Re: CHAT: Timezones was The English/French counting system
| From: | Roger Mills <romilly@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, September 16, 2003, 0:25 |
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Padraic Brown wrote:
> --- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
>
> > one of several timekeeping idiosyncracies that
> > I'd just as soon do
> > without, including daylight savings time and
> > time zones in general.
>
> Out of curiosity, what would you replace them
> with? Time zones, that is.
Time zones are rather crucial, at least in a reasonably advanced culture--
they were introduced in the US as I recall in order to coordinate train
schedules, inter alia.
I happen to love DST, being a night owl. Also, my end of Michigan ought by
rights to be in the Central time zone, we are that far west. But.... It
means that in high Summer it stays light until 10 PM, 2200.
China I believe has a single time zone - Beijing standard-- even though it
extends over many degrees of longitude.
At the other extreme, according to a book on the Ottoman Empire I read a few
years back, that Empire did not get into precise time measurement until late
in the 19th C., but went strictly by sun-time (for Islamic ritual purposes,
of course), so that Noon in Istanbul was not quite the same as Noon in towns
just a bit further east, and of course not the same in Damascus etc.
ObConTime: Most of Cindu uses a 20-hour clock; the day begins at midnight,
which is 0100 for the Kash. Noon is thus 1100. The hour is 50 minutes, so
a "half-hour" is ..25; the major divisions of the hour are 10min.intervals,
kunim. Each time zone covers the equiv. of 18 degrees of longitude.
>
> > I mean, as long as my boss and I agree on what
> > time I'm supposed to
> > show up for a meeting (which is admittedly an
> > open question if it's
> > at half [past] the hour :) ), does it really
> > matter if we call it 2:30 PM EDT, 1330 EST, or
> > 1830 UTC?
>
> It does if I'm in Washington, waiting three hours
> for your sorry ass to schlep on over from the
> Coast! ;)
>
> Padraic.
>
>
>
> =====
> - Per la cista ciwtate, et-z-el pays amb la, et per y chascyn encoleuwack;
et per el nusteor Basele; et per el nusteor Teruin GERONTIO; et per y Senat
la nusteor nacièn; et per y legiun Roman; et per l' armaza navea; et per l'
armaza aerea; et per y thot ke sirviont al nusteor nacièn
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