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I was so convinced .beats would take over the world (or solar system in this case). I had their watch, I installed their task-bar clock plugin for Windows 98, I

by sen 4y ago

I was so convinced .beats would take over the world (or solar system in this case). I had their watch, I installed their task-bar clock plugin for Windows 98, I harped on about it to my friends... a surprising number of which actually agreed it was a good idea. Then it just kinda fizzled out. I'm still upset it didn't take off.

trompetenaccoun 4y ago
I never heard of this before but now that I looked it up I think it's a good idea. People will probably still want to keep their local times but at least for coordinating international stuff we should have one standard time for the entire world. It's insane that we still have to look up how certain time zones correlate to our own local times for online meetings and such. This can all be improved. Remember back in the day there weren't even time zones, each city used their own local time. That's basically the situation we're in now from a global point of view.
- davnicwil 4y ago
  For meeting coordination I think we will probably just converge around a defacto standard existing timezone like UTC. We would all develop an intuition for what different times in UTC 'mean' (first thing in morning, after lunch, mid afternoon, etc) relative to the one we're in so we're not looking it up all the time. Maybe keep a UTC clock showing on relevant devices. I don't think there's a need for a completely new system.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    I have a UTC clock in my Mac menu bar already. I expect I always will.
- coldpie 4y ago
  We already have that, it's UTC. And we don't need to learn a whole new system of time measurement to use it.
  - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
    Currently you have to know all your timezones and do the conversions in your head if you travel a lot for example. Additionally the organizers of many events and conferences, even very international ones, do not use UTC. So no, UTC doesn't solve that problem in practical terms. If the entire world used UTC for their local time, then it would be a similar solution. I personally wouldn't mind that actually. It would take a bit to get used to but in the long run it makes much more sense in an ever more globalized world. Same as the world adopting the metric system, and in science specifically SI-units. Surely you agree even though that was a bit of a hassle when countries changed over from their old unique units at the time, in the long run it was the right decision. Imagine what it would be like working in an international team always having to convert units of measurement. It's still an issue in engineering sometimes, because outside of science the US didn't make the switch and it's extremely annoying.
    - coldpie 4y ago
      You have to know how the sun behaves at your local position relative to the universal time regardless of whether we call that knowledge "time zones" or something else. It sounds like what you want is for everyone to be more explicit about their time zone: instead of saying "the conference starts at 3 PM" they should say, "the conference starts at 3 PM UTC-6", right? From that you can easily derive that it's 9 PM UTC, and interpret that however you like for your current location.
      - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
        Maybe you haven't experienced it yet but it's not as simple. I live in different countries and regularly have to deal with this. There's often confusion about time zones. Sure, it's "just a simple" conversion in theory but firstly the point is that ideally you should not have to do this at all and secondly no one calls it "UTC-6". You're lucky if they add a time zone at all, and when they do it's usually "EST", "Beijing time", "Eastern" (which can be Australian, American or whatever, your job to know from context), etc. Then you have to deal with DST, but only in some countries during some parts of the year. And don't forget the countries that add half hours, or Nepal which is extra special with an additional 3/4 because why not. It's utter madness. Unless you're a savant who can remember all regions with corresponding time zones and all the exceptions, you'd be looking this up, which is what people normally do.
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
It didn’t work in 1793 when it was mandated by the Convention despite the rest of the metric system taking roots. It was unlikely that a rebrand by a greedy Swiss corporation would make it more popular. Plus, current time keeping already use superior base systems. 12 and 60 are both highly composite numbers. Using a decimal system would be a step back. I wish we had symbols for 10 and 11 however.
- cyborgx7 4y ago
  Having your unit system in the same base as your number system infinitely outweighs any advantages derived from the having a higher number of factors or whatever. If you want to switch out number system, and then change the unit system alongside that, I'll hear you out. But skipping the number system and doing it at the unit level is always dead on arrival as an argument.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    If it were the case, people would have switched massively to a decimal time keeping system. The fact they did not is proof enough for me that using the same base than our number system isn't relevant. It makes sense intuitively because it's extremely rare that we have to go above 24 for hours and sixty for minutes while we divide these time periods fairly often. I would gladly switch to base 12 just to have simpler multiplication tables (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are really simple, 9 and A are fine while 5, 7 and B are annoying) but I am no fool and realise it's never going to happen.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      Ah, the classic argument for why Amurican Measurements(tm) must also be superior, conveniently ignoring the rest of the world being very metric. My personal observation is that nobody divides hours into more than halves or quarters, and .5, .25, .75 are pretty simple. Consider this: 1 USD is 100 cents, and people are just fine with its common fractions.
      - 4y ago

by sen 4y ago

trompetenaccoun 4y ago

I never heard of this before but now that I looked it up I think it's a good idea. People will probably still want to keep their local times but at least for coordinating international stuff we should have one standard time for the entire world. It's insane that we still have to look up how certain time zones correlate to our own local times for online meetings and such. This can all be improved. Remember back in the day there weren't even time zones, each city used their own local time. That's basically the situation we're in now from a global point of view.

davnicwil 4y ago
For meeting coordination I think we will probably just converge around a defacto standard existing timezone like UTC. We would all develop an intuition for what different times in UTC 'mean' (first thing in morning, after lunch, mid afternoon, etc) relative to the one we're in so we're not looking it up all the time. Maybe keep a UTC clock showing on relevant devices. I don't think there's a need for a completely new system.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  I have a UTC clock in my Mac menu bar already. I expect I always will.
coldpie 4y ago
We already have that, it's UTC. And we don't need to learn a whole new system of time measurement to use it.
- trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  Currently you have to know all your timezones and do the conversions in your head if you travel a lot for example. Additionally the organizers of many events and conferences, even very international ones, do not use UTC. So no, UTC doesn't solve that problem in practical terms. If the entire world used UTC for their local time, then it would be a similar solution. I personally wouldn't mind that actually. It would take a bit to get used to but in the long run it makes much more sense in an ever more globalized world. Same as the world adopting the metric system, and in science specifically SI-units. Surely you agree even though that was a bit of a hassle when countries changed over from their old unique units at the time, in the long run it was the right decision. Imagine what it would be like working in an international team always having to convert units of measurement. It's still an issue in engineering sometimes, because outside of science the US didn't make the switch and it's extremely annoying.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    You have to know how the sun behaves at your local position relative to the universal time regardless of whether we call that knowledge "time zones" or something else. It sounds like what you want is for everyone to be more explicit about their time zone: instead of saying "the conference starts at 3 PM" they should say, "the conference starts at 3 PM UTC-6", right? From that you can easily derive that it's 9 PM UTC, and interpret that however you like for your current location.
    - trompetenaccoun 4y ago
      Maybe you haven't experienced it yet but it's not as simple. I live in different countries and regularly have to deal with this. There's often confusion about time zones. Sure, it's "just a simple" conversion in theory but firstly the point is that ideally you should not have to do this at all and secondly no one calls it "UTC-6". You're lucky if they add a time zone at all, and when they do it's usually "EST", "Beijing time", "Eastern" (which can be Australian, American or whatever, your job to know from context), etc. Then you have to deal with DST, but only in some countries during some parts of the year. And don't forget the countries that add half hours, or Nepal which is extra special with an additional 3/4 because why not. It's utter madness. Unless you're a savant who can remember all regions with corresponding time zones and all the exceptions, you'd be looking this up, which is what people normally do.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

It didn’t work in 1793 when it was mandated by the Convention despite the rest of the metric system taking roots. It was unlikely that a rebrand by a greedy Swiss corporation would make it more popular. Plus, current time keeping already use superior base systems. 12 and 60 are both highly composite numbers. Using a decimal system would be a step back. I wish we had symbols for 10 and 11 however.

cyborgx7 4y ago
Having your unit system in the same base as your number system infinitely outweighs any advantages derived from the having a higher number of factors or whatever. If you want to switch out number system, and then change the unit system alongside that, I'll hear you out. But skipping the number system and doing it at the unit level is always dead on arrival as an argument.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  If it were the case, people would have switched massively to a decimal time keeping system. The fact they did not is proof enough for me that using the same base than our number system isn't relevant. It makes sense intuitively because it's extremely rare that we have to go above 24 for hours and sixty for minutes while we divide these time periods fairly often. I would gladly switch to base 12 just to have simpler multiplication tables (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are really simple, 9 and A are fine while 5, 7 and B are annoying) but I am no fool and realise it's never going to happen.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    Ah, the classic argument for why Amurican Measurements(tm) must also be superior, conveniently ignoring the rest of the world being very metric. My personal observation is that nobody divides hours into more than halves or quarters, and .5, .25, .75 are pretty simple. Consider this: 1 USD is 100 cents, and people are just fine with its common fractions.
    - 4y ago