5 ms·

I agree, and you could even extrapolate that thought to getting rid of timezones altogether and adopting UTC everywhere. Also, I'm not sure if it was intention

by _han 8y ago

I agree, and you could even extrapolate that thought to getting rid of timezones altogether and adopting UTC everywhere. Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I appreciate your pun. It is indeed about time.

adrianN 8y ago
I'd prefer Swatch Internet Time.
- toyg 8y ago
  Internet time would actually have been an interesting innovation... if only Swatch were not involved.
  - kps 8y ago
    The French failed to make people use decimal time, and they had guillotines.
sametmax 8y ago
Time zone are very useful for news, travelling, business, etc. Because if you know it's 3pm somewhere or 3am, you can make assumptions. If you know it's 3am everywhere, what does that mean that your plane land at 8 am in this countey or that the strike will start at 10 on that one ?
- lmm 8y ago
  How often do you travel to another country compared to how often you phone someone in another country? Local timezones do indeed make a lot of sense for travelling in person, but global time is much better for scheduling conference calls etc., and these days that's the more common case.
  - beojan 8y ago
    It's terrible for scheduling conference calls. Instead of just converting timezones, you have to remember what a reasonable time of day is in each locality. Or do you just expect Australia to adopt a nocturnal working pattern so they can use UTC?
    - jtolmar 8y ago
      Remembering what's a reasonable time of day in each locality is the same amount of information as remembering what their timezones are. Instead of asking what timezone, you'd just ask when are work hours, or when is noon.
      - msla 8y ago
        > ask when are work hours "Nine to five, what a way to make a living... " > or when is noon. 12 PM. Noon means 12 PM. Changing this isn't really an option. More to the point: > Remembering what's a reasonable time of day in each locality is the same amount of information as remembering what their timezones are. Hey, admitting your proposed change is a Bavarian Fire Drill is the first step towards recovery.
        jtolmar 8y ago
        Noon also means when the sun is highest in the sky. If everyone uses the same timezone, one of these two meanings must be broken. It makes more sense to keep the definition that doesn't have an alternative name (you can always call 12:00 12:00). > Nine to five No? If everyone's on the same time zone, the answer to this is different everywhere.
        jachee 8y ago
        ... and yet DST changes this twice a year.
      - spookthesunset 8y ago
        Except now you've taken what is basically a culturally accepted standard (9-5 work hours, lunch is around noon, it's dark at 1am) and make it very ambiguous. If you are an employer, what are the work hours for the east coast vs. west coast? What about two cities that are kinda-sorta close in terms of latitude like Houston vs. Austin? Should work start at 13:45 in the Houston office and 13:35 in the Austin office? If you take away timezones and just say "everybody use UTC and somehow figure out how to adjust it to your local conditions", you've just pushed the cost of figuring out reasonable start & end times for different geographies onto every single member of society. All that will happen is people will come up with their own mappings between UTC and local conditions and guess what? They will look pretty close to what we have with timezones right now only it won't be standardized at all--making a huge mess of things. Outlook calendar will have its own mapping and Google Calendar will have a different one. Your company might have its own internal mapping that is different from your suppliers. Whoa be the person who tries to coordinate an event across these mappings ("your company does lunch at 17:49? Ours does it at 18:42 because that is closer to when the sun is overhead and people like to get in around 12:42") This is all fun to entertain as a thought experiment but we will never get rid of timezones because, quite frankly, they are far to useful.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tsuresh 8y ago
Well, I have to post this here now: So you want to abolish time zones ttps://qntm.org/abolish
- msla 8y ago
  I have a link which works: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish The author fails to mention that we could solve the problems that article brings up by making everyone work from 0800 to 1700, globally, once everyone is on UTC. I think people are just bull-headed enough to make this work, even if it means some people never see the Sun ever again. If China can spread one time zone over five, spreading one time zone over twenty four is just a matter of The Same, But Stupider.
thomastjeffery 8y ago
The thing about UTC is that it is everywhere. You can use it any time you want.
joquarky 8y ago
I always thought it would be useful to have a global time standard expressed as the longitude where the sun is currently at the meridian.

by _han 8y ago

adrianN 8y ago

I'd prefer Swatch Internet Time.

toyg 8y ago
Internet time would actually have been an interesting innovation... if only Swatch were not involved.
- kps 8y ago
  The French failed to make people use decimal time, and they had guillotines.

sametmax 8y ago

Time zone are very useful for news, travelling, business, etc. Because if you know it's 3pm somewhere or 3am, you can make assumptions. If you know it's 3am everywhere, what does that mean that your plane land at 8 am in this countey or that the strike will start at 10 on that one ?

lmm 8y ago
How often do you travel to another country compared to how often you phone someone in another country? Local timezones do indeed make a lot of sense for travelling in person, but global time is much better for scheduling conference calls etc., and these days that's the more common case.
- beojan 8y ago
  It's terrible for scheduling conference calls. Instead of just converting timezones, you have to remember what a reasonable time of day is in each locality. Or do you just expect Australia to adopt a nocturnal working pattern so they can use UTC?
  - jtolmar 8y ago
    Remembering what's a reasonable time of day in each locality is the same amount of information as remembering what their timezones are. Instead of asking what timezone, you'd just ask when are work hours, or when is noon.
    - msla 8y ago
      > ask when are work hours "Nine to five, what a way to make a living... " > or when is noon. 12 PM. Noon means 12 PM. Changing this isn't really an option. More to the point: > Remembering what's a reasonable time of day in each locality is the same amount of information as remembering what their timezones are. Hey, admitting your proposed change is a Bavarian Fire Drill is the first step towards recovery.
      - jtolmar 8y ago
        Noon also means when the sun is highest in the sky. If everyone uses the same timezone, one of these two meanings must be broken. It makes more sense to keep the definition that doesn't have an alternative name (you can always call 12:00 12:00). > Nine to five No? If everyone's on the same time zone, the answer to this is different everywhere.
      - jachee 8y ago
        ... and yet DST changes this twice a year.
    - spookthesunset 8y ago
      Except now you've taken what is basically a culturally accepted standard (9-5 work hours, lunch is around noon, it's dark at 1am) and make it very ambiguous. If you are an employer, what are the work hours for the east coast vs. west coast? What about two cities that are kinda-sorta close in terms of latitude like Houston vs. Austin? Should work start at 13:45 in the Houston office and 13:35 in the Austin office? If you take away timezones and just say "everybody use UTC and somehow figure out how to adjust it to your local conditions", you've just pushed the cost of figuring out reasonable start & end times for different geographies onto every single member of society. All that will happen is people will come up with their own mappings between UTC and local conditions and guess what? They will look pretty close to what we have with timezones right now only it won't be standardized at all--making a huge mess of things. Outlook calendar will have its own mapping and Google Calendar will have a different one. Your company might have its own internal mapping that is different from your suppliers. Whoa be the person who tries to coordinate an event across these mappings ("your company does lunch at 17:49? Ours does it at 18:42 because that is closer to when the sun is overhead and people like to get in around 12:42") This is all fun to entertain as a thought experiment but we will never get rid of timezones because, quite frankly, they are far to useful.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

tsuresh 8y ago

Well, I have to post this here now: So you want to abolish time zones ttps://qntm.org/abolish

msla 8y ago
I have a link which works: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish The author fails to mention that we could solve the problems that article brings up by making everyone work from 0800 to 1700, globally, once everyone is on UTC. I think people are just bull-headed enough to make this work, even if it means some people never see the Sun ever again. If China can spread one time zone over five, spreading one time zone over twenty four is just a matter of The Same, But Stupider.

thomastjeffery 8y ago

The thing about UTC is that it is everywhere. You can use it any time you want.

joquarky 8y ago

I always thought it would be useful to have a global time standard expressed as the longitude where the sun is currently at the meridian.