5 ms·

You're right. Firstly, I don't really understand why those countries decided to go with a 30-minute offset. It's adding even more confusion to the whole time zo

by hhebbo 5y ago

You're right. Firstly, I don't really understand why those countries decided to go with a 30-minute offset. It's adding even more confusion to the whole time zone and daylight saving thing. hTime utilizes UTC, hence the 30 minutes difference. However, that's something to think more about and see how to fix it properly. Thanks for the feedback. Would you give hTime a go and test it for some days? I'd love to hear more feedback.

ComputerGuru 5y ago
This just shows you didn’t even do the basic background research before jumping head-first into this idea (not to mention blaming the countries). Why would someone try your app knowing full-well it is fundamentally broken?
- reidjs 5y ago
  Well, it works for my team, so I don't see a problem. Not everything needs to work for everybody in every circumstance to be helpful.
- hhebbo 5y ago
  I believe I did the research. It's written in a blog post I published about time zones and the clock's concept https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/introducing-solutions-to-solve-the-mess-of-time-zones-cdf44a7ee4ae https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/introdu.... That's what I'm trying to solve. I appreciate your candor feedback. When users worldwide use the clock, they'll see both global and local times in one place, the global time will be "without" the minutes offset, and the local time will be "with" the minutes offset, so the mapping does actually work and I don't think it's broken in that sense. And as any project, there's always room for improvement.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    When OP talked about it being broken, I suspect they meant something like “With enough knowledge of the complexities of international timezones, as well as the psychology internal to administrators and the public, it is clear that this specific approach cannot solve the problem for everyone world wide without an amount of amount of public shift that is borderline impossible. (For reference, see the XKCD comic about creating a unifying standard)”.
    - hhebbo 5y ago
      It's definitely challenging to influence people's behavior especially when it comes to something so essential like time and the clock. However, I believe dealing with time zones when working with distributed teams is actually more challenging. I can't count the times people missed a meeting or a deadline by an hour because they miscalculated time zones, hence the work on hTime.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    The mapping is clear, and I think many of us get it that anyone in any time zone can look at the mapped clock and see the same time. As well, I personally think that building on UTC but making it clearly recognizable is a clever approach (avoiding, as you say; “Meet me at to 2PM UTC.” being quickly internalized in someone’s brain as 2PM local time), but there are too many (known) edge cases that this cannot solve (such as arbitrarily-numbered minute offsets, and possibility of confusing dates when setting the time)
    - hhebbo 5y ago
      Thanks for the clarification, makes sense.
  - gregmac 5y ago
    I have to say, I don't understand what you mean by this. When I view https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s currently I see: Time Locally: 14:52 Time worldwide: R:52 The actual local time there is 14:22. If I (in a timezone with an even number of hours offset) schedule a meeting at S:30, what time is someone from St John's going to show up? (I think half an hour late?)
    - hhebbo 5y ago
      What I mean is for example: India as you mentioned above in the list. On hTime https://thehtime.com/location?name=India+-+Mumbai https://thehtime.com/location?name=India+-+Mumbai the local time is with a 30-minute offset, and the global isn't following UTC. For St. John's offset, I actually wasn't aware of it, from the data I have it seemed to me that Canada in general doesn't have that. But worry not, I just fixed it on the website and added it to the algorithm offsets, please check again and let met know what you think. Here is the link to St. John - Canada https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s If a meeting is scheduled using hTime, then it'll be in hTime with half an hour offset from the local hour in St. John.
HideousKojima 5y ago
Nepal does a 45 minute offset because it's centered around a holy mountain: http://bossnepal.com/sacred-mountain-gauri-shankar/ http://bossnepal.com/sacred-mountain-gauri-shankar/

by hhebbo 5y ago

ComputerGuru 5y ago

This just shows you didn’t even do the basic background research before jumping head-first into this idea (not to mention blaming the countries). Why would someone try your app knowing full-well it is fundamentally broken?

reidjs 5y ago
Well, it works for my team, so I don't see a problem. Not everything needs to work for everybody in every circumstance to be helpful.
hhebbo 5y ago
I believe I did the research. It's written in a blog post I published about time zones and the clock's concept https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/introducing-solutions-to-solve-the-mess-of-time-zones-cdf44a7ee4ae https://medium.com/adventures-in-consumer-technology/introdu.... That's what I'm trying to solve. I appreciate your candor feedback. When users worldwide use the clock, they'll see both global and local times in one place, the global time will be "without" the minutes offset, and the local time will be "with" the minutes offset, so the mapping does actually work and I don't think it's broken in that sense. And as any project, there's always room for improvement.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  When OP talked about it being broken, I suspect they meant something like “With enough knowledge of the complexities of international timezones, as well as the psychology internal to administrators and the public, it is clear that this specific approach cannot solve the problem for everyone world wide without an amount of amount of public shift that is borderline impossible. (For reference, see the XKCD comic about creating a unifying standard)”.
  - hhebbo 5y ago
    It's definitely challenging to influence people's behavior especially when it comes to something so essential like time and the clock. However, I believe dealing with time zones when working with distributed teams is actually more challenging. I can't count the times people missed a meeting or a deadline by an hour because they miscalculated time zones, hence the work on hTime.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  The mapping is clear, and I think many of us get it that anyone in any time zone can look at the mapped clock and see the same time. As well, I personally think that building on UTC but making it clearly recognizable is a clever approach (avoiding, as you say; “Meet me at to 2PM UTC.” being quickly internalized in someone’s brain as 2PM local time), but there are too many (known) edge cases that this cannot solve (such as arbitrarily-numbered minute offsets, and possibility of confusing dates when setting the time)
  - hhebbo 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, makes sense.
- gregmac 5y ago
  I have to say, I don't understand what you mean by this. When I view https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s currently I see: Time Locally: 14:52 Time worldwide: R:52 The actual local time there is 14:22. If I (in a timezone with an even number of hours offset) schedule a meeting at S:30, what time is someone from St John's going to show up? (I think half an hour late?)
  - hhebbo 5y ago
    What I mean is for example: India as you mentioned above in the list. On hTime https://thehtime.com/location?name=India+-+Mumbai https://thehtime.com/location?name=India+-+Mumbai the local time is with a 30-minute offset, and the global isn't following UTC. For St. John's offset, I actually wasn't aware of it, from the data I have it seemed to me that Canada in general doesn't have that. But worry not, I just fixed it on the website and added it to the algorithm offsets, please check again and let met know what you think. Here is the link to St. John - Canada https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s https://thehtime.com/location?name=Canada+-+St.+John%27s If a meeting is scheduled using hTime, then it'll be in hTime with half an hour offset from the local hour in St. John.

HideousKojima 5y ago

Nepal does a 45 minute offset because it's centered around a holy mountain: http://bossnepal.com/sacred-mountain-gauri-shankar/ http://bossnepal.com/sacred-mountain-gauri-shankar/