[Tfug] A sense of time

[Paul Lemmons]

-------- Original Message  --------
Subject: Re:[Tfug] A sense of time
From: Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com>
To: Tucson Free Unix Group <tfug at tfug.org>
Date: 08/06/2007 05:54 PM
> (sigh)  I guess my comments must be distracting from
> the "real issue" -- what I consider the inherent
> (unsolvable) paradox.  Stop thinking about
> technology and technological solutions.  The
> problem is in the brain of the user!  What I am
> looking for is a good model that will help reform
> that user's expectations (Principle of Least
> Surprise) so that I can implement something that
> he can *learn* to "accept".
>
>   

This is much broader. I would start with something simple. Try to get 
the world to use a 24hour clock instead of "am" "pm". If you could do 
that you might be able to do something more abstract. So far, however, I 
have not seen any willingness on even a small scale to accept even this 
small improvement to eliminate a simple ambiguity in our time 
nomenclature. It is like getting Americans to think metric or some 
Europeans to think in Euros.

We become attached to our units of measure because they are part of the 
world as we see it. I "know" what a "cup" is but what is that in 
milliliters? I have no frame of reference. I "know" 12:00pm is lunch 
time. I "know" that 32degrees is the freezing point of water.  I don't 
even bother with considering that, that is only true in Fahrenheit. All 
of these measure are frames of reference without which we become 
confused and disoriented. Even small changes are met with militant 
resistance.

On the other hand, mechanical devices have no such feelings. They 
operate they way they are instructed and are quite happy with that. They 
have their own paradigm in how they see the world. They see time as 
ticks and are happy to sit and simply count. They can tell you how many 
seconds have transpired from some defined "epoch" and are cool with 
that. They do not have the need to know night from day or when lunch is, 
unless we tell them that is important.

So, instead of focusing on changing on what is likely not to change; 
that being people. Change that which can be changed. Give devices that 
the qualities of time that reflect an immutable continuum. It is 
possible and there are real ways to make this a standard. Once a 
standard is created, interfaces can be written. One interface might be 
between two machines so that they can agree that they are representing 
the same time before communicating. Another might be to tell a human 
that it is 12:15:15pm. He could then know that he is late for lunch and 
that he needs to quit being philosophical with a technical problem :)

-- 
Sometimes I wonder.  Were our faith able to stand upright and look around, would it be looking down at the mustard seed or standing in awe of the height and bredth of it.