| > they're proposing using UTC everywhere which is what lots of people already do. "A lot of people"? I use UTC for a lot of things, because I'm writing code. But when I travel, I certainly don't use UTC everywhere; my phone shows me the time for "Roaming" and "Home", and that's incredibly useful for me to guess at e.g., what time to break for lunch, when we're nearing close of business hours, when I ought to get to bed so that I get a good night's sleep, etc.. I suppose the really crucial "standard" we're talking about is the associations we have with different times, and timezones are the (official) attempt to keep that meaning consistent around the world. I doubt it'll work -- partly just because to make this shift: -- everyone who operates mostly locally would have to relearn those time meanings (all except the English... Hmm; why are they the only ones who don't have to suffer? Perhaps the new "fixed" time should be based on the most populous time zone) -- everyone who switches time zones regularly will have to learn a new set of time meanings for every zone they travel to. To be sure, the second set of people have it hardest (until the phone apps catch up and provide that info automatically). But the first group of people -- the vast majority -- will make sure this doesn't happen easily. |