Universal time zone

[hans]

Ben, I think it is a great idea. I always get terribly upset when THEY change the clocks, not just once a year, but twice! Takes me weeks to settle in afterwards...

To abolish Time Zones altogether and let the internet, robots and all machines connected to it only use Universal or Machine Time is only fair. It will open local opportunities to adapt to local or Human Time, and on that level I'd like to promote to reintroduce counting the day hours from sunrise onwards till sunset, then counting night hours from sunset to sunrise. These should ideally be Desert Island Flex Hours. But even if we let the Machines calculate them for us Locals we will be much happier!

Thinking of Desert Islands: I might as well convert to Tidal Time
(an utterly reasonable, sensible, sensitive and non-religious conversion) .

[I.D.10-t]

Then there is the traditional Thailand 6 hour clock. (Which is still 24 hours, but instead of AM and PM the break the day into quarters with 6 hours in each.)

And do we really need to have AM and PM? 24 hours in a day? How about numbering them 1-24.

It still seems strange using fractional time with its minutes and 'second minutes' in a decimal world.

[mutepointe]

Instead of trying to change everyone else, why don't we just choose to live in a world of our own choosing and take our lead from Douglas Adams of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? The concept of Babelfish could be incorporated into every clock and timing device, so that no matter what time the device is in, a component to my watch (yes, I'm old fashioned and don't have a cell phone) will instantly receive signals and tell me what the time is in mutetime, the most superior acting time of all.

[Nanohedron]

It still seems strange using fractional time with its minutes and 'second minutes' in a decimal world.

But, it ISN'T decimal. It's only decimal to those people who have strange accents, and to such as who pay any attention to them. If people with strange accents want to be all decimal and modernised and yet still keep the Babylonian clock, that's their business. Maybe they forgot that the clocks are there; maybe it's nostalgia for something a little warmer and retro amid the cold barren clinicality of decimalisation; whatever the lapse is, I'm not going to make any comment other than to cross my arms, raise an eyebrow, nod my head, and knowingly say, "Uh-HUH."

[MTGuru]

I say: let's switch to radians. Much more elegant and mathematically sound. C'mon, didn't you always want to check your watch and say, "Oh look, it's pi o'clock! Lunchtime! Let's have pie!"

[I.D.10-t]

Radians? I think they were kicked out of International System of Units.

(Rumor had it that if several got together and there was almost a revolution).

[Denny]

two pi radii

[benhall.1]

Ben, I think it is a great idea. I always get terribly upset when THEY change the clocks, not just once a year, but twice! Takes me weeks to settle in afterwards...

Takes me weeks, too. 'S one of the reasons I suggested it. I'm always slightly puzzled by the fact that, when the clocks go forward, I get really tired for a couple of weeks after, and, when the clocks go back, I get tired for a couple of weeks after. You'd think one of those would give you a bit of a lift, wouldn't you?

And I really like the notion, Hans, of just living by "human time", by which I take it you mean we get up when it's light, do our day's work and go to bed when it's dark. Much more sensible. Rather a long sleep if you're Norwegian I suppose ...

[Redwolf]

I just want the sun to come back. Please? We've had almost a full year of winter here now, and I'm in favor of anything that will maximize my sun exposure. Daylight savings time, daylight manufacturing time, I dunno, I don't care...I just want the sun to come back!

Redwolf

[dwest]

Been sunny and hot here for three days, kinda depressing.

[Nanohedron]

I don't care...I just want the sun to come back!

I'll give you some of mine if you promise to take the latest snowfall with it. I've got more than plenty of both, today.

You'd think sun and snow would be nice, but the snow makes it so extra-bright that it can do a number on your eyes if you're not paying attention. I'm *this* close to putting on sunglasses, and I'm indoors.

[Whistlin' Will]

You'd think sun and snow would be nice, but the snow makes it so extra-bright that it can do a number on your eyes if you're not paying attention. I'm *this* close to putting on sunglasses, and I'm indoors.

A full moon shining on a forest covered with snow, however, is one of the most beautiful things you can ever see. I have had the privilege of seeing this many times in my own yard, and it still amazes me every time.

'Course, I always saw it from the *good* side of the window, so that might be why I enjoy it so much.

[Nanohedron]

'Course, I always saw it from the *good* side of the window, so that might be why I enjoy it so much.

For sure. Beauty's easier to see when you're not having to survive what it's made of. I seriously don't know how the critters pull it off; they should be able to have a hot cup of joe, at least.

[fearfaoin]

Beauty's easier to see when you're not having to survive what it's made of.

Oh my. I want that on a plaque.

[Nanohedron]

Beauty's easier to see when you're not having to survive what it's made of.

Oh my. I want that on a plaque.

I'll assume that was in earnest because that's exactly the sort of thing I'd say out of sarcasm, but I like to think you're nice to me.

Yeah, I learned that firsthand and in a big way back in 1973. I was hitchhiking at night and for whatever reason - winter, do you think? - it was very cold, I was very thin and spectacularly ill-dressed for the weather, there was a lot of traffic but after an hour or so of waiting and hoping still no Good Samaritans, and I found myself coming to terms with the very real prospect of succumbing before long to exposure. The most distasteful part was that when/if my end came, it would have to be so public. To distract myself I looked up at the stars for their beauty and noticed how the phrase "cold comfort" was so apt, because while intellectually the memory of the beauty of a night sky was there for me, the particular vividness of stars on a cold winter's night is inseparable from the cold, and the stars being a part-and-parcel sign of that cold, their "beauty" was at that point merely a convention apropos of no reality I was living at all. It was at best a hard irony.

Fortunately a trucker picked me up before I died. He thought I was nuts, and he was right.