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[Reelya]

Bah. Just use POSIX time. To Hell with 12-hour clocks, 24-hour clocks, DST, leap seconds, time zones, minutes, hours, days, etc. Just one number that is what time it is, increments by 1 every second, and will keep doing so at that rate forever.  Simple, easy, unambiguous, and totally unrelated to arbitrary astronomical phenomena and all the complexity they add; if for some reason you care where the Sun is, you can just do the modular arithmetic to figure it out.

The main problem is that working hours and people's lives are still synced to local solar days.

One problem with everyone using universal time is best explained by example.

Currently, you call your uncle, who lives elsewhere. He says "why are you calling now, it's 3AM". You immediately know you called at a bad time without having to do any math. It's 3AM where he is, and that's unambiguous. Also, you don't have to know the time offset from where you are to where he is to know what that means. Call later.

However, let's call your uncle after we've abolished time zones. Now, he says "why are you calling now, its 1100GMT!" without knowing his location, you have no idea what that actually means in terms of waking hours at his location, so the guy needs to append some sort of "solar offset code" to the time information so that you know what actual time it is at his location, defeating the purpose of removing time zones.

If it's necessary to coordinate across time zones, just use GMT time. If you're one of the very rare people who needs to know the raw number of seconds then you can easily get that information. There's no reason to upend everyone's lives to accommodate such an obscure need.

[scourge728]

Why GMT specifically, there's so many time zones, why that one?

[bloop_bleep]

maybe molecular decay is a better unit of measurement?

Yes. It's what we use for extreme-precision atomic clocks already, for stock exchanges etc. Decay of cesium atoms.

[Trekkin]

maybe molecular decay is a better unit of measurement?

Yes. It's what we use for extreme-precision atomic clocks already, for stock exchanges etc. Decay of cesium atoms.

Well, no; the definition of the second and modern atomic clocks are based on hyperfine structural transitions, not decay. If it were based on decay, they couldn't define it using ¹³³Cs, since it's stable.

[bloop_bleep]

Oh, really? Well, that clears up a lot, since I was confused how it worked exactly because radioactive decay is exponential, not linear.

[Trekkin]

Oh, really? Well, that clears up a lot, since I was confused how it worked exactly because radioactive decay is exponential, not linear.

Well, it doesn't help that "atomic clock" is something of a misnomer. We talk about most clocks according to the oscillation they use to actually measure time; a pendulum clock, for example, physically swings a pendulum back and forth to measure out some consistent period of time. A quartz watch uses the piezoelectric effect to physically oscillate quartz. So, when we talk about atomic clocks, it's totally reasonable to assume the atoms are somehow oscillating in a way that we read out directly, and decay makes sense in that context.

What an atomic clock actually does, though, is use those transitions to tune another oscillator in a feedback loop, usually (in modern cesium and rubidium clocks) by using that oscillator to drive a maser at the frequency at which they are most readily excited and measuring either the absorption of energy or the excitation through a variety of methods. If you take the pendulum out of a pendulum clock, it stops; if you take the cesium out of a cesium clock, it drifts.

So an atomic clock is really an atomic drift corrected clock, if you will, in which case the use of hyperfine transitions makes a lot more sense.

[Mathel]

Why GMT specifically, there's so many time zones, why that one?

Because the british had enough influence when the whole timezone thing got established.

[scriver]

Fun fact: Sweden was the first country in the world to institute standard time, and if anyone bring a up New Zealand I will deny the place isn't made up

[overseer05-15]

New Zealand is a fiction created by the kiwi mafia

[Reelya]

Why GMT specifically, there's so many time zones, why that one?

Because the argument is that we should go to one time zone. What we call it isn't the point. I just used GMT as the example because it's the current default. The point is the problem occurs no matter which point of reference you use for the clock. it's no longer easy to determine the solar time at someone else's location from a brief phone call. If time zones were eliminated however, I'd definitely suggest using the GMT time-zone as the basis. Why add yet another standard? However, if there were other contenders then the obvious one would be "Beijing time" since the most people live there.

Also, if you move somewhere else currently you can just adjust your watch and all the local opening/closing times for businesses automatically adjust: office hours 9-to-5 everywhere, for example. If we have a single time zone then you don't need to change your watch, but you need to memorize different operating hours for every city you visit. For example if you're in the 9-to-5 area then west of you they open 10-to-6 and east of you they open 8-to-4. Which would be even more confusing to determine the right time when calling businesses than it is now. You'd need charts for this.

[Mathel]

During preparation for metallographic analysis, one of my schoolmates somehow managed to singe his sample.
I know both grinding and polishing involves friction, which in turns into heat, but these samples were steel, and both these steps involved water. Grinding had running water, polishing had a suspension of Al₂O₃ in water.

Also, when cleaning samples, we were supposed to use running water to clean off the Al₂O₃ used for polishing, push the water off by squirting the samples with alcohol, then use a hair dryer to evaporate the alcohol.
While squirting, the alcohol bounced off the sample and hit me in the eye. This is a lesser WTF, as while it was unexpected, it at least seems possible.

[Iduno]

Ah, that reminds me of our engineering lab. Part of the idea of the lab was to use older equipment (which also the professors may have been sabotaging) to ensure there were troubles to trouble-shoot. While running the distillation column, we learned that one of the thermocouples near the top of the column had been removed for maintenance and not replaced. I got an impromptu shower. Luckily, it high enough proof that it had completely evaporated during my walk to my next class.

In the eyes isn't probably as fun as on my hair and clothes.

[Dunamisdeos]

Today I have put honeyed pepperoni (among other things) into mac and cheese. On the one hand, it's pretty good. On the other, what am I doing with my life.

Mac n Cheese + Hotdogs is about as common as it gets.

You've simply added variation and spice. Your own vision to the softened, processed landscape of poorfolk food. Hail to the visionary. Hail Frumple.

[Kagus]

what am I doing with my life.

Tonight I'm dining on... White rice and black beans. Because that's what I've got. With a little salt and... Fuck, I dunno. I'll try and find something to add some flavor.

I was supposed to do lots of things today, and I have done precisely none of them. But hey, at least I started making dinner at 8:30, I was worried I was just going to sit here and collapse in on myself for a few more hours.

[wierd]

Hot pepper, chilli powder, garlic powder.

Alternative:  Black bean burger
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/85452/homemade-black-bean-veggie-burgers/

+ Rice Pilaf
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-a-simple-rice-pilaf-227729