On Tue, March 6, 2007 3:17 pm, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: > John Oliver wrote: >> On Tue, Mar 06, 2007 at 11:42:23AM -0800, John H. Robinson, IV wrote: >> > Then again, I hate the whole idea of timezones to begin with. >> >> Until someone figures out how to stretch the Earth out like a Mercator >> projection, we're stuck with 'em :-) > > Uh. > > No. > > We just need a willingness to say that time is a human construct (oddly > enough, it is) and that the number 12 (or noon) is just as arbitrary as > any other number (do a small experiment: go outside on a sunny day with > a ruler, and see when your shadow is the shortest. If it aligns > precisely with 12:00 noon, consider yourself very lucky, otherwse > conclude that 12 is arbitrary. Go east or west the following day, and > try the experiment again! It'll be fun!) > > All we need to do is get rid of them all, and use one time world wide. > Those that participate in cross continental meetings will lose the > confusion of ``was that 11 o'clock east coast time, or west coast > time?'' and be left with one absolute time. > > Travellers would also love it: the would know exactly how long their > flight would last, no matter how many timezones they cross, without > having to do math. > > It could be done in 6 to twelve years. Move each timezone closer to UTC > once or twice a year. > > Local time (the only other true time) can be reduced to four specific > times: sunrise, noon. sunset, and midnight. So local times could > reference the (option a) closest or (option b) immediately past one of > the four fixed points. > > Such as, my kids bedtime would be two hours after sunset, which could > be spoken as two after set, or simply two set. > > Speak of o'clock, and it is absolute. Speak of rise/noon/set/mid and it > is relative to a fixed local time. I believe it would work out rather > well. > > -john >
Any system based on Joe Sixpack doing mental arithmetic is doomed to fail. -- Lan Barnes SCM Analyst Linux Guy Tcl/Tk Enthusiast Biodiesel Brewer -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
