I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
Google tells me it is currently 4:25am there.
It's probably best not to call right now.
# After abolishing time zones
I want to call my Uncle Steve in Melbourne. What time is it there?
Google shows me a daylight map (First result https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/sunearth.html)
It's probably best not to call right now.
We are just used to the insanity that is timezones. Of course, I say this because I have to deal with time and timezones every day at work and bugs are always prevalent. Each DST switch there are new bugs we find; every time we change our core date and time code there are bugs. Just painful.
In the end, we'd build new tools and intuitions around time. People would adapt and my life would be measurably better (though not completely solved; scheduling anything across a date boundary is odd. No one thinks of 1am as "tomorrow" but instead as "later tonight").
Except that people's hours are not based on solar noon, they are based on whatever the country has arbitrarily chosen. If you look at a daylight map, you can be misled by multiple hours. Or if we're near a solstice and they're far from the equator, there will be gross inaccuracies. So you still need a translation into "local time". That means either doing math in your head, or having the computer reply "four hours and 35 minutes until start of business". Both of those are more awkward than taking "4:25" and classifying it in your head the same way you classify your own times.
# Before abolishing time zones
# After abolishing time zones We are just used to the insanity that is timezones. Of course, I say this because I have to deal with time and timezones every day at work and bugs are always prevalent. Each DST switch there are new bugs we find; every time we change our core date and time code there are bugs. Just painful.In the end, we'd build new tools and intuitions around time. People would adapt and my life would be measurably better (though not completely solved; scheduling anything across a date boundary is odd. No one thinks of 1am as "tomorrow" but instead as "later tonight").