6 ms·

This is why I personally want everything to just be utc without timezones

by Zekio 4y ago

lifthrasiir 4y ago
Well... https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish Time zones are fine. Random time zone offset changes are not.
- hilbert42 4y ago
  "Random time zone offset changes are not." Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? The issue here has nothing to do with whether daylight saving is appropriate or not, rather it's about the inability of computers to adapt quickly. When I was studying computing I had a textbook titled Problems for Computer Solution, it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa!
  - lifthrasiir 4y ago
    It would be indeed great if our computer systems could adapt to those changes quickly. But the reality is that they can't, and there are many excuses available; for example there are many devices which are not continuously connected to the global network but can still keep a clock ticking. Jurisdictions are expected to take account of this reality, no matter you like it or not.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    "Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? " Yes, of course that is the case. Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes. Calling these computers may be significantly overstating their abilities. "it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa" It's much easier to declare that problems ought not exist, than to actually solve them in a practical, global manner. In many cases, the owner of the device also isn't aware of the change. This is not a problem specific to software.
    - hilbert42 4y ago
      "Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes." My post about 19th C. timezones and train timetables is about this very point. All these independent systems are independent 'timezones' and that's the problem - and it's a fundamental one! First, closed systems are intrinsically subject to drift and will never really be on time anyway. Second, there's nothing wrong with an independent closed system having a 'clock' - 'oscillator' would be a better word here - but it was all too convenient to couple this with external time systems. In essence, independent closed systems will never be in sync with external time. If closed systems have to have time clocks that are an analog of real-world time then they should always be considered an approximation as with all analog systems. Relying on them for accuracy has to be a last ditch resort. The trouble is that we never adopted this newer mindset from the outset of digital systems, instead we simply repeated the earlier mistake of every town having its own timezone. There are ways around these problems just as there were in the 19th C. but no one has bothered to implement them. This is not the place to delve into them except to say that they involve both technological solutions and an automatic assumption by humans that closed systems cannot be relied upon to provide accurate time.
      - throwaway09223 4y ago
        I think you're mixing up a few different causes and concepts. Wristwatches are generally accurate and can generally be relied upon. It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases. All clocks are approximations to some degree, because time and space are relative. This is true of all systems of measurement in science, in general. It's not possible to have a computer perfectly account for all legislative corner cases for the same reason it's not possible to have a perfect map: Grey areas exist within law and geopolitics. Knowing the time requires knowing map boundaries and which authority controls a given area. For example: Does Ukraine observe DST? The Donbass region? Furthermore there are practical costs associated with automatic clocks: A GPS, an updating map system and an updating database of time legislation is expensive to implement in terms of hardware, energy, etc. These are not problems that no one's bothered to implement. They come at a cost which we aren't willing to shoulder, or in some cases are intractably complex social questions with simple pragmatic work-arounds (make the clock dumb and set it to whatever you wish) In reality, close enough is often good enough. Perfection isn't necessary.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Most computers adapt just fine. International travel and cooperation are the real problem, especially in our increasingly globalized world.
tzs 4y ago
We live on an approximately spherical world, its rotation is not tidal locked to its star, its rotational axis is not perpendicular to its orbital plane, we evolved to synchronize our biological rhythms including our sleep/wake cycle to local sunrise and sunset, we occupy a wide range of latitudes and longitudes, and we need to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us. Switching to worldwide UTC doesn't change any of that, and you end up needing to add something that is essentially equivalent to timezones.
- Falkon1313 4y ago
  Not really. It only changes the numbers on a clock. Whether the clock says 1900 or 2300 doesn't inherently need to relate to anything about the rotational axis or sunrise/sunset, latitude, astrological readings of the zodiac, etc. Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Timezones are what makes that bad in the first place! This idea that we for some reason need to keep changing and tinkering with the labels on the clocks due to flaky political reasons is just a silly old superstitious tradition. Just pick one timezone and let's all use it already. In fact, you can already see how well that can work if you live away from the equator. As the year progresses, the days get shorter and longer day by day - but we don't adjust the clocks by a couple of minutes every single day. Because it doesn't matter whether the clock labels match up with the sunlight. If it did in fact matter, then we'd need special clocks that sometimes run faster during daylight and sometimes slower, depending on latitude and date so that we get the same number of 'minutes' of daylight at the same 'times' each day even though the actual lengths and times vary. But we don't do that of course both because it would be totally nonsensical, and also because it doesn't matter.
  - tzs 4y ago
    > Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Whoever picks 2300 for the coordinated activity still usually needs to know how far east/west the other parties are from them in order to pick a time that they all will be awake, which generally means a time that is during the daytime in their locations, and for many activities also should be a time during normal business hours in each person's location. Their normal business hours will generally be shifted about one hour for every 15° longitude difference. People will generally prefer normal business hours in a given area to be the same to make it easier to coordinate local events. And so we still end up with zones based on longitude where within the zone business hours and other periodic daily things are coordinated to fall at the same time, and those times are shifted from those in the adjacent zones.

This is why I personally want everything to just be utc without timezones

by Zekio 4y ago

This is why I personally want everything to just be utc without timezones

lifthrasiir 4y ago

Well... https://qntm.org/abolish https://qntm.org/abolish Time zones are fine. Random time zone offset changes are not.

hilbert42 4y ago
"Random time zone offset changes are not." Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? The issue here has nothing to do with whether daylight saving is appropriate or not, rather it's about the inability of computers to adapt quickly. When I was studying computing I had a textbook titled Problems for Computer Solution, it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa!
- lifthrasiir 4y ago
  It would be indeed great if our computer systems could adapt to those changes quickly. But the reality is that they can't, and there are many excuses available; for example there are many devices which are not continuously connected to the global network but can still keep a clock ticking. Jurisdictions are expected to take account of this reality, no matter you like it or not.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  "Are you saying that our computer systems are so inflexible that we cannot make them do our bidding? " Yes, of course that is the case. Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes. Calling these computers may be significantly overstating their abilities. "it was about how to get computers to do our bidding - not vice versa" It's much easier to declare that problems ought not exist, than to actually solve them in a practical, global manner. In many cases, the owner of the device also isn't aware of the change. This is not a problem specific to software.
  - hilbert42 4y ago
    "Any non-internet connected clock (microwaves, cars, toys, $10 alarm clocks, wristwatches, etc) will not be able to respond to these types of changes." My post about 19th C. timezones and train timetables is about this very point. All these independent systems are independent 'timezones' and that's the problem - and it's a fundamental one! First, closed systems are intrinsically subject to drift and will never really be on time anyway. Second, there's nothing wrong with an independent closed system having a 'clock' - 'oscillator' would be a better word here - but it was all too convenient to couple this with external time systems. In essence, independent closed systems will never be in sync with external time. If closed systems have to have time clocks that are an analog of real-world time then they should always be considered an approximation as with all analog systems. Relying on them for accuracy has to be a last ditch resort. The trouble is that we never adopted this newer mindset from the outset of digital systems, instead we simply repeated the earlier mistake of every town having its own timezone. There are ways around these problems just as there were in the 19th C. but no one has bothered to implement them. This is not the place to delve into them except to say that they involve both technological solutions and an automatic assumption by humans that closed systems cannot be relied upon to provide accurate time.
    - throwaway09223 4y ago
      I think you're mixing up a few different causes and concepts. Wristwatches are generally accurate and can generally be relied upon. It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases. All clocks are approximations to some degree, because time and space are relative. This is true of all systems of measurement in science, in general. It's not possible to have a computer perfectly account for all legislative corner cases for the same reason it's not possible to have a perfect map: Grey areas exist within law and geopolitics. Knowing the time requires knowing map boundaries and which authority controls a given area. For example: Does Ukraine observe DST? The Donbass region? Furthermore there are practical costs associated with automatic clocks: A GPS, an updating map system and an updating database of time legislation is expensive to implement in terms of hardware, energy, etc. These are not problems that no one's bothered to implement. They come at a cost which we aren't willing to shoulder, or in some cases are intractably complex social questions with simple pragmatic work-arounds (make the clock dumb and set it to whatever you wish) In reality, close enough is often good enough. Perfection isn't necessary.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  Most computers adapt just fine. International travel and cooperation are the real problem, especially in our increasingly globalized world.

tzs 4y ago

We live on an approximately spherical world, its rotation is not tidal locked to its star, its rotational axis is not perpendicular to its orbital plane, we evolved to synchronize our biological rhythms including our sleep/wake cycle to local sunrise and sunset, we occupy a wide range of latitudes and longitudes, and we need to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us. Switching to worldwide UTC doesn't change any of that, and you end up needing to add something that is essentially equivalent to timezones.

Falkon1313 4y ago
Not really. It only changes the numbers on a clock. Whether the clock says 1900 or 2300 doesn't inherently need to relate to anything about the rotational axis or sunrise/sunset, latitude, astrological readings of the zodiac, etc. Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Timezones are what makes that bad in the first place! This idea that we for some reason need to keep changing and tinkering with the labels on the clocks due to flaky political reasons is just a silly old superstitious tradition. Just pick one timezone and let's all use it already. In fact, you can already see how well that can work if you live away from the equator. As the year progresses, the days get shorter and longer day by day - but we don't adjust the clocks by a couple of minutes every single day. Because it doesn't matter whether the clock labels match up with the sunlight. If it did in fact matter, then we'd need special clocks that sometimes run faster during daylight and sometimes slower, depending on latitude and date so that we get the same number of 'minutes' of daylight at the same 'times' each day even though the actual lengths and times vary. But we don't do that of course both because it would be totally nonsensical, and also because it doesn't matter.
- tzs 4y ago
  > Furthermore, it'd be much easier to coordinate activities with people who are far away from us if you could just say 2300 and they'll know when that is because it's the exact same time for them on their clock. Whoever picks 2300 for the coordinated activity still usually needs to know how far east/west the other parties are from them in order to pick a time that they all will be awake, which generally means a time that is during the daytime in their locations, and for many activities also should be a time during normal business hours in each person's location. Their normal business hours will generally be shifted about one hour for every 15° longitude difference. People will generally prefer normal business hours in a given area to be the same to make it easier to coordinate local events. And so we still end up with zones based on longitude where within the zone business hours and other periodic daily things are coordinated to fall at the same time, and those times are shifted from those in the adjacent zones.