this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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i still think timezones were a mistake, and that they shouldn't exist period. I have a long thread about this from an earlier post about timezones as well amusingly enough.
As a social construct, I like that I can be anywhere in the world and know that around noon is probably an appropriate time for lunch, etc.
there is no appropriate time for lunch. And besides you wanna know a better way to figure it out? Go outside.
Yeah that doesn't work if you live in Seattle.
damn, if only there was like, this thing, that tracked time. And it was like, relative to the solar time that we experience here on earth, but like, not explicitly that solar time, so you could just like, offset it slightly, to get the correct local solar time.
Man, what a difficult and challenging issue to solve.
Did you just describe timezones?
I think they're proposing personal time zones, where every individual's clock shows their precise solar time, and nobody ever manages to be on time to work ever again.
Good god, imagine 360 timezones to describe each longitude.
Each timezone would be 4 minutes, and span roughly 56 miles (tho, that's different as you get nearer the poles).
For the majority of things, it would be fine. Most appointments etc that are "booked" verbally would likely be within 56 miles, where "casual" time would work. Anything beyond that feels like a "significant" thing, which would probably involve written/digital communication - where computers could pick up the slack for translation.
And EVERYONE would be aware of timezones. So, even Microsoft/Excel would have to recognise that timezones are a real thing.
So, probably not that bad
I'm imagining something more fluid, where the time it is depends on exactly where you're standing and the position of the sun in relation to it. You'd need to factor the direction you're traveling as well as the distance whenever you went anywhere. We'd have a lot more intimate relationship with our current celestial situation.
that's basically why timezones were created. before then, every town had its own local time.
close, there's a regional local solar time (you could just steal timezones for this one) and then there is global time, which is what we go by for everything. Local solar time is essentially just an offset to the global time for the relative nature of local time to global time.
i like how whenever i mention this, people seem to think i want to get rid of time instead of timezones
What you're describing is LITERALLY the system we have. UTC is a global, coordinated time that tracks solar time to a precision of less than a second. As far as my computer is concerned, my time is UTC (technically GMT, but they both refer to the same time) minus 6 hours. We all could choose to say, "hey, wanna meet for dinner at 3AM?" and have that be a normal thing to say in my area, and an odd thing to say odd in Europe... but nobody wants that.
yeah, my problem is that nobody use UTC. And we have problems like gas pumps in finland breaking because they programmed timezones incorrectly.
the inverse of timezones.
It really seems like you're just describing time zones. Or do you mean that we should be even more granular about it and have personal timezones that adjust depending on where we are on the globe? That just seems like timezones with extra steps
nope, i'm describing timezones, but instead of shifting time, we shift local solar time instead.
You could call them timemaps or time offset mapping, on a more macro scale.
This is the same fucking thing. It is simultaneously 12:25am MDT and 6:25am GMT where I live. If you ask my computer what time it is, it knows it is 06:25:00-06:00.
Two sides of the same coin buddy.
yes, except it's not the only time system we use, the primary time system we use is universal now.
How stoned are you right now
zero
Damn me neither
damn, same.
Can you give me an example with an example time and how 2 people in different countries would organise a meeting?
yeah, it's 12 00 in america, it's 12 00 literally anywhere else in the world, you show up at 12 and that's when the meeting happens.
So what are these offset's you mentioned? They are not used?
they're used less frequently than timezones are now. Because the offsets only purpose is to show to explicit time of the local solar time, anywhere in the world. relative to your local solar time (which is not very useful.)
Your proposal is exactly how time is used at my work. All meetings are in GMT. You use the timezone time when thinking locally. Instead of everyone using GMT and timezones already, why should we introduce a while new concept?
you say you already use this at work, but then say it's an entirely new concept. I don't think you've quite comprehended this properly.
We are literally already doing it, there is no reason not to switch to it.
We are using GMT + timezones. You are the one who opposed timezones and said you have a different approach. But yours is exactly like timezones. My question is that why should anyone switch to something "like" timezones when there are actual timezones?
because the thing that is "like" timezones is fucking better, why else would you switch?
How is it better?
how is it not better?
It's not better because your offset time is much granuler and hard to calculate in your mind than timezones. And it doesn't offer anything new over timezones. Since you suggested it, you must see a benefit. What is it?
what the fuck do you think timezones currently do?
Are they just arbitrarily stuck to "maybe sometime close to local solar time"
It could literally be equally as granular as existing timezones. You could just remap timezones to the offsets directly, hell even less granular because who cares. Just delete the half hour offsets.
it's not adding anything new, that's not the point, in fact it's impossible to add something "new" to the concept of time, we've already defined it. It's an improved variant of timezones, where coordination is immediately more accessible, and less involved. It's explicitly less arbitrarily defined than the current timezones that we have no, because most of the time, you just wouldn't use them.
Are you suggesting something like continuous timezones? Thanks for bringing this nightmare to a whole new level! :)
no?
Time is global, there is no deviation based on where you are in the world, it is merely your local solar time is what deviates.
At this point, I don't know if you are trolling or not. You keep saying that this is nothing like timezones, while describing something that really looks like timezones to anyone else reading it.
Do you suggest we all use one unique time, regardless of local solar time? Or do you suggest we all use our own local solar time, based on each person's exact longitude on the globe, regardless of borders and current timezones ?
it depends on how it's implemented, but essentially, we do away with our current concept of timezones, and then use UTC or something, for example. But we reimplement the timezone maps for our local solar time offsets. So that way we still have a consistent system. Just without timezones.
You mean like a watch that goes by timezones? 🤔
that admittedly, would be pretty funny, but no unfortunately not.