7 ms·

I understand it's trying to present issues with abolishing time zones framed as a story about calling your uncle, but in this brave new world with no timezones,

I understand it's trying to present issues with abolishing time zones framed as a story about calling your uncle, but in this brave new world with no timezones, if you wanted to know whether you can call your uncle and he will answer can't you just call him and find out?

Johnny555 6y ago
I look up the timezone first so I don't call when he's likely to be sleeping. My parents phone will ring 24 hours a day if I call them, I don't want to call them during their sleeping time. I know the offset to use when they are at home, but when they spend a month in europe and I want to call, I'd still like to know when to call without calling first to ask them if they are awake.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I think this is fixable with technology. We just need a mode your phone can enter while you're asleep such that calls are gated by a system that allows trusted users to ring the phone after a reminder that this is a bad time, and simply silences all other notifications or rings.
  - remram 6y ago
    I still don't want to get work calls in the evening, and can't take social calls at work. I suppose we could all configure geo-fences, or manually set the phone to whichever mode since we're all working from home. Of course the first thing I'd do is write a script to automatically switch modes at given times, so I don't have to. Then I'd share that script with my friends, and obviously what I'd have recreated is a timezone.
  - Johnny555 6y ago
    Maybe this could be automated, like break a country into contiguous regions grouped by sunrise and sunset times, then each phone can geolocate to figure which time-region you're in. Then it can set your waking and sleeping time based on time-region. This could be further extended by having the devices overlay a new set of times over the universal time, where, say, 12:00 is normalized to be lunch time. Then when someone says "meet me at lunchtime", everyone (even if they are visiting from out of the area) knows he means 12:00 and they don't have to consult their phones to find out that lunchtime in that area is 17:00 And then, if someone says "Well I hate in summers when I have a lot of daylight in the morning, I want more daylight in the evening, let's change our clocks in the summer", then everyone shoves him out of the room and never talks to him again.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      I get your joke, but what I'm describing solves a problem even in our current reality as well as solving the problem in the "No time zone" reality. This lets you allow specific people to interrupt your sleep so you can catch important calls while missing unimportant interruptions.

Johnny555 6y ago

I look up the timezone first so I don't call when he's likely to be sleeping. My parents phone will ring 24 hours a day if I call them, I don't want to call them during their sleeping time. I know the offset to use when they are at home, but when they spend a month in europe and I want to call, I'd still like to know when to call without calling first to ask them if they are awake.

ALittleLight 6y ago
I think this is fixable with technology. We just need a mode your phone can enter while you're asleep such that calls are gated by a system that allows trusted users to ring the phone after a reminder that this is a bad time, and simply silences all other notifications or rings.
- remram 6y ago
  I still don't want to get work calls in the evening, and can't take social calls at work. I suppose we could all configure geo-fences, or manually set the phone to whichever mode since we're all working from home. Of course the first thing I'd do is write a script to automatically switch modes at given times, so I don't have to. Then I'd share that script with my friends, and obviously what I'd have recreated is a timezone.
- Johnny555 6y ago
  Maybe this could be automated, like break a country into contiguous regions grouped by sunrise and sunset times, then each phone can geolocate to figure which time-region you're in. Then it can set your waking and sleeping time based on time-region. This could be further extended by having the devices overlay a new set of times over the universal time, where, say, 12:00 is normalized to be lunch time. Then when someone says "meet me at lunchtime", everyone (even if they are visiting from out of the area) knows he means 12:00 and they don't have to consult their phones to find out that lunchtime in that area is 17:00 And then, if someone says "Well I hate in summers when I have a lot of daylight in the morning, I want more daylight in the evening, let's change our clocks in the summer", then everyone shoves him out of the room and never talks to him again.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    I get your joke, but what I'm describing solves a problem even in our current reality as well as solving the problem in the "No time zone" reality. This lets you allow specific people to interrupt your sleep so you can catch important calls while missing unimportant interruptions.