4 ms·

That's true if you catch the exact moment the clock changes. If you don't, the only thing you know with a truncating clock is that the fireworks started 0 to 59

That's true if you catch the exact moment the clock changes. If you don't, the only thing you know with a truncating clock is that the fireworks started 0 to 59 seconds ago. With a rounding clock, you know the starting point is within [-30, 30] from now. So on average, you're closer to the starting point when seeing the clock show 12AM. A good reason for truncating is that we have a strong bias against being late, but not really against being early.

The_Colonel 2y ago
> If you don't, the only thing you know with a truncating clock is that the fireworks started 0 to 59 seconds ago. More importantly, I know whether the designated point in time passed or not. If you have a submission deadline set at 14:00, the most important thing you care about is whether you made it or not. But what bothers me more is that this is inviting ambiguity into time definition. What 14:00 means (in addition to all the timezone complexity) now depends on the type of the clock you use. That's just bad. > A good reason for truncating is that we have a strong bias against being late, but not really against being early. TBH I don't understand what you're saying here.