4 ms·

I just want to specify International Atomic Time, relative to some universally-agreed-upon epoch, in nanosecond units.

by hwc 5y ago

withinboredom 5y ago
So without leap seconds/days, how does one keep their clocks in sync with reality?
- etherealG 5y ago
  One realises that one’s time is relative anyway and any universal time is just one’s own will to join a collective agreement that one doesn’t have to abide by. Then one puts this notion aside and prefers not to worry oneself with such things.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    Uh. No. In the northern hemisphere, winter is January for centuries and centuries. Almanacs that farmers use also agree with that, so we have food to eat. Reality is much more than just rich first-world comforts. The world is deadly, and we use calendars and time-keeping as a basic survival skill. So basic, you probably don’t even realize it’s there.
    - everforward 5y ago
      There's a difference here between time as a fundamental property of the universe, and "time", which is how we relate a bunch of physical phenomenon to that fundamental force. That's the primary driver for complexity here. Time as a property is hard to deal with because we take something simple, like how many seconds have passed since some other point in time, and then we have to correlate it to the sun and the moon and how close the Earth is to the sun and what side of the Earth we're on, and etc. It forces computers to wrap a simple understanding of the passage of time in a lot of context that makes no difference to the computer. Getting rid of calendaring doesn't imply that no one knows when winter is; winter is still a function of time. It's a pretty simple algorithm to figure out whether a given month is winter or not. It's easy to derive that context from an absolute measurement of time. It's an incredible amount more difficult to go from our calendaring system to any kind of absolute time, because our calendaring is kind of arbitrarily made up to keep things in sync. It bears little semblance to the passage of time, because it's purpose is more about maintaining context (i.e. the sun rises early in the morning, it's winter in January, etc) than actually measuring the passage of time.
      - withinboredom 5y ago
        I take it you don’t work remotely with a global team or been homeless? I understand your philosophy and largely agree with it. However reality is much more nuanced.

I just want to specify International Atomic Time, relative to some universally-agreed-upon epoch, in nanosecond units.

by hwc 5y ago

I just want to specify International Atomic Time, relative to some universally-agreed-upon epoch, in nanosecond units.

withinboredom 5y ago

So without leap seconds/days, how does one keep their clocks in sync with reality?

etherealG 5y ago
One realises that one’s time is relative anyway and any universal time is just one’s own will to join a collective agreement that one doesn’t have to abide by. Then one puts this notion aside and prefers not to worry oneself with such things.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Uh. No. In the northern hemisphere, winter is January for centuries and centuries. Almanacs that farmers use also agree with that, so we have food to eat. Reality is much more than just rich first-world comforts. The world is deadly, and we use calendars and time-keeping as a basic survival skill. So basic, you probably don’t even realize it’s there.
  - everforward 5y ago
    There's a difference here between time as a fundamental property of the universe, and "time", which is how we relate a bunch of physical phenomenon to that fundamental force. That's the primary driver for complexity here. Time as a property is hard to deal with because we take something simple, like how many seconds have passed since some other point in time, and then we have to correlate it to the sun and the moon and how close the Earth is to the sun and what side of the Earth we're on, and etc. It forces computers to wrap a simple understanding of the passage of time in a lot of context that makes no difference to the computer. Getting rid of calendaring doesn't imply that no one knows when winter is; winter is still a function of time. It's a pretty simple algorithm to figure out whether a given month is winter or not. It's easy to derive that context from an absolute measurement of time. It's an incredible amount more difficult to go from our calendaring system to any kind of absolute time, because our calendaring is kind of arbitrarily made up to keep things in sync. It bears little semblance to the passage of time, because it's purpose is more about maintaining context (i.e. the sun rises early in the morning, it's winter in January, etc) than actually measuring the passage of time.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      I take it you don’t work remotely with a global team or been homeless? I understand your philosophy and largely agree with it. However reality is much more nuanced.