6 ms·

Another edge-case highlighting the usefulness of global time; maybe a soft rollout of UTC at the North Pole is a good start in wait for the rest of the world to

Another edge-case highlighting the usefulness of global time; maybe a soft rollout of UTC at the North Pole is a good start in wait for the rest of the world to catch on?

flohofwoe 7y ago
But what's the point of a global time when the sun rises and sets at different times across the world anyway? Humans live by the 'sun clock', not by UTC. For instance, to arrange a remote meeting you still need to check what time will be convenient for the people around the world, and a global time doesn't make that any easier (arguably even worse). Just because UTC makes sense for machines doesn't mean it makes sense for humans. And machines should adjust to humans, not the other way around.
- Chris2048 7y ago
  only if you adjust manually. Given a universal time and a location, you can determine time of (solar) day just like you can determine the day name (mon,tues etc).
- JdeBP 7y ago
  Interestingly, you highlight an error in the article that gave me pause: > Coordinated Universal Time, which is based, ironically, on the position of the sun relative to Earth. As you say, UTC is not a sun clock. It is based upon Atomic Time. I also wondered who, knowing history, would consider the concept of December not to be fabricated. (-:
  - jhayward 7y ago
    > As you say, UTC is not a sun clock. UTC is most definitely a sun clock. It is coordinated to correspond to within 1 second of mean solar time at 0º longitude.
    - jwandborg 7y ago
      If it was a sun clock it wouldn't have to be coordinated, it would just be.
      - Legogris 7y ago
        Not true, since it has leap days and leap seconds.
    - JdeBP 7y ago
      That it is an Atomic Time clock that is kept close to a sun clock does not make it a sun clock.
Piskvorrr 7y ago
We have already rolled out UTC. Literally, we: servers are mostly UTC. As for the time zones that descend from UTC, they're nowhere near gone: the idea might look appealing if you have Greenwich in your backyard, but everybody else is going to have a bad time. Introducing a breaking change "12 PM is not anywhere near noon" after hundreds of years is bound to be as successful as decimal time - I mean, we're still dealing with the fallout from Julian to Gregorian time migration, and that one started in 1582!
- scrumbledober 7y ago
  In what ways are we dealing with the fallout from Julian to Gregorian time migration?
  - Piskvorrr 7y ago
    A simplified case: how many days are there between Jan 1, 1918, and now? Trick question! Depends on where you ask - USSR transitioned to Gregorian calendar in 1918, dropping Feb 1-Feb 13. (Actually data format which stored dates as "days since 1900-01-01"...in an undefined time zone - years are the same length everywhere, right?) Anything that deals with historical data still has to deal with this...the same way that Y2k38 started biting in 2008, because people do have calculations that extend for decades from the present. And those are both actual date computation quirks which I have personally met, in code; that's not to mention the cultural weirdness of "Red October" happening in November.

Another edge-case highlighting the usefulness of global time; maybe a soft rollout of UTC at the North Pole is a good start in wait for the rest of the world to catch on?

flohofwoe 7y ago

But what's the point of a global time when the sun rises and sets at different times across the world anyway? Humans live by the 'sun clock', not by UTC. For instance, to arrange a remote meeting you still need to check what time will be convenient for the people around the world, and a global time doesn't make that any easier (arguably even worse). Just because UTC makes sense for machines doesn't mean it makes sense for humans. And machines should adjust to humans, not the other way around.

Chris2048 7y ago
only if you adjust manually. Given a universal time and a location, you can determine time of (solar) day just like you can determine the day name (mon,tues etc).
JdeBP 7y ago
Interestingly, you highlight an error in the article that gave me pause: > Coordinated Universal Time, which is based, ironically, on the position of the sun relative to Earth. As you say, UTC is not a sun clock. It is based upon Atomic Time. I also wondered who, knowing history, would consider the concept of December not to be fabricated. (-:
- jhayward 7y ago
  > As you say, UTC is not a sun clock. UTC is most definitely a sun clock. It is coordinated to correspond to within 1 second of mean solar time at 0º longitude.
  - jwandborg 7y ago
    If it was a sun clock it wouldn't have to be coordinated, it would just be.
    - Legogris 7y ago
      Not true, since it has leap days and leap seconds.
  - JdeBP 7y ago
    That it is an Atomic Time clock that is kept close to a sun clock does not make it a sun clock.

Piskvorrr 7y ago

We have already rolled out UTC. Literally, we: servers are mostly UTC. As for the time zones that descend from UTC, they're nowhere near gone: the idea might look appealing if you have Greenwich in your backyard, but everybody else is going to have a bad time. Introducing a breaking change "12 PM is not anywhere near noon" after hundreds of years is bound to be as successful as decimal time - I mean, we're still dealing with the fallout from Julian to Gregorian time migration, and that one started in 1582!

scrumbledober 7y ago
In what ways are we dealing with the fallout from Julian to Gregorian time migration?
- Piskvorrr 7y ago
  A simplified case: how many days are there between Jan 1, 1918, and now? Trick question! Depends on where you ask - USSR transitioned to Gregorian calendar in 1918, dropping Feb 1-Feb 13. (Actually data format which stored dates as "days since 1900-01-01"...in an undefined time zone - years are the same length everywhere, right?) Anything that deals with historical data still has to deal with this...the same way that Y2k38 started biting in 2008, because people do have calculations that extend for decades from the present. And those are both actual date computation quirks which I have personally met, in code; that's not to mention the cultural weirdness of "Red October" happening in November.