Re: OT: Time zone question

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:

> On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Peter Collier
> <petecollier@...> wrote:
> > All that would happen in that scenario is, that
> > instead of needing to know that, for example,
> > 'Ekaterinburg's time is 5 hours ahead of Dublin,
> you'd
> > need to know that Dulin's working day was perhaps
> 7am
> > to 3pm and Ekaterinburgs 11am to 8pm (assuming the
> > standard time was based on a central-ish zone).
>
> For coordinating business across time zones, in
> other words, there
> would be no change whatsoever in the amount of
> effort.  Meanwhile, you
> would eliminate all possible confusions of the 'noon
> my time' vs 'noon
> your time' sort.  Seems like a net win to me. :)
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Except, commerce is generally the only reason local
times are out of sync in the first place, which would
eliminate the need for the change in the first place.

There is also a human element which is hard to
overcome. Extending Benct's suggestion to its ultimate
logical outcome, the entire world could just set their
clocks to UTC and get on with it - but how would that
go down with Joe Schmoe in Vancouver, who now finds
the sun rises at 1 in the afternoon, sets at 3 in the
morning, the date changes halfway through his
afternoon at work (legal issues!) and despite all of
that, he STILL has no idea if Bob in Melbourne or
Chantelle in Paris are currently in work or not.

Of course, what *would* work is to switch everywhere
to the same time zone, AND have everyone keep doing
the same things at the same time of day (e.g. office
hours 9 to 5). Of course, it wouldn't get light until
lunchtime in New York, and the poor Kiwi's and Aussies
would never see light of day at all (unless they
worked the "night" shift) - but then again, if they
can get used to hanging upside down all the time and
having xmas in the middle of summer, they must be
pretty adaptable  ;)


P.

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