4 ms·

Do you work with people in other timezones? It’s much easier to reason about what a reasonable time is for people when you know how it centers up with noon for

Do you work with people in other timezones? It’s much easier to reason about what a reasonable time is for people when you know how it centers up with noon for them.

rascul 4y ago
I do. And the math needs to be done either way, if you're trying to determine a relation to when the sun is at its peak for your area vs their area.
- Aerroon 4y ago
  The math would've been a lot easier if GMT+0 had been somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Going from +1 to -7 is a lot more troublesome for most people than from +11 to +19.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    Well, it would just move the issue to Europe wouldn't it? If Europe became a -10ish time zone, they would be the one having to go from +11 to +19.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Yeah, it would be nice if they made GMT the same as the international date line.
    - bonzini 4y ago
      The international date line is where you go from GMT-12 to GMT+11 or something similar. So, no matter what time zone you pick as the reference, by definition the international date line is 12 hours away from your reference.
      - defrost 4y ago
        Except where it's -10 or +14 hours away from reference due to jogging around countries or island groups. See: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/ https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/
        bonzini 4y ago
        Yeah it zigzags a bit but it hovers on the two sides of +/-12, placing it around 0 would mean half the world operating on a work week that is shifted by one.
- petesergeant 4y ago
  Sure, but I work across three timezones, and I can glance up to the top-right of my computer and see all three at a very quick glance, as well as knowing when people are likely to be having lunch, whether it's early or late for someone, and so on. I'm also now quite used to "Jerry gets up early his time" for certain coworkers. I guess you could potentially have some sort of graphic to show the same thing for sunrise vs sunset ... but as you point out, the maths needs to be done either way, so why get rid of a system that works pretty well? DST is the real enemy here.
wolverine876 4y ago
'I'll call you tomorrow.' 'Tomorrow clock time or tomorrow after the Sun rises?'
- wkat4242 4y ago
  I usually say "tomorrow your time or my time" :)
  - jameshart 4y ago
    usually (outside of global business meetings) when you are talking to a person about making plans you are both in the same time zone. So asking ‘your time or my time’ is unnecessary. But if we got rid of time zones, you’d need new ways to distinguish between tomorrow meaning ‘after the clock ticks over 24:00’ bs ‘after the next night cycle’ because they would not be the same thing. To be fair the same ambiguity occurs now if you are, say, parting ways with someone after midnight and you say ‘see you tomorrow’, but you actually mean later that same calendar day. But I think losing the ability to make use, in everyday local conversations with people in the same place as you, of concepts like ‘tomorrow afternoon’, would be kind of a dealbreaker for time zone abolition.
- scbrg 4y ago
  So we'd need to adjust our terminology a bit. I'm sure the world wouldn't end because of that. It's always amusing to me how opponents of the idea of abolishing time zones assume that everything will stay the same, except, well abolishing of time zones. Apparently in the moment we do so, humanity will be become incapable of adjusting even the slightest. It will be impossible to invent a couple of new terms to let people communicate easily about time. It will be impossible to replace time zone maps and time zone aware clocks with ones that show regular office hours in different regions, &c. For the record, I'm not even really for abolishing time zones, but the fact that the word "tomorrow" would become slightly less useful is not a particularly significant reason.
  - Taywee 4y ago
    We spend a huge amount of our time talking about and reasoning about time. Destroying the meaning of all of the language we've built up is pretty significant. More importantly, it basically ensures that all that terminology will be vastly different when you live in different parts of the world, where the day changes in the morning vs the middle of the solar day vs the evening vs the middle of the night. Weekday names will be entirely regional, and their implications will be as well.

Do you work with people in other timezones? It’s much easier to reason about what a reasonable time is for people when you know how it centers up with noon for them.

rascul 4y ago

I do. And the math needs to be done either way, if you're trying to determine a relation to when the sun is at its peak for your area vs their area.

Aerroon 4y ago
The math would've been a lot easier if GMT+0 had been somewhere in the Pacific ocean. Going from +1 to -7 is a lot more troublesome for most people than from +11 to +19.
- bonzini 4y ago
  Well, it would just move the issue to Europe wouldn't it? If Europe became a -10ish time zone, they would be the one having to go from +11 to +19.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Yeah, it would be nice if they made GMT the same as the international date line.
  - bonzini 4y ago
    The international date line is where you go from GMT-12 to GMT+11 or something similar. So, no matter what time zone you pick as the reference, by definition the international date line is 12 hours away from your reference.
    - defrost 4y ago
      Except where it's -10 or +14 hours away from reference due to jogging around countries or island groups. See: https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/ https://www.timeanddate.com/time/map/
      - bonzini 4y ago
        Yeah it zigzags a bit but it hovers on the two sides of +/-12, placing it around 0 would mean half the world operating on a work week that is shifted by one.
petesergeant 4y ago
Sure, but I work across three timezones, and I can glance up to the top-right of my computer and see all three at a very quick glance, as well as knowing when people are likely to be having lunch, whether it's early or late for someone, and so on. I'm also now quite used to "Jerry gets up early his time" for certain coworkers. I guess you could potentially have some sort of graphic to show the same thing for sunrise vs sunset ... but as you point out, the maths needs to be done either way, so why get rid of a system that works pretty well? DST is the real enemy here.

wolverine876 4y ago

'I'll call you tomorrow.' 'Tomorrow clock time or tomorrow after the Sun rises?'

wkat4242 4y ago
I usually say "tomorrow your time or my time" :)
- jameshart 4y ago
  usually (outside of global business meetings) when you are talking to a person about making plans you are both in the same time zone. So asking ‘your time or my time’ is unnecessary. But if we got rid of time zones, you’d need new ways to distinguish between tomorrow meaning ‘after the clock ticks over 24:00’ bs ‘after the next night cycle’ because they would not be the same thing. To be fair the same ambiguity occurs now if you are, say, parting ways with someone after midnight and you say ‘see you tomorrow’, but you actually mean later that same calendar day. But I think losing the ability to make use, in everyday local conversations with people in the same place as you, of concepts like ‘tomorrow afternoon’, would be kind of a dealbreaker for time zone abolition.
scbrg 4y ago
So we'd need to adjust our terminology a bit. I'm sure the world wouldn't end because of that. It's always amusing to me how opponents of the idea of abolishing time zones assume that everything will stay the same, except, well abolishing of time zones. Apparently in the moment we do so, humanity will be become incapable of adjusting even the slightest. It will be impossible to invent a couple of new terms to let people communicate easily about time. It will be impossible to replace time zone maps and time zone aware clocks with ones that show regular office hours in different regions, &c. For the record, I'm not even really for abolishing time zones, but the fact that the word "tomorrow" would become slightly less useful is not a particularly significant reason.
- Taywee 4y ago
  We spend a huge amount of our time talking about and reasoning about time. Destroying the meaning of all of the language we've built up is pretty significant. More importantly, it basically ensures that all that terminology will be vastly different when you live in different parts of the world, where the day changes in the morning vs the middle of the solar day vs the evening vs the middle of the night. Weekday names will be entirely regional, and their implications will be as well.