forresto:

Um, have you ever heard of timezones?

Flatline:

Um, have you ever heard of timezones?

 

That... doesn't make the thing any less silly.

dhromed:

Flatline:

Um, have you ever heard of timezones?

 

That... doesn't make the thing any less silly.

It doesn't? To pick a US-centric example, if it's 8PM PST it's 1AM PST THE NEXT DAY which is technically tomorrow. I think it's purely the use of the word 'tomorrow' which is throwing people, if it simply showed tomorrow's date no-one would blink even though both are correct.

Flatline:

It doesn't? To pick a US-centric example, if it's 8PM PST it's 1AM PST THE NEXT DAY which is technically tomorrow. I think it's purely the use of the word 'tomorrow' which is throwing people, if it simply showed tomorrow's date no-one would blink even though both are correct.

WTF? The website is recording the time the message was posted, and it's taking the viewer's timezone into account (how else can it know that this message was posted "tomorrow"?). In the viewer's timezone, that message was not posted in the future. Timezones are just representations of absolute time; they don't represent time travel. The software takes the viewer's timezone into account but doesn't translate the time to the local time it should be. This is utter fail, and so are you for not seeing that.

Flatline:

forresto:

Um, have you ever heard of timezones?

Maybe, but it seems odd for it to require the user to be aware of the poster's timezone and do mental math to figure out when it was posted, especially as most of the times posted in FB are relative, as in "3 hours ago", "17 minutes ago" or "Yesterday." They picked an odd way to change their preferred style; if that is what really happened.

Now, about that "I dealt with my first whole chicken today..." bit...

Welbog:

Timezones are just representations of absolute time; they don't represent time travel.

Oh really?  So how do you explain my crossing the time zone boarder then calling my before-I'd-set-off self to remind me to bring my phone?

Zagyg:

Welbog:

Timezones are just representations of absolute time; they don't represent time travel.

Oh really?  So how do you explain my crossing the time zone boarder then calling my before-I'd-set-off self to remind me to bring my phone?

I don't have an explanation for that yet.  But when I do, I'll fly west until I'm able to call you 10 minutes ago and give it to you.

Welbog:

In the viewer's timezone, that message was not posted in the future. Timezones are just representations of absolute time; they don't represent time travel. The software takes the viewer's timezone into account but doesn't translate the time to the local time it should be. This is utter fail, and so are you for not seeing that.

Sadly, I have had to explain many, many times to people that timezones do not represent time travel.

 

TRWTF is timezones -- just get rid of the fucking things and switch to one global time.  Fuck.

morbiuswilters:

TRWTF is timezones -- just get rid of the fucking things and switch to one global time.  Fuck.

Yes; stop the earth's damn permanent turning thing. Just stop it when the sun is over America or Asia! Then, in every spot in the world, it's always the same time-of-day! You don't need to specify latitude then, either, just say "I'm at 4am."

# The Brillant Paula Bean
# Author::    derula
# Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2005-2008 Paula Bean
# License::   Originally distributed under a
#             proprietary license by Paula Bean.
#             Ruby port by derula published
#             under the same terms as Ruby's.

# This module provides a method to return the
# brillance of Paula Bean. This can be achieved
# by calling the module method get_paula.
module Paula_Bean

  # This constant stores the essence of Paula
  # Bean's brillance. This is a private
  # constant, so you MAY NOT use
  # Paula_Bean::PAULA to access it! Please use
  # the get_paula method instead.
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  # Returns Paula Bean's brillance.
  def self.get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

derula:

morbiuswilters:

TRWTF is timezones -- just get rid of the fucking things and switch to one global time.  Fuck.

Yes; stop the earth's damn permanent turning thing. Just stop it when the sun is over America or Asia! Then, in every spot in the world, it's always the same time-of-day! You don't need to specify latitude then, either, just say "I'm at 4am."

Why would it matter what time it is with a global timezone?   The only difference is that sunrise and sunset would happen at different times depending where you are.  But there's no real benefit to having the sun always come up at approximately the same numerical hour everywhere on Earth, whereas there is a benefit to just having a single time everywhere.

morbiuswilters:

Why would it matter what time it is with a global timezone?   The only difference is that sunrise and sunset would happen at different times depending where you are.  But there's no real benefit to having the sun always come up at approximately the same numerical hour everywhere on Earth, whereas there is a benefit to just having a single time everywhere.

Of course you're right, I was just babbling bullshit like ever. But I think there will be many pussies (especially in Germany) who would not want to have the day starting at 15:00 (3 pm) and ending at 3:00 (er... 3 am). Probably it would result in a time system which applies almost everywhere, except in those countries which's inhabitants would have actually sort of profited from it and brought up the whole thing in the first place, too.

# The Brillant Paula Bean
# Author::    derula
# Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2005-2008 Paula Bean
# License::   Originally distributed under a
#             proprietary license by Paula Bean.
#             Ruby port by derula published
#             under the same terms as Ruby's.

# This module provides a method to return the
# brillance of Paula Bean. This can be achieved
# by calling the module method get_paula.
module Paula_Bean

  # This constant stores the essence of Paula
  # Bean's brillance. This is a private
  # constant, so you MAY NOT use
  # Paula_Bean::PAULA to access it! Please use
  # the get_paula method instead.
  PAULA = "Brillant"

  # Returns Paula Bean's brillance.
  def self.get_paula
    return PAULA
  end
end

morbiuswilters:

just get rid of the fucking things and switch to one global time.

Or, at the very least, stop fucking around with the clocks twice a year* to try and "gain more light" or whatever feeble excuse is cited these days.

I recall a few years back trying to explain to someone that they didn't in reality "gain" or "lose" an hour when that happened - ie the flow of time didn't rupture and spew in or suck out an hour to accommodate human foibles.

* If your country/state/region, like mine, follows this moronic practice

morbiuswilters:

Why would it matter what time it is with a global timezone?   The only difference is that sunrise and sunset would happen at different times depending where you are.  But there's no real benefit to having the sun always come up at approximately the same numerical hour everywhere on Earth, whereas there is a benefit to just having a single time everywhere.

Exactly. And instead of the daylight-savings-time nonsense, you just shift the working hours of everyone twice a year.

NB: not being sarcastic. 

Flatline:

 Um, have you ever heard of timezones?

The function that prints this time string is mixing timezones the wrong way. It could print time in the poster's timezone (then Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday doesn't make any sense for the reader and should not be used), or convert it to the reader's timezone, then it can use those words. Looks like it converts to the day by using the poster's timezone, then prints the relative day by using the reader's timezone current day.

My reaction:

1. WTF?
2. Oh.
3. Wait, WTF? 

morbiuswilters:

But there's no real benefit to having the sun always come up at approximately the same numerical hour everywhere on Earth, whereas there is a benefit to just having a single time everywhere.

Eh? Of course there is. Time defines people's rhythm. 3am is ALWAYS "in the dead of night", not maybe "time for the first coffee" if you happen to be in Montana. If I fly to Australia (half way round the world) I'll have a jetlag, no matter what they call their time. However, I will know people there get up around 7am like I do at home, which makes it easier for me to adjust. Similarly, it's a lot easier and certainly more natural to remember "it's 3pm and I'm calling Hong Kong. Wait, it's eleven over there" than remembering "it's UTC xxx now, so in Hong Kong that's... eh... wait... is that day or night now?".Soon as everyone shares the same time you'll start to forget; now at least we have a mental jog nagging us about how to remember times aren't universal.

A single time, on the other hand, brings no advantages I can think of right now. But undoubtedly there are some; I'd love to hear them...

Welbog:

The website is recording the time the message was posted, and it's taking the viewer's timezone into account (how else can it know that this message was posted "tomorrow"?)

 

 Did some digging into how Facebook does things when we were hitting the "how do we deal with timezones" thing here.  I know that events of facebook have no concept of timezones.  If I create one here in Texas, say its at 3:00 tommorrow.  My friend in California looks at that same event, he also sees it as 3:00 tommorrow.  Maybe they're doing the same thing for feed activity?

 Still a WTF to do that though (in the case of recent activity).  Store a UTC timestamp on every activity, measure that against current UTC time according to the server.  Stuff like this would happen if and only if the servers' clocks were out of sync with each other.

morbiuswilters:

TRWTF is timezones -- just get rid of the fucking things and switch to one global time.

 

We do have a global time... UTC. Facebook just doesn't seem to use it.  Neither does email for that matter.  I'm used to getting emails "tomorrow" from people in Australia and China.

alegr:

Flatline:

 Um, have you ever heard of timezones?

The function that prints this time string is mixing timezones the wrong way. It could print time in the poster's timezone (then Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday doesn't make any sense for the reader and should not be used), or convert it to the reader's timezone, then it can use those words. Looks like it converts to the day by using the poster's timezone, then prints the relative day by using the reader's timezone current day.

 

I was both the poster and reader for that, and had just posted the comment.  Tomorrow.  WTF?

morbiuswilters:

But there's no real benefit to having the sun always come up at approximately the same numerical hour everywhere on Earth, whereas there is a benefit to just having a single time everywhere.

On the contrary.  With timezones, you can make a few assumptions: anywhere you are in the U.S., you can expect that your average retail business will be open from somewhere around 9 am to 5 pm, that people will eat lunch around noon, and that The Daily Show will run at 11 PM.

Were we to adopt UTC globally, Californian businesses would open around 17:00, and we'd eat lunch around 20:00, while New Yorkers would open up shop at around 14:00 and break for lunch around 17:00. It'd make things a little tougher on travelers.

Timezones make it easier for people to talk about time in the context of the average daily routine.  Even in this modern world, average human behavior is closely linked to the position of the sun in the sky. With timezones, you might ask, "What time is it in Japan?  3 AM?  Oh, I'd better not call then, Takahashi is probably sleeping!".  Without timezones, we instead are left constantly asking "It's 17:00, what time does the sun rise over Japan?".

Now, for worldwide shared services like the internet, and people who cross timezone boundaries multiple times per day -- pilots, millitary personel, etc. -- timezones are only a hinderence.  But for the average person, who crosses timezone borders no a few times a year, timezones are a handy tool for simplifying communication.

So, in short, to say that timezones have "no real benefit" is simply false. Whether that benefit outweighs the benefit of a global time is definitely debatable, however.

I'd support a stretchy clock that realigns itself with sunrise and sunset every day.  Instead of 24 time zones, every lat/lon would be its own time zone.

skippy:

We do have a global time... UTC. Facebook just doesn't seem to use it.  Neither does email for that matter.  I'm used to getting emails "tomorrow" from people in Australia and China.

The Date field in e-mails actually contains the timezone information, but it's up to the client how the time is displayed to you - some clients even let you choose between displaying the sender's local time without the timezone, or translating the time to your zone.

Zagyg:

I recall a few years back trying to explain to someone that they didn't in reality "gain" or "lose" an hour when that happened - ie the flow of time didn't rupture and spew in or suck out an hour to accommodate human foibles.

* If your country/state/region, like mine, follows this moronic practice

A couple of weeks before the most recent switch from DST to standard time in the U.S., someone asked me, in all seriousness, whether the Earth stopped turning for an hour during the changeover. I was not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

My main reason for disliking DST is the headaches caused when governments decide to move that changeover dates. When we rolled out a patch that was supposed to fix this to all of our executives' Blackberries, it broke all of them completely, causing much anger and confusion. Not to mention the fact that all of our Lotus Notes* calendar entries for that period were unreliable and the fact that my cell phone would randomly flip back and forth between EDT and EST during the period between the old changeover date and the new changeover date — a problem that recurred during the next two changeovers as well.

 

* which is, indeed, The Real WTF