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This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. There's a reason why "Standard Time" is called that. Now the words "Midday" and "Midnight" are meaningless. The mea

This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen. There's a reason why "Standard Time" is called that. Now the words "Midday" and "Midnight" are meaningless. The measurement of time is a science, and science should not be decided by politicians. This seems trivial, but if this, then what next? Edit: I'm getting a lot of replies saying that "midday" isn't precisely the middle of the day, and therefore I am wrong, but even since the invention of timezones, midday is supposed to be "the middle of the day, to the nearest hour". Now it is intentionally skewed, and keeping this forever seems like a huge mistake. If you are willing to accept that the numbers on the clock don't actually mean anything, we should all just use UTC all the time, with all the pain that that will bring. This is just the first step along the way.

horsawlarway 5y ago
Hate to break it to ya - but midday and midnight are already meaningless ever since we adopted standard timezones. So basically - since 1883.
sophacles 5y ago
Midday and Midnight are not meaningless and have never been based on the numbers of the clock. Those are terms for "about halfway between sunrise and sunset" and "about half way between sunset and sunrise" respectively. The measurement of elapsed time is a science. The time of day however is a number that represents how far along you are in one rotation of the planet, relative to an arbitrary 0 position +/- an offset. The arbitrary 0 position has always been political.
- nfw2 5y ago
  I would say time of day is not completely arbitrary, but it also does not require exact alignment with physical phenomena to have meaning. For example, if one were to say it is 12pm, people would understand roughly where we are in the diurnal cycle. People will understand it is not night time. People will know roughly where the sun is in the sky. Rough information is still information. Information doesn't need exact boundaries and discrete rules to carry meaning.
nullc 5y ago
Noon isn't solar noon except at three lines through the continental US, everywhere else it's off specifically as a result of using standard time instead of solar time. Saying on DST vs 'Standard time' is a much smaller additional error than that created by the non-zero width (and political boundary alignment) of the timezones.
defgeneric 5y ago
It's not a big deal. The phrase "solar noon will occur at 12:59pm" is perfectly intelligible. The scheduling of human affairs is political. The time shift is completely rational and even points to the fact that we as humans take up nature and put it to work for us. We give it meaning, we humanize nature. There is nothing wrong with this. Nobody is trying to legislate the position of the sun relative to the earth. The terms will retain a perfectly clear meaning in their respective contexts.

horsawlarway 5y ago

Hate to break it to ya - but midday and midnight are already meaningless ever since we adopted standard timezones. So basically - since 1883.

sophacles 5y ago

Midday and Midnight are not meaningless and have never been based on the numbers of the clock. Those are terms for "about halfway between sunrise and sunset" and "about half way between sunset and sunrise" respectively. The measurement of elapsed time is a science. The time of day however is a number that represents how far along you are in one rotation of the planet, relative to an arbitrary 0 position +/- an offset. The arbitrary 0 position has always been political.

nfw2 5y ago
I would say time of day is not completely arbitrary, but it also does not require exact alignment with physical phenomena to have meaning. For example, if one were to say it is 12pm, people would understand roughly where we are in the diurnal cycle. People will understand it is not night time. People will know roughly where the sun is in the sky. Rough information is still information. Information doesn't need exact boundaries and discrete rules to carry meaning.

nullc 5y ago

Noon isn't solar noon except at three lines through the continental US, everywhere else it's off specifically as a result of using standard time instead of solar time. Saying on DST vs 'Standard time' is a much smaller additional error than that created by the non-zero width (and political boundary alignment) of the timezones.

defgeneric 5y ago

It's not a big deal. The phrase "solar noon will occur at 12:59pm" is perfectly intelligible. The scheduling of human affairs is political. The time shift is completely rational and even points to the fact that we as humans take up nature and put it to work for us. We give it meaning, we humanize nature. There is nothing wrong with this. Nobody is trying to legislate the position of the sun relative to the earth. The terms will retain a perfectly clear meaning in their respective contexts.