[jber]

It was a nice idea but I think Swatch made a big mistake by taking their headquarters as the base to calculate it.

It needed to be an independant concept to bring other companies/competitors on board.

[chmars]

It was probably mainly a PR idea, though a good one … on the other hand, from a neutral point of view, Biel/Switzerland is not really different from Greenwich/UK as a zero point.

[Aloha]

It's an arbitrary choice, just like how Unix time is since 1970, or how UTC is timezone for Greenwich England.

[joezydeco]

Greenwich wasn't arbitrary at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Meridian_Conferen...

[Aloha]

Historical precedent and agreement make the choice no less arbitrary - 0 degrees could have been anywhere, there is no technical reason that Greenwich was chosen.

[joezydeco]

It says so right in the article.

Choosing Greenwich as 0-longitude meant that the International Date Line would be located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, avoiding a situation where it could be two dates in the same country simultaneously.

[Aloha]

Have you looked at the map for the IDL?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Internati...

That not jiggered by politics at all.

[joezydeco]

I thought we were talking about the "arbitrary" choice of Longitude 0. What's the political (and not economic) basis for the later IDL modifications?

[bluedevil2k]

Not to be too US centric, but the time standard should be set around New York City. Bankers in London and San Fran all work on NYC time.

[rmc]

What about non-bankers in London or the rest of Europe?

[jber]

Do you mean that only bankers can afford a watch ? ;-)