5 ms·

In the age of smart phones and smart watches, we have the ability to define two dimensional time zones and skew the time each night by a minute or so, in order

In the age of smart phones and smart watches, we have the ability to define two dimensional time zones and skew the time each night by a minute or so, in order to achieve the ultimate goal: the sun always rising at a constant time (e.g. seven a.m.). That is how we evolved to live: human time, optimized for our circadian rhythms.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> in order to achieve the ultimate goal: the sun always rising at seven a.m. That is how we evolved to live: human time. What's so magic about seven?
- new_realist 7y ago
  Seven is arbitrary. The point is that the dawn is always at a fixed time of day, which allows human activity to be synchronized to daylight: just as humans and proto-humans had lived for half a million years.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > Seven is arbitrary. So, not the 'ultimate goal' at all then?
    - DJBunnies 7y ago
      It was an example.
    - p1necone 7y ago
      You're being needlessly pedantic. I'm sure you can understand what new_realist is saying.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        They literally said 'the ultimate goal: the sun always rising at seven a.m' giving a precise specific time! I thought since they highlighted that exact time as as being the 'ultimate goal' is was important to what they were saying!
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The point is that the dawn is always at a fixed time of day, which allows human activity to be synchronized to daylight That doesn't actually allow that unless you also fix the time of sunset, which then presents the problem that hours can no longer be of fixed length.
    - new_realist 7y ago
      Bedtime is also at a fixed time of day, if you choose. Alternatively, you can choose to sleep more in the winter and less in the summer: in this world your smartphone tells you when to go to bed, at which point you can choose to draw the blinds or turn off the lights, depending on the season.
      - mimixco 7y ago
        That's not workable for logistics (trains, planes) which is how we got these zones in the fist place.
        icebraining 7y ago
        Trains and planes can use their own internal timing system, then convert to the client's on demand.
        mimixco 7y ago
        I'm talking about telling people what time their flight arrives. This will make that horrible and hard to understand.
  - inawarminister 7y ago
    Dawn here in my city is 6 AM, and the sunset is 6PM. It's much better, doesn't it?
quickthrower2 7y ago
xkcd has you covered: https://xkcd.com/2050/ https://xkcd.com/2050/
Zanni 7y ago
That's great for those of us who live in Hawaii, but we already skip Daylight Savings Time. What about everyone who lives far enough from the equator that the length of the day changes significantly through the seasons? You could hold dawn to a constant time, with enough smartphone gymnastics, but not dusk. How is your circadian rhythm going to cope with full daylight at midnight?
- new_realist 7y ago
  For extreme locations, there are no perfect solutions, only improvements: bedtime is also at the same time each day. No time scheme is going to magically fix an unnatural habitat like a set of blackout blinds would.
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    Trying to schedule your day becomes challenging when there are only 3600 seconds between 7am and 7pm.
imglorp 7y ago
Instead of picking a sunrise time, it may be more useful to specify that the sun is highest in the sky at noon every day.
- tzs 7y ago
  The sun at the highest point in the sky has little or no biological significance. Sunrise, on the other hand, is what our circadian rhythms sync to. If you spent a while living without clocks and with limited artificial lights, sleeping when tired and waking when it felt natural to do so, you would slip into a schedule based on sunrise.
CydeWeys 7y ago
Seasons and differences in latitude make that really impractical though. It's simply impossible to have a sane consistent system of time that can set a constant sunrise time handling either seasons or latitude differences just in isolation, let alone both. For starters, you'd need a 2D system of time zones (taking into account both latitude and longitude), and time would be floating and would change each day; days would be less than 24 hours between two solstices and then greater than 24 hours leading up to the next solstice. And of course this pattern would reverse across the equator, too. Days would be different lengths depending on your latitude, and time would only sync up across different 2D time zones twice a year! It would be madness.
quickthrower2 7y ago
Why do we need to sync clocks to the rising sun though? We can create an alarm clock that goes off at sunrise using the same smart technology. We don't need to change the time metric. Now you might argue you need to do this because business demands that we start at 9am. Well THAT is what needs to change. Most jobs don't need a fixed start time. If they say come in between 7am and 10am that should give enough leeway so you can rise at sunrise. And in any case a 7am fixed sunrise and a 9am fixed work start time is still an issue for those who need > 2 hours to get ready for and commute to work.

chrisseaton 7y ago

> in order to achieve the ultimate goal: the sun always rising at seven a.m. That is how we evolved to live: human time. What's so magic about seven?

new_realist 7y ago
Seven is arbitrary. The point is that the dawn is always at a fixed time of day, which allows human activity to be synchronized to daylight: just as humans and proto-humans had lived for half a million years.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Seven is arbitrary. So, not the 'ultimate goal' at all then?
  - DJBunnies 7y ago
    It was an example.
  - p1necone 7y ago
    You're being needlessly pedantic. I'm sure you can understand what new_realist is saying.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      They literally said 'the ultimate goal: the sun always rising at seven a.m' giving a precise specific time! I thought since they highlighted that exact time as as being the 'ultimate goal' is was important to what they were saying!
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The point is that the dawn is always at a fixed time of day, which allows human activity to be synchronized to daylight That doesn't actually allow that unless you also fix the time of sunset, which then presents the problem that hours can no longer be of fixed length.
  - new_realist 7y ago
    Bedtime is also at a fixed time of day, if you choose. Alternatively, you can choose to sleep more in the winter and less in the summer: in this world your smartphone tells you when to go to bed, at which point you can choose to draw the blinds or turn off the lights, depending on the season.
    - mimixco 7y ago
      That's not workable for logistics (trains, planes) which is how we got these zones in the fist place.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        Trains and planes can use their own internal timing system, then convert to the client's on demand.
        mimixco 7y ago
        I'm talking about telling people what time their flight arrives. This will make that horrible and hard to understand.
- inawarminister 7y ago
  Dawn here in my city is 6 AM, and the sunset is 6PM. It's much better, doesn't it?

quickthrower2 7y ago

xkcd has you covered: https://xkcd.com/2050/ https://xkcd.com/2050/

Zanni 7y ago

That's great for those of us who live in Hawaii, but we already skip Daylight Savings Time. What about everyone who lives far enough from the equator that the length of the day changes significantly through the seasons? You could hold dawn to a constant time, with enough smartphone gymnastics, but not dusk. How is your circadian rhythm going to cope with full daylight at midnight?

new_realist 7y ago
For extreme locations, there are no perfect solutions, only improvements: bedtime is also at the same time each day. No time scheme is going to magically fix an unnatural habitat like a set of blackout blinds would.
- tedunangst 7y ago
  Trying to schedule your day becomes challenging when there are only 3600 seconds between 7am and 7pm.

imglorp 7y ago

Instead of picking a sunrise time, it may be more useful to specify that the sun is highest in the sky at noon every day.

tzs 7y ago
The sun at the highest point in the sky has little or no biological significance. Sunrise, on the other hand, is what our circadian rhythms sync to. If you spent a while living without clocks and with limited artificial lights, sleeping when tired and waking when it felt natural to do so, you would slip into a schedule based on sunrise.

CydeWeys 7y ago

Seasons and differences in latitude make that really impractical though. It's simply impossible to have a sane consistent system of time that can set a constant sunrise time handling either seasons or latitude differences just in isolation, let alone both. For starters, you'd need a 2D system of time zones (taking into account both latitude and longitude), and time would be floating and would change each day; days would be less than 24 hours between two solstices and then greater than 24 hours leading up to the next solstice. And of course this pattern would reverse across the equator, too. Days would be different lengths depending on your latitude, and time would only sync up across different 2D time zones twice a year! It would be madness.

quickthrower2 7y ago

Why do we need to sync clocks to the rising sun though? We can create an alarm clock that goes off at sunrise using the same smart technology. We don't need to change the time metric. Now you might argue you need to do this because business demands that we start at 9am. Well THAT is what needs to change. Most jobs don't need a fixed start time. If they say come in between 7am and 10am that should give enough leeway so you can rise at sunrise. And in any case a 7am fixed sunrise and a 9am fixed work start time is still an issue for those who need > 2 hours to get ready for and commute to work.