5 ms·

Who does?

tablespoon 6y ago
> Who does? Every once in awhile you run into a developer who wants to, because it would make developing apps that deal with time easier. It's a laughably parochial perspective, but it happens.
- neolog 6y ago
  Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is.
  - tialaramex 6y ago
    It is parochial but probably from a different perspective than your parent intended. The universe does not actually have universal time. We're stuck on this little ball of rock, so this could actually work for Humans on Earth if they wanted it to. But you couldn't do this if your civilisation is much bigger. The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right?
    - frosted-flakes 6y ago
      It wouldn't change anything except make the math a bit harder. There are actually timezones that are offset half an hour from the adjacent one, like Newfoundland, and it works just fine.
    - smegger001 6y ago
      I am imagining a 1000 years form now the rest of the solar system is trying to get earth knock off this bullshit timezones plus daylight savings time and just use UTC like everyone else
    - tablespoon 6y ago
      > The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right? They aren't arbitrary. They're a compromise/trade-off between several conflicting goods (e.g. aligning the clock to solar time and using time for regional coordination). If you change their number/size on goal will get worse and the other better.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - tablespoon 6y ago
    > Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is. Parochial in the sense that he's advocating major societal changes based on his narrow interests as a software developer. It's like if I went on a foreign vacation, and after some communication difficulties, saying the whole world should drop their local languages and standardize on English because I'm an English-speaker, and, by the way, a common language would make international commerce more efficient. The proposal is mainly a selfish one to slightly reduce my costs at massive cost to others, and my non-selfish (non-parochial) "reason" for it is prioritizing a minor use-cases over far more common ones. If we abolished local time/time zones in favor of universal time, it'd just get re-invented again.
shadowofneptune 6y ago
At least two people do: one's an economics professor, the other is a physics professor. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/universal-time-zones https://www.wired.co.uk/article/universal-time-zones Reasoning is pretty shaky tbh. If the idea is to give everyone a time that is suited for them, the most likely thing would be for everyone to revert back to using the mean solar time for their precise location, not to all converge on one time zone.
- remram 6y ago
  Yeah, this would make it hard to communicate with people, if even your next-door neighbor doesn't use quite the same clock you do. Timezones are a trade-off between using your exact mean solar time and a common clock: adding/substracting whole hours is not too difficult, and you're never more than 30min from your mean solar time (that is, unless you get forced in the wrong timezone, like in China where they traded one for the other).
garrickvanburen 6y ago
it's made for some engaging discussion around the family dinner table.
pseudalopex 6y ago
At least 1 person in every discussion about time.[1][2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416230 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416110
colinmhayes 6y ago
I want a time gradient. Sun rises at 7am everywhere everyday. If you want to make plans with people you just use the internet to sync time.
- eMSF 6y ago
  I hope you don't assume that sun rises everywhere every day.
  - schoen 6y ago
    I love the sun cycle visualizations (and everything else) on timeanddate.com. Almost the most northerly place I've been: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/tromso https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/tromso The most equatorial place I've been: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/singapore/singapore https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/singapore/singapore The most southerly place I've been: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/argentina/buenos-aires https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/argentina/buenos-aires The consequences of making the sun "rise" at "7 a.m." in each of these places would be pretty confusing! (But especially in Tromsø.)

Who does?

> Who does? Every once in awhile you run into a developer who wants to, because it would make developing apps that deal with time easier. It's a laughably parochial perspective, but it happens.

neolog 6y ago
Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  It is parochial but probably from a different perspective than your parent intended. The universe does not actually have universal time. We're stuck on this little ball of rock, so this could actually work for Humans on Earth if they wanted it to. But you couldn't do this if your civilisation is much bigger. The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right?
  - frosted-flakes 6y ago
    It wouldn't change anything except make the math a bit harder. There are actually timezones that are offset half an hour from the adjacent one, like Newfoundland, and it works just fine.
  - smegger001 6y ago
    I am imagining a 1000 years form now the rest of the solar system is trying to get earth knock off this bullshit timezones plus daylight savings time and just use UTC like everyone else
  - tablespoon 6y ago
    > The zones we have now are arbitrary though, imagine if there were twice as many, or half as many, it wouldn't really change anything right? They aren't arbitrary. They're a compromise/trade-off between several conflicting goods (e.g. aligning the clock to solar time and using time for regional coordination). If you change their number/size on goal will get worse and the other better.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > Parochial seems like the opposite of what it is. Parochial in the sense that he's advocating major societal changes based on his narrow interests as a software developer. It's like if I went on a foreign vacation, and after some communication difficulties, saying the whole world should drop their local languages and standardize on English because I'm an English-speaker, and, by the way, a common language would make international commerce more efficient. The proposal is mainly a selfish one to slightly reduce my costs at massive cost to others, and my non-selfish (non-parochial) "reason" for it is prioritizing a minor use-cases over far more common ones. If we abolished local time/time zones in favor of universal time, it'd just get re-invented again.

shadowofneptune 6y ago

At least two people do: one's an economics professor, the other is a physics professor. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/universal-time-zones https://www.wired.co.uk/article/universal-time-zones Reasoning is pretty shaky tbh. If the idea is to give everyone a time that is suited for them, the most likely thing would be for everyone to revert back to using the mean solar time for their precise location, not to all converge on one time zone.

remram 6y ago
Yeah, this would make it hard to communicate with people, if even your next-door neighbor doesn't use quite the same clock you do. Timezones are a trade-off between using your exact mean solar time and a common clock: adding/substracting whole hours is not too difficult, and you're never more than 30min from your mean solar time (that is, unless you get forced in the wrong timezone, like in China where they traded one for the other).

garrickvanburen 6y ago

it's made for some engaging discussion around the family dinner table.

pseudalopex 6y ago

At least 1 person in every discussion about time.[1][2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416230 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416230 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416110 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26416110

colinmhayes 6y ago

I want a time gradient. Sun rises at 7am everywhere everyday. If you want to make plans with people you just use the internet to sync time.

eMSF 6y ago
I hope you don't assume that sun rises everywhere every day.
- schoen 6y ago
  I love the sun cycle visualizations (and everything else) on timeanddate.com. Almost the most northerly place I've been: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/tromso https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/norway/tromso The most equatorial place I've been: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/singapore/singapore https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/singapore/singapore The most southerly place I've been: https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/argentina/buenos-aires https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/argentina/buenos-aires The consequences of making the sun "rise" at "7 a.m." in each of these places would be pretty confusing! (But especially in Tromsø.)