16 Comments
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Don Parda's avatar

I think you grossly underestimate the flexibility of the human biological clock. However, I would get rid of daylight savings time.

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dbu's avatar

I just love it. So presumably a non-starter. I'm way over-fond of simple clarity.

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Robert Labossiere's avatar

Yes but do we measure time in metric or imperial?

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Lloyd Alter's avatar

I love this stuff.

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Robert Labossiere's avatar

Or. Ok. Here is my chat message. If you have a minute. I'm 72 and considering a fat bike. Kent recommended an ebike made in US. Lectric XP 3.0 step through. Does not ship to Canada. Besides we are avoiding US products for the moment. Kent suggested you may know similar best Canadian product. Personally I'm not convinced about ebikes. I'm fairly fit.

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Robert Labossiere's avatar

By the way, do you know Kjel Oslund? He was involved in an alt-energy group in Toronto for many years.

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Lloyd Alter's avatar

In Roman sundial days there were only 12 hours and they varied in length depending on the time of year, and there was no time at night. then when they figured out water clocks they added another 12 hours for night time and divided them equally.

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Lloyd Alter's avatar

The French revolutionaries tried to fix this and give us metric time but it never caught on. https://svalbard.watch/pages/about_decimal_time.html

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Lloyd Alter's avatar

With 60 seconds and minutes we measure it Babylonian. https://soldatwatch.com/blogs/journal/why-does-an-hour-have-60-minutes

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Robert Labossiere's avatar

Evidently:) btw sent you a message in chat re Kent Peterson and bikes.

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Lloyd Alter's avatar

I am hopeless in figuring out chat I hope I can find it

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Robert Labossiere's avatar

In the app its the overlapping word balloons icon. Scroll through to you name.

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Johann's avatar

Maybe you are aware of that: Swiss watchmaker Swatch proposed “Internet time” in 1998(!).

As their write on their website:

“Why use Internet Time?

Internet Time exists so that we do not have to think about timezones. For example, if a New York web-supporter makes a date for a chat with a cyber friend in Rome, they can simply agree to meet at an "@ time" - because internet time is the same all over the world.”

Source: https://www.swatch.com/en-us/internet-time.html

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Lloyd Alter's avatar

Yes, Swatch time didn't quite work out. There have been a number of attempts at this.

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Thomas L. Hutcheson's avatar

But precisely because so many os us are on "internet time" the "standard" local time does less harm. As for things that DO have to be coordinated locally (school times) or within firms (starting/ closing times). Would these have to be communicated to everyone weekly ( ?) And which daylight cue woud we work off of? School starts at 8 sun time and let out at 3 sun time. Should we adjust the length of the hour, too so there would always be 6 hours between sunrise and noon?

Not well thought out!

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Bob BAAL's avatar

I vote for the way the Japanese used to do it. Variable length hours! so, there are always the same number of hours between Sunrise and mid-day and similarly the same number of hours between mid-day and sunset. Simples!

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