3 ms·

Since we all carry veritable supercomputers with GPS in our pockets now, it's the perfect time for everybody to switch [back] to true solar time. Your noon is

Since we all carry veritable supercomputers with GPS in our pockets now, it's the perfect time for everybody to switch [back] to true solar time. Your noon is when the Sun is precisely at its zenith where you are.

_carbyau_ 4y ago
Zones are for interoperation. Seriously though, everyone having slightly different individual times could be real confusing. For example, two people, a couple of hundred miles/kilometres apart share a phone call, one of them asks: "What time is the game on?" Also, I am picturing the engineer who work on Google Maps crying at the time adjustments required for traveling east/west on the journey time/arrival time estimate.
- badcppdev 4y ago
  Game time would just depend on the location (and timezone) for the stadium.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  And it'd be confusing for public transport, too – the District Line in London already has about two minutes difference between its eastern and western termini, and thanks to the extension to Reading Crossrail manages roughly five minutes. (And of course railways were the initial reasons we switched away from truly local solar time in the first place.)
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  The differences in true solar time between people living in different parts of the city will be slight enough to simply ignore, no conversions needed. Other sources of error, like traffic, easily dominate the matter. If you're trying to meet up with somebody local, it works the same as it always has. For the google maps engineer, the matter is not so complicated. Given a geo coordinate and UTC time (within 1 second of mean solar time at the prime meridian, which is good enough), they can call into a standard routine to derive the true local time at that time and place, and display that time to the user. > "What time is the game on?" "Computer, what time is 6pm in Denver?" "6pm in Denver is 8:26pm for you."
  - _carbyau_ 4y ago
    You are not wrong about the differences being minor for most people in a city day to day and the solutions being achievable. And it is fun to think of the challenges and possibilities of doing it another way. :-) While for many the google maps dilemma in a city won't matter, there are always "edge cases" that google people would have to cover. I occasionally ask google maps for a 8 hour day drive. In my case, most north-south so not an issue, but for other people it could be. And maybe not using google maps: trains, planes, trucks - logistics in general - all want to be precisely on time while covering large distances. So I think this is not as easily waved aside as a societal problem if this "midday where you are" approach was taken. This clearly would require a fundamental change in mindset for the whole populace - so not an option we'd see coming soon! But maybe fun for a sci-fi setting. In the end though, if you accept the cost of the sun being not quite overhead at "midday", a time zone obviates the need for further solutions. Simpler all round.

_carbyau_ 4y ago

Zones are for interoperation. Seriously though, everyone having slightly different individual times could be real confusing. For example, two people, a couple of hundred miles/kilometres apart share a phone call, one of them asks: "What time is the game on?" Also, I am picturing the engineer who work on Google Maps crying at the time adjustments required for traveling east/west on the journey time/arrival time estimate.

badcppdev 4y ago
Game time would just depend on the location (and timezone) for the stadium.
iggldiggl 4y ago
And it'd be confusing for public transport, too – the District Line in London already has about two minutes difference between its eastern and western termini, and thanks to the extension to Reading Crossrail manages roughly five minutes. (And of course railways were the initial reasons we switched away from truly local solar time in the first place.)
MichaelCollins 4y ago
The differences in true solar time between people living in different parts of the city will be slight enough to simply ignore, no conversions needed. Other sources of error, like traffic, easily dominate the matter. If you're trying to meet up with somebody local, it works the same as it always has. For the google maps engineer, the matter is not so complicated. Given a geo coordinate and UTC time (within 1 second of mean solar time at the prime meridian, which is good enough), they can call into a standard routine to derive the true local time at that time and place, and display that time to the user. > "What time is the game on?" "Computer, what time is 6pm in Denver?" "6pm in Denver is 8:26pm for you."
- _carbyau_ 4y ago
  You are not wrong about the differences being minor for most people in a city day to day and the solutions being achievable. And it is fun to think of the challenges and possibilities of doing it another way. :-) While for many the google maps dilemma in a city won't matter, there are always "edge cases" that google people would have to cover. I occasionally ask google maps for a 8 hour day drive. In my case, most north-south so not an issue, but for other people it could be. And maybe not using google maps: trains, planes, trucks - logistics in general - all want to be precisely on time while covering large distances. So I think this is not as easily waved aside as a societal problem if this "midday where you are" approach was taken. This clearly would require a fundamental change in mindset for the whole populace - so not an option we'd see coming soon! But maybe fun for a sci-fi setting. In the end though, if you accept the cost of the sun being not quite overhead at "midday", a time zone obviates the need for further solutions. Simpler all round.