New Earth Time ... 360 degrees of internet time

<body> <h3>Welcome To New Earth Time ... 360 degrees of internet time</h3> <p> </p> <p>Earth is now a place. In the future, as we get more connected one to another, this place will need a new common language of time.</p> <p>New Earth Time, or NET, is a proposed global standard time which measures the global day with 360 degrees.</p> <p>Just as the clocks show, NET runs right alongside your local time. Now you can act locally in your time, and globally in New Earth Time.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/90_45_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Why New Earth Time?</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Earth is a place. Nowadays, we may watch the Olympics in Athens, soccer in Seoul, buy a book in Seattle, chat with a Parisian, and win a computer game in Singapore. This is the neighbourhood. Another few years, and this will be much more so with mobile, fast, always-on Internet.</p> <p>Now, all of our interactions need to occur in time. But which time zone do we use? Greenwich Mean Time? No, GMT is not a Web standard - it is common to see Eastern, Pacific or local times displayed.</p> <p>GMT seems too confusing for daily life. Let's say you want to play an online game at 6:00 pm GMT and watch TV at 7.00 pm. This is confusing - the mind has difficulty thinking in two conventional time zones at once.</p> <p>New Earth Time solves the problem by using a different scale - the global day is divided by 360. It is an abstract time. You play online at 270° NET and watch TV at 7.00 pm. The times do not get inter-mingled and confusion is minimised.</p> <p>In the following 7 short pages we present NET - please click through using the button below.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/90_135_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Evolution of Time I</a></h3> <p>One hundred twenty years ago, new networks that connected people in new ways led directly to new time systems.</p> <p>When railways first ran across America, each town had a local time - there were something like 300 zones from coast to coast - and the timetables were a mess. In an effort to simplify things, each rail company then introduced its own zone based on the company's home town. By 1880 the time zones had thus been reduced to 52. Still, there were problems where railroads met - Pittsburgh station, for example, ran six different clocks for train arrivals and departures. The solution was the present system of Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific times introduced in 1883.</p> <p>Also in the mid-1800's, telegraph networks were built across the Atlantic and across Europe to Asia, enabling immediate communication between far-flung cities. Messages between cities had to be synchronized, and this need led directly to the Greenwich and international time standards.</p> <p>The railways connected people. The telegraph cnnected people. The Internet connects people. Just as in the past, new connections between peoples call for new time systems.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/90_225_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Evolution of Time II</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Time seems to be getting faster. For much of history, common units of time were a day, a morning, and an afternoon - hence the AM and PM which we still see today. Then, in the 1500's, the advent of mechanical clocks introduced the hour and people began to arrange their lives and schedules around the hours of the day. Next, during the Industrial Revolution around 200 years ago, minute-hands began appearing on clocks.</p> <p>Today, you understand when Bill Gates says: “it seems like the whole world operates in five minute intervals”. We seem to slice time into smaller portions than ever before. A good book about this notion of faster time is 'Faster', by James Gleick.</p> <p>Another recent change to time is the way life is tending around the clock. We do not live so much by the sun anymore, and the 2x12 - AM/PM system is losing its original relevance. Big cities never sleep, and neither does the Internet. See 'The 24 Hour Society', a book by Leon Kreitzman, for more on this.</p> <p>New Earth Time is a smooth system that goes right around the clock in 360 intervals of 4 minutes. You see, as well as its suitability to an abstract common global time, NET is a system which fits with future changes in time.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/90_315_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">What is NET?</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Internet Time - One might think that New Earth Time was complex. In fact, NET is very simple. Here is all you need to know:</p> <p>1. There is one NET worldwide.</p> <p>It is 240° NET in Tokyo, Beijing, Delhi, Moscow, London, New York, and Los Angeles at one once.</p> <p>2. The NET day begins on longitude zero at Greenwich, England.</p> <p>This is fully compatible with Greenwich Mean Time, Universal Time, and our existing calendar. 12:00 UTC is 180° NET.</p> <p>3. NET is a 360/60/60 system.</p> <p>A day divides to 360 degrees, 60 net-minutes, and 60 net-seconds.</p> <p>4. Each NET degree is exactly 4 minutes long. There are exactly 15 degrees every hour.</p> <p>That's it.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/180_45_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Strengths of NET</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Internet Time - We believe that NET cannot be improved upon. There is beauty in the simplicity of New Earth Time, and it has many strengths:</p> <p> - geographically, politically, and commercially neutral</p> <p> - divisor of 360 is organic, circular, repeating, and natural</p> <p> - 360 is a special 'versatile' number which is divisible by many others</p> <p> - easy conversion with 15 degrees an hour and 4 minutes a degree</p> <p> - a day goes once around the clock so there is no AM or PM</p> <p> - four minute degree interval is useful, and units are as short as 1/15 second</p> <p> - elegant, unifying coherence with degrees of longitude and the turning of Earth.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/180_135_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Other Time Systems</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Internet Time - Alternative time systems have been proposed before, usually dividing the day to 100 or 1000 units. Only Swatch Internet Time, which divides the day into 1000 'beats', has received significant exposure. </p> <p>Swatch must be applauded for pioneering the notion of internet standard time, and their system certainly struck a chord on the Internet. However, Swatch Internet Time has some flaws:</p> <p> </p> <p>- Unit of time is a clumsy 1 minute and 26.4 seconds, with no other level of granularity</p> <p>- Global day begins at Swatch offices in Biel, Switzerland</p> <p>- Conversion to conventional time is unusually difficult</p> <p>- 1000 is an inorganic and linear scale not suited to cycles of time</p> <p>- Awkward and meaningless notation</p> <p>- Digital system is not suited to analogue timepieces</p> <p>- It is not commercially neutral.</p> <p> </p> <p>For these reasons, Swatch Internet Time cannot be seriously considered as a global standard time. </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/180_225_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Future of NET</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Internet Time - NET is a future standard that will take years to realise. Yet, the case for NET is stronger every day as the Internet connects us more and more.</p> <p>Over the next few years we expect the audience for this web site to continue growing. More people will tell more people, and we will see more NET clocks on more web sites. </p> <p>Then, we think makers of mobile phones, palm computers, watches, cameras, music players, game consoles and so forth will gradually incorporate NET in their products - probably as a fun complement to normal time at first. After all, it is a simple matter to add a digital NET display to these devices, and there is a precedent with Swatch's quite successful system. The wide availability of close-at-hand NET clocks will then lead to the spread of NET usage.</p> <p>"There is one thing more powerful than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." Victor Hugo, 1848.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/180_315_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Living NET</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Until New Earth Time becomes the global time, you may care to familiarise yourself practically with NET.</p> <p>The best way to do this is to download a clock from the Clocks section and put it in your start-up folder. If you use the NET time-piece you can build up a picture of how NET fits in with your local time.</p> <p>What NET is it when you get home from work or school (or whatever else you do)? It may help to think of the day as a full circle and to break it up into 90° portions (6 hours). Note which portions of the circle are your waking part of the day. What is your local time when NET ticks over from 359° to 0°? As NET is a global time zone, people will have different answers to these questions.</p> <p>If you like NET, please tell some people about it.</p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/270_45_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Clocks</a></h3> <p> </p> <p>Click here to download the promotional <a href="net-9.exe">NET-9</a> clock (413k) for Windows. Do resize the window to see the hidden design. And, click the metal or the background to see the pop-up converter.</p> <p>For Apple systems, Pedagoguery Software offers the free NETime Clock at <a href="http://www.peda.com/NETime">http://www.peda.com/NETime</a>.</p> <p>We have the two clocks below for your web site - click them for instructions and source code.</p> <p> <p> <p> <p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/270_135_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Converter</a></h3> <p> <p> <p>Convert to and from NET - just select a time zone and then change any time or date.</p> <p> <p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/270_225_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">FAQ</a></h3> <p> <p> <p> <p> Q. How can I type the degree symbol? A. ALT+0-1-7-6 on a PC. Or, use the Character Map tool from the Programs, Accessories menu. For the Mac, it is Option+Shift+8. <p> Q. When was New Earth Time invented? A. 15 September 1999. NET first appeared on the Internet 21 November 1999. <p> Q. How do I convert to and from GMT/UTC? A. Divide NET by 15 to get GMT hours. Multiply GMT by 15 to get NET degrees. <p> Q. Aren't the terms net-minutes and net-seconds confusing? A. Yes. If you think of better words, let us know. <p> Q. How does NET allow for variability in Earth's rotation? A. NET is calculated from Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). UTC already allows for this variability, so the problem does not arise. <p> <p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/360_45_1.asp?i=internet&j=time"terms of use</a></h3> <p> <p> Everything here is copyright 1999 - 2004 degree NET ltd. All rights are reserved. New Earth Time, ° NET, °, and 360 degrees of time are, registration pending, trademarks. The '360 degrees of time' concept is the intellectual property, patent pending, of degree NET ltd. If you wish to incorporate New Earth Time within a product for sale or distribution, or otherwise commercialise it, you must have our permission before doing so. Check via the Contact Us page. <p> You are welcome to use New Earth Time in your life. <p> <p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/360_135_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">About Us</a></h3> <p> <p> New Earth Time is invented and produced by Mark Laugesen. The look of New Earth Time is by Brogen Averill. Thanks to Gerhard Pierard, Peter McMillan, Alistair Laugesen, and Helen Glasgow for their vital assistance. Thanks also to Jim Macken, Andrew McAlpine, Angelique Fris, Angus Galloway, and Robbie Wells. <p> degree NET ltd, the legal entity, is owned by four of us. <p> Made in Courtville, Auckland. Since '99. <p> <p> Please enjoy New Earth Time. <p> <p> <p> <h3><a href="http://newearthtime.net/360_225_1.asp?i=internet&j=time">Contact NET</a></h3> <p> <p> We are always interested in your comments. What do you think? Or, perhaps you have a question? </body>