#*@X&$ !! daylight savings time got me again! (2 Viewers)

[drobbins]

We already have GMT.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Oh...and damn us for not wanting to be taxed by some monarchy without representation in the government! Rebellious, us colonies!

 

[MarkHastings]

Ok, let's say we went with your system...

For the sake of argument, let's say it is 9am in New York. That means California is 9am also, but the sun won't be in the same position (as NY) for 3 more hours.

Now let's say you owned a nationwide store (like Wal-Mart). In CA, do you send your workers in at 9am (when it's pitch black out) or do you send them in a noon (which would be the sun position as 9am)?

If you send them in at noon, then how do you distinguish the CA store with the NY store? Do you say "Californian stores are open from Noon to midnight, and the NY stores are open from 9am to 9pm"??? What if you visited another time zone? Wouldn't you need to relearn what times things opened and closed?

What time do stores in Kansas open? Wouldn't you need to draw a LINE that determines the time differentials? Isn't that what time zones do?


And what about in the ocean, islands, or people who don't have clocks? Someone can determine the time of day by their coordinates and the angle of the sun, but if we went with one 'all inclusive' time, then how would these people know what time it was? Isn't navigation based on the suns position in the sky?

 

[RobertR]

The question remains. Why would, say, Sydney agree to say that local time=GMT? What's privileged about GMT, other than as a reference?

 

[drobbins]

If you don't have a clock why would you care what time it is? As far as boats on the ocean, why would they care? How does our air force operate with bases in one zone and missions in another? I am sure they don't change their watches as they fly around.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

The typical American way.

(and believe me, I'm as American as they come)

 

[cafink]

I agree with drobbins. I've always thought the idea of time zones was kind of silly. Waking up to the sunrise at 1:30 am or 11:00 pm is no less sensible than at 7:00 am; we just happen not to be used to it. Why not have everyone agree on a single time and let businesses and schools open whenever they like?

 

[RobertR]

That has nothing to do with DST or time zones. It appears you've shifted from arguing against DST and time zones to arguing that there should be a hodgepodge of opening and closing times for businesses. Local time is still local time, and the idea of "standard business hours" would still hold true, no matter what numbers you put on them.

 

[drobbins]

Currently where I live this is the general times business open:

• Farmers - before I get up
• Lumber yards - 6 to 7
• Auto parts stores - 7 to 8
• Schools - 7 to 8
• Big chain stores - 24/7
• Office business hours where I work - 8 till 5
• Hair dressers - 10
• Restraints that don't serve breakfast - 11
• Factory shifts I mentioned before

I don't see any correlation between these opening times and the position of the sun in the sky.
The time the clock says is a reference point set on when the sun is in a certain position at a certain time of year. We use that reference point to plan our days. If there were one time for the whole planet, the reference point would be GMT or the international date line. It is just a change on what the reference point is based on. I think the people who won't understand it, are the ones who think a guitar plays louder if the volume goes to "11"

Check out this article about the history of time zones. http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/timezones.htm

Looks like mankind made it to the year 1884 with out time zones. China spans 5 time zones but uses only one time for the whole country. Those 3 billion people can handle it.

 

[MarkHastings]

But they DO! Farmers get up early to get a jump on the day and they try to get a lot of the "grunt" work done before noon, when the sun is at it's hottest.

But if we went with your method, what if the sun was at it's highest peak at 6am? That would mean the farmers would have to get up at midnight to start their day. That's crazy.

But what you're suggesting is, the farmers get up when the sun starts to rise...but if the sun rises on the east coast, 3 hours earlier than on the west coast, then won't farmers be waking up in the east coast earlier than the west coast? I mean, isn't that what time zones do for us? They help define when the sun will rise? It rises the same time in each zone, but with your method, it won't.

That's all fine and good, but it's no more confusing than time zones. In fact, I still think time zones are less confusing because it puts people on a schedule that the rest of the world follows.

 

[drobbins]

But it wouldn't be "midnight", it would be 24:00

 

[MarkHastings]

Dave, how about world clocks? If you had a clock of every country, you could tell (just by looking at the clock) what was going on in their neck of the world...

If my friend was in Italy and I looked at the Italy clock and it said "3am", then I know my friend is sleeping.

But if there were no time zones, the Italy clock would say the same time as mine (i.e. like 9pm), so then how would I know what was going on in Italy? It's 9pm there, but how would I know if people were sleeping or not? Is the sun up or down?

Basically, I'd have to do some math to figure out how many hours they were ahead of me to figure out where the sun is, so I know what's going on there.

Which is exactly what time zones do for us. Getting rid of them just seems so silly.

 

[MarkHastings]

This is true, but then how do you figure out what time they DO get up (if you needed to communicate with them from around the world)?

If I know that most farmers get up when the sun rises, I can determine (by the use of time zones) precisely when all farmers get up, no matter where they are in the world. If we all went with the same time, how do you figure it out?

OK, I realize that there isn't a real reason why I'd need to know this, but you get the picture. There are lots of examples where people need to know the time in another country, to determine how things are functioning.

Isn't it a lot easier to know that california is three hours behind, rather than remembering that Wal-Mart opens at 5am instead of 8am???

 

[ThomasC]

DING DING DING!!!

 

[cafink]

As I said before, I have always thought that time zones were a poor idea. However, Mark, you have raised some interesting points that have led me to rethink the issue, particularly with your last post (knowing what's going on in another part of the world by checking the time). That said, I still don't think you're giving drobbins' idea enough credit, and some of your arguments against it don't make sense to me. For example,



Crazy? How is the clock reading "12:00" at sunrise any crazier than the clock reading "6:00" at sunrise? The farmers get up at sunrise? What possible difference could it make what numbers happen to be showing on their clock at that time?

 

[MarkHastings]

I'm not saying that it's crazy that the farmer has to get up at midnight...I do understand the concept that it doesn't matter what the clock says, what matters is where the sun's position is...so why would anyone be against time zones? All they do is put the suns position into perspective all the way around the world.

I know that wherever I travel in the US, I know that, if I needed to awake at sunrise, it will always be the same time, no matter what state I'm in. I wouldn't need to do some weird sort of math calculation to determine when I'm supposed to wake up.

And again, I'm putting this into simplistic terms...I bet there are far more complex time issues that would be screwed up if not for time zones.

What I'm basically saying is - the concept of time would be COMPLETELY different depending on where you were located in the world and that can't be a good thing.

 

[Cees Alons]

We already HAVE a general worldwide time. It's called GMT.

What we're discussing here, at least Dave likes to do that, is whether or not countries/states would like to use a private offset to GMT to synchronize the clocks throughout their countries/states and signify the current position of the sun in the process. At the moment, they obviously prefer that all over the world. Dave suggests they shouldn't.

(DST is a general agreed upon change, during a specific period of the year, to that offset.)

 

[KurtEP]

Farmers who have milk cattle get up early because that's when the cows are milked. A lot of farming is done in midday because that's when the sun is hottest. If you're making hay, you can't do it first thing in the morning because the dew will be on the ground. It has to be dry to bale, unless you want a barn fire. Oh, and you also wear long sleeve shirts when baling hay in the hot sun, to avoid chewing up your skin when throwing the hay around.

They may do things differently now, but I worked an angus farm for 8 years when I was a kid, and that's the way we did it.

 

[RobertR]

With the exception of the 24/7 stuff and early farmers, all of those are during daylight. So there IS a correlation with the sun. Name three retail businesses that are open, say, 8 pm to 5 am (NOT 24 hours).

 

[MarkHastings]

Exactly! With your suggestion, time and clocks basically become meaningless - and you don't see that as a bad thing???

With time zones, if I travel overseas, I just readjust my watch to the local time and I am INSTANTLY in sync with how the local areas will function. I may not be able to speak the language, but I can pretty much count on businesses opening at 9am.

Or how about this? What if you went pack packing for the day in another country...Without any real reference to time, how would you know when to get out of the wilderness? Imagine the sun being out and your watch says 9pm? How much longer do you have until the sun goes down and it gets dangerous out? No one wants to have to retreat from unfamiliar territory in the dark.