6 ms·

The insane software developer in me wants to just smear the time across the US uniformly and do away with timezones all together. The New Year's Eve celebratio

The insane software developer in me wants to just smear the time across the US uniformly and do away with timezones all together. The New Year's Eve celebration would be a wave of cheering across the US!

Waterluvian 7y ago
No smearing. Just a single time worldwide. Let society adapt. I mean it's all just semantics. Maybe you wake up at 11pm and go to bed at 3pm. Big deal!
- Klathmon 7y ago
  Where's the fun in that!? I want to watch the software world burn while I demand that the wall clock on my phone shall start going backwards once I go west faster than ~1000mph.
  - sk5t 7y ago
    Or, head to one of the poles, and amble slowly about for the same effect. No need to go supersonic at the equator.
  - toper-centage 7y ago
    No. Deprecate hours and minutes altogether, change to Greewitch Meridian degrees and minutes. This will help with leaving the old system and makes more sense semantically, even though it's essentially an equivalent system. - What time is it now? - It's 258 degrees and 15 minutes. (5:18pm)
    - Izkata 7y ago
      That's just begging for "Celsius Time" and "Fahrenheit Time"
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Switch to a 24 hour clock while you're at it. am and pm no longer make any sense if they're not used to refer to a local time.
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    No no no. Metric 10 hour clock!
- LeoPanthera 7y ago
  "Who is this?" "Hello Uncle Steve!" "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Uncle Steve asks, sounding as if he is still asleep. "Of course I do, and so do you! It's 04:25 on Saturday... everywhere." I add a dramatic emphasis to the last word. "But do you know what 04:25 on Saturday signifies in Melbourne?" "Breakfast time?" I can actually hear him rubbing his eyes. "We don't centre our waking/sleeping cycle on solar noon, fool nephew," Uncle Steve explains. "We centre the school day on solar noon. In countries above and below certain latitudes, where seasonal variation in the amount of daylight is significant, it's important for there to be the maximum amount of light when children are going to school in the morning, and coming home from school in the afternoon. Here in Melbourne, solar noon is about 10:30 Standard Time, so the average school day is timetabled from 07:00 to 14:00, and a typical working day runs from about 07:00 to 15:00. That means that on a working day, I get up at 05:00, at the earliest." "Ooogh. Sorry. That's about two hours later than I reckoned," I tell him. "I know," he replies. "I didn't know you did that in Australia," I say. "That deliberate misalignment of the diurnal routine. Does every country do it?" "No. Equatorial countries don't, because they get plenty of light all year round. Temperate countries do, though. The technical term for it is 'daylight saving'." I blink. "And 05:00 is when I get up on a working day," Uncle Steve continues. "On Saturdays, I like to lie in. Until solar noon, if possible. That's more than five hours from now." I'm beaten. "I guess I have no idea what 04:25 on Saturday signifies. It used to be pretty universal, but now where I live it signifies a time to go out and get drunk..." "And where I live," Uncle Steve says, "it signifies a hangover." "The same time of day on the same day of the week means many different things to different people all over the world," I say. "Too many to remember them all." "Yeah," Uncle Steve grumbles. "It would be neat if there was a lookup table for that kind of thing." https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
  - mixmastamyk 7y ago
    So instead of the time there you’d look up the sun position. Not worse just different.
    - Entalpi 7y ago
      It is worse. It changes the meaning of time that we all use to communicate.
- yojo 7y ago
  You can start today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
- rakoo 7y ago
  To make adaptation easier, allow me to propose the one true global time system, Internet Time (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time)
shagie 7y ago
That’s how it was originally. Solar noon was noon. This made some scheduling difficult as the next city over could be 10 minutes earlier. What time does the baseball game start? Well, that depends on where you are watching it from.
- killbot5000 7y ago
  And who wins depends on how fast you're going while watching.
- Zarath 7y ago
  Thankfully now we have satellites and atomic clocks so that there is a consistent time across all places.
- test6554 7y ago
  I could imagine a system where any date or time information coming into your eyes or ears would automatically be translated to your preferred time offset. All you would need to do is decide which system of time you wanted and the computer would ensure you always perceived this. As you speak about time, someone else hears their preferred time system in your voice. Emails and other text-based methods are simple, analog and digital clocks could be updated on the fly with computer vision techniques and machine learning.
  - EForEndeavour 7y ago
    So a seamlessly realtime audiovisual AR system that's cheap and convenient for anyone to adopt? Unless and until that ever happens, we're stuck with lower-tech solutions like time zones.
  - ilovetux 7y ago
    timezone aware Babel fish.
- 13of40 7y ago
  Obviously what we need is no time zones and one standard time around the globe where: 1 second = 1 second 100 seconds = 1 minute 100 minutes = 1 hour 10 hours = 1 day 100 days = 1 year ...and ignore that light in the sky. Only farmers need to know about that light.
vinc 7y ago
The coder in me made that: https://geodate.org https://geodate.org I'm the only one using it so there's absolutely no coordination problem, and it's great :3 But yeah use local time for personal time, and Unix timestamp for everything else!
logicchains 7y ago
China only has a single timezone, and it's nearly as wide as the IS.
maxxxxx 7y ago
“The insane software developer in me wants to just smear the time across the US uniformly and do away with timezones all together.” I think China has that. Why not do it world wide? The math would be much easier. Also let’s get a 10 hour day with 10 minute hours. Ideally I would have a 100 day year but the sun probably won’t cooperate.
- aaomidi 7y ago
  It fucks over the minorities living in rural China.
  - jlv2 7y ago
    It screws over everyone in China not living on the coast, since the one-true-time for China is Beijing time.
    - pattisapu 7y ago
      Somehow this calls to mind why Detroit is in the Eastern timezone, because the companies there wanted to be in step with the one-true-time of New York City. http://nighttraintodetroit.com/2017/07/28/why-is-michigan-on-eastern-time/ http://nighttraintodetroit.com/2017/07/28/why-is-michigan-on...

Waterluvian 7y ago

No smearing. Just a single time worldwide. Let society adapt. I mean it's all just semantics. Maybe you wake up at 11pm and go to bed at 3pm. Big deal!

Klathmon 7y ago
Where's the fun in that!? I want to watch the software world burn while I demand that the wall clock on my phone shall start going backwards once I go west faster than ~1000mph.
- sk5t 7y ago
  Or, head to one of the poles, and amble slowly about for the same effect. No need to go supersonic at the equator.
- toper-centage 7y ago
  No. Deprecate hours and minutes altogether, change to Greewitch Meridian degrees and minutes. This will help with leaving the old system and makes more sense semantically, even though it's essentially an equivalent system. - What time is it now? - It's 258 degrees and 15 minutes. (5:18pm)
  - Izkata 7y ago
    That's just begging for "Celsius Time" and "Fahrenheit Time"
CydeWeys 7y ago
Switch to a 24 hour clock while you're at it. am and pm no longer make any sense if they're not used to refer to a local time.
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  No no no. Metric 10 hour clock!
LeoPanthera 7y ago
"Who is this?" "Hello Uncle Steve!" "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Uncle Steve asks, sounding as if he is still asleep. "Of course I do, and so do you! It's 04:25 on Saturday... everywhere." I add a dramatic emphasis to the last word. "But do you know what 04:25 on Saturday signifies in Melbourne?" "Breakfast time?" I can actually hear him rubbing his eyes. "We don't centre our waking/sleeping cycle on solar noon, fool nephew," Uncle Steve explains. "We centre the school day on solar noon. In countries above and below certain latitudes, where seasonal variation in the amount of daylight is significant, it's important for there to be the maximum amount of light when children are going to school in the morning, and coming home from school in the afternoon. Here in Melbourne, solar noon is about 10:30 Standard Time, so the average school day is timetabled from 07:00 to 14:00, and a typical working day runs from about 07:00 to 15:00. That means that on a working day, I get up at 05:00, at the earliest." "Ooogh. Sorry. That's about two hours later than I reckoned," I tell him. "I know," he replies. "I didn't know you did that in Australia," I say. "That deliberate misalignment of the diurnal routine. Does every country do it?" "No. Equatorial countries don't, because they get plenty of light all year round. Temperate countries do, though. The technical term for it is 'daylight saving'." I blink. "And 05:00 is when I get up on a working day," Uncle Steve continues. "On Saturdays, I like to lie in. Until solar noon, if possible. That's more than five hours from now." I'm beaten. "I guess I have no idea what 04:25 on Saturday signifies. It used to be pretty universal, but now where I live it signifies a time to go out and get drunk..." "And where I live," Uncle Steve says, "it signifies a hangover." "The same time of day on the same day of the week means many different things to different people all over the world," I say. "Too many to remember them all." "Yeah," Uncle Steve grumbles. "It would be neat if there was a lookup table for that kind of thing." https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  So instead of the time there you’d look up the sun position. Not worse just different.
  - Entalpi 7y ago
    It is worse. It changes the meaning of time that we all use to communicate.
yojo 7y ago
You can start today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time
rakoo 7y ago
To make adaptation easier, allow me to propose the one true global time system, Internet Time (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swatch_Internet_Time)

shagie 7y ago

That’s how it was originally. Solar noon was noon. This made some scheduling difficult as the next city over could be 10 minutes earlier. What time does the baseball game start? Well, that depends on where you are watching it from.

killbot5000 7y ago
And who wins depends on how fast you're going while watching.
Zarath 7y ago
Thankfully now we have satellites and atomic clocks so that there is a consistent time across all places.
test6554 7y ago
I could imagine a system where any date or time information coming into your eyes or ears would automatically be translated to your preferred time offset. All you would need to do is decide which system of time you wanted and the computer would ensure you always perceived this. As you speak about time, someone else hears their preferred time system in your voice. Emails and other text-based methods are simple, analog and digital clocks could be updated on the fly with computer vision techniques and machine learning.
- EForEndeavour 7y ago
  So a seamlessly realtime audiovisual AR system that's cheap and convenient for anyone to adopt? Unless and until that ever happens, we're stuck with lower-tech solutions like time zones.
- ilovetux 7y ago
  timezone aware Babel fish.
13of40 7y ago
Obviously what we need is no time zones and one standard time around the globe where: 1 second = 1 second 100 seconds = 1 minute 100 minutes = 1 hour 10 hours = 1 day 100 days = 1 year ...and ignore that light in the sky. Only farmers need to know about that light.

vinc 7y ago

The coder in me made that: https://geodate.org https://geodate.org I'm the only one using it so there's absolutely no coordination problem, and it's great :3 But yeah use local time for personal time, and Unix timestamp for everything else!

logicchains 7y ago

China only has a single timezone, and it's nearly as wide as the IS.

maxxxxx 7y ago

“The insane software developer in me wants to just smear the time across the US uniformly and do away with timezones all together.” I think China has that. Why not do it world wide? The math would be much easier. Also let’s get a 10 hour day with 10 minute hours. Ideally I would have a 100 day year but the sun probably won’t cooperate.

aaomidi 7y ago
It fucks over the minorities living in rural China.
- jlv2 7y ago
  It screws over everyone in China not living on the coast, since the one-true-time for China is Beijing time.
  - pattisapu 7y ago
    Somehow this calls to mind why Detroit is in the Eastern timezone, because the companies there wanted to be in step with the one-true-time of New York City. http://nighttraintodetroit.com/2017/07/28/why-is-michigan-on-eastern-time/ http://nighttraintodetroit.com/2017/07/28/why-is-michigan-on...