Hacker News Reader

Comment by jessriedel | Hacker News Reader

Right, but if you only use UTC then you can't tell when it's appropriate to call people or schedule meeting in various parts of the world. ("OK, this person is in Hong Kong and I want to schedule the meeting at 11:00 UTC. What time does the sun rise in Hong Kong?")

View on HN

It seems like this is no different than the current situation. Today, you look up what time it is in Hong Kong. In UTC world, you look up what hours are business hours in Hong Kong.

It is really. 'Business hours' isn't scientifically defined. If I say to Google, 'time in Melbourne', I'll see it's 3.11AM. And if I need to know what time it is in three of my offices, I can save those cities in my clock and swipe between them at any time.

UTC would make some things easier and some things harder. I think it would make reliably scheduling meetings easier.

Suppose you want to schedule a phone call for two weeks from now with your colleague in Melbourne. That's currently kind of challenging. It's fairly easy to accidentally agree to an inconsistent time. What if that two weeks straddles a DST change in one country, but not the other?

In UTC world, you agree to a single time, and there's no confusion. To pick an appropriate time, just look up the range of business hours in Melbohrne, and intersect those hours with the business hours wherever you are.

I don't really see how your google or clock app examples are compelling. Just google "business hours in Melbourne", and then save those in an app or wherever if you think you'll want that information again soon.

    > I can save those cities in my clock and swipe between them at any time.

If everyone used UTC, you could have just one clock, and turn it into a (possibly overlapping) pie chart - a different colour for each of your office's (approximate) business hours.

Yeah. China has one time-zone, but is wide enough for five, and they already treat time like this.

The last week has been stupid, with UK and Europe already switching back to standard time with the US lagging on DST.

UTC Now! (Sent at 16:16 UTC)

That's exactly my point. userbinator suggested that scheduling things would be easier if everyone used UTC. I'm saying this wouldn't actually improve anything, because you'd still have to check a local quantity (business hours, local time, or whatever) for each person.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com