I have to rethink my priorities I guess.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    20 hours ago

    We used to do that in the 19th century before standard time was a thing with railways. Though scheduling an online meeting with anyone outside your city would be hell, for example a 9:00am meeting in New York City would be 8:48am in Boston and 9:12am in DC.

    You should have also have a read on Japan’s time system before 1873 in the Meiji period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_clock

    It breaks the day and night in 6 parts each. These parts are longer in summer and shorter in winter, corresponding to a changing length of the work day, which is what you were describing. Certain aspects were retained in Japanese vocabulary like 午 still used to represent noon like in afternoon (but using the standard 24h clock), or the word for snack derived from the number 8 because that was what represented the time 2/3s of the way through the day when labourers of the day typically took a break and had some tea and a light meal.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      17 hours ago

      We used to do that in the 19th century before standard time was a thing with railways.

      No, with railroads each city had their own time. I’m not suggesting that. I’m saying that time zones should be arranged so that solar noon falls close to 12pm. With DST solar noon can be as late as 1:30pm, or perhaps even later in badly designed time zones. That’s dumb. Solar noon should be close to noon. We shouldn’t mess with that. If that makes certain other things like commuting or sending kids to school inconvenient, we should change the hours at which those activities happen.

      Or, just use UTC for the time for everything and never change it. Then everyone’s in the same time zone, and you no longer have to wonder what time it is in Baku. You’d still have to do a bit of digging to know what normal work hours and normal sleeping hours are in Baku if you wanted to contact someone there though.

      • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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        16 hours ago

        I agree that doing away with conventions like “9-to-5” would be a good idea, and just adjust schedules to whatever is healthiest rather than try to conform to a fixed system where not necessary. In China with a single timezone, the regions far west of Beijing supposedly just go about their day with offset schedules.

        I’m saying that time zones should be arranged so that solar noon falls close to 12pm.

        I suppose you might have meant that, but you did say in the earlier reply, quote, “Solar noon should be at 12pm” which would suggest each city would have its own noon so that it can be true for most people. Maybe I’m being too literal bordering on facetious, so I’ll stop there. Sorry for my misinterpretation of your comment.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          15 hours ago

          which would suggest each city would have its own noon

          No, it would suggest that each person should have their own personal noon, if you’re being pedantic.