5AM is 5AM, don't embarrass yourself any further

[FindTheTruth]

made me laugh

twitter.com/inihelene/status/1315693451137232897

It took me a while to get my head around the fact that China has only one time zone for the whole massive country, which goes across five standard time zones. So in the summer the sun can be in the middle of the sky (so what you'd think should be about noon) at 7am in the eastern regions, and in the winter you don't get sunrise till 10.30am in the western regions. It must be really weird! You go forward 3 and a half hours just by walking across a border!

Ok, I did not know that until now!!

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I was taught when I was studying history that in the Middle Ages there was somewhere in Europe (can't now remember the exact places) where you could be in one year on a town, get on a horse and ride for a day and be in a different year, ride for another day to be in another town and be in a third year. And if you did it on the right days you could then go back to the first town and be in a fourth year. I started to understand why locals in England often dated documents with "in the second year of the reign of Henry II" rather than "in the year of Our Lord 1156": at least you could be reasonably certain when Henry II had come to the throne!

And we think that remembering that it's 9am in New York when it's 2pm in London is difficult.

Until trains spread across the UK every town pretty much kept its own time (noon when the sun was highest).

I suppose if you don't roll out of bed until 3pm (like certain teenagers in this house) then 5am and 10am are pretty much the same thing?

Aesopfable
Until trains spread across the UK every town pretty much kept its own time (noon when the sun was highest).

There's a clock up on the wall above the Nails in Bristol which has two minute hands, one showing Bristol Time and the other Railway Time. Or at least, there used to be; it might not be there any more.

I wonder what it would be like if the whole world did use the same date/time. It would make 10am feel completely different around the world. Morning in some places and evening in others.

Half the inhabitants of the world would be made ill by being forced to be perpetually on night-shifts; or else the official time would be quietly ignored by everyone, and factories, offices and schools would open at 8/9pm and stay open until 5am in places where that was when it was light.

Yes I meant more the second one. So just picked one time for everyone to use and then did things at the appropriate time of day, so school could be 3pm to 9pm or 15:00 to 21:00.

I quite like the idea, it's such a pain translating times for different time zones.

Maybe it would make sense for timestamp type things, calendars etc to be reported in both local and UTC.

@testing987654321

Yes I meant more the second one. So just picked one time for everyone to use and then did things at the appropriate time of day, so school could be 3pm to 9pm or 15:00 to 21:00.

I quite like the idea, it's such a pain translating times for different time zones.

But that would sooooo much more confusing. Instead of just looking at a time zone map and thinking 'it's 3am in San Francisco now. If I wait 6 hours it will be 9am there and 5pm here, that should work', which literally can be done by looking at the clock on your phone for 10 seconds, everyone would have to know what timings other countries had decided to use, so it would be more like '11am, ok. Is that day or night for San Francisco? Are they in office hours yet? Aargh, I can never remember if the US is earlier hours or later hours than the UK!' It would be utter chaos, requiring you to have a detailled knowledge of where the sun was in relation to wherever you wanted to contact without the benefit of a clock to help you.

I have a feeling that airlines still run on GMT all over the world, and just translate into local times for the locals wherever they happen to be landing or taking off.

But it seems to me that for those locals, trying to run on GMT (which nobody else including much of the UK would agree on anyway) would be more difficult, not easier.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I have a feeling that airlines still run on GMT all over the world, and just translate into local times for the locals wherever they happen to be landing or taking off.

But it seems to me that for those locals, trying to run on GMT (which nobody else including much of the UK would agree on anyway) would be more difficult, not easier.

They use UTC, the rationalised successor to GMT. So do computers etc, all the TZs are set relative to it,

The time zone I can never remember is Bangalore - I just checked it's UTC+5:30

In the past of course the day was determined by dawn, midnight and sunset - which in some cultures led to the divisions of time varying in length through the year, I believe.

The main difference between them as far as ordinary use is concerned is that GMT was standardised in 1884 ( am still unsure how that came to be the case at a conference in Washington, but it happened) whereas UTC was adopted properly in 1967.

Noon UTC is the same time as noon GMT, so in effect what is run on is GMT with a different set of initials.

(give or take a leap-year second, which I don't think they have yet quite sorted out?)

But that would sooooo much more confusing.

You have a point. I just work on a system which is inconsistent in applying user time zones or storing them. So when they raise something as happening at 9.31am I will be checking the logs for 8.31 am and 10.31 am as well. So for my extremely specific purposes 5am meaning 5am everywhere would solve that issue.

Sorry I know this has nothing to do with anything.

@testing987654321

But that would sooooo much more confusing.

You have a point. I just work on a system which is inconsistent in applying user time zones or storing them. So when they raise something as happening at 9.31am I will be checking the logs for 8.31 am and 10.31 am as well. So for my extremely specific purposes 5am meaning 5am everywhere would solve that issue.

Sorry I know this has nothing to do with anything.

Yes, and it wouldn't make much difference if it's only an hour either way. No more so than when we switch from BST to UTC and vice versa twice a year, but globally it would be awful.

Maybe we could all just petition your work to sort their computer system out. That would be easier.

So for my extremely specific purposes 5am meaning 5am everywhere would solve that issue.

I used to be in the army and we always gave times in local and zulu time or only zulu time. Zulu being GMT. Which meant that if you were stationed in Hong Kong you could be sure that if you said 14:00Z everyone would know what you meant. All messages were timed in zulu time to be doubly sure about that.

I always thought it was pretty efficient.

I'm on a board where we have to change our user profiles twice a year at the same time as the clocks going forward or back, so that the time-stamp on our posts will be the same as the time we posted them. Each time-change there is a period during which some people seem to be replying to posts before the post they are replying to went up on the board. It can be a very strange feeling to have someone seeming to answer you an hour before you said something!

Well, I am definitely too old for Twitter as about the only bit of the tweet I DID understand was the 5am bit!
Also, must be bored at work as then wasted 10 minutes reading this thread trying to work out why it is in FWR.
Oh and the clocks go back next week* btw Just saying..

• in the UK that is

Maybe we could all just petition your work to sort their computer system out. That would be easier.

You'd think so, wouldn't you? I reckon world peace is an easier task.