8 ms·

«the time is the same, but the schedules are different» I fail to see how this would be worse than China having multiple timezones. A single timezone still mak

by mrb 7y ago

«the time is the same, but the schedules are different» I fail to see how this would be worse than China having multiple timezones. A single timezone still makes many things much easier such as alleviating the mental load and software complexity in everything that revolves around cross-country logistics, meetings, travel, etc. In my personal life, I lost count of the number of times a meeting was delayed or cancelled because of confusion around differing timezones.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Instead of setting your watch right (or having your phone automatically adjust), you instead have to just “remember” that all the standard store openings and work times are displaced by a couple of hours and continuously do the math in your head. How is that better? We’ve gone from one problem technology can fix to one that it definitely can’t.
- iggldiggl 7y ago
  Obligatory link: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
  - journalctl 7y ago
    I’m tired of seeing this article on HN. Humans care where the sun is more than they care about what time it is. How am I supposed to know when someone in Europe is awake if it’s 10 PM for me in the US and the sun has already set? Timezones don’t just go away because you’ve switched to UTC everywhere. Sure, my meeting is at 14:00, but can my Brazilian, Russian, and Australian colleagues attend?
    - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
      You have to check when they start work, but you dont have to deal with the fact that different countries switch clocks at a different date. And when you talk to them, it's clear to all what time 16:00 is
      - iggldiggl 7y ago
        But instead you get a terrible confusion what day it is precisely because for somewhat more than half of the world the calendar date suddenly changes somewhere in the middle of the solar day instead of conveniently somewhere in the middle of the night when most people would be asleep (or at least not caring about the date) anyway.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- labawi 7y ago
  > Instead of setting your watch right What is right? What is your reference? Work start time? School start? Shop opening? Pub closing? Now try coordinating a conference with your supplier a few hundred km away based on their local supper time. I don't know where you live, but if you go to say Spain, Holland, Italy and Czech republic, also comparing small towns / cities to large ones, the schedules will be quite different and I believe all of them are in the same time zone.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Urumqi is a small (by Chinese standards) city of 3 and a half million. There are a bunch of cities in northern xinjiang as well, it has a total population of 23.5 million (and is heavily urbanized in its north). Imagine if a province with more people than many European countries had a different schedule from the rest of the country. And it gets even worse in kashgar, but that’s a much smaller place than Urumqi (only 800k, might as well be a village). Tibet has similar problems for sure, but there aren’t many people there and you are unlikely to experience it without a special travel permit.
    - labawi 7y ago
      It's not that it is incompatible, it's just different, mostly offset by an hour or two. Somewhere people tend to start at 6,7,8,9 (say 20%, 30%, 40%, 10%), other place most people start at 9. Somewhere shops are open before 8, somewhere only after 10. In some shops close at about 18, in others most are open till 20 even 21-22. Some places have a siesta around noon. Ok, maybe a bit much, but most things only affect you if you are there and you quickly find out, and others are just a 1-2h offset, so other companies may not be open during start or end of shifts. Not more of an inconvenience than standard flex time.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        This kind of thing creates tension that leads to civil unrest. It is by far the biggest problems the Uighurs have with the central Chinese government, but the inability to have their own time be official (even though it exists and is widely used) definitely does the parties no favors.
- mrb 7y ago
  In what surreal world do you live where all stores open at the same time? You need to either memorize or look up opening hours online anyway.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    I was walking around in Urumqi one morning and just expected a department store to be open already...except it was 10 and it didn’t open until 11 on a Monday. It really isn’t a weird expectation in China for stores to have consistent hours.

by mrb 7y ago

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

Instead of setting your watch right (or having your phone automatically adjust), you instead have to just “remember” that all the standard store openings and work times are displaced by a couple of hours and continuously do the math in your head. How is that better? We’ve gone from one problem technology can fix to one that it definitely can’t.

iggldiggl 7y ago
Obligatory link: https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- journalctl 7y ago
  I’m tired of seeing this article on HN. Humans care where the sun is more than they care about what time it is. How am I supposed to know when someone in Europe is awake if it’s 10 PM for me in the US and the sun has already set? Timezones don’t just go away because you’ve switched to UTC everywhere. Sure, my meeting is at 14:00, but can my Brazilian, Russian, and Australian colleagues attend?
  - ClumsyPilot 7y ago
    You have to check when they start work, but you dont have to deal with the fact that different countries switch clocks at a different date. And when you talk to them, it's clear to all what time 16:00 is
    - iggldiggl 7y ago
      But instead you get a terrible confusion what day it is precisely because for somewhat more than half of the world the calendar date suddenly changes somewhere in the middle of the solar day instead of conveniently somewhere in the middle of the night when most people would be asleep (or at least not caring about the date) anyway.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
labawi 7y ago
> Instead of setting your watch right What is right? What is your reference? Work start time? School start? Shop opening? Pub closing? Now try coordinating a conference with your supplier a few hundred km away based on their local supper time. I don't know where you live, but if you go to say Spain, Holland, Italy and Czech republic, also comparing small towns / cities to large ones, the schedules will be quite different and I believe all of them are in the same time zone.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Urumqi is a small (by Chinese standards) city of 3 and a half million. There are a bunch of cities in northern xinjiang as well, it has a total population of 23.5 million (and is heavily urbanized in its north). Imagine if a province with more people than many European countries had a different schedule from the rest of the country. And it gets even worse in kashgar, but that’s a much smaller place than Urumqi (only 800k, might as well be a village). Tibet has similar problems for sure, but there aren’t many people there and you are unlikely to experience it without a special travel permit.
  - labawi 7y ago
    It's not that it is incompatible, it's just different, mostly offset by an hour or two. Somewhere people tend to start at 6,7,8,9 (say 20%, 30%, 40%, 10%), other place most people start at 9. Somewhere shops are open before 8, somewhere only after 10. In some shops close at about 18, in others most are open till 20 even 21-22. Some places have a siesta around noon. Ok, maybe a bit much, but most things only affect you if you are there and you quickly find out, and others are just a 1-2h offset, so other companies may not be open during start or end of shifts. Not more of an inconvenience than standard flex time.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      This kind of thing creates tension that leads to civil unrest. It is by far the biggest problems the Uighurs have with the central Chinese government, but the inability to have their own time be official (even though it exists and is widely used) definitely does the parties no favors.
mrb 7y ago
In what surreal world do you live where all stores open at the same time? You need to either memorize or look up opening hours online anyway.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  I was walking around in Urumqi one morning and just expected a department store to be open already...except it was 10 and it didn’t open until 11 on a Monday. It really isn’t a weird expectation in China for stores to have consistent hours.