mynamesnotrick,

No different than any other project the PM/PO team cooks up. Tons of work for no user base.

NocturnalMorning,

Not true, space agencies will use it… once.

pupbiru,

until they lose a multi billion dollar mission because of conversion errors

NocturnalMorning,

It’s pretty much a requirement now to use the metric system for everything.

trolololol,

Ok so now they must split it all into 10 timezones? 😂

amanaftermidnight,

Imagine if Americans use a different unit system for time 😱

MintyFresh,

Unix is for commies. We’ll run our clocks the way Britain ran its coinage! 32 shillings to the third hour, four hours in a pound, 4.3 in a guinea. And of course 10 shekels in a pound, 7 to the guinea. To account for relativity of course.

Show me one flaw. Freedom time bitches!

OpenStars,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

Why… why is the world like this?

RustyShackleford,
@RustyShackleford@programming.dev avatar

Our sorrow, despondency, and terror are their sustenance.

SlopppyEngineer,

Because the world is seen and directed by layers upon layers of abstractions that get divorced from reality but do give monetary benefits when manipulated in some way.

OpenStars,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

Sigh… too true.

img

PyroNeurosis,

I will use moontime. Anybody wants to schedule bullshit meetings will have to commit to figuring out when actually works for them.

finkrat,

That’s it, I’m only using epoch from now on, that’s enough of your time zone shenanigans

SmoothLiquidation,

Except the length of a second is different on the moon because of relativity. So even utc is wrong.

trolololol,

Yep, and the math gives different results based on if you’re on the moon or on earth.

hglman,

UTC doesn’t become wrong, you can either just accept a different pace of the clock, i.e. earth ppl will be ever so late to a meeting or it’s just a different kind of timezone conversion. Better would be to have a single time based on the reference frame of the center of the galaxy and everyone keep there time relative to that.

Vilian,

just use a time based on light?, like meter is based on the speed fo light in the vaccum, or use atomic based times?, like how long take for the hydrogen atom todo something bla bla bla

far_university1990,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second

The second […] is defined by taking the fixed numerical value of the caesium frequency, ΔνCs, the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium 133 atom, to be 9192631770 when expressed in the unit Hz, which is equal to s−1.

Do not matter for relativity though, always same change.

Resonosity,

So are you saying that a caesium-133 atom observed on both the Earth and the Moon to oscillate 9,192,631,770 times will not represent the same absolute span of time?

So, one observer will see those oscillations happen faster than the other?

Does this have to do with the specific gravity fields of both observers, in that those fields affect how the atom oscillates?

Or is there something else I’m missing?

If special relativity is the answer, all good. I’m an electrical engineer trained in classic physics, so I’ll rest knowing that I’d probably need to study that to understand the time differences.

NielsBohron, (edited )
@NielsBohron@lemmy.world avatar

So, one observer will see those oscillations happen faster than the other?

Not quite. In each observer’s frame of reference, time appears to pass the same; it’s only when you try to reconcile the between two objects that are not at rest with respect to each other does relativity show up.

Basically, when you bring someone back to Earth, the observers will find that their watches don’t match up even though both observers experience time passing the same way as normal (because the oberserver is by definition at rest with respect to their own frame of reference).

TL; DR: Relativity is a pain in the ass and makes no sense in everyday terms.

edit: disclaimer - I am not a physicist and have not taken physics classes in a decade plus, but I do teach science at a college. I’m going mostly on half-remembered lectures and some random one-off discussions I’ve had with my buddy in the physics department over the past few years.

ricecake,

It’s that relativity thing where each person will see the oscillations happening correctly, but when they look at what the other person did, the answer will seem wrong.

The difference is small enough that it really only matters if you’re NASA and building moon GPS. MPS?

WldFyre,

I vote for LPS, Lunar Positioning System, vs our Global one.

ricecake,

That’s actually what’s different on the moon. Relativity and all that means that time itself actually flows differently on the moon than it does on earth.

The actual problem they’re working to solve is around timekeeping and GPS applications in different reference frames, but it’s hard to make a short headline about.

Ahrotahntee,

When I first saw the news I was thinking “there’s no way atoms vibrate differently on the moon” but you’re right it’s about perspective and I’ve realized there’s no way I’m smart enough to handle timezones on an interplanetary scale. I can only hope that the difference between earth seconds and moon seconds can be expressed as a consistent ratio.

I will gladly use some programming library invented in the basement of a university powered by coffee, and rage.

ricecake,

It’s well understood math, but it’s “only” relativistic orbital mechanics.

It boils down to a pretty consistent number, but how you get there is related to the weight of the moon, how far it is from earth, and how fast it’s going.
Since the moon is going different speeds at different places in it’s orbit, the number actually changes slightly over the month.

They’re just using the average though, since it makes life far easier. We use the average for earth too, since clocks move differently at different altitudes or distances from the equator.

cynar,

It’s not too bad. Relativity says that no frame of reference is special.

  • On earth, a second looks like a second, but a second on the moon looks too quick.
  • On the moon, the second looks like a second, but a second on earth looks too slow.

Both are actually correct. The simplest solution is to declare 1 to be the base reference. In this case, the earth second. Any lunar colonies will just have to accept that their second is slightly longer than they think it should be.

If it helps, the difference is tiny. A second is 6.5x10^-10 seconds longer. This works out to 56 microseconds per 24 hours. It won’t affect much for a long time. About the only thing affected would be a lunar GPS.

hglman,

Galactic center is the frame to use for any space travel.

cynar,

Unfortunately, it’s not a useful one. While we know approximately where it is, we don’t know how deep the gravity well is. That gravity well slows the passage of time, just like the earth does. Without an exact mass, and mass density, we can’t calculate the correction factor.

Vilian,

i guesn it’s fine, just keep it updating, like the seed at little that got more precine since the creation of the meter but it got updated too

barsoap, (edited )

No the second is still 9192631770 hyperfine transitions of Cs-133 on the moon and that’s the same length of time at least unless you want to severely annoy physicists by implying that the laws of nature aren’t constant throughout the universe. It’s just that from our perspective it looks like time is flowing differently there.

Tja,

It’s like it’s relative…

SmoothLiquidation,

You are correct that if you are on thee moon and have a cs-133 atom with you is second will take that many transitions. And if you do the same thing on Earth, a second will take the same number of transitions.

But things get weird when you are on earth and observe a cs-133 atom that is on the moon. Because you are in different reference frames, you are traveling at different speeds and are in different gravity wells time is moving at different rates. This means that a cs atom locally will transition a different number of times in a second from your point of view on Earth vs one you are observing on the moon.

And it would all be reversed if you were on the Moon observing a clock back on the Earth.

They already have to account for this with GPS satellites. They all have atomic clocks on them but they don’t run at the same speed as clocks that are on the ground. The satellites are moving at a great speed and are further from the center of the earth than us, so the software that calculates the distance from your phone to the satellite have to use Einstein’s equations to account for the change in the rate of time.

Relativity is weird.

NocturnalMorning,

Don’t you dare, I have enough trouble reading 24 hour time.

armchair_progamer,

!https://www.unix.date/

FaceDeer,
@FaceDeer@fedia.io avatar

I suspect that won't help. The reason the Moon needs a time zone is because of gravitational time dilation, time literally runs slower down here on Earth's surface relative to the Moon's surface. A computer on the Moon gains an extra 58.7 microseconds each Earth day, so if you're programming something that'll be running on Lunar time you'll need to account for that.

JoeCoT,

The point of the lunar time zone is not to have a specific UTC offset like other timezones. The moon would have its own set of atomic clocks, and time could be coordinated with earth based on ratio instead of offset.

FaceDeer, (edited )
@FaceDeer@fedia.io avatar

They're not going to be maintaining literal atomic clocks on the Moon for this. They'll apply a mathematical adjustment to UTC based on what the physics calculations say is happening. The details of that adjustment are what NASA has yet to develop. It could involve subtracting a "leap second" from lunar time at intervals, leap seconds are already used for keeping UTC in sync with the solar time so it's an established process. Or maybe they'll just let Lunar time continue drifting relative to Earth, in which case there'll be a different "epoch" on each.

ricecake,

They probably actually will end up with atomic clocks on the moon, or at least in close lunar orbit. If the plan is to have something like gps on the moon, that’s a first step.

ricecake,

So, in this case a moon timezone, and more generally a “space timekeeping framework” makes sense because time actually moves at a different speed on the moon, so epoch times wouldn’t actually stay in sync.
If the goal of “time” is to make it easier to reason about simultaneous things, then space makes that way more complicated.
It’s just tricky to condense that into a headline that conveys the point.

arxiv.org/abs/2402.11150

gramathy,

The concept of “simultaneous” breaks down over relativistic distances too so that’s equally fucked

ricecake,

Yup. So building a system for “how we build time systems in different reference frames” and “define how we relate those to earth” isn’t irrational, just makes for headlines that are either difficult or very misleading.

RonSijm,
@RonSijm@programming.dev avatar

Sure, we can compromise; they can have their own timezone, but it has a constant time value.

const moonTime = DateTime.Utc.MoonTime

Sylver,

As in, it is perpetually 4:20 PM on the moon?

problematicPanther,
@problematicPanther@lemmy.world avatar

nice.

IWantToFuckSpez,

To the moon 🚀 🚀 🚀

barsoap,

That sounds… iffy. Thing is that UTC lags more and more behind TAI as UTC takes the earth’s rotation into account, introducing leap seconds so that all the timezones don’t slowly drift across the globe. Moon people care preciously little about the earth’s rotation around its own axis, more relevant is its own day/night cycle which (because tidal lock) is an earth month. The system might just be stable enough so that UTC can simultaneously sync to that, you’d have to ask an astronomer.

Actually, no, forget it: The moon moves quite fast relatively to the earth’s surface, more than enough for relativistic effects to apply – they also apply to GPS satellites, stuff simply wouldn’t work if those things ran on Newtonian maths. Sooner or later it’s going to need adjustments due to that.

RonSijm,
@RonSijm@programming.dev avatar

Well TAI stands for International Atomic Time and “international” generally pertains to Earth-bound locations.

Coordinated Universal Time sounds like it has a bigger inclusivity scope

Otherwise we’d have to rename TAI to “Intergalactic Atomic Time”

snack_pack_rodriguez,

I say we compromise we will take the moon but they must give up daylight savings. it’s only fair.

kambusha,

Adds moonlight savings

JoMiran,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

Anyone else keep nearly everything set to UTC?

teft,
@teft@lemmy.world avatar

In the military that’s all we used. It’s called Zulu time in the Army and it makes for coordinating events in multiple time zones fairly easy. I would assume the moon would be the same since there will 100% be a moon base with military.

JoMiran,
@JoMiran@lemmy.ml avatar

I have response teams in a “follow the sun” model as well as having my US team spread coast to coast, plus all our clients set their servers to UTC. It makes the most sense to keep something set to UTC at a moment’s glance.

Dr_Vegapunk,

Will it follow the lunar calendar?

Infynis,
@Infynis@midwest.social avatar

Can’t believe the US is putting trains on the moon before making them viable on Earth

StrongHorseWeakNeigh,
whotookkarl,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

Based on a completely superficial review there are three almost guaranteed ways to become unhinged; studying infinities, refactoring legacy code, and working with timezones.

dan,
@dan@upvote.au avatar

I had to refactor legacy date/time code (including timezone code) at work. D:

NerfHerder,

You poor soul

lea,

I think it’s time for a refactor of my legacy code that deals with infinite timezones. :/

oce,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

That’s a good idea! Instead of discrete timezones, let’s have continuous timezones!

zerofk,

I’ve been a proponent of this for ages. It makes no sense to cross some imaginary line and suddenly time shifts. Time should change constantly as you move east or west, up or down. Everyone has their own personal time, which is constantly updated.

Bonus: no more daylight savings switch.

oce, (edited )
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

How do you agree on a meeting time with a group of people who all live in different places of your country?

zerofk,

That’s another benefit: no more meetings.

oce,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

Not even to spend good times with friends?

barsoap,

That was kinda the situation in the past: Every town would have its own time, synced to the local noon every once in a while as the precision of the church or townhall clock demanded. That stuck around until railroad operators and passengers got sick and tired of dealing with the timetables that produces.

Hazzia,

I’ve done 2 of those things already. If I ever have to tac on the timezones I will actually break.

jballs,
@jballs@sh.itjust.works avatar

Lmao I love how he just gets more and more flabbergasted throughout the whole video. Truly an accurate depiction of dealing with timezones (which I’m unfortunately dealing with right now!)

xlash123,
@xlash123@sh.itjust.works avatar

Shouldn’t it have its own time system? And have its own time zones? You can’t give the moon its own single time zone (unless you’re into the idea of a single universal time zone).

whotookkarl,
@whotookkarl@lemmy.world avatar

There’s not really a difference between 0 timezones and 1 timezone, let’s split it and go with 1/2 timezones

ricecake,

That’s actually what they’re doing. The reporting said timezone when the actual order is more about time standards.

They’re creating coordinated lunar time, as a complement to coordinated universal time, so it’s a different time system with details about how it relates to UTC.

whitehouse.gov/…/Celestial-Time-Standardization-P…

Timezones on the moon don’t serve as much function, because the day/night cycle is closer to a month long, and doesn’t map to human rhythms at all. In a hypothetical where we have moon colonies on opposite sides of the moon, there’s no reason for them to not still have synchronized day/night, since it already has no relation to the movement of the sun in the lunar sky.

ThePyroPython,

The Royal Observatory Greenwich:

“Well, as the first to co-ordinate time we-”

The International Telecommunication Union and International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service in Unison:

“Excuse me, I think you’ll find we manage the time.”

NIST: “I don’t see your footprints up there! We’re going off my Omega Speedmaster!”

FartsWithAnAccent,
@FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io avatar

"Forget it Jake, it's Moontown."

Korne127,
@Korne127@lemmy.world avatar

Shouldn’t the moon have… 24 time zones as well, depending where on the moon you currently are?

CarbonIceDragon,
@CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social avatar

The moon’s day length is so long that it wouldn’t make any sense for any crewed mission to use it, they’re going to need their own lights on an arbitrary 24 hour cycle anyway, so there’s no reason not to have every future crewed mission there use the same one

NielsBohron,
@NielsBohron@lemmy.world avatar

I mean, this is the real answer here, but you can’t just put them on UTC because of the relativity like we were discussing elsewhere, so it would still have to be a separate time zone for programming and timekeeping purposes, even if humans won’t be able to tell the difference

Fosheze,

So, just plonk an atomic clock on the moon and call that moon time. Ocasionally synchronize moon time with UTC.

ricecake,

That’s pretty close to what they’re doing. The tricky bit is detailing how you convert a lunar timestamp to a terrestrial timestamp.

Jostling clocks with things like leap seconds turns out to be more trouble than it’s really worth. Better to just let them get out of sync but be able to precisely define what the drift is.

NielsBohron, (edited )
@NielsBohron@lemmy.world avatar

No, the moon’s rotation isn’t on a 24-hour cycle. I’m not an astronomer, but I pretty sure since it’s tidally locked to earth and on a 28-day cycle around the earth, a lunar day is actually 28 Earth days, but I’m not actually sure how that would factor into the number of time zones (I’m pretty sure it would be more complicated than just 24 time zones to match 24 time zones on earth, though).

Plus, I think the speed of the moon relative to the sun is different enough from Earth that you need to take relativity into effect, which is the real headache here.

kaputt,

It’s pretty simple, actually. The time zones are on average 1 hour apart. So there should be about 24*28=672 time zones on the Moon. SIMPLE.

stebo02,
@stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Or we invent 24 lunar hours and then we’re back to 24 timezones.

However I don’t think keeping the sun overhead at noon is the goal here. That stuff is only important to humans. The real issue is figuring out how to count time on the moon in such a way that it doesn’t run out of sync with how we count time on earth because of relativistic effects.

moody, (edited )

The relativistic effects would be so small in human terms that the clock could just be synchronized with Earth time once daily and nobody would ever notice.

trolololol,

Yep, relativity accounts for a difference of like 50ms drift per earth day. I would assume that it’s forward drifting if you’re on earth but backwards if you’re on the moon.

Take that, timezone whiners!

NielsBohron, (edited )
@NielsBohron@lemmy.world avatar

It’s been a long time since I took modern physics, so I’m not positive, but I think you’re right that the moon would have time moving slower, and if your 50ms/day is right (edit: I based this on the moon traveling faster than the earth, but I don’t know anything about gravitational relativity, so that’s probably wrong) then you’d need to do something like skip a second every 20th day on the moon to keep pace with Earth. We could call it an “anti-leap-second”

Programmers, that seems pretty simple; what’s the big deal? ^/s^

stebo02,
@stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

anti-leap-second

HORROR

amanaftermidnight,

We’re close to skipping a second too here on earth since the Earth had actually sped up a bit the past decade.

stebo02,
@stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

i heard, can’t wait for satellites to fall out of the sky because of this one second

jnk,

Pretty sure it’s both pointless and impossible to have an earth-like timezone system in an object that has coordinated rotation and translocation cycles. Meaning this mess we call “timezones” shouldn’t exist in the moon.

whostosay,

Shouldn’t exist anywhere

JoeCoT,

“An atomic clock on the moon will tick at a different rate than a clock on Earth,” said Kevin Coggins, Nasa’s top communications and navigation official. “It makes sense that when you go to another body, like the moon or Mars, that each one gets its own heartbeat.”

article

It's possible that they don't end up putting atomic clocks on the moon, but it's on the table, they haven't worked out the details yet.

dan, (edited )
@dan@upvote.au avatar

24 time zones on earth, though

Even if you just count UTC offsets, there’s 38 time zones: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_zone

There’s more than that though, due to Daylight Saving Time. The rules for DST are part of the definition of the time zone. For example, in Australia, Queensland and Victoria are both UTC+10. However, Victoria observes DST while Queensland doesn’t, so technically they’re two separate timezones (in the Olsen database, they’re Australia/Melbourne and Australia/Brisbane respectively).

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Because the moon is tidally locked to the Earth, some things are quite different up there.

The day/night cycle is a lot longer, from sunrise to sunrise is ~28 Earth days. 14 straight days of sunlight, 14 straight days of darkness. Depending on where you are on the surface, you may never be able to see Earth at all, or if you can it remains more or less fixed in the sky; if you really pay attention it slightly wobbles. The waxing and waning of the Earth’s disc are in sync with the sun as well, but not necessarily in phase. For example, if you’re on the Moon’s meridian, New Earth occurs at noon, but if you’re to the East or West it will lag or lead. You can just barely make out major surface features of the Earth enough to tell that the Earth rotates, but at a period that has nothing to do with your local conditions.

There wouldn’t really be any utility to dividing the Moon into 24 time zones, it wouldn’t line up with anything meaningful on Earth or to human circadian rhythms, so for expeditions like the Apollo program or upcoming Artemis flights, you’d just keep an onboard mission clock for the benefit of the crew and rely on artificial lighting and shades to maintain an Earth-like day/night cycle.

It feels to me like this is a problem that doesn’t need to be solved yet if ever; I would wait until there are actual people living on the Moon and let them solve the problem in a way that fits their needs, which we cannot fully anticipate from down here on Earth.

I will note that time zones make more sense on Mars than the Moon. Mars has a rapid day/night cycle fairly similar to Earths, a Martian sol is about a half hour longer than an Earth day, fairly easy for humans to adapt to and live la vida loca. Some humans already have; NASA crews working on our various rovers adjust their working days to their rover’s local solar conditions. They wear watches calibrated for Martian sols and the wake up and go to bed at a different Earth time every day so that they can work from the rover’s sunrise to sunset, when they have light to see and when Spirit and Opportunity had power to move. And because the rovers are scattered across the surface of Mars, their local sunrises and sunsets happen at different times, so we already have de facto time zones on Mars.

ricecake,

So, there is an actual utility for it, it’s just not people centric.
Having a framework for how you convert the clock measurements from the lunar reference frame to terrestrial reference frame is helpful for orbital maneuvering and navigation, as well as communication coordination.

They’re not building a "UTC+5” style timezone, but a “given the moons mass and orbit, here’s how we define the time ratio between the earth and moon so we can consistently calibrate our clocks”.

MonkderDritte,

Moon people just have to switch to Universal Moon Time.

bradorsomething,

What about Earthmoon Savings Time?

CosmicCleric, (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

No link to the article in the picture?

Also, wouldn’t it just be simple enough to make the Moon GMT, and be done with it?

Edit: This comment, that has a link to the actual government PDF, says it better than I.

httperror418,

Greenwich Moon Time? I’ll see myself out…

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Greenwich Moon Time? I’ll see myself out…

Well played, sir/madam. Well, played. /slowclap

stebo02, (edited )
@stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

wouldn’t it just be simple enough to make the Moon GMT

You’d think so, but the problem is that because of gravity, clocks on earth and on the moon will very slowly run out of sync. Idk ask Einstein.

CosmicCleric,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

You’d think so, but the problem is that because of gravity, clocks on earth and on the moon will run out of sync. Idk ask Einstein.

Yeah I’m aware. It would require ongoing recalibrations of the time display units on the Moon.

Then again if they could just pick up the atomic clock signal (WWV, etc.) from Earth, and then add to it for the time it takes for the signal to cross space from the Earth to the Moon, etc.

At the end of the day it’s just about having all the homo-sapiens going to bed and waking up at the same time, so they can do business in the same window together.

KillingTimeItself, (edited )

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.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Username checks out.

KillingTimeItself,

I dont get why everyone is so pissed off about the guy whose name is literally “killingtimeitself” suggesting that we should, kill time itself.

I feel like it should be pretty apparent…

1917isnow,
@1917isnow@lemmy.ml avatar

I think it would be intuitive to people after a while

KillingTimeItself,

it’s the less arbitrary version of having timezones, the only difference is that the time doesn’t change, because it doesn’t it’s the solar time that changes.

qjkxbmwvz,

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.

dondelelcaro,

Unless you’re in Tibet, Xinjiang, or another place observing UTC+8 with a significant offset from local solar time.

NeatNit,

They had their chance. Heck, they still have their chance. They will continue to have their chance.

KillingTimeItself,

there is no appropriate time for lunch. And besides you wanna know a better way to figure it out? Go outside.

min_fapper,

Yeah that doesn’t work if you live in Seattle.

KillingTimeItself,

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.

puppy,

Did you just describe timezones?

KillingTimeItself,

the inverse of timezones.

rektdeckard,
@rektdeckard@lemmy.world avatar

How stoned are you right now

KillingTimeItself,

zero

rektdeckard,
@rektdeckard@lemmy.world avatar

Damn me neither

KillingTimeItself,

damn, same.

puppy,

Can you give me an example with an example time and how 2 people in different countries would organise a meeting?

KillingTimeItself,

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.

puppy,

So what are these offset’s you mentioned? They are not used?

KillingTimeItself,

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.)

puppy,

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?

KillingTimeItself,

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.

puppy,

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?

KillingTimeItself,

because the thing that is “like” timezones is fucking better, why else would you switch?

puppy,

How is it better?

KillingTimeItself,

how is it not better?

puppy, (edited )

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?

KillingTimeItself,

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.

Glytch,

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

KillingTimeItself,

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.

rektdeckard,
@rektdeckard@lemmy.world avatar

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.

KillingTimeItself,

yes, except it’s not the only time system we use, the primary time system we use is universal now.

rektdeckard,
@rektdeckard@lemmy.world avatar

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.

KillingTimeItself,

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

rektdeckard,
@rektdeckard@lemmy.world avatar

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.

KillingTimeItself,

yeah, my problem is that nobody use UTC. And we have problems like gas pumps in finland breaking because they programmed timezones incorrectly.

towerful, (edited )

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

ASeriesOfPoorChoices,

that’s basically why timezones were created. before then, every town had its own local time.

rektdeckard,
@rektdeckard@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Kolanaki,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

You mean like a watch that goes by timezones? 🤔

KillingTimeItself,

that admittedly, would be pretty funny, but no unfortunately not.

pcouy,

Are you suggesting something like continuous timezones? Thanks for bringing this nightmare to a whole new level! :)

KillingTimeItself,

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.

pcouy,

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 ?

KillingTimeItself,

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.

nxdefiant,

Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so.

rovingnothing29,
@rovingnothing29@lemmy.world avatar

Is that where my sandwich went?

ShepherdPie,

You life was an illusion, and you are the sandwich.

rovingnothing29,
@rovingnothing29@lemmy.world avatar

Whoa

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Time zones are fine. Daylight Savings Time needs to be taken out behind the wood shed and killed with a spoon.

okamiueru,

Are you thinking about daylight savings time? I’d agree there, but timezones absolutely make sense, and we’ve always used some version of it. “See you at noon” has a sort of built in timezone, as does sunrise and sunset. We (all human societies) relate hours to the day in a similar, albeit more regular way. If you did away with timezones, you’d replace a minor inconvenience with a monstrous one. Everyone uses what, GMT? Naah

KillingTimeItself,

DST definitely isn’t helping, but in my experience, DST only makes this stuff more arbitrary, between the winter and the summer here where i live, the sunset can vary up to about 4 hours based on season. Time is entirely arbitrary in relation to the sun to begin with. It’s a lived experience that many of us have.

And while we do use things like morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, and midnight. Those are all relative to the local solar time, not the actual time. Sure noon being at 12 is kind of nice i guess. But noon is noon, the time on the clock doesn’t change that.

Gabu,

Stop using drugs, you’re making literally no sense.

lightnegative,

Actually, it makes perfect sense.

The loose terms like morning, noon, night etc are related to the suns position in the sky and exist regardless of what the wall clock happens to say

KillingTimeItself,

maybe you should try drugs, might make this concept of no longer having timezones conceptually understandable for you.

EVERY time i suggest this, without fail. People lose their shit over even the most basic of interpretations of how timezones could possibly not exist.

Here’s a fun fact about time for you, there was a period during the catholic church, where they just removed like 7 days from the year.

vfye,

I like it when i miss the train because town A’s time is way off from toen C’s time

ashok36,

I honestly can’t tell if you are pro or anti time zones from this comment.

towerful,

Nobody likes missing a train.
In this scenario, missing a train is caused by timezones.
It’s sarcasm. So against timezones.
Maybe, against more granular timezones, ok with status-quo, but would be happy if all official correspondence happened with UTC.
Possibly completely against timezones.
Maybe a mix of all of the above

KillingTimeItself,

sounds like a skill issue to be honest.

desktop_user,

based name

KillingTimeItself,

it really is one of the best thoughts i’ve ever had.

usualsuspect191,

Imagine you’re watching a movie, and the main character turns over to their bedside clock and it shows 4:13 am. With time zones we all understand what part of the day that is and instinctively can relate to the situation.

Without timezones, every locality would have a different shorthand and cultural understanding of what times mean what. Or they’d adopt a second system that helps transcend that but that’s just inventing timezones again…

KillingTimeItself,

actually, this is pretty funny. This is the ONE instance so far, that i’ve found where timezones actually do something productive, and it’s in a movie.

Too bad movies never use shit like ambient moon lighting, or darkness. It’s not like those convey what time of night it is or anything. I mean seriously, if you’re bound to showing a clock to display the time, rather than make a point, you’re not a very good writer.

usualsuspect191,

Too bad movies never use shit like ambient moon lighting, or darkness

Probably because people’s beds tend to be inside… Plus darkness can mean morning or evening or middle of the night or something else (imagine the person notices it’s dark, looks at the clock and it shows 1pm. We know something’s off because we all experience 1pm as early afternoon).

The point isn’t that timezones are only good for movies, the point was that they help convey that cultural understanding very effectively across the world. Having a common understanding of what certain numbers on a clock mean and have that be universal can help convey quite a bit of information. 11am means “late morning” in a specific way that you could probably spend a paragraph describing.

Sure, without timezones I’d know what their clock says in London without having to use Google, but I’d still have to Google what time of day it is there and apply an offset to understand exactly what part of the day it is (which is what timezones do already). It’s no easier, plus we lose the ability to culturally share the same reference points.

KillingTimeItself,

Probably because people’s beds tend to be inside… Plus darkness can mean morning or evening or middle of the night or something else (imagine the person notices it’s dark, looks at the clock and it shows 1pm. We know something’s off because we all experience 1pm as early afternoon).

too bad windows don’t exist, it’s also not like movies ever fudge lighting to make it look better.

Having a common understanding of what certain numbers on a clock mean and have that be universal can help convey quite a bit of information. 11am means “late morning” in a specific way that you could probably spend a paragraph describing.

or you could just say “late morning” after taking a page out of your book.

Sure, without timezones I’d know what their clock says in London without having to use Google, but I’d still have to Google what time of day it is there and apply an offset to understand exactly what part of the day it is (which is what timezones do already). It’s no easier, plus we lose the ability to culturally share the same reference points.

here’s the thing though, you wouldn’t need to do that second part. You only need to know what the relative time for london is in the event that you fly over there, or something, and even then. It’s still going to be real time, you would just naturally transition over to it. You have no reason to know what time some place else is referenced to, unless you’re over there, except for the rare instance where it’s convenient.

usualsuspect191,

here’s the thing though, you wouldn’t need to do that second part. You only need to know what the relative time for london is in the event that you fly over there, or something, and even then

What? Sorry, I must be misunderstanding your viewpoint here. People interact all across the globe all of the time; it’s important to know what part of day it is in the different places for all of that. You want to call someone in Singapore? It doesn’t help to know their clock shows the same time as you, you need to know if it’s the middle of the night, or maybe it’s likely lunch time etc. That’s why you need to know the offset from “your” time.

And you glossed over everything else… I’m not talking about movies for no reason. Movies tend to need to convey lots of information in a short amount of time so it’s a useful example of the differring amounts of information that can be communicated when we all share cultural understandings of things. If 3am means essentially the same thing everywhere that’s super useful in communicating all sorts of ideas.

KillingTimeItself,

What? Sorry, I must be misunderstanding your viewpoint here. People interact all across the globe all of the time; it’s important to know what part of day it is in the different places for all of that.

no, it’s not, it’s important to know what time other people are available at Regardless of what you’re doing, you’re going to plan it to the hour specifically, due to the fact that it’s a meeting, you’re going to agree independently, on a shared time, between the two of you. It doesn’t matter what your or their local time is, because you agree on it, and can simply figure it out yourself, if you REALLY needed to, like i said, you could just look it up, and now instead of it actually changing the time, it just shifts it, given that they’re halfway across the globe, and the sun normally does that.

Maybe it’s lunch time, ask them when they have lunch. They’ll tell you, and it’ll map directly to your time. It’s INCREDIBLY explicit, compared to our current solution. You shouldn’t be planning things based on what the timezones say, you should be planning things based on what the time says.

I’m not sure i can think of a single instance, where it would be important to know what point the sun is in the sky at, in fucking mongolia, while i’m in the US or some place. It already means nothing to me, even if they were to tell me, because i don’t know what their timezone is, and if i do know, now i’m just hoping that they have exactly the same schedule as me, with no deviations, which, you know is, very reliable. Maybe you work in a global office, where this would be a thing, but then again, it’s literally the same amount if not less effort than just using timezones like you would normally do. And like i said, it doesn’t remove the local solar time, that’s what “timeoffsets” would be for, so if you REALLY cared about it for some reason, you could just look it up with the same amount of effort as timezones now.

The ONLY difference is that instead of the sun being in the middle of the sky at noon where you are, and noon where they are, it’s noon here, and there at the same time, and the sun is in the peak at 12 00 here, and 14 00 there. For instance. I genuinely just can’t think of any significant events where i would be globally contacting someone, in regards to their specific local solar time, in reference to my own, in significant enough capacity, where having to add or subtract a number would make it harder.

Timezones are arguably inherently more confusing, because if it’s +2 here, and it’s +5 there, then that means they’re 3 hours ahead, so if it’s 12 00 here, it would be 15 00 there. Which is significantly more effort. As opposed to, “i’m 3 hours ahead of you, and we use global time so just add 3 to your number, and that’s my schedule now” it just removes one variable from the equation.

and regardless of that, you act like morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night, midnight, and after midnight, don’t exist. If you’re communicating local solar time in passing, you’re likely using those anyway. They’re fuzzy terms, they’re perfect for it. And if not, you probably should be anyway.

AnarchistArtificer,

I reluctantly agree with you. Though I think the reluctance is just because there’s something in me that’s viscerally offended by the concept of time itself (probably the ADHD)

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