The hour carries with valuable meta information. Under our current system if it's 2 am, you have an idea that you probably won't get a hold of anyone if you called. With local times more or less being synchronous, 2 am is the same most everywhere and with it comes information about conditions in that time zone. Without this information using the pure UTC time, you'll still have to ask about the conditions on the ground in New Zealand. You'd have to ask follow up questions about whether 2am there is business hours or dinner time or sleeping time. It would be a nightmare. No, the current standardization is useful and communicates valuable information in a convenient format. I am convinced that OP is a troll.

I went to Botetourt Elementary in Gloucester. Now that's a blast from the past.

True, but theft of a desktop from a physical location is still a distinct possibility. I have worked in offices where thefts of desktops have occured.

For me, given that a laptop can be stolen when powered up or down, encryption gives the added security that whenever I leave my (screen-locked) laptop unattended I know that the data is still totally inaccessible.

Only the V1 models. Be careful. I bought an e280 and got burned as it was a V2 model (tiny tiny print). Some folks are working on a Rockbox port for the V2, but it's slow going.