[Tfug] A sense of time

[jblais]

>
> (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".

That seems to be the problem, multiple users, and multiple uses!  There
probably isn't "a" solution.
The stuff I do gets reviewed by chemists. EVERY time it's different.  Change
a GUI around once for someone, and when they review the changes, they want
it back or another wants it yet another way!  It only ends when I say ,
that's IT!

>
> The problem arises because the user isn't
> constrained to think in any given way about
> *changes* in that definition of time THAT HE/SHE
> IMPOSED ON THE SYSTEM!
>


Perhaps sets of user definable/selectable rules for the various timekeeping
needs, and let the technology work it out for each.  The problem then is to
describe the various rules that we will implement, and how do we allow the
user to select those rules for each of their needs, without making a big
pop-up every time they click a button.

If an event happens, and we look at the clock on the wall, and it reads
1:23pm, and we record it as such. Do we expect the record of the event to
read 2:23pm a week later when we reset our clock, or do we want the record
of the event to still read 1:23pm MST.  So the user could define a rule for
some type of event as, display relative, or display "absolute".  If it was a
lunch event, we would probably have a rule that would show we went at 11:30
every day, even when the clock was changed.  We tend to go at 11:30 even if
our clock is "wrong", the faster the clock, the better.  However,  A car
accident may have happend at 1:45am.  We won't change that when we change
the time for instance if we change from daylight savings time, but we would
change it if the watch of the officer was off.  "but really judge, I wasn't
even there at 1:45, and I can prove it!".
Another issue is to synchronize.  "Lets synchronize our watches and go at
2:30".. it may be 4:45, but if they all read 2:30 at the same instant,
that's OK.

You can please some of the clock watchers some of the time, but you cant
please all of us all of the time.