[geeks] Now for something completely geek

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 02:42:03AM -0500, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
> The whole reason DST exists is because people can't decouple themselves
> from what "time" things are "supposed to" happen.  These same people sit
> in traffic for two hours a day starting at 0630 local time to be at work
> by 0830, spend most of their "lunch hour" sitting in more traffic
> because everyone else is taking lunch -at the same time-, and then spend
> another two hours trying to get home.


It's more rooted in biology than you think. At one time people had three times.

1. Get up at sunrise.

2. Eat lunch when the sun was overhead.

3. Go to bed when the sun set.

The privledged "ruling class" was able to get up and go to bed when they wanted.

As towns and cities became more affluent and mechanical technology progressed
clocks were installed in town halls, but most people ignored them, they still
followed the three times. Each town clock was set to "offical" local time.

Watches were invented for naval navigation, when they became cheap enough 
to be carried around, they were carried by people who wore them to show
they were rich enough to own one, not that they cared about the time.

The concept of standard time was invented for the railroads. If for
example, a train left town A at 10am local time, arrived at town B at
9:58am local time, and so on, no one would be able to maintain the
schedules or follow them. The engineer would have to reset his watch
every town he came to.

A failed experiment in "world time" aka "internet time" was funded by the
Swatch corportation. It flopped due to a really bad mistake on their part.
They wanted to launch a satellite from the space station MIR that sent out
radio signals in "beat" (their name for it) time. it was to be coupled
with a big promotion which included personal messages being broadcast by the
satellite as it circled the earch. 

The problem is the Russian space authority used a frequency in the Russian
land mobile radio band. When the promotion was announced, after the satellite
was already on MIR, it was found out that the frequency was in the middle
of the U.S. 2 meter ham band. It would intefere with already exisiting 
services which could not be moved. 

There was a big stink raised, hams around the world boycotted Swatch, 
and the project was canceled. Without the big promotion "beat" time
faded into oblivion. 

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM
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