I would like 12:00 noon every day to coincide with a local solar maximum. I realize that makes things difficult for, say, towns that are 50 miles east/west separated, so I'd be willing to keep the current time zones, and say that for the Eastern time zone, 12 noon every day corresponds to local solar maximum in Washington DC. This, to me, would be ideal. I was glad to see the idea implemented in Neal Stephenson's Anathem.

TZ

These things are awesome. The ones I've got were built in the mid 90s and still clicking.
TZ

... and more like fraud. TZ

I know a lot of people hate what may seem to them to be random adjustments of the time. Personally, I like the way the time ends up aligning with daylight better after the adjustment, but I hate the way it's a big jump, all at once, twice a year. I would really like to see continuous adjustment of the time, such that noon is always the time at which the sun is at the highest point in the sky. Yes, this would be a pain for people who still wear watches, but I'd think we could manage it for all the core infrastructure (i.e. networks and stuff). TZ

You're looking for it [cheating] more often!

This is very similar to finding bugs in QA phase of software (or hardware) testing. The only way you're going to stop finding bugs is if you stop looking for them...

TZ

I think part of the problem is that these companies really don't have expertise in computer systems. For ages, they've been building mechanical doo-hickeys, and I think they've got a pretty good idea how to build and test mechanical doo-hickeys. But now they're throwing computer systems on everything and just going with it (like the bulk of other software companies). Guess what. Computer systems (we're talking here a combination of hardware and software) require testing. Lots and LOTS of testing. I believe they don't have the expertise they need for that. I remember when I graduated from college (2001), I stopped at the Honda booth at the career fair and tried to talk to them. "Oh, we're looking for mechanical engineers, we don't really need computer engineers." "Really? With the increased computer control you're building into your vehicles, you don't need computer engineers? ok, then..." And this is what you get when you have mechanical engineers throw together software to control your vehicles.

TZ

This was done at RPI. The ratio was about 5:1 (male:female) while I was there. They have no experience with women.

TZ

(ECSE 2001)