first as people adjust. This doesn't help in any way, shape or form. You have pissed off billions of people who have had to re-learn custom times for things, you have caused the weekday to flip in the middle of the day for billions of people, and you STILL haven't solved the problem of "Can I call Uncle Steve in Melbourne, or is he sleeping right now?" https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
  - snarf21 8y ago
    No one has to be pissed off, they will slowly adjust and learn. Eventually people will only think in UTC. If that never happens then, leave both times. I think over time people will develop an intuitive sense of UTC the same way we do now for timezones but we lose all of the issues with having more than one truth. There is no way to solve that problem of Uncle Steve (imo). But there is no difference in saying Steve is +8 hours so our noon is his 20:00 and or saying we should only call Steve between 03:00 and 20:00 UTC. It is an offset either way. It is only jarring to think that way now because it is the one way people have. There is also the problem of someone driving across the US and suddenly they pass an invisible line and now it is one hour in the past or the future. The day changing while you work already happens for everyone working 3rd shift. Billions of dollars in waste and confusion happen today because of forgetting about timezones. One study suggests that international trade is decreased by 5% per timezone between countries.
    - henrikschroder 8y ago
      https://qntm.org/calendar https://qntm.org/calendar Your idea will not work. Here is why: (X) "7am" is a social construct (X) social constructs are actually very important (X) the day of the week shouldn't change in the middle of the solar day (X) this would further ambiguate the word "day" (X) local "midnight" should be the middle of the local night (X) timetables would become unreadable (X) nobody would agree to pick your time zone over theirs (X) how will I know when I can call you? (X) time zones exist specifically to resolve the problems with that scheme Specifically, your plan fails to account for: (X) humans (X) rational hatred for arbitrary change Furthermore, this is what I think about you: (X) sorry, but I don't think it would work (X) this is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it
vikasg 8y ago
Software is built for humans to use in the real world. While reshaping the entire world might make the code simpler, it's not a practical solution.
- Arubis 8y ago
  If I could force everyone on HN to read one comment today, it'd be this one.
  - incompatible 8y ago
    Why? It's depressing.
- blunte 8y ago
  Indeed it simplifies software, but it also makes life much easier for humans trying to coordinate communication across timezones. There's probably some research somewhere estimating the cost to business (or loss of revenue) from mistakes in doing timezone conversions. In the simplest case, if you have a business call with someone halfway around the world, and one of you has recently gone into or out of daylight savings time, then there's a good chance the call will not happen when it should. Or perhaps you were supposed to be watching a political debate online at a given time so you could provide instant advice and feedback to advisors present in the debate, but you missed it because you didn't realize they had left DST a week before your location does. I could go on and on with examples of the human cost to keeping the current system.
  - vikasg 8y ago
    No one is disputing that a better system cannot be devised. This is true for many problems in the world. If you could start from the zero state, you can do it much better. So let me say this: _coming up with the ideal system is not hard_. But how will you transition the world from its current state to this ideal state? Consider that the metric system (or SI), which is much better than the US system of measures, has still not been adopted in the US. Why? Because the problem of transitioning between systems is called politics.
captaincrowbar 8y ago
"You advocate a ________ approach to calendar reform..." https://qntm.org/calendar https://qntm.org/calendar
- blunte 8y ago
  Until software is uniformly correct with respect to timezone rules and auto-location-updating, there will be more problems with the current system than there would be with a fixed UTC-only system. I'll take "better" even if better != perfect.
  - taejo 8y ago
    Most people's lives don't revolve around software. Software is a tool that shouldn't require turning people's lives upside down to work in its way.
- em500 8y ago
  Even more on point: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- henrikschroder 8y ago
  It's so funny how every discussion on times and dates bring out the same idiotic "let's abolish timezones!" proponents. It's almost like... ( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ clockwork (⌐■_■)
rtkwe 8y ago
You still inherently have to keep track of time of day in the other regions though. Consider trying to schedule a meeting between a group of people across India, Ireland, and East Coast US under a single time system. Instead of knowing that 9AM EST is 2PM in Ireland and ~6:30PM in India. I now have to look up the standard business hours in each location. Also that system will probably devolve into defacto timezones without actual definitions where business in nearby areas decide on what constitutes reasonable hours based on businesses around them and the relative solar time but instead of reasonably crisp boundaries like you have today defined on a map it'll be a slow bleed and interspersing between multiple sets of '9-5' hours.
jameshart 8y ago
We don't - and in fact can't use the same dates, though. Right now, where I am, it's still Tuesday, May 29 - but in Europe, at this very same moment, it's already May 30 - a Wednesday. Maybe you would argue that we force everyone to run their days midnight to midnight on the same calendar - so instead, I would run on the European calendar, and my workday would have begun on May 29, but ended May 30. I guess today was a Tue-wednes-day? That's all very well, except now we have the weird situation of the US workweek running from Montueday through to Frisatday - while the Australian workweek, if they followed the same approach, would go from Sunmonday through to Thufriday.

by blunte 8y ago

masklinn 8y ago

Congratulation you jokester, you're the second paragraph of the "Timezones" section.

hinkley 8y ago

Maybe when we are an interplanetary civilization, but then only if the balance of financial power shifts off of Earth. We are still trying to dig ourselves out of old systems where “today” and “yesterday” are logically different and we hide the problems by assuming most users are asleep at midnight. Most new systems don’t have this problem but older ones equate “tomorrow” with “start of business the day after tomorrow”.

snarf21 8y ago

I completely agree. It isn't like we don't deal with this already planning a flight to/from Vegas or having a call with someone on the other coast. Plus we can also get rid of the abomination that is daylight savings. I think there is a simple plan that isn't disruptive. Simply require that all times be listed in both formats. For example, 9:00 am EDT (13:00 UTC) for all printed times on all signs, etc. moving forward from some day in the future. Eventually, we can drop the first as people adjust. (This is already how we re-number or rename highway exits)

blunte 8y ago
Until we get rid of daylight savings times everywhere, dual representations will still require a lot of effort to provide.
henrikschroder 8y ago
> Eventually, we can drop the first as people adjust. This doesn't help in any way, shape or form. You have pissed off billions of people who have had to re-learn custom times for things, you have caused the weekday to flip in the middle of the day for billions of people, and you STILL haven't solved the problem of "Can I call Uncle Steve in Melbourne, or is he sleeping right now?" https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- snarf21 8y ago
  No one has to be pissed off, they will slowly adjust and learn. Eventually people will only think in UTC. If that never happens then, leave both times. I think over time people will develop an intuitive sense of UTC the same way we do now for timezones but we lose all of the issues with having more than one truth. There is no way to solve that problem of Uncle Steve (imo). But there is no difference in saying Steve is +8 hours so our noon is his 20:00 and or saying we should only call Steve between 03:00 and 20:00 UTC. It is an offset either way. It is only jarring to think that way now because it is the one way people have. There is also the problem of someone driving across the US and suddenly they pass an invisible line and now it is one hour in the past or the future. The day changing while you work already happens for everyone working 3rd shift. Billions of dollars in waste and confusion happen today because of forgetting about timezones. One study suggests that international trade is decreased by 5% per timezone between countries.
  - henrikschroder 8y ago
    https://qntm.org/calendar https://qntm.org/calendar Your idea will not work. Here is why: (X) "7am" is a social construct (X) social constructs are actually very important (X) the day of the week shouldn't change in the middle of the solar day (X) this would further ambiguate the word "day" (X) local "midnight" should be the middle of the local night (X) timetables would become unreadable (X) nobody would agree to pick your time zone over theirs (X) how will I know when I can call you? (X) time zones exist specifically to resolve the problems with that scheme Specifically, your plan fails to account for: (X) humans (X) rational hatred for arbitrary change Furthermore, this is what I think about you: (X) sorry, but I don't think it would work (X) this is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it

vikasg 8y ago

Software is built for humans to use in the real world. While reshaping the entire world might make the code simpler, it's not a practical solution.

Arubis 8y ago
If I could force everyone on HN to read one comment today, it'd be this one.
- incompatible 8y ago
  Why? It's depressing.
blunte 8y ago
Indeed it simplifies software, but it also makes life much easier for humans trying to coordinate communication across timezones. There's probably some research somewhere estimating the cost to business (or loss of revenue) from mistakes in doing timezone conversions. In the simplest case, if you have a business call with someone halfway around the world, and one of you has recently gone into or out of daylight savings time, then there's a good chance the call will not happen when it should. Or perhaps you were supposed to be watching a political debate online at a given time so you could provide instant advice and feedback to advisors present in the debate, but you missed it because you didn't realize they had left DST a week before your location does. I could go on and on with examples of the human cost to keeping the current system.
- vikasg 8y ago
  No one is disputing that a better system cannot be devised. This is true for many problems in the world. If you could start from the zero state, you can do it much better. So let me say this: _coming up with the ideal system is not hard_. But how will you transition the world from its current state to this ideal state? Consider that the metric system (or SI), which is much better than the US system of measures, has still not been adopted in the US. Why? Because the problem of transitioning between systems is called politics.

captaincrowbar 8y ago

"You advocate a ________ approach to calendar reform..." https://qntm.org/calendar https://qntm.org/calendar

blunte 8y ago
Until software is uniformly correct with respect to timezone rules and auto-location-updating, there will be more problems with the current system than there would be with a fixed UTC-only system. I'll take "better" even if better != perfect.
- taejo 8y ago
  Most people's lives don't revolve around software. Software is a tool that shouldn't require turning people's lives upside down to work in its way.
em500 8y ago
Even more on point: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
henrikschroder 8y ago
It's so funny how every discussion on times and dates bring out the same idiotic "let's abolish timezones!" proponents. It's almost like... ( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ clockwork (⌐■_■)

rtkwe 8y ago

You still inherently have to keep track of time of day in the other regions though. Consider trying to schedule a meeting between a group of people across India, Ireland, and East Coast US under a single time system. Instead of knowing that 9AM EST is 2PM in Ireland and ~6:30PM in India. I now have to look up the standard business hours in each location. Also that system will probably devolve into defacto timezones without actual definitions where business in nearby areas decide on what constitutes reasonable hours based on businesses around them and the relative solar time but instead of reasonably crisp boundaries like you have today defined on a map it'll be a slow bleed and interspersing between multiple sets of '9-5' hours.

jameshart 8y ago

We don't - and in fact can't use the same dates, though. Right now, where I am, it's still Tuesday, May 29 - but in Europe, at this very same moment, it's already May 30 - a Wednesday. Maybe you would argue that we force everyone to run their days midnight to midnight on the same calendar - so instead, I would run on the European calendar, and my workday would have begun on May 29, but ended May 30. I guess today was a Tue-wednes-day? That's all very well, except now we have the weird situation of the US workweek running from Montueday through to Frisatday - while the Australian workweek, if they followed the same approach, would go from Sunmonday through to Thufriday.