Talk:Swatch Internet Time

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—Yamara ✉ 22:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Divisible by 3

--Miterdale 13:11, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC) Can anyone tell me why its is a drawback that 1000 can't be divided by 3?

I would love to know too :) ⇒ whkoh [talk] 06:54, Apr 2, 2004 (UTC)
One that comes to mind is that there are typically three shifts in a work day, of 8 hours each, which is 1/3 day, or 333 1/3 beats. -- Nike 08:06, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't see anything about dividing by 3, but I don't see the above as a real problem either. Retodon8 09:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Note that this comment was made early last year, when there was such a statement in the article. It's odd that it was removed, since I have heard this criticism, I don't recall where, like, what beat times would shifts start and end? -- Nike 02:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Linux support

I believe one of the Linux graphical shells (KDE? Gnome?) shows Internet Time. --Ilya 09:44, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Gnome does - just tried it. Lambyuk 17:09, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sub-beats

Re: "Sub-beats can be added at will for extended precision: @248.000."

I cannot find anything about "sub-beats" in the primary sources. I did, however, find a couple of references to third-party implementations. Although anyone "can" extend the standard anyway they wish, it should be noted that this is not part of Swatch's standard, unless somebody can point me to the part of the standard which includes this. -- Nike 01:16, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have never read anything about sub-beats either. For instance PHP doesn't seem to keep track, at least on the outside. [1] Retodon8 09:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Commas

I'm not sure why Alerante reversed my correction by removing the commas from around "rather", because that changes the semantical meaning of the word and makes the resulting clause incorrect. He changed the sentence from "BMT does not refer to..., but is, rather, equivalent to [CET]", to "BMT...is rather equivalent to [CET]". (The elided part remains unchanged.) The latter version means that BMT is somewhat equivalent to CET, when in fact they are exactly equivalent, by definition. In any event, I'm removing the word completely, as it is not necessary, in order to avoid any confusion, and documenting it here to avoid future reverts. (Note that I did not take exception to any of the other changes he made, one of which was to add ", however," to another sentence, which serves a similar function as ", rather,".) -- Nike 00:52, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Goals

I would like to say that the whole point of Swatch Internet Time has been lost. Basically 234 beats is the same time in every time zone. So if I was meeting someone in Japan on Video Conf at 234 beats, it may be 4am for me and 6pm for him - but we would know exactly what time to meet. There is no pissing around with converting time across time zones. --Anonymous--

I just added that as one of the goals (there are more, but this is the main one) to the first paragraph, and split off the rest from there. Retodon8 09:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of localtime not a drawback

"The noon is at different .beat on every time zone. For example in Helsinki it is noon at @417; in New York City, however, it is noon at @708. This is confusing and nonintuitive. The sunrise and sunset are also very different."

Calling this a drawback is just plain silly - if noon were the same time everywhere it would defeat the whole point. Moreover, sunrise and sunset are just as different from place to place and season to season under UTC and local time. I've just noticed something else - nothing is mentioned about how dates should be written. Does one just write the Gregorian date as it is under UTC+1, or what? -- Smjg @540, 9 Aug 2005

Swatch's standard seems to only refer to time of day, not dates, so one should be free to use whatever calendar and format one likes. However, as the article states, on their web page they display Gregorian dates in the format day-month-year, separated by periods, and preceded by @d. -- Nike 23:55, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
"Noon" is just another time in hours on the clock, and it would be pretty hard to synchronise sunrises and sunsets across the globe, so... probably (hopefully) joke comment. I assume the "@d" is a typo, as I've never seen a "d" used, but indeed the only thing outside of the Swatch .beats method is the days, which are the same for both this and the common system. Nothing about dates. However, these days are very important, as "mbirth" explains on PHP.net. [2] Maybe something should be written about this in the article? Retodon8 09:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Swatch's own web site displayed the "d" on dates for years, presumably to distinguish them from beats, even though most of the .beat stuff has since been removed, including the date display. It was also displayed on the wall clock in the Swatch store, although I don't know if their watches even have a date display. Anyway, the standard did not provide an explicit format for dates; that's just how they displayed them. It could probably be deleted if they don't do that anymore, or mentioned as a legacy practice, but it doesn't seem to have ever been part of their "official" standard definition.

"mbirth" refers to the date function of PHP, which has nothing to do with Swatch. The fact that someone added a .beat option to this function does not mean that the other features of this function are associated with Internet Time. All he is saying is that displaying the local date with .beats can be misleading.

I don't see what the deal about noon is, though, let alone sunrise and sunset. -- Nike 02:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Drawbacks

Under the "Criticisms" heading is a list, followed by 3 regular paragraphs. The first is about other standards' methods, which isn't a drawback of this one, unless it's compatibility issues, but if that was meant I think it should be cleared up. Also why not a part of the list?

It being announced is not a drawback either, although it was done by a company which of course has alterior motives. Again, valid if cleared up a bit. Why not part of list?

Finally I think infrequent use is what the third paragraph is about, but that isn't directly a drawback either, although it means less familiarity, meaning harder to get used to, meaning it will look alien. Again, clearing up and the list question. Retodon8 10:06, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Most of the text in those paragraphs is carried over from the original article from two years ago, or the first edit after that. They are clearly not "criticisms" and should be set off from the list. -- Nike 02:50, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong time

http://www.atomik.free.fr/internet-time/ this clock is showing incorrect internet time as of Thu, 06 Apr 2006 23:51:25 +0000. if it's still incorrect in the future, will someone please remove it from the article link section.

  • I have also noticed it. I added a warning Pictureuploader 10:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Since there is at least one link which displays the correct Internet Time, I see no reason to keep this link and will remove it. This link provides no other information on the subject and is not affiliated with Swatch. --Nike 10:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drawbacks list is POV

Labelling all these points as "major drawbacks" gives the impression that they are necessarily bad, when in reality this is a highly subjective viewpoint. To address the points individually:

The use of Central European Time (UTC+1) to denote 0 .beats introduces an unwanted additional meridian (at 15°E); the Greenwich Meridian (UTC) is the standard international meridian.
While you could consider this a valid point, you could also argue that any zero point is an equally arbitrary choice for an international time-telling system. Presumably Swatch wanted this scheme to be an alternative to UTC, and one of these ways of making it different was to base it on a different zero point.
The phrase "Biel Mean Time" is misleading, as there is no connection with any meridian that runs through Biel (which is at approximately 7°15'E), despite a "meridian" marked on the Swatch building.
This is a valid point, albeit with the way Swatch describes/markets SIT rather than with SIT itself.
The second, and not the .beat, is the common civil and basic SI unit of time measurement. The use of an additional time system adds unnecessary complexity for scientific calculations.
The only way in which it adds "unnecessary complexity for scientific calculations" is if you need to convert already known measurements in SI units into this system. But you could argue that SIT isn't intended for scientific purposes, and so the relevance of this point is debatable.
No submultiple units are specified, prompting divergent extensions by third parties. Officially, the system is accurate to 1 minute and 26.4 seconds.
This is probably a valid point, though the claim of "divergent extensions" seems out of balance with the current mention of decimal fractions as one common extension and no other extensions being mentioned. Does anybody know any others? For example, does anybody use the system of .beats and seconds?
Noon is at different .beat in every time zone. For example in Helsinki it is noon at @417; in New York City, however, it is noon at @708. Sunrise and sunset are also very different. Thus, while the system would make it easier to arrange meetings etc. across time zones, there will always remain a need to convert to local time. But this is harder to compute than a conversion from UTC, which is already available as a common timeframe.
As has already been said, noon being at a different .beat in every time zone is part of the whole point, so claiming it as a drawback is out of place here. If you want local time, you know where to find it. What can be argued as a shortcoming is noon and midnight not being on a round figure in every time zone, but this is a quite different statement. As for sunrise and sunset being also different, if you want the ancient Greco-Roman system of day and night hours, you also know where to find it.
But I suppose it's a valid point that converting between SIT and local time by hand isn't easy. I guess Swatch just hoped that more people would get hold of SIT clocks and/or other equipment/software to assist with the conversion.
The system is a derivative of UTC, but specifies no accommodation for leap seconds.
This is a valid point indeed. But you could ask whether Swatch overlooked this issue, decided there's no point in including it such a low-resolution system, or thought it goes without saying that it just makes @958 a second longer than usual.

I'd like to rewrite this section to be more NPOV, but I'm not sure how at the moment. -- Smjg d13.02.2007 @148

Hmm, I don't know, 'Drawbacks' usually are points of view anyway and aside from the redundant "Noon is at different .beat in every time zone" I'd say that the list was inarguably a list of drawbacks, valid or not. Deke42 00:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
And actually that noon is a different .beat in every time zone is a drawback even if it's not necessarily a design flaw. —Ashley Y 04:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] important territories

"If it were to use UTC, it would match the clock time in the UK during winter, but would not match any important territories during summer."

What are "important territories"? Apparently none of the countries listed here. Dismissing all of West Africa and Iceland as not "important" seems POV. And since Internet Time does not use UTC, this comment hardly seems relevant, anyway. --Nike 08:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Has that line been removed? I can't find it anywhere. To me it reads like 'I heard what you said, but I knew what you meant'. It wouldn't pass through anywhere that was important to the really important people who run the world is what it really means. Deke42 00:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I reworded that section. Click on the history tab to see previous versions. --Nike 11:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] advert

This article is nothing more than a big advertisement for Swatch. Shouldn't it be removed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.192.21.42 (talk) 11:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia guidelines:
A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources.
There are many articles about corporations and their products, which is fine, if they are notable. This one meets the definition of notability, because Swatch Internet Time has been covered by the media and by various web sites.
Also, please sign your comments! --Nike 21:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC) (@928)

[edit] Criticisms section is unattributed

The Criticisms section appears to be original research, since it is written from a non-neutral point of view and provides absolutely no attributions for anything in it. We need to find appropriate sources for this material, or it should be removed. Does anyone have any reputable sources to support this section? Nandesuka 21:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, I recall seeing these criticisms made in forums years ago. A simple Internet search brings up an example: [3] --Nike 23:23, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
What exactly are you arguing is OR - that the individual facts are true, or that they are drawbacks? I don't see any real need for citation of the facts - most of them are things that any fool could work out. But maybe there's something that could be done, along with the aforementioned NPOV cleanup. Still, the list does appear to have been copied from the above-linked page at some point. -- Smjg 00:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The entire section hinges on the assertion that "criticisms have been made." If criticisms "have been made," then we need to be able to say who made those criticisms, when, and in what published reliable source. Without that, we are simply -- as far as our readers can tell, making things up. Please remember that the standard for inclusion in Wikipedia is not truth, but verifiability. Nandesuka 02:07, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
I already posted a source, so it has been verified. However, I think that some of the "criticisms" are simply gripes about statements by Swatch, like their definition of BMT and their new meridian. Would it be preferable to simply state the facts, since the source is Swatch itself, without calling them criticisms? I would agree that it is POV, especially the lead paragraph. BTW, I did find more proof that criticisms were made, including an Internet Archive page from 2001 and a discussion from 2005, in addition to the link I posted above.--Nike 12:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
Please review WP:ATT, which is one of Wikipedia's core content policies. We need to find a better source for these criticisms than "some guy on an Internet forum said it once." The timeanddate.com link is a good start, but still constitutes a self-published source, which is beneath Wikipedia's standard for inclusion. "Any edit lacking attribution may be removed, and the final burden of evidence lies with the editor wishing to add or retain the material." I have rewritten the section to limit it to the criticisms from timeanddate.com. Let's find reliable attribution for the other criticisms (beyond "some guy on USENET" or "some guy with a vanity web site") and then we can put them back in. Nandesuka 12:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I've no idea what made you think that trimming it down and rephrasing the opening sentence instantly made the whole section NPOV. It continues to lack the much-needed other sides of arguments, as was my point in the first place.

Meanwhile, I've added a sentence in an attempt to begin the neutralisation effort. It may lack citation, but IMO this lack of citation is a lesser evil than leaving it as it was. Moreover, I'd like to somehow adapt one of my earlier points ("Presumably Swatch wanted this scheme to be an alternative to UTC, and one of these ways of making it different was to base it on a different zero point.") into a suitable form.

If we can find something on the advantages of the system over UTC, it would help even more. One that comes to my mind is that, by looking diffrent from UTC or local time, it avoids the possible confusion between different local time zones and between local time and UTC. -- Smjg 16:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Since not many people talk about Swatch Internet Time at all, I imagine it would be difficult to find many "notable" arguments either for or against it. Most of the descriptions I find seem to quote the original press release, or some other common source, and apparently actual arguments are not worthy of citing on WP. And "something that comes to mind" would be original research. I'm wondering if we really need a "criticisms" section, but simply distribute the verifiable observations within the rest of the article. --Nike 05:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
My point was that I'm very probably not the first person to notice this, and so we might be able to find a citation for this advantage somewhere. Indeed, this likelihood suggests to me that it's probably neither original nor research. -- Smjg 09:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I made this observation myself, years ago. But I'm just some guy from USENET with a vanity web page, so what I say is worthless. --Nike 13:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I tried to find some more references. I found "This is convenient for Swatch headquarters, but if you are somewhere else in the world, dealing with Global Positioning System and UTC technology and your..." at Nature, which is highly reputable, but unfortunately the article requires a subscription to read the rest of this quote. This page about GMT, UT and RGO says:
...there is no clear need for the Swatch watch company's recently introduced "Internet Time" (Central European Time measured in 1/1000 of a day (a "beat")).
Decimal Time says:
Swatch claims that Internet Time is based on the meridian passing through Biel, or "Biel Mean Time" (BMT), but this town is actually about half-way between the true meridian for this time zone (CET) and the Prime Meridian (UTC). (However, Swatch's .beat watches reportedly can be set to other time zones.) Swatch does not define units smaller than a .beat, but some 3rd-party applications based upon Swatch .beats add "centibeats" or "millibeats".
Regarding specific criticisms from the WP article:
  • "Swatch Internet Time appears to be more of a commercial marketing attempt than a usable system." This is totally POV and not acceptable, IMHO. Since when does an encyclopedia use "appears"?
  • "Although there are advantages, the system has major drawbacks" What are the advantages? And are all of the criticisms actually "major drawbacks"?
  • The first two bullet points are related. It is a fact attributable to Swatch that so-called "Biel Mean Time" is really Central European Time, rather than actual mean solar time at the Biel Meridian. However, this is already stated elsewhere in the article.
  • I do not see Swatch advocating beats for scientific purposes. The minute is also not the SI unit for time, and is more similar in magnitude to the beat. The fact that there is not a whole number of SI seconds per beat (as there is with the minute) would probably be a better observation.
  • It is a fact that there are no official submultiple units less than 86.4 seconds. However, the claim about "divergent extensions" needs to be sourced. There is already a statement elsewhere in the article that Swatch defines no smaller units and that there are 3rd-party extensions, which should be sufficient.
  • Being more difficult to convert to local time than UTC is a valid point, since the latter usually needs only a simple addition or subtraction of a whole number of hours, or sometimes half-hours. This could be mentioned somewhere else in the article.
  • The fact that local noon is at a different beat in different locations is a feature it shares with Universal Time, which many seeking a global time system would consider a good thing.
  • I don't see why the criticism about leap seconds would be significant, since, if it is "derivative of UTC" as the statement claims, presumably one "beat" would simply be a second longer when that happens, anyway.
Since the most significant verifiable observations are already stated elsewhere in the article, I propose that this section simply be deleted, and any remaining observations be moved. --Nike 05:33, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Did you read the above section #Drawbacks list is POV before you wrote this? It already begins to address some of these issues.
But I think the section could be rewritten into a single, NPOV section that addresses both advantages and disadvantages, taking into account what we've discussed here. It just might take a bit of work to figure out how and to decide what level of citation we really need. -- Smjg 09:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
I probably read it a couple of months ago and forgot about it. I've been discussing Internet Time for years, so it's all repetitive to me. It does not matter to me whether there is a separate pros and cons section. --Nike 13:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Analog beat clock

I have never seen a Swatch watch, or anything else, which looks like the analog clock face displayed in the article. Is there a source, or is it original research? Also, it is inaccurate. There is no @1000; @999 is followed by @000. --Nike 08:44, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I repeated your complaint at the image talk page. --Thinboy00 talk/contribs 00:11, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Clarification: I repeated the complaint about @1000 and nothing else. --Thinboy00 talk/contribs 00:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Update: I have created commons:Image:Internet time2.svg, which of course also exists at Image:Internet time2.svg --Thinboy00 talk/contribs @952, i.e. 21:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

That still does not address the real issue, which is that there is no analog Swatch beat clock. Swatch does not make any analog timepieces which display Internet Time in this fashion, nor does anybody else, AFAIK. All beat timepieces are digital. There is no source for this analog beat clock. Therefore, it is original research, and not appropriate for the article. --Nike @596 (BMT) 13:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I guess I made the new clock for nothing then, but it was literally no work. It might be a good idea to go ahead and IFD (on commons) the images. On a totally unrelated subject, would it be a good idea to remove the date from the substituted {{undated}} above (leaving the time and "(UTC)") since the sig includes it, or does that defeat the purpose of having a template? --Thinboy00 talk/contribs @878, i.e. 20:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The time is....

The time is now, or at the time of the last purge, @437  I refuse to add a link to the purge function or a direct purging link for fear of load on the servers. Anyone who is knowledgeable and feels otherwise, please feel free to act differently, and anyone may use this autoupdating template, if you can find a use for it. --Thinboy00 talk/contribs 20:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The above statements may look seperate, but WP tried to put everything after the template into a code box. They are both mine. --Thinboy00 talk/contribs 20:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
At this moment of writing, the time is, by {{subst:User:Thinboy00/Swatch_timestamp}}, @977

. --Thinboy00 talk/contribs 22:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

==developments of Base10 time== Whatismetric (talk) 08:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC) Swatch may have coined the term "Internet Time" or "Swatch Time", but I first heard about base10 time in 1971. The reference must have come from an elementary school library book, since I was in elementary school, doing a project on calendars. A day was divided into 1000 chrons, and called a "kilochron". I even made a faceplate for a standard clock, divided in into 5 hectochron segments (based on 12 hour time). Unfortunately, I can't find any on-line references for base10 time, chrons or kilochrons that date back to 1971.

There are various search references (including Google) to Alliance for the Advancement of Technology, yet historic information about prior art for decimal scales of time is difficult to find. However the AAT ICAS claim to a 'chron' as a term for the length of time of a 'standard length of day' (86400 s) appears to coordinate with a larger number of uniform or 'metric' principles. For additional information you can use the same ICAS documents that AAT uses, open-source documents on the AAT web site. Whatismetric (talk) 08:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Without some evidence to back it up, I am loathe to put this into the main article. Does anyone know of any 30-year-old reference material? --Bob (talk) 05:02, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not see where in the article it is claimed that Swatch invented Base 10 time. Obviously they did not, and any such claim should either be removed, or if it is a quote/claim by Swatch or other party, a citation provided. "Swatch Internet Time" is only one of many different versions of metric time/decimal time and I believe that is clear in this article. Please note that I've moved this section from the top of the page to the correct position for the most recent comments, the bottom of the page. Macduff (talk) 05:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not know about the specific proposal being referred to from 1971, but there have been many such base-10 (aka "decimal") time proposals over the past two centuries, and "chron" is often put forward as a unit name. In fact, dividing the day into 1000 parts was first proposed by the French during the Revolution, although their units were called "decimal minutes". --Nike (talk) 22:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Displaying time

i sudjest some kind of autoupdating Swatch Internet Time Clock on the page, so users can in fact see what the Internet time is at that point in time. This will help contribute to the article, as it will show a working simulation of the time model, and will enable readers to gain a greater understanding. Pollypenhouse (talk) 15:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

First of all, you should use a more descriptive title than "Hi". Next, it is possible to create templates displaying the time, but we're not supposed to, because caching interferes with autoupdating, which means that it won't work right for some people. However, if you want to create such a template, go right ahead. --Nike (talk) 19:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it's more appropriate to Wikipedia to provide a link to another website that displays the current Swatch Internet Time, rather than displaying it here. However, I think that a technical section with a table of how Internet Time maps to the HH:MM:SS times in the different time zones might be appropriate. That might provide the understanding that you mention, and people would see what various @BBB times look like. -- Macduff (talk) 22:21, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Link to Swatch site messes with browser

Is there a policy on linking to web sites that obnoxiously resize the browser window, as the Swatch site does? I would have appreciated at least a warning so I would have known not to click on it. I would have removed the link from the main article, but it seems important and I don't follow Wikipedia politics enough to know if I would get in trouble. 216.254.123.144 (talk) 05:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about policy, but it is the official page for the subject of the article, and at worst I think that it's merely obnoxious, not dangerous. However, I added a warning. BTW, I do not have the same problem in Firefox, although I may have disabled this dubious feature in my preferences. --Nike (talk) 13:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mistake?

Okay, I'm really confused. The "Official Swatch Website" states that Internet Time was created in 1988, not 1998. http://www.swatch.com/zz_en/internettime/itime_howitworks.html Then again, they spelt divided "devided" so I'm not sure how accurate their official site is... TIM KLOSKE|TALK 21:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The Internet was not widely known in 1988, so I believe 1998 is more likely. See also this "official" Swatch Website, which says 1998: http://www.swatchgroup.com/en/services/archive/1998/swatch_internet_time 24.19.24.96 (talk) 03:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)