Union for Talossan Progress :: The Official Website

Standardizing Time

We are a nation composed of individuals from many nations across many different times zones and we need a common time to bind us so that there are fewer questions and thoughts about when to meet and by which Time Zone. Time Zones will not make everyone happy just as the time zones of today do not. We also have to look forward to the future of our nation and to the future of the world and what it will hold. My recommendations will cover that here today.

One Nation - One Time Zone

I recommend that we select one time zone as the offical time zone for the (federal) 'Government' of the Republic of Talossa. Every nation is in, and utilizes time zones in some manner. We must pick one and call it ours. It will be appropriate to select Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) +0000 as our standard Talossan Standard Time (TST). GMT is the time with which all time standard times zones in the world are based off of. UTC, military or Zulu time both have the reference point of GMT +0000. This is the time as it is in Greenwich, England. It does not change, it does not adjust for the seasons or Daylight Savings Time. It is always the same. Adjustments are up to the individual countries. We need a Time Zone for our country and I recommend GMT +0000. This time zone will be the one that will be utilzied by the federal governement in all of its communications. Doing as such will also show that we recognize and embrace that we are a nation of the world.

24 Hours in a Day

Not only should we select GMT +0000 but we should also adopt the 24 hour clock as the standard for time keeping in Talossa. Pretty much every country in the world except for the United States utilizes this format and doing so will allow us to integrate and relate with other countries easier. It will also make life for Talossans easier.

I am an American and I know what it is like to talk about meeting someone and the eventual confusion of AM or PM. Gaaahhh!! By using the 24 hour clock we prevent these confusions. I was in the military and I understand the usefulness of not having to guess or ask. To have a system that is easy to understand and unambiguous will make the lives of all Talossans easier and less confusing.

Time should also be reported in a standard format as specified in ISO Standard 8601 - hh:mm:ss

Looking to the Future and the Past

In looking to the future and looking to the past we will find a decimal based or mertric based time system have been utilized and suggested at various times through history. This has been used in the past and Napoleon has used it when he tried to metricify his world. In 1998 Swatch created Internet Time as a short lived marketing ploy. Internet Time was a decimal time system referenced on Biel Mean Time instead of Greenwich Mean Time which was a major criticism for it.

The future of the world may find itself using this sort of time keeping method. It is not a far stretch as it has been done in the near and far past and the world is becoming smaller and globalized with each passing year. It is just a matter of time before someone suggests it again and they just might be able to pass it. We can keep our selves ahead of the curve by adopting this as a secondary means of time keeping to prepare the Republic of Talaossa for the future and maybe set a standard for everyone else to follow.

My suggestion is to also adopt an alternative decimal time method that will complement the above mentioned standards. It should work as referenced from TST (what ever time zone we select for that) and not BMT as Swatch choose. It should also not change. As Swatch suggested Internet time should always be the same everywhere. In the upper right-hand corner of this page you will see the time change and this is Talossan Standard Time (GMT +0000) and the Internet Time as referenced from TST. You can check here for information as to how the math works.