BS: Global time

Subject: BS: Global time
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 08:30 PM

Since we're a Global Mudcat, would it be a good idea if we had a link that enables us to check the various times that get quoted in threads?

What I mean is, people often post time of something happening on an internet radio, for example, but even if they remember to indicate what local time zone they are talking about, there's still the hassle of relating that to our own time, wherever we are.

I was just visiting the admirable photo-sharing site flickr, and they had to announce that they would be down for a short time at 6pm Pacific time - and next to that they stuck a line saying "View 6pm Pacific in your timezone", with a link to
"The Fixed Time World Clock", which allows you to..but it's quicker for you to go look at it than for me to explain it.

Thiis struck me as a neat and simple idea.   I've bookmarked the Clock site, but I think it might be handy to have something like that as a fixed link on the Mudcat. I'm wary suggesting adding too much, because there's a danger of the site getting cluttered.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: mack/misophist
Date: 24 Feb 05 - 09:48 PM

It's called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), or Zulu time if you're a military type. The international standard. Or you could use Unix time, which is the number of seconds since some mythological event. But no one would understand.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 06:39 PM

I think we should all use Alaska Standard Time (GMT -9hrs). This way I would not be so confused and would also feel loved by the world. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 07:01 PM

"there's a danger of the site getting cluttered"

I think crashes are the bigger danger

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Feb 05 - 09:52 PM

well, as you might expect, I have this program (PC only, but free), which can have a bunch of times set at the top to almost any spot in the world...I just glance at it when I need to translate between Alaska Mike's lunchtime and Wolfgang's bedtime....It does all sorts of other tricks, too.

take a look

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: mack/misophist
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:04 AM

There's something similar in KDE that I use to remind me what time to call my mother in Hawai'i. Useful. It lets me keep track of 30 - 40 local time zones.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:36 AM

The entire convention of time zones should be abandoned. We should all adopt Universal Time (GMT) and a 24-hour clock.

Our time system is merely a set of conventions. We've accepted the idea that a day begins in the middle of the night, which makes no sense at all. We've come to believe that the sun rises somewhere around 6AM (in most latitudes) and when the sun doesn't go along with our preconception, many of us reset our clocks by an hour to make it so. Then, we eat lunch somewhere around 12PM and expect the sun to set at about 6PM. The numbers are merely conventions that attempt to make everybody's experience of artificial clock-time reasonably uniform - to make "12 midnight" mean about the same to Long Islanders and Fiji Islanders.

Under a Universal Time system, the sun would come up at 6 o'clock somewhere, but it would come up at 18 o'clock somewhere else. So what? The numbers are random anyway. In an area where the sun comes up at 18 o'clock, most businesses would open at 20 o'clock, lunch would be at 24 o'clock etc. It would just be a matter of adjusting to what the numbers mean in individual locales. It would eliminate ridiculous situations like someone living in one time zone but working in another and experiencing 7 o'clock twice a day. And, when the changing seasons make the periods of daylight longer or shorter, you don't adjust the clock, you adjust the workday.

And just so a large number of songs and poems wouldn't become obsolete relics, concepts like "noon" and "midnight" would still be valid. They existed before the invention of clock-time anyway. They would just be divorced frome the artificial value of "12" that's been imposed upon them.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: JennyO
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:32 AM

9am midnight? Nah, it'll never catch on.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 03:23 AM

But it would make it easier to explain the martini for breakfast or the midnight bowl of cereal....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: JennyO
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 09:49 AM

Hey Liz, you got a spy watchin' me or somethin'?

*mutters* Geeziz, there's no privacy in this place ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 11:33 AM

UT? Nope. Just one "for instance". I know I can call anywhere in the world from 08:00h to 17:00h their time and almost always get someone. I can easily figure out what time it is there because I know what my timew is and I know the time difference between here and there. I don't need another step in the equation every time I want to source something in a different location.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Bill D
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 06:43 PM

trouble is, anyone who travels wants to be able to express time in the same basic terms he's used to...Going to a another part of the world and having to learn that they eat between 10-11 when you're used to it between 6-7 would be tedious. I think it's easier to have a chart or, better, a watch with 2 time zones like I have, is easier in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: JennyO
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 09:20 PM

First time I went overseas to France and the UK, I wore two watches on the plane and for the first day. After that I kept the Oz time watch handy just to refer to. Intellectually I knew what the time difference was, but it saved me having to work it out all the time. I could glance at it and think - back home they are just having dinner, or whatever. Then I put it back on for the trip home.

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 09:07 PM

I have a clock on my taskbar which tells me the time here, and EST is just a mouse-scroll away at the bottom of this page
If I double-click the clock on my taskbar, and scroll down the time-zones, when the main window comes up, I can tell the time in Krasnojarsk, Ekaterinburg, Port Moseby, and Nuku'alofa.

When travelling, I just get it into my head the difference in time-zones before I go, and remember it.

That doesn't cause me any problems, but most digital watches, or travel alarm clocks, nowadays have multiple time-zones programmed into them.

Sometimes less is more, though

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: JennyO
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 09:45 PM

Here's a useful, fun (but rather noisy) site with time zones and a map - Time Ticker

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Oct 20 - 06:02 PM

,,, well, that link in the previous post still works
but the time ticker in the link does not work any longer.
me
Elsewhere in the BS section
someone spoke of
switching from British Summer Time
to Greenwich Mean Time.

Confusing to a US Mudcatter like me,
as the switch to standard time
happens on a weekend different than the UK switch.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 25 Oct 20 - 10:18 PM

Confusing to a US Mudcatter like me,
as the switch to standard time
happens on a weekend different than the UK switch.

Worse still are reminders to change clocks seen on FaceBook. I recently saw one reminding us to move our clocks forward one hour. Not only did it have the wrong weekend, but we (in UK) were due to move our clocks backward. What works in the Northern hemisphere is not true in the Southern.

Pour me somethin' tall an' strong
Make it a "Hurricane" before I go insane
It's only half-past twelve but I don't care
It's five o'clock somewhere

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Oct 20 - 03:46 AM

We always say, "Spring forward, fall back" which reminds us to put the clocks one hour forward in Spring and one hour back in the autumn.
Husband is glad now because we have the same time as Abidjan in Ivory Coast, which makes money transfers a bit simpler (the Moneygram/Western Union bureaux open at 9am usually over there.)

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Mr Red
Date: 26 Oct 20 - 04:01 AM

The entire convention of time zones should be abandoned.

Disagree. If we all worked to GMT a lot of us would be sleeping in daylight. Not good for peoples' demeanour. And there are plenty of studies that speak of shiftworkers average life expectancy being lower and depress more prevalent.

Or if we all used GMT but worked roughly to daylight hours, there would be a clash of understanding about, say, what hour breakfast was. (23:00 for some!).

Life is complicated - innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 Oct 20 - 04:28 AM

Round here, the village residents seem to get up at dawn, no matter what the actual time is. My friend-over-the-road is often up, dressed and out in her little car to deliver papers and get her produce ready for the fruit/vegetable round at about 4am in summer.
It's interesting to notice how ones body keeps to the 'usual' time. I was ready for bed at 9pm last night ('really' 10pm!) so I went. But as you say Mr Red, shift workers, night workers etc have their body clocks messed about and it has been proved this can cause serious medical problems.
Sister up in Scotland says after the clocks changed it now gets dark at around 3pm! I couldn't bear that.

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 26 Oct 20 - 05:34 AM

Or if we all used GMT but worked roughly to daylight hours, there would be a clash of understanding about, say, what hour breakfast was. (23:00 for some!)

We cope well enough with a global calender, with winter starting in December in the north and June in the south.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Global time
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Oct 20 - 09:06 AM

I liked living on Zulu time when I lived in Abidjan.