4 ms·

Can we just all go UTC and be done with this nonsense? Let organizations change their hours throughout the year. People would get used to the cycle fast enough,

Can we just all go UTC and be done with this nonsense? Let organizations change their hours throughout the year. People would get used to the cycle fast enough, you know, after they're done killing people like me who think this is a good idea.

tantalor 6y ago
So You Want To Abolish Time Zones (2015) https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish
- recursive 6y ago
  Reading about people trying to accomplish things in this article is like watching the black-and-white portion of an info-mercial where seemingly basic tasks are suddenly feats of intense expertise.
- bnj 6y ago
  Came here specifically to see if this had been added yet, glad to see it!
flukus 6y ago
Then there would be a thousand timezones and no one would agree what normal business hours are.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  What are the advantages of normal business hours, in an era when most office work can be done asynchronously, and most retail stores have extended or 24 hour schedules? "Normal business hours" meant that when I was living in SF, nearly everything in my neighborhood closed by 3PM.
- asdff 6y ago
  business hours would just follow whatever the national stock exchange settles upon, like they do now. people in finance in SF keep eastern time.
  - Jolter 6y ago
    It would most certainly not. What does a fruit stall in Minnesota care about the NYSE’s opening hours?
- gojomo 6y ago
  > ...no one would agree what normal business hours are. Which would be... great! More businesses should vary hours to adapt to local conditions – the exact needs of its customers, employees, community, complementary nearby activities. Hell, make the business hours "+X minutes after local sunrise today to +Y minutes after local sunset", if that's what's sleep-healthiest or matches the rhythm of its surroundings. Anyone can & should use their handheld/Google-Maps to check a particular spot's hours, and businesses should consider it their duty to keep those up-to-date. Commercial districts that gain a big benefit from easy-to-predict hours – malls, connected retail strips, complementary business types – will synchronize on a local-consensus. "Normal business hours" are 19th-Century holdover from a world that, lacking telecommunications, needed hard-and-fast coordination mechanisms. It's the 21st Century. Use UTC.
tzs 6y ago
If you think that this would simplify things by getting rid of time zones, you are mistaken. The underlying reason we have time zones is that we are (1) in a solar system with only one sun, (2) on a spherical planet, (3) that is not tidal locked to the sun, (4) want to roughly sync our activities to the local day/night cycle, and (5) want to be able to figure out where people east or west or our location are in their local day/night cycle. If I'm in Seattle and you are in London, and I'm trying to figure out when to call you to catch you when you are likely to be awake and not at work, I need to know that your local day/night cycle is about 8 hours ahead of mine. With the current time zone system, I know that 19:00 in each time zone is probably a good time for someone in that time zone to receive a call, subtract 8 hours because of the time zone difference, and so 19:00 on your clock should be 11:00 on my clock, so that is when I call. With universal UTC, it is very similar. I'd know that 3:00 UTC is about an hour after dinner for me. But you are 8 hours ahead, so an hour after dinner for you would be 8 hours earlier, so I'd subtract 8 hours from 3:00, getting 19:00 UTC as when I should call you.
- function_seven 6y ago
  Yup, the actual time zones still exist. Just because we all switch to UTC doesn't make the differences in time disappear. It's now just hidden. Meanwhile, days just got really confusing! All sorts of phrases would suddenly become ambiguous. “Dinner at my house on Wednesday?”, “Want to see a movie on Saturday?”. Both of those phrases would become confusing when dinnertime on a Wednesday could be 01:00 UTC or 23:00 UTC. Same with the movie: did you mean as Saturday is just ending, or just starting?
- asdff 6y ago
  The solution would be to return missed calls when you are available. Or if you need to call someone regularly across the world, you would ask, "What hours are you available for contact?" Anticipating that someone is available at a certain time is a bit silly imo; you have no idea what life brings them that day to assume that they are free to take your call right then and now, so you might as well just try calling when you can, and crossing your fingers that they are free to pick up. Maybe I miss your call right after work because I'm taking a nap, for example. No timezone information could have helped you connect that call.

tantalor 6y ago

So You Want To Abolish Time Zones (2015) https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish

recursive 6y ago
Reading about people trying to accomplish things in this article is like watching the black-and-white portion of an info-mercial where seemingly basic tasks are suddenly feats of intense expertise.
bnj 6y ago
Came here specifically to see if this had been added yet, glad to see it!

flukus 6y ago

Then there would be a thousand timezones and no one would agree what normal business hours are.

nitrogen 6y ago
What are the advantages of normal business hours, in an era when most office work can be done asynchronously, and most retail stores have extended or 24 hour schedules? "Normal business hours" meant that when I was living in SF, nearly everything in my neighborhood closed by 3PM.
asdff 6y ago
business hours would just follow whatever the national stock exchange settles upon, like they do now. people in finance in SF keep eastern time.
- Jolter 6y ago
  It would most certainly not. What does a fruit stall in Minnesota care about the NYSE’s opening hours?
gojomo 6y ago
> ...no one would agree what normal business hours are. Which would be... great! More businesses should vary hours to adapt to local conditions – the exact needs of its customers, employees, community, complementary nearby activities. Hell, make the business hours "+X minutes after local sunrise today to +Y minutes after local sunset", if that's what's sleep-healthiest or matches the rhythm of its surroundings. Anyone can & should use their handheld/Google-Maps to check a particular spot's hours, and businesses should consider it their duty to keep those up-to-date. Commercial districts that gain a big benefit from easy-to-predict hours – malls, connected retail strips, complementary business types – will synchronize on a local-consensus. "Normal business hours" are 19th-Century holdover from a world that, lacking telecommunications, needed hard-and-fast coordination mechanisms. It's the 21st Century. Use UTC.

tzs 6y ago

If you think that this would simplify things by getting rid of time zones, you are mistaken. The underlying reason we have time zones is that we are (1) in a solar system with only one sun, (2) on a spherical planet, (3) that is not tidal locked to the sun, (4) want to roughly sync our activities to the local day/night cycle, and (5) want to be able to figure out where people east or west or our location are in their local day/night cycle. If I'm in Seattle and you are in London, and I'm trying to figure out when to call you to catch you when you are likely to be awake and not at work, I need to know that your local day/night cycle is about 8 hours ahead of mine. With the current time zone system, I know that 19:00 in each time zone is probably a good time for someone in that time zone to receive a call, subtract 8 hours because of the time zone difference, and so 19:00 on your clock should be 11:00 on my clock, so that is when I call. With universal UTC, it is very similar. I'd know that 3:00 UTC is about an hour after dinner for me. But you are 8 hours ahead, so an hour after dinner for you would be 8 hours earlier, so I'd subtract 8 hours from 3:00, getting 19:00 UTC as when I should call you.

function_seven 6y ago
Yup, the actual time zones still exist. Just because we all switch to UTC doesn't make the differences in time disappear. It's now just hidden. Meanwhile, days just got really confusing! All sorts of phrases would suddenly become ambiguous. “Dinner at my house on Wednesday?”, “Want to see a movie on Saturday?”. Both of those phrases would become confusing when dinnertime on a Wednesday could be 01:00 UTC or 23:00 UTC. Same with the movie: did you mean as Saturday is just ending, or just starting?
asdff 6y ago
The solution would be to return missed calls when you are available. Or if you need to call someone regularly across the world, you would ask, "What hours are you available for contact?" Anticipating that someone is available at a certain time is a bit silly imo; you have no idea what life brings them that day to assume that they are free to take your call right then and now, so you might as well just try calling when you can, and crossing your fingers that they are free to pick up. Maybe I miss your call right after work because I'm taking a nap, for example. No timezone information could have helped you connect that call.