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Ask HN: Why did this idea of Internet Time not work?

7 点作者 alexitosrv大约 16 年前

9 条评论

parenthesis大约 16 年前
What problem does it solve that UTC doesn't?<p>Its time unit (1 beat := 1000th of a (mean solar) day) doesn't have any nice relation to the units of time with which people are already very familiar (seconds, minutes, hours).
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kaens大约 16 年前
Because everybody is already used to telling time in a certain way, and doesn't want to take the time to learn a new one, put in the effort to learn a new one, or deal with the initial wave of missed meetings and general confusion that would result as larger portions of the population moved to a different way of telling time.
mooism2大约 16 年前
Most people only have to worry about time zones when they go on holiday, even in the internet age, so they gain nothing.<p>It forces people to give up familiar concepts of hours, minutes, and seconds, for no good reason.<p>It forces people in some locations to get used to the date changing during daylight hours (big change if you are used to the date changing at midnight, after or just before you go to bed).
ryanwaggoner大约 16 年前
A better question might be: why would anyone think this <i>would</i> work?
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axod大约 16 年前
Because powers of 10 are less useful than other more useful numbers like 60. That's why IMHO metric isn't generally as useful for day to day uses. eg you get a dozen rolls from the baker so you can divide them between 2,3,4 or 6 people. Getting 10 would be silly.
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showerst大约 16 年前
I think time zones are actually pretty useful. If I have to call Frankfurt or Tokyo, it makes a big difference whether it's 4pm their time or 6pm.<p>If things were the same worldwide then I'd have no idea if it's the middle of the night in the place I'm trying to call unless I've already memorized it. With time zones I can just look at a world clock.
lutorm大约 16 年前
Why is the US still not using metric? That's a <i>compelling</i> change, which would align it with the rest of the world. And it's still not happening. The chances of the entire world adopting a new time scheme just for the heck of it are zero.
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aristus大约 16 年前
Is this a serious question? Internet Time was a marketing gimmick by a watch company. It's like asking why "Bat Time" didn't work.<p>Me, I'm still holding out for this:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar</a>
trickjarrett大约 16 年前
Two reasons: 1. There's no GOOD reason for this change to happen. It's change for change's sake. Sure it's more logical, but standards of time or measurement aren't changed for just that reason, they get changed when they're shown to be BROKEN and while our current time system is less than optimal, it's far from broken. Blame the Babylonians.<p>2. Establishment.<p>Dethroning a company, which has marketing, and products, and such is one thing. But to dethrone a concept requires a great big change, cataclysmic in some ways. Ignoring the first point, Internet time could have succeeded if it only reached critical mass.<p>Imagine if Twitter decided that starting today they only showed message times in Internet time. Would that be enough for people to quit twitter? Possibly. But would they lose that many people? It's really more about the here and now, so people shrug, call it eccentricity, and the geeks go about educating people trying to make them understand the merits of the new time system.<p>If it and Twitter hung on, more and more people would come to understand it. This is the first hurdle now behind us.<p>Many of us Americans understand the metric system, but the government still uses miles, feet, lbs, gallons, etc. So the people then have to begin calling for the social change, and dealing with those who didn't want the change. This is the second major hurdle. Even if a loud and vocal group advocated the change, it would require a great deal of reason to enact the change.<p>Consider all the clocks that would need replacing. The epic sweeping changes to the clock and watch industry. They would fight tooth and nail to avoid such change. The costs would be astronomical. Sure they'd see a surge in sales from those who adopted the new system, but I doubt they would see much profit after the change to marketing, production, etc.