this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2023
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[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

………….. what? You know I don’t mean that working 09:00-17:00 would be everyone’s shift, right? If your normal time zone offset is -8, then your working hours are 17:00-01:00

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, I know. And now if you want to know when to schedule a meeting with someone far away, you have to consider that where you are, working hours are 22:00 to 06:00, and where they are working hours are 13:00 to 21:00. Knowing that is just a different way of having timezones.

Timezones are only annoying when they change, or when you have to do things that cross between them. If you want to get rid of them, you need a way to solve the problem that timezones solve, ideally without having the same problem but with more steps.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Today, you have to consider where a person is to schedule a meeting. Nothing is changing here. You’re just arguing to argue.

If I say, “are you free at 13:00?” No one has to say “well, is that 13:00 your time?” It’s just clear

We ALREADY have this system. We just reference the UTC when talking about time.

Obviously it takes some getting used to and that makes you uncomfortable, but it’s no more difficult switching than switching from a 12 hour clock to a 24 hour clock.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's really not arguing just to argue. What you're talking about is just timezones with extra steps, so why not stick to having a time zone?

Right now, I'm GMT-5, and if I'm scheduling something, I can look in their slack profile and see that they're GMT-8, and adjust accordingly. If we get rid of timezones, I have to know where they are, and what normal working hours are where that is. The simplest way to do that is a big table of offsets from some standard starting point, which is exactly what a time zone is.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I woke up at 7am.

What time was it for you when I woke up?

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I woke up at 14:00 GMT. Did I wake up early, or sleep in?

A time without an associated time zone or location is always lacking sufficient information to convey the full context of what the time means.

Timezone issues arise when events cross timezone boundaries. If we use timezones, it can be tricky to know what specific points in time correspond to in other timezones without additional information. If we all use GMT, it's difficult to know what a time actually means without additional information.
Since we care about where the sun is in the sky, and also when events happen relative to one another, it's not an easy situation to just make work.

It's why a proper timestamp includes timezone offset information, since that's easier to work with that geospatial coordinate offset.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I can see you still don’t understand.

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago