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What time is it at Groundspeak?

Moosiegirl

By Moosiegirl
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Moosiegirl

+Moosiegirl

Posted
Posted (edited)

I know I am old enough and smart enough, and I really should be able under any circumstances to figure out what time/day it is at Groundspeak, especially since I'm only two time zones away ... but there are times like now -- after a week with sporadic sleep at best, and a really late night (ongoing), and PQ's to do for a trek with a new geo-friend in the morning -- that I wish I could just mindlessly look somewhere and see what day and time it is at Groundspeak. I was thinking it would be really handy to have it on the bottom of any page where users perform some kind of operation that is date/time dependent (like a PQ construction page). Then I wouldn't have to sit here for what seems like an hour, trying to figure out if I should be checking the "Saturday" square or the "Sunday" one. Might it be useful other places as well? Not sure.

 

Is it just me, or does someone else think it would be handy?

 

Happy ( <_< yawn :unsure: ) trails ... <_<

Edited by Moosiegirl
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robertlipe

robertlipe

Posted
Posted

It seems like a problem worth solving, but making Groundspeak's TZ the geocaching equivalent of GMT seems like the wrong approach if this really is about the single 'pocket' page and when to start PQs. If this were my problem to solve, I'd take a different approach than making the world revolve around WA. (Of course, I may be reading too much into the OP's request.)

 

In our profiles, we're already allowed to select a default timezone. Make the PQ generator work from GMT and not WA local time. Now when it's time to run the PQ queue, add a subsort by user's preferred TZ that gets added to the day upon which to run it. This would likely give the illusion to most people that most PQ's run earlier in the day as all of Eastern time would be processed (and with any luck, finished) before all of Central time would even be started. It's staggering the time off the line just to break up the thundering herd.

 

The last time I saw stats on such things, the highest percentage of caches were in Pacific time which is already the starting point. This staggering action would have seven timezones worth of PQs alread off the launchpad before starting that, so users in that TZ would likely benefit from being first in line. Even if the Pacific list takes more than an hour to go, users in other TZs would be no worse off than they are now.

 

If we further speculate that most PQs are within or at least approximately bordering their native timezones this may also have a nice fallout in cache (the disk/memory kind, not the 'box of stuff in the woods' kind) coherency as the odds of having data 'hot' in the cache may very well increase. Perhaps there's already a subsort on starting location or something that would yield a similar effect; if so, that would negate this advantage.

 

Obviously, I'm speculating a lot about how things work behind the scenes so th especifics of the benefits may be wildly wrong, but I think to the user having "Saturday" mean "Saturday where I am" instead of "Saturday in Washington" is more consistent with the principle of least suprise - even forgetting all the programmerish details.

 

Oh, and this way, if Groundspeak decided to relocate to, say, Newfoundland (just becuase that's a cool name for a caching operation...) they wouldn't have to retrain users or change code.

 

As a night owl myself, I often find myself having to remember to fudge the PQ selection page based on the time difference beween where I am and where that server is.

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Marbig's Woodenheads

+Marbig's Woodenheads

Posted
Posted
I know I am old enough and smart enough, and I really should be able under any circumstances to figure out what time/day it is at Groundspeak, especially since I'm only two time zones away ... but there are times like now -- after a week with sporadic sleep at best, and a really late night (ongoing), and PQ's to do for a trek with a new geo-friend in the morning -- that I wish I could just mindlessly look somewhere and see what day and time it is at Groundspeak. I was thinking it would be really handy to have it on the bottom of any page where users perform some kind of operation that is date/time dependent (like a PQ construction page). Then I wouldn't have to sit here for what seems like an hour, trying to figure out if I should be checking the "Saturday" square or the "Sunday" one. Might it be useful other places as well? Not sure.

 

Is it just me, or does someone else think it would be handy?

 

Happy ( ;) yawn :) ) trails ... :rolleyes:

 

You need Instant Time Zone. A free little utility that puts any time zone you select down in your systems tray.

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Moose Mob

+Moose Mob

Posted
Posted

I know I am old enough and smart enough, and I really should be able under any circumstances to figure out what time/day it is at Groundspeak, especially since I'm only two time zones away ... but there are times like now -- after a week with sporadic sleep at best, and a really late night (ongoing), and PQ's to do for a trek with a new geo-friend in the morning -- that I wish I could just mindlessly look somewhere and see what day and time it is at Groundspeak. I was thinking it would be really handy to have it on the bottom of any page where users perform some kind of operation that is date/time dependent (like a PQ construction page). Then I wouldn't have to sit here for what seems like an hour, trying to figure out if I should be checking the "Saturday" square or the "Sunday" one. Might it be useful other places as well? Not sure.

 

Is it just me, or does someone else think it would be handy?

 

Happy ( :) yawn :) ) trails ... :)

 

The heck with froggy time. I only care about moose time.

 

MOOSE_lg.jpg

 

OK, I live in the same time zone so I never worry about it.

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Ambrosia

+Ambrosia

Posted
Posted

Or perhaps, since Washington produces the most apples in the world... :)

 

22349.jpg

 

Sorry, this is getting a bit off topic. :)

 

I do see the point, though, especially with PQ's. If the PQ's get generated on Pacific time, then it would be handy to know when that is for a lot of the world. Of course they can look it up, but if it's something quick for Groundspeak to set up, that would be great. Of course, if it gets in the way of lots of other much needed stuff I'd vote to wait on it.

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mini cacher

+mini cacher

Posted
Posted

just one more reason I'll never move from California... to be in the same TZ as Groundspeak, thus never having to calculate what time it is there. :(

 

However, Mr. Lipe makes a very good (if not off-topic) argument for stagering the PQ generation time to start at "midnight where you are" (or "where the PQ is for"... though this is not as ideal since people often run PQs for distant trips and that can confuse even more)

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Jhwk

+Jhwk

Posted
Posted

However, Mr. Lipe makes a very good (if not off-topic) argument for stagering the PQ generation time to start at "midnight where you are" (or "where the PQ is for"... though this is not as ideal since people often run PQs for distant trips and that can confuse even more)

 

Mr. Lipe - Off Topic? NEVER!

 

But at least we all know its the cocktail hour somewhere ;)

 

Oh, and since they are TPTB - they can say it is whatever time they damned well please.

 

The bosses watch is always correct.

 

time now.

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