Phil,

IMHO Swatch Internet Time is just a marketing gimmick.  The reasons not to use
it far exceed the reasons to use it, a major reason being that the majority of
people in the world will not have a clue as to what you are talking about.

Public attitudes towards time are rather conservative: consider the huge
public
debates when Daylight Savings Time was proposed, and when the Gregorian
calendar was adjusted, I think in the 18th century. The decimal time
introduced
after the French Revolution was promptly discarded.  I think that hours,
minutes and seconds will be around for some time to come.

UTC may be useful in global communication, but I think it will be a while
before the majority of people in New York routinely schedule lunch at 0700
UTC.


Gordon


At 08:08 AM 2/23/99 , Phil Pappas wrote:
>Hey, did anyone see the CNN story last night about the watch company
>,"Swatch" that is now selling timepieces which tell "Internet Time"?  I
>can't remember exactly, but they said one minute of normal time=about 1 1/2
>minutes Internet Time, and that the idea behind it is to facilitate
>timekeeping around the world for internet users.  Everybody everywhere (even
>on Mars?) will be using on the same time!
>
>Arthur C. Clarke believes that the current timezone system will be abandoned
>and everyone will use Universal Time in the future.  I agree with Arthur.
>Or am I wrong, will we all be using Internet Time instead?

Gordon Uber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Reynen & Uber Web Design http://www.ubr.com/rey&ubr/
Webmaster: Clocks and Time http://www.ubr.com/clocks/

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