With computers, GPS, and Internet of things, we could have dynamic time zones so it automatically adjusts based on location. My kitchen is a few miliseconds off from my living room, and my grocery is 30 seconds off. Going a town over and it's 10 minutes later suddenly.
Yes this is a terrible idea, but I'm sticking to it or my name isn't RFK Jr.
We should go to global UTC. One time all the time.
It was recommended multiple times in history, the problem is that it doesn't really solve any problems, just moves the problems elsewhere:
- At some parts of the world "midnight" (the time when the day changes) will be during the "day". Would you like that you have to use a different calendar date at the morning and at the evening? It also makes much harder to check if something happened one or 2 days ago by simply checking the date, you would have to know the new UTC time as well
- You still would have to know how far they are from you to set up an international call. Some people wake up at 2:00 UTC, some wake up at 16:00 UTC. So actually nothing solved, but you have to use different numbers instead of time zone names.
- Time in China works like that, you can already see how it's going there. Full of China is one time zone, on its western border if you would cross to Afghanistan you would have to set your clock 4 and half hours backward. In Xinjiang solar noon is around 15:00 (3 pm). How people live like this? They simply use different timetables, 9-5 job is something like 11-7. So even it doesn't have a separate time zone people live like they would have a separate time zone.
- Swatch Internet Time was a well known example of this in the late 90s, you can read the general problems with it on wiki
Plus you lose all of the cross-cultural understanding that's currently built into the time. The concept of what the number on the clock is and how that relates to the actual time of day has dozens if not hundreds of tiny bits of additional understanding baked into it depending on the situation.
In order to communicate these ideas, people would start referring to their local offset instead of the UTC and then we're just back at time zones again.
IMO people would figure it out and life would go on. Yes, lots of people would have the calendar date advance in the middle of the day but that's fine, we'd get used to it. People wouldn't work 9-5 jobs, but we'd come up with different terminology.
I don't really see the argument about people waking up at different times. Yeah, some people would wake up at 02:00 and some at 16:00, but when someone says they wake up at 02:00, there's 0 confusion about when that is. You'd have to know when someone is awake to do an international call, but you have to do that anyways.
But then we would need some method to quickly discern the relative position in the day/night cycle of a locality, perhaps some form of number to indicate the percentage of a day before or after midnight their local area is at. Then probably just add that offset so that the viewer doesn't need to do the math everytime.
That's kind of a mess even now, lots of logistical concerns, but with all the technological infrastructure we have, we could kind of do the opposite... Have watches and clocks that are always synced exactly with the day/night cycle no matter where you are. It changes a tremendous amount about how we do so many things, but it's an interesting idea.
I kinda think it might make sense to normalize using both, but at that point it feels like we may be making things worse.
I'm pretty meh on the arguments there. It would be different, but we'd adapt. And we'd fix a lot bunch of problems.
I'm onboard with this!
I keep arguing for this but everybody thinks I'm crazy. They say stupid stuff like but what time would school start kids would be getting up at 8:00 a.m. and it could be the middle of the night.
I just had to coordinate an online meeting with some guy at a company, I had no idea where he's based but he suggested time slots in EST (I'm in Toronto). I asked him twice if he's sure, thinking he may be based outside of North America and doesn't know that Toronto currently follows EDT which is GMT-4h, and he just responded "Eastern Standard Time".
And of course he actually meant EDT. Turns out he is based in North America, just dumb.
Fuck timezones, but more than that fuck daylight saving time. You want an extra hour of sunshine after work in summer? Shift the work schedule, not the fucking clock!
Dude, so many people just use cst, EST etc. When they say 10am est during DST, I reply so 11am EDT/10AM CDT.
Always, always, decide on a time zone that matches the clock above the CEOs desk at the company buying the service.
You're selling boats? Customer's wall clock. You're talking with azure support because your bill has some bloated charges? You better believe your clock is the only one that counts. The highest ranking person in the entity forking over cash has control over time zones and fuck everyone else.
The next time I ask Siri anything, she better just tell me the time in Atlanta even if I ask for anything else.
Do not ask for the time zone, ask for the city. Than use a tool for the task. People are stupid, and they don't necessarily know the name of their time zone, even during DST.
I used website this before, you just type the city names and it will show you which time is good for which participant: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html But I'm pretty sure a lot other websites exist to solve this.
The problem in your story was not time zones, but you didn't use the correct tool for the task.
It's not me who didn't use a tool, it was the other guy.
You should have confirmed in GMT, and then you could both convert it to whatever your local time is.
I have a flight at 2 am but I don't want to get up at midnight!
I'll just change my clocks and get up at 6 am instead.
Makes me appreciate being in Atlanta, which is in eastern time but (as shown on this map) "ought" to be in central time. I get a daylight-savings-time-like experience year-round and then get actual daylight savings time stacked on top of it.
Makes me appreciate being in Atlanta
Okay so I've been to zooatl and the aquarium, and I STILL never heard anyone say that ever. Checking out Trixie while she was still behind the glass, and still no one said "glad I live here". :-)
Just teasing. Fernbank was awesome too and - aside from driving - getting around was okay too. The best work trips incorporate some slacking.
Time zones are aligned to population centers as much as they are political boundaries.
For example, this methodology would probably cut major US cities in half. It's hard to tell exactly, but some cities would be Phoenix, the whole metropolitan corridor of Oklahoma City to San Antonio, Salt Lake City, and Detroit. In Canada, Edmonton and Calgary stand out.
dude this is useless to me without a comparison right below it.
IIRC, Newfoundland is half an hour different from EDT.
I just want sunrise to be as close to 8am in each timezone, no matter what part of the year. Let dusk come sooner or later, but I hate sunrise at 5am.
What are your feelings on base 60?
Time is an illusion, yo.
Neat!
Now adjust for mountains.
Huh. Florida would hardly change. The Eastern boundary would just move a bit West.
Right through the god damn center of Tampa.
