OT: Danger! Time warp!

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I confuse some people by saying "I'll see you about 11 or 12 in the morning". They say "12 isn't in the morning". Pedants.

The time or the weather?

[Dave Liquorice]

Quite, if the wage slaves want it "light in the evening when they get home" just go to work a couple of hours earlier". The "working day" of 9 to 5 is asymetric around noon, it should be 8 to 4. Even then it's geting dark by 4 mid winter up here and we aren't *really* north.

Eh? The amount of daylight is the same for a given day, just that the wage slaves waste an hour or so of it in the mornings.

UTC and atomic time are kept within a second or so of each other by having leap seconds every so often.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Unless you used to work for the railways/buses/military, I find it most odd that you think of time in that way. Most people would say "9pm" not "twenty one hundred hours", which is damn stupid if you think about it, there are not hundreds of hours.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

It has to be the same (setting a clock isn't doing anything that could change it). I'm not sure why almost everybody seems to think otherwise.

I know it greatly increases to complexity of handling time all over the world.

There SHOULD be 25 timezones (If you think 24, maybe you forgot that the International Date Line is NOT one of those 24 timezone boundaries).

That number gets to somewhere around 30 to 40 with the use of non-whole-hour offsets (there are none in the US, but one in Canada).

The number of timezones is several hundred because of the DST mess (mostly differing transition times).

Apparently the use of leap seconds was started in 1972 and so far 27 have been added. The average frequency is decreasing slowly.

There was a leap second at the end of 2016. I was going to see how it affected my computer's clock, but I missed it (at least it was for a good reason).

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

At one time it was believed that life was impossible except between the latitudes of about 23 and 66 degrees.

[Mark Lloyd]

THAT "hundred hours" doesn't make sense, but 0-23 is simpler than 12-11 twice (with that M stuff).

[rbowman]

Care to list the cultural or scientific breakthroughs from the equatorial nations?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Curry. Reggae Spliffs Blow-pipes Serious psychedelics The boomerang Surfing

Point is, why be inside learning computer prorgamming when you can be outside, smoking a spliff, having a curry and surfing on the coral sands?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

[Simon Jones]

In fact they were not made in the equatorial regions.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Maybe, but most people aren't used to it, since the traditional clock has only 12 hours marked around it. It might work better with 24 markings around the clock, but that would be crowded.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

True, and that's a good example of the big difference between "simpler" and what people are used to.

I think the way I'd do it is to have BIG markings at the 4 "corners" (top, bottom, left, right; 0, 6, 12, 18), regular markings on the even hours (2, 4, 8, 10, 14, 16, 20, 22) and smaller markings for the hours in between (1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23),

Anyway, it's better to use digital displays. What you read IS the actual hour:minute:second without the need to figure it out from the position of the hands.

BTW, it seems to be true that for most people, the only benefit of having a clock show seconds is that it's easy to see when it's working.

[Max Demian]

Not so good to see relative times: an analogue dial makes it easier to see how long it is between 10:40 and 11:00 without having to do any mental arithmetic: just look at the angles.

Pulse rate? Timing half a minute to heat custard in a microwave?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

There just isn't room for 24 things on a dial. Perhaps hours should be longer?

But hands give you an immediate idea of where you are in the day without any thought. Look at the speedo or revcounter in your car, you can tell if it's slow or fast without needing to know the exact number.

It used to be for timing things, until the stopwatch function was added to watches.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

That's one of two things I've never managed to do. I can never find my pulse.

The other thing is body temperature. Sticking a medical thermometer under my tongue never gives me more than about 30C. Yet a doctor always gets the correct result, so I'm not broken inside.

A microwave has a timer. On mine I never bother with the complicated buttons, I just press "start", which gives me 30 seconds. If I want 5 minutes I press start 10 times.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

You mean people were even stupider than they are now? Surely that's not possible?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

They don't. Everyone I know realises it gives you more or less light in the evening, and more or less light in the morning.

Government departments just love making rules and regulations for the sake of it, presumably to create jobs for themselves.

What was the reason?

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I've never liked the idea of pensions, I prefer simple savings accounts.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

Nice and even, none of this 18 hours a day darkness in winter.

[rbowman]

Markings around it? Gods, you are backward. I will admit to having one Timex wristwatch with an analog display and it does have small numerals for 13 to 23.