Double Summer Time

In the United Kingdom, proposals are repeatedly made to move the clocks forward.  Like most northern countries, the UK currently moves their clocks one hour forward in spring and back in the autumn.  From the last Sunday of October to the last Sunday of March, Britain is on Greenwich Mean Time, also known as Universal Time or Western European Time.  Then from March to October, they are on British Summer Time, i.e. one hour ahead of GMT.

There are now two different proposals being discussed.  One is to move the entire country one hour ahead of the current times all year, i.e. one hour ahead of GMT from October to March, and two hours ahead of GMT from March to October, which is called "double summer time".  The other is to keep Scotland the same, and change the rest of the UK, i.e. England, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that the country would be divided into two time zones.

The reason to exclude Scotland from the change is that the further to the north and west you go, the later the sun comes up, so that on the shortest days it wouldn't rise until about ten o'clock, and on the longest days it would set after eleven in the evening.  This is just too late for some Scots.  But having two time zones would obviously put parts of the country out of kilter.  One of the motivations for moving forward an hour is to be in the same time zone as most of the European Union, Central European Time.  Currently in the EU, only Ireland and Portugal are also on Western European Time.

It has been tried before.  During World War II, Britain was on the same system, being one hour ahead of GMT in winter, and two in summer.  And for three years, from 1968 to 1971, they were on Daylight Saving Time all year, i.e. GMT+1, although without double summer time.

I have never understood the desire to tinker with time.  Why not simply get up earlier in the morning?  All you have to do is change work schedules.  Why mess with the clocks?  Just let everyone quit (and start) work an hour earlier.  There are a number of arguments to advance the time, most of which seem specious to me.  I wonder what the real motivations are?

MJD 55616.477

MetricClockFree iOS apps by ecce software

Another post, another app.  This one may look familiar, because (as the name suggests) its a free version of ecce's MetricClock app for iPhone.  The differences are, first, iAds in the free version, and second, no ability to change settings, such as color, digital display, custom image background, etc., although you can still move the clock face around and resize it.  It also does not display the percentage of your life span.  So if you want to try before you buy, or you just don't care about any of that, you can now get this free app.

There are also iPad versions of both the paid and free apps, which I never noticed before, since I don't have one of those devices, yet.  They appear to be the same as the iPhone versions, just reformatted.

MJD 55609.125

Reviews: Bluetooth headsets

I am on the road a lot, and I used to listen to talk radio, such as NPR, but when I got my first iPod I started listening to podcasts, since I did not have to depend upon whatever happened to be on at a particular time, and I could pause playback.  I also had a mono Bluetooth headset for talking on my "feature" phone, which I also used when I upgraded to an iPhone, a Motorola H680.  Although this worked fine for talking on the phone, I still had to switch to the earphones on a cord to listen to podcasts, with one in my ear and the other dangling so I don't get a ticket.  (For music, I just listen to the radio through car speakers.)  The problem with this is getting tangled in the cord and seatbelt, especially while the phone is plugged into the charger, as well as smashing it in the door, etc.  I have ruined several iPod headphones that way.

After a few months, I found the Bluetooth Mono for iPhone jailbreak tweak, which solved the problem beautifully.  However, it required that I had to keep jailbreaking my iPhone every time Apple updated the firmware, which means waiting weeks or months for a new jailbreak before updating, or going without, which I was forced to do for a couple of months when I got a new iPhone.  The current jailbreak method is still "tethered", meaning that it will break if I reboot, although that has not been a problem.  Jailbreaking also offers a lot of other great stuff, but everything else I really wanted is now available without jailbreaking.  Except playing music and podcasts through a mono Bluetooth headset.

But there are alternatives.  iPhones now support the A2DP stereo Bluetooth profile, and there are mono headsets which will support A2DP.  After hearing several recommendations, I got the Aliph Jawbone ICON.  It sells for $99.95 at the Apple Store, but Best Buy had it on sale for $20 off.  The same day I got the Jawbone, my wife bought a Plantronics BackBeat 903+ Bluetooth stereo headset from the Apple Store for $99.95.  She already had a Motorola MOTOROKR S9-HD.

So now I have four Bluetooth headsets available to me, and I can make some comparisons.

My new Jawbone is beautiful.  I got "The Bombshell", which has an irregular gold outer surface.  It fits comfortably in my ear with the largest "ergo" earbud, and doesn't require an ear loop to stay in, although it does come with one.  I had to connect it to my PC via USB and update it in order to activate A2DP stereo, but then it worked fine.  You can also change the voice or language it uses to talk to you, which I couldn't care less about.  The USB connector also means that I don't have to buy another car charger, which is a bonus.  It is rated for only 4.5 hours of talk time, which is a lot less than the 8 hours my old Motorola lasts.  At least there is a visible power indicator on the iPhone status bar, and pushing the single button gives me an audible estimate of the talk time remaining, while the Motorola simply starts beeping shortly before it dies.  I have not yet had a chance to see how the Jawbone works out during extended use.  [Update 55572.531: Now I have, and it lasts just as long, if not longer, and recharges quickly.]

The main drawback is that, like the Motorola, it lacks stereo controls, especially pause and play.  I can pause playback on both headsets by simply switching them off, which at least is safer than fiddling with the touchscreen while driving, but I have to stop the car to safely unlock the iPhone screen, open the iPod app (if necessary) and tap the triangle to resume playing.  This is slightly more awkward with the Jawbone, since the on/off switch is on the side that touches my face. [Update 55572.531: I meant to rant about the bug that prevents voice commands from working with podcasts, but I just figured out that if I load just one song, that fixes the problem, so I can say "pause" and "play" to control playback, although there is a significant delay, and sometimes it will dial a random number from my contacts instead of what I tell it.  I also found that using the dash mount I got today makes it easier to use the touchscreen.]

Both headsets have a lower volume than the wired headphones, which makes it difficult to hear podcasts in a noisy environment, such as a moving car in traffic with passengers.  The sound on the Jawbone seems to be richer than on the Motorola, although it's hard to tell for sure.  The ICON also seemed to have better noise reduction, which is supposed to work by having a sensor in contact with your cheek.

But then my wife had to go and buy the Plantronics BackBeat 903+!  This stereo headset goes in both ears and includes separate buttons for phone, volume up and down, and pause/play.  It also has impressive volume, and is rated for 7 hours of listen time.  She was unsatisfied with the Motorola MOTOROKR because all the electronics are in a band that goes behind the neck, making it uncomfortable to lie down with it; plus, she keeps losing ear-buds, and complains that it's not loud enough.  The Backbeat has the electronics behind each hear, with a thin, flexible cord connecting them, which is quite comfortable to lie on.  And it means that you can pop it out of one ear, and have it dangle from the other, making it safe and legal to drive with!  It turns out that her stereo headset may actually be a better solution than any mono one.

I will continue using the Jawbone ICON for now, but I may end up borrowing my wife's BackBeat, at least when she's not using it.

MJD 55568.517

Smartphone app roundup

Several different things have come my way at the exact same time that are sorta like decimal time apps, but not exactly.

Decimal Time 1.0 by Harald Mueller is a 99¢ iPhone app which does not display decimal time.  Rather, it represents standard 24-hour time as four columns, one for each digit.  Each column has a number of binary indicators that indicate the digit, depending on the maximum number.  For instance, the first column has two indicators, representing 2×10, and the second column has nine, so that the hours 0-23 can be indicated.  The next two columns are for the minutes, so one column has five and the last has nine, for minutes 0-59.  Get it?  If you are looking for a real decimal time app, don't get this one!

At the same time, I saw this tweet by Oliver Bothwell directing me not to an app in the iTunes app store, but to a "Metric Time" web app, which is basically a web page that works on iOS devices.  He says it's optimized for iPad, but it works on my iPhone.  I find that it does not work on all Windows or Linux browsers, but it does work on Safari and Chrome.  What is much more interesting is his Metric Diary, which not only uses decimal time, but also a decimal, or "metric", calendar, with ten-day weeks and ten months per year alternating between 35 and 40 days.  This is all explained on his metric poster.

The final entry is the Metric Clock Widget for Android by Dan Perron.  I'm not able to check it out, but it's one I'd like to have.  There are few widgets for iPhone, and those are only if you jailbreak.

MJD 55550.513

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving is almost here in the US, and this year falls on the 25th of November (55525), exactly one month before Christmas (55555).  I was thinking about this a couple of nights ago, and was wondering when Hanukkah was this year, when I noticed that there was a full moon in the sky above me.  I remembered Jon Stewart singing on A Colbert Christmas a couple of years ago (54793) that the Festival of Lights also starts "On the 25th." ("Of December?" "Kislev." "Which is when, exactly?" "I will check.")  Since the full moon falls on the 15th day of Jewish months, that means that the holiday must follow in ten days, which would be the night of 1 December (55531/2).  We don't really celebrate, since there are no kids left, but I'll probably bring home some gelt.  That's all three holidays falling on the 25th of some month.

I just noticed while writing this that Christmas falls on Modified Julian Day 55555, which is another reason to celebrate, I guess.

I think it's funny that some people get upset if they hear "Happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", because Christmas is not the only holiday.  We have not only Christmas, Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, but also New Year, which most people celebrate regardless of their religion.  I suppose somebody must celebrate Kwanzaa, too.  ("What would it be like without Kwanzaa?  Like every year before 1966.")  If we were to be really accurate, we should mention all of them, but that would take forever, so why not just lump them under "holidays"?  It's not meant necessarily to avoid offending non-Christians, and I don't why people want to do that, but it's to include the other holidays we all celebrate in this country, i.e. Thanksgiving early in the season, and the New Year later.

Happy holidays!

MJD 55523.534

Decimal Clock app for iPhone by Michael Behan

Decimal Clock is a simple app which displays an analog decimal clock, with the decimal time in digital underneath, on a green background with diagonal stripes.  There are no other options or features.  There is a 10 at the top of the clock, as with French clocks, but the digital display starts at 00.00.00, except a brief moment when it says 10.00.00.  The app costs $0.99.

There's an ad that's one of those autogenerated videos like that GEICO commercial at www.headoverflow.com.

MJD 55510.453

Getting better

I've been using the Skyfire app for a few days now, and it seems to be working normally.  It is still not ideal.  The app is blocked on some sites, like Hulu and Fox, although I don't know why you would be able to watch Family Guy episodes on a computer but not on other devices.  Some videos just don't load for some reason.  However, the most annoying thing is pages that have multiple videos, like on io9, where Skyfire only plays the first video.  It also don't work with Flash games and other animation, but fortunately Frash will work with some of them, if you're jailbroken.  So still not perfect, but better than before.

MJD 55510.440

Still no Flash for iPhone

One of the biggest drawbacks with the iPhone has always been its lack of ability to run Flash.  Flash is used to embed animation and video into web sites, and many sites use it, which means that a lot of web content is not available on iOS devices.  Apple refuses to support Flash because it uses a lot of resources and degrades performance.  This is true; I often have difficulty playing Flash videos on my old laptop.  Apple has been promoting HTML5 for playing videos, and many sites now support this, but many still do not.  I am frequently frustrated by this.

Two months ago (55440.685) Skyfire announced that they had submitted an app to the iTunes App Store which would allow viewing of Flash video on web pages.  The way it works is that they convert the Flash on their own servers and send it back to your device.  That way, you don't have to run Flash on your iPhone, but you still get the videos.  I have been eagerly waiting for the past two months for this app to get approved.  Skyfire is already one of the most popular apps on Android and other phones.  Apparently iPhones are not the only phones that have trouble with Flash.

Well, today (55503) it happened.  I bought the app for $2.99 and started browsing.  First I tried one of their suggested sites, the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (even though I already watch it everyday on TV).  It wouldn't load.  Then I started browsing my news feeds, and quickly found a BBC story that had a Flash video.  It took forever to load, then I got a few seconds of an advert and it stopped.  Other attempts were also unsuccessful.  I began to suspect what the cause of the problem might be, as it happens frequently when highly desirable sites turn on or get publicized.  The servers are overloaded.

Turns out, I was exactly right.  Skyfire has removed their app from the App Store.  They state that within five hours the app had become the top grossing iPhone app and that demand far exceeded their predictions.  So now we have to wait for them to increase their capacity, which will probably take a while.  At least this time I managed to grab the app before it was pulled.  Usually by the time I learn about an app too good to be true, Apple has already pulled it, like when that kid snuck in free tethering in his app.  Hopefully as the early adopters finish playing with their new toy, the servers will start running again, in which case I am ready.

MJD 55504.050

10/10/10

Since this site is named Decimal Time, I should mention the fact that 2010 October 10 (55479), or 10/10/10, is the tenth annual Powers of Ten Day, which is named after the 1968 short film that starts by looking at a picnic in Chicago and zooms out by a power of ten every ten seconds until reaching 100 million light years, then zooming down to 0.000001 ångstroms.  This is not to be confused with Decimal Day, which was when the UK converted to decimal currency on 15 February 1971 (40997).

Also, the new jailbreak for iOS 4.1 (iPhone/iPad Touch/iPad/Apple TV) is scheduled for 10/10/10 at 10:10:10, presumably GMT (55479.423727).  Unfortunately, it only works on the latest versions of these devices, but that's OK for me.  Update: (55479.189) a different jailbreak has already been released, so the all-tens release probably won't happen now.

MJD 55477.815

Stardate apps for iPhone

Stardate Calculator by Priddy Software was released to the app store on August 10 (55409) and is free.  It's very basic.  Time and calendar date are displayed in a column with year, month, day, hour and minute broken out, and the stardate below, on a starry background.  Tap on the calendar date, time or stardate to change them and convert.  Both calendar date and time have a button for "today".  However, the displayed time is two hours off from the time I pick, probably because the developer is in the US Central Time Zone.  It should use either the user's local time or Greenwich (and make clear if it's the latter) rather than Illinois time.  The "i" button just brings up ads for other apps, including several fart apps, but at least there are no ads on the front page, which is good for a free app.  They should put some information about stardates, and the method they use to generate them.
The current stardate is -311636.5, which I can tell uses the same method as the "twenty-fourth century stardates" calculated by TrekGuide.com.  They start from 2322 May 25 (169296) as 0.0 and increment by 1000.0 every 365.25 days.  Since this date is in the future, contemporary stardates are negative.  Thus, this app is fine if you want to convert between stardates and calendar dates used in the 24th century, as on The Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space 9 (DS9) or Voyager, (VOY) but not very satisfactory for earlier centuries, as on the original series (TOS) or right now.

I have mentioned the other two stardate apps previously on this blog.  StarDate Calculator Pro sounds like a paid version of the above app, but is actually free and made by David Frick, aka Triangle Powers Software.  It's even simpler than the above app.  It starts out with the current stardate, which is now 64214.9, even though the calendar date always shows "September 26 2009" (55100) when it first loads.  You can convert from any Gregorian calendar date to a stardate, but not vice versa.  This app does not give correct stardates for future centuries when the TV series and movies take place, but it does provide a good approximation of the stardates given in episodes of TNG/DS9/VOY according to when they first aired on television.  The app apparently uses the TrekGuide.com formula for "contemporary dates in The Next Generation Stardate format", which starts with 0.0 on 1946 July 15 and increments by 1000.0 every year.  This gives satisfactory-looking stardates for the current era, if not for future ones.

iStardate by Max Soderstrom/SusaSoftX was updated to version 1.1 on 2010 July 19 (55396) and costs 99 cents.  As before, it loads with a starry field overlaid with the current stardate, which appears right now as [-28]3770.31.  But now when you tap it, a "convert" button appears, allowing you to convert any Gregorian calendar date.  It increments automatically, like a clock, 0.01 stardates every 2 or 3 minutes, or 5.00 per day.  The "i" button gives a brief explanation, which really does not explain anything.

iStardate uses the method from Andrew Main's FAQ, which is my least favorite.  Basically, he has stardates rolling over from 9999.99 to 0000.00 every five-and-a-half years, then incrementing the "issue" number in brackets.  They start from [0]0000.0 in 2162, right after the Federation will be founded, with negative issues before that, with the current one being [-28].  According to the FAQ, after 2269 several different methods will be used, in order to correspond with the stardates used in the various TV shows and movies, but the app continues using the same formula for these periods.  So the app gives incorrect stardates in the future centuries, and ugly ones in ours.  Even though this method was also adopted by Google Calendar, I cannot stand these stardates.

You may wonder what the numbers that look like stardates are that I have after Gregorian dates.  These are Modified Julian Day numbers, which have been used by astronomers for over a half-century to date star observations, and which are a modification of the Julian Days used since the 19th century.  Just add a decimal and they become Julian Dates.

MJD 55471.063

Update: (55472.572) I forgot to include the latest version of New Clocks, which shows a current stardate similar to Triangle Power Software's app.

Update: (56144.078) Sternzeit by Sebastian Bothe uses TNG stardates with January 1, 2323, as the epoch, so that stardates for the present period are large, negative numbers, slightly different from Priddy's Stardate Calculator app.  Priddy's app is the only one that let's you enter a time when converting to stardates.  Triangle's Stardate Calculator Pro no longer seems to be available in the appstore.