Don't look now, but business is global. Media is global. Communication is global. So why are we still torturing ourselves with local time? In the United States, why are we double-torturing ourselves with local time aggravated by daylight saving time? Enough! Why don't we all get behind a switch to GMT EVERYWHERE?
5:05 PM * PERMALINK * 7 comments
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Comments:
There is nothing confusing about time zones. If I go to Paris, I know that 6am is morning there, the same as morning is 6am in Bangkok. What is confusing is the way countries draw their time lines in awkward places. Here in the US there are some states that have weird ways of drawing the time zone change, just as it is weird that India chose to be 15 minutes off the rest of way time is set around the planet, or the way China forces the entire country, which should be at least 5 zones into one time zone. There is always GMT for those who want to use it, but local time should reflect the position of the sun in a way all on the planet are accustomed to. What would make more sense is to follow the Biblical way of keeping time and making the day start when the sun sets. It was the Romans who changed the beginning of day to the dead of night (midnight). Anyway....this would be a global undertaking that would only work with divine intervention....
Already exists - UTC. Its been in use on IT systems for a good few years now. It is basically GMT, but accepted as a standard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTC (OK, referencing wikipedia isn't smart, but it had the best easily findable explanation).
Time sensitive software products have been using UTC for ages - RSA SecureID as one obvious example.
We don't do it because people are not global, they are local. Keeping local time helps everyone coordinate their lives. If you flew from New York to Salt Lake City your watch wouldn't change, but the local rhythm of the people would. McDonalds would stop serving breakfast 2 hours later than in New York, but you wouldn't be sure about that. There would need to be different time policies for each location.
End of day points for accounting would either need to be at different clock times or else stores would need to stop all their registers in the middle of the busiest times to figure out that day's receipts.
How often are twins born in the wrong order due to time shifts? It would be rare, but a great story to tell later on. However, if we kept everyone's clock the same then writing the date on checks or other date sensitive materials would become a headache because the date would change in the middle of your day.
Right now, airplanes, the military, and global businesses are doing just fine. And except for some general odd computer tasks, nobody gives a card about Swatch Internet Time.
Yeah, right. Then we can work on the METRIC SYSTEM!!!
Basically, because it's not only NOT NICE to fool Mother nature, it can also be extremely dangerous. Since people's biological clocks are set differently because of the cycles of the Sun, it would be tempting fate to do such an illogical thing. Like extreme cold weather in certain states can affect people's moods, so could trying to pervert basic rules of nature. You'll end up paying dearly for it sooner or later. Men are NOT machines no matter how big your head and ego are...
Not only would I like to see universal time adopted, I'd like to see metric time and calendar implemented as well. Is it going to happen? Given the push-back the regular metric system gets in the US, it seems VERY unlikely.
And the 7-11 store (so named since it was open from 7am to 10pm) would have to change it's name in each time zone 8-12, 9-1, 10-2, etc...
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