Solvelop Posts

Internet Time Standard

Background and Previous Attempt

Many of us are now living a significant portion of our lives online. The internet has permeated every facet of work and personal life. As such, it makes sense to have a time standard that is independent of any time zone. I suspect most of us are, at some point or another, curious about time. It is a human construct that helps us function. I have been fascinated with time, especially as it has become increasingly obvious that it is the only currency that really matters. In the 1996 Swatch introduced a new form of digital time measurement called Internet Time and instead of minutes, each measurement was call a ".beat." The idea behind it is sound - around the globe it is the same time and the exact same time - complete elimination of time zones and daylight savings time. It was a simple concept, but ahead of its time. Unfortunately, the merit of such complex simplicity (remember, simple is hard) was quickly masked by a marketing campaign that made it feel eclectic at best - serious consideration and real adoption was never given a chance. In addition to the marketing ploy, Internet Time was based on a new meridian running through Biel, Switzerland - home of the Swatch headquarters. Vain much? I know, this article and setup sounds like I am beating up on Swatch but I'm not. The core idea is really fantastic, really brilliant, I am simply (still) expressing frustration over the presentation and implementation of it so many years ago. In order to make it usable, adoptable and really make sense, there are some tweaks needed:

1. Instead of using Biel Mean Time (BMT [UTC+1]), the standard should remain in Greenwich, using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the standard on which is commonly referred to as UTC.
2. Much like UTC stands for Universal Time Coordinated, this new standard should be called UIT or Universal Internet Time.

Why is this important?

Right, I guess that really is the only pertinent question. Why is this all important? Can we all agree that DST sucks? I mean, really is a horrible invention and unlike civil time in most European countries, Internet Time does not observe daylight saving time. Daylight Savings Time was implemented on March 31, 1918 — as a wartime measure. There have been a ton of studies showing how terrible DST is for our health and well-being, but as it pertains to business - it costs time, which is money. On average, people lose 40 minutes of sleep each time we shift, twice a year. This is estimated to cost over $450 million annually. Ok, this is good problem to solve, right? UIT solves that problem - very well. There are no time zones; instead, the new time scale using Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is used, based on the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England. UIT is the same throughout the world. For example, when the time is 875 .beats, or @875, in New York, it is also @875 in Tokyo: 0.875 × 24 hours = 21:00 UIT = 9PM UTC. and thus it matches UTC.

Simple Calculation

The formula for calculating the current time in .beats from UTC (UIT) is:
((UTC Minutes * 60) + (UTC Hours * 3600)) / 86.4

Advantages of the Internet Time System

• It uses the normal decimal system, instead of the ancient 24 hour, 60 minute, 60 second system which makes time telling more complicated.
• .beat time calculations are easy, @345 + 456 .beats = @801, compared to e.g. 3:45:20 + 2 hours, 25 minutes, 45 seconds, where the seconds, minutes and hours must all be added.
• No need for time zone conversions as Internet Time is the same everywhere.

Disadvantages of the Internet Time system

• The general population is lazy.
• Converting any populace to a new time standard would be difficult given their propensity for simple, easy and immediate. While the calculation is pretty simple, both time standards would have to be displayed side-by-side so any common person would be able to make sense of it.

Code

To make things easier, we have provided several helper functions, in different languages, in case you want to incorporate it into your own projects and see how easy it is. We are working on an Outlook calendar plugin as an alternative to standard time.

• SQL
• C#
• vb.net
• PHP
• Java
• Javascript
• Python (2.7 & 3)
• Rust
• Go

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[fs_InternetTime]
(
    @dt DATETIME,
    @format VARCHAR(16)
)
RETURNS VARCHAR(64)
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @dtVC VARCHAR(64)
    SELECT @dtVC = CASE @format
    WHEN '.beat' THEN
		'@'+RIGHT('000'+CAST(CAST((DATEPART(SECOND,SWITCHOFFSET(SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(@dt AS datetime2(7)), '+00:00'),'+01:00')) + (DATEPART(MINUTE,SWITCHOFFSET(SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(@dt AS datetime2(7)), '+00:00'),'+01:00')) * 60) + (DATEPART(HOUR,SWITCHOFFSET(SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(@dt AS datetime2(7)), '+00:00'),'+01:00')) * 3600)) / 86.4 as int) as nvarchar(10)),3)
	WHEN 'universal.beat' THEN
		'@'+RIGHT('000'+CAST(CAST((DATEPART(SECOND,SWITCHOFFSET(SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(@dt AS datetime2(7)), '+00:00'),'+00:00')) + (DATEPART(MINUTE,SWITCHOFFSET(SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(@dt AS datetime2(7)), '+00:00'),'+00:00')) * 60) + (DATEPART(HOUR,SWITCHOFFSET(SWITCHOFFSET(CAST(@dt AS datetime2(7)), '+00:00'),'+00:00')) * 3600)) / 86.4 as int) as nvarchar(10)),3)
	WHEN 'Beat' THEN
		'@'+RIGHT('000'+CAST(CAST((DATEPART(SECOND,SWITCHOFFSET(SYSUTCDATETIME(),'+01:00')) + (DATEPART(MINUTE,SWITCHOFFSET(SYSUTCDATETIME(),'+01:00')) * 60) + (DATEPART(HOUR,SWITCHOFFSET(SYSUTCDATETIME(),'+01:00')) * 3600)) / 86.4 as int) as nvarchar(10)),3)
	WHEN 'UniversalBeat' THEN
		'@'+RIGHT('000'+CAST(CAST((DATEPART(SECOND,SWITCHOFFSET(SYSUTCDATETIME(),'+00:00')) + (DATEPART(MINUTE,SWITCHOFFSET(SYSUTCDATETIME(),'+00:00')) * 60) + (DATEPART(HOUR,SWITCHOFFSET(SYSUTCDATETIME(),'+00:00')) * 3600)) / 86.4 as int) as nvarchar(10)),3)
    ELSE
        'Invalid format specified'
    END
    RETURN @dtVC
END

Func f=()=>(int)((DateTime.UtcNow.TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds%86400+3600)/86.4);

Dim f As Func = Function() CInt(((DateTime.UtcNow.TimeOfDay.TotalSeconds Mod 86400 + 3600) / 86.4))

< ? = @date(B);

import java.time.*;interface A{static void main(String[]a){System.out.format("%03.0f",LocalTime.now(ZoneId.of("UT+1")).toSecondOfDay()/86.4);}}

d=((Date.now()+36e5)/864e5%1+'0000').slice(2,5)

Python 2.7
 from time import*;I=lambda g:int(strftime(g));print'%03.0f'%((((I('%H')+1-daylight)%24*3600+timezone)%86400+I('%M')*60)/86.4)

Python 3
import time
t=time.gmtime()
print('%03d'%(-~t[3]%24/.024+t[4]/1.44))

fn get_num_seconds_from_midnight() -> u32 {
    use chrono::prelude::*;
    let bmt = FixedOffset::east(60 * 60);
    let now: DateTime = Utc::now().with_timezone(&bmt);
    now.num_seconds_from_midnight()
}

pub fn get_current_beats() -> u16 {
    ((get_num_seconds_from_midnight() as f32) * (0.011_574 as f32)) as u16
}

package swatch

import (
	"fmt"
	"time"
)

type FormatStandard int

const (
	bielZone       = "CET"
	beatsPerSecond = 86.4

	// @000
	Swatch FormatStandard = iota
	// @000.00
	Centi
	// @000.000000
	Raw
)

func Beats(t time.Time) int {
	return int(RawBeats(t))
}

func CentiBeats(t time.Time) float64 {
	return RawBeats(t) * 100 / 100
}

func RawBeats(t time.Time) float64 {
	biel, err := time.LoadLocation(bielZone)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err) // something bad is going on in stdlib, OOM, etc.
	}

	tBiel := t.In(biel)
	// calculate seconds past midnight, divided it by beatsPerSecond
	return (float64(tBiel.Hour()*3600+tBiel.Minute()*60+tBiel.Second()) / beatsPerSecond)
}

func Now(standard FormatStandard) string {
	now := time.Now()

	switch standard {
	default:
		fallthrough
	case Swatch:
		return fmt.Sprintf("@%03d", Beats(now))
	case Centi:
		return fmt.Sprintf("@%06.2f", CentiBeats(now))
	case Raw:
		return fmt.Sprintf("@%06f", RawBeats(now))
	}
}