Welcome to 2023. Your favourite roasters (not coffee roasters) are back. We talk about the end of the earth, aeronautical engineering, and timezones—touching on, but avoiding too much about software engineering problems.
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
Welcome to 2023. Your favourite roasters (not coffee roasters) are back. We talk about the end of the earth, aeronautical engineering, and timezones—touching on, but avoiding too much about software engineering problems.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Geoff 0:10
And welcome back to 2023. Although it’s not really welcome back because no one was here yet. But welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I am your co host, Geoff from the future. And this my co-host Georgie from the present, I guess?
Georgie 0:29
No, I’m from the past I was here in 2023 BC bitches.
Geoff 0:35
Oh BC, way before Artemis. Yeah.
Georgie 0:40
Yeah.
Geoff 0:40
Take that. Actually, this is a good segue to what I did. On the on the break. I went back to Perth, as per usual. And that means I am from the past. And have I entered the future. Because they are three hours behind us.
Georgie 1:01
Hmm.
Geoff 1:02
Yeah.
Georgie 1:02
Wait, that’s interesting. Because you were not born in Sydney, which means you were kind of in that well, no, not really, this doesn’t work this way does it? This is not how time travel works.
Geoff 1:13
No this is not how time—oh my god, time travel was the most complicated thing. And you know how many movies tried to do time travel?
Georgie 1:21
I think they overcomplicate it because like one of my favourite movies is Back to the Future. And that is about the most basic and well explained version of time travel that there is.
Geoff 1:33
Explain the Back to Future time travel mechanism for everybody.
Georgie 1:37
Without, without any spoilers. Essentially we have one sort of what, linear timeline that we are currently in, if you move anywhere in the timeline that we’re currently and whether that is the past, or the future. So whether that’s yesterday, or like next week.
Geoff 1:54
Yeah.
Georgie 1:54
And in that, once you move to that new point in time, and you do something different, or you change something or something else is different, you create a whole new timeline. And so if you live in that timeline, and you try to jump, or something changes, like you know, you kill a plant or something, a person dies, or you know, you save someone from being shot, that means you have altered the current timeline, which means if you start living or trying, if you start living in this in this timeline and just stay there, or if you try to jump forward in time, to the present day, once that incident has happened, it’s gonna be different, it’s gonna be entirely different from what you know, today.
Geoff 2:39
Right. So the timeline in which you started in you basically no longer like, you can no longer return to it.
Georgie 2:50
Yeah.
Geoff 2:50
There’s just no way, because once you’ve changed something, you said, new timeline, and you can’t really go back to the old one. Even if you went back?
Georgie 3:01
You can’t, because you’re going back in the new timeline.
Geoff 3:04
In the new timeline.
Georgie 3:05
Just like altered. Yeah.
Geoff 3:06
Yeah. Right.
Georgie 3:07
It’s about as basic as it is.
Geoff 3:09
That’s true. That’s true. They avoid the whole like, okay, like you could go forward in this timeline, change, or backwards in the timeline, change something and then come back to the current like hour and then all of a sudden, everything’s cool. And then you can continue on with your beautiful life, or whatever that you cheated in.
Georgie 3:27
So that’s the one that I believe, right? I think other movies do it differently, but I don’t really care to like, investigate about them. Because to me, it’s just like, if time travel was real, someone would have shown up by now and been like, “haha, suckers”.
Geoff 3:40
Yeah, but then they wouldn’t like actually show up. Perhaps, perhaps?
Georgie 3:45
But what if someone’s coming from the future to 2023? They might.
Geoff 3:49
Yeah. Exactly, but they wouldn’t be shouting it from the top of the the towers or whatever roof tops, they they’d be like a quiet citizen. I don’t know.
Georgie 3:59
Would they though?
Geoff 4:00
They wouldn’t be sharing the I don’t know, maybe? Depends, right. Depends on what they wanted to come—
Georgie 4:05
What’s the motive?
Geoff 4:06
...for. Yeah.
Georgie 4:07
Or the past?
Geoff 4:09
They came to the future to tell us that, oh, no, someone’s going to buy a big social media outlet and screw everything up.
Georgie 4:20
Climate change.
Geoff 4:21
Or fixing climate change? I think everyone knows that, right? I mean, people have been talking about climate change for decades.
Georgie 4:29
What if they came to tell us that the earth was gonna end?
Geoff 4:32
Ooh, in which case we call them a loony?
Georgie 4:35
Because we know that?
Geoff 4:36
A y2k loony, and we shun them for the rest of their lives. People don’t like, people don’t like people who tell them about the future. Do people inherently hate people who tell them about the future therefore we class them as loony toons.
Georgie 4:36
I don’t know, but. I have this card game where one of the cards says “I know that you”—you have to pick like whether the You pick a person and you pick whether this card is something that they would or wouldn’t do, or, and one of them says, I know that “you would fast forward to the end of your life to see how it all turned out“—would or wouldn’t. And I don’t know, I, if you asked me that, I’d be like, no, I don’t want it fast forward to the end of my life. Like, I don’t want information from the future.
Geoff 5:21
You know, theoretically, theoretically, if you yourself were to fast forward to the end of your life. Like, that doesn’t necessarily mean you lived it. Like, are you like jumping to the end? In which case, did you actually live that whole gap of like, 50 odd years. So maybe the your end of your life is literally just you sitting right here. Like in this spot.
Georgie 5:48
Just in my room?
Geoff 5:49
In your room, debating whether or not you want to fast forward to the end of your life? (laughs)
Georgie 5:54
Yeah, actually, you’re probably... (laughs)
Geoff 5:56
Like, fast forwarding means you have to actually, like, actively make choices and do things. But I mean, like to live is to actively make choices and do things, but if you’re fast forwarding, are you making all those decisions in like, absolute split seconds auto piloting? Like how can you autopilot all your decisions?
Georgie 6:14
But you’d be a different person at this point?
Geoff 6:16
Exactly.
Georgie 6:17
Yeah, so you would have different thoughts, and maybe I’d be like, oh, shit, I’m divorced now or whatever. Like, it’s like, wow, I can see that.
Geoff 6:24
It’s not a spoiler. Everybody. That’s not a spoiler.
Georgie 6:26
Or it’s like I seem to—yeah. Or my hair is red or something? I don’t know.
Geoff 6:31
Yeah. It’s like, like something random happens to you. Like someone spills red paint on your head. And then obviously, you make a different choice, based on the fact that someone just spilled shit on you.
Georgie 6:43
But I didn’t live through whatever I lived in the 50 years made me the person. I am in 2083. Yeah, exactly.
Geoff 6:52
So like, under the advent of space travel, and all of a sudden, like, you have to decide whether or not you’re okay with living on a different planet. But yeah, how do you fast forward? How do you autopilot that with the decision making of you in 2023 versus 2050, 2080? So I think that would be an intensely interesting experiment, if you could do that.
Georgie 7:22
I feel like the sentiment is people just want to know if they turned out quote, unquote, all right, because I know people have different definitions of that. But they just want to, they just—
Geoff 7:32
Am I alive? Am I like healthy? Do I have any impediments? Kids? Family? Is it everything I ever hoped? Do I achieve that?
Georgie 7:44
I live in the moment Geoff.
Geoff 7:45
Yeah.
Georgie 7:45
You know me? I don’t really care.
Geoff 7:48
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right. So you took that sentiment? You said what? What would autopilot Georgie do? Up until like, now just be like, 2080?
Georgie 7:57
Everything’s good, I’m in the moment.
Geoff 8:00
Exactly.
Georgie 8:01
I’m sitting here. With my red hair. And just in the same room with the same plants.
Geoff 8:07
Yeah, yeah.
Georgie 8:09
I am myself.
Geoff 8:10
Meanwhile, your partner is, is making all the choices in real time. And wondering why the hell is Georgie just sitting there living in the moment with red hair? In which case, he may choose to leave the vegetable, Georgie because he’s no longer like making sound choices. You could have $0 in your bank account, and you’d be like, I’m in the moment, it’s fine. Give me my red hair. Yeah, but that would be really interesting. I was at a board games one time. And one of our friends is a, I think you would call him we call him a spaceman. But I think the I think he studied aeronautical engineering, or something space. He studied space, as, not astrology, not astronomy. But—
Georgie 9:11
I think aerospace engineering.
Geoff 9:13
That’s the one, aerospace engineering, right. So he’s trying to explain how time works. You know, like, you know, every time there’s time, those space travel ones, but they go out really far. And then they come back and then everyone’s like, kind of dead. Because what they’ve done is travelled through time.
Georgie 9:30
Yeah. And they come back and so much time has passed, but—
Geoff 9:33
Yeah, it’s relative.
Georgie 9:35
Yeah. Yeah.
Geoff 9:36
Time to them is like, it’s like what they were gone for one year, but on Earth is 50 years, you know? So he was trying to explain how that works. And I’m like, Oh, my god, I know nothing. (laughs) Nah, I like I can kind of get it from a feeling perspective. But if you try to explain like the math or like the reason like oh the like, like like light travels, you know, a specific amount of speed, and on Earth, but if you’re flying out away from Earth and light travels differently, so you come back and Earth’s already spun a few times already seen a lot of light, but you’ve seen the light before it hits Earth. So technically, anyway, so—
Georgie 10:17
I understand it because I did physics. So it kind of makes sense to me. But just the fact that that can actually happen just blows my mind. Like the fact that there is actually a, that’s how it works.
Geoff 10:26
Yeah.
Georgie 10:27
But the mere fact of that is how it works that you can travel faster than whatever.
Geoff 10:32
Speed of light.
Georgie 10:33
Yeah.
Geoff 10:33
It’s like he, I think, actually, the thing that triggered him was like, you can’t travel faster than the speed of light. I think that was his point.
Georgie 10:42
Oh, yeah. Like, theoretically, you can’t, because you physically die. It’s not, your organs would just—
Geoff 10:49
Your, like, well, like the person like, I think it’s like, because everyone perceives light is because like, light is hitting your eye and you’re perceiving it as time as how much light is being calculated.
Georgie 11:03
But you see it instantly. And that’s how fast it is. Because. Yeah.
Geoff 11:06
Exactly, and I don’t think you can, maybe I look it up. Maybe we just like use Google. Can you...
Georgie 11:13
It’s like when you see the sun or when you see the stars, you’re seeing them? Like what is it older than they actually are?
Geoff 11:20
Yeah.
Georgie 11:21
Because they’re so far away, those stars, like those stars and oh, the sun’s too big. But like a star is actually like ginormous. Right? If you were to get up close to it, it’s fucking huge.
Geoff 11:31
Yeah.
Georgie 11:31
But you see them in the sky in their tiny little flecks, but because the light from that star has to travel all the way over here to Earth for you to see it. And that is a long way. And the speed of light is what—I can’t remember what it was.
Geoff 11:46
300,000 kilometres per second, apparently, or 186 miles per second. But that’s the thing, right? Nothing—I think it’s because, because time, I think because time itself is literally based on light. Then travelling faster, you can’t travel faster than the speed of light because speed is calculated based on light. Right? In any case, we’re not are not aerospace engineers or whatever. Did you, what do you—
Georgie 12:14
Yeah aerospace, aerospace. I think you said aeronautical but isn’t that—
Geoff 12:17
(laughs) Aeronautical.
Georgie 12:18
Hang on wait, is that like—
Geoff 12:19
Ships in space. (laughs)
Georgie 12:21
(laughs) Is that even a thing? Can you just check that? I need to know.
Geoff 12:23
Aeronautical.
Georgie 12:24
Because something about it sounds like—
Geoff 12:26
Oh, it is!
Georgie 12:26
...legit.
Geoff 12:27
It is! Aerospace. Oh, aeronautical engineering is technically aerospace. Is that like—
Georgie 12:34
So nautical not does not mean water?
Geoff 12:36
Water? Yeah, water means travel.
Georgie 12:38
Navigation. Or whatever.
Geoff 12:39
Yeah. Oops. Yeah. It means navigation through space. Nautical. Yeah. So don’t take your education from us. This is not... “a concern of navigation sailors or the sea, maritime”.
Georgie 12:54
The first word is navigation.
Geoff 12:56
Yeah, that, concerning navigation. Anyway, so I traveled back in time to Perth.
Georgie 13:04
Well, you didn’t, you travelled in actual time. But their time was behind.
Geoff 13:09
Yeah. I guess—
Georgie 13:11
Here’s the other thing, right, like, yeah, who invented these time zones? There was people.
Geoff 13:16
Yeah. You know that’s—
Georgie 13:17
Why isn’t it the same time in Perth? Why can’t it just be that way?
Geoff 13:20
That’s the thing in China, though. China’s all one zone.
Georgie 13:23
The entire—yeah.
Geoff 13:24
I think so. Yeah. I think that’s pretty much it. Right?
Georgie 13:26
I think except for this one. Is it one town or one city who are just like going against the grain or some shit?
Geoff 13:33
China Standard Time. That’s it, the whole of China. If anyone actually looks at a map of China, you’d realise that it spans quite a few time zones.
Georgie 13:44
When you compare them to like other countries around it.
Geoff 13:46
Yeah. So apparently, is UTC +9, +8, +7, +6, and +5. But in China, they told time with one zone, which is mad.
Georgie 13:58
I think there are some good—I don’t remember the details exactly. But there’s some good articles and videos that explain why they did this, but also why it’s a pain. It might have been to do with like trade or something. But then it does mean that one side of the country, you’re waking up and it’s like super bright or something. And then—
Geoff 13:58
Yeah, because they’re like three hours behind on the furthest left side of China. So really, when they wake when they wake up 8, at 8am G like GMT plus eight, then it would be like 5am technically, really, really early in the morning. They wouldn’t—
Georgie 14:40
It’s massive—so it’s like yeah, so it’s like 8am It’s like you think the sun should be up by now but it’s dark for like—
Geoff 14:44
Yeah.
Georgie 14:45
It’s dark until noon or something.
Geoff 14:47
To be honest, I’ve thought about it too. I was like, why why can’t the world just exist as one timezone? Like, who cares if it’s dark over there or light over there?
Georgie 14:55
Because then it means we have to go by one thing, and someone, one half of the uni—universe!—one half of the world is going to be nocturnal, and it seems unfair, but that’s on a society built on us being, like, awake during the day.
Geoff 15:12
It’s kind of, I guess it really doesn’t help even if it is the same time, right? Let’s say you well, you get up at like 8am or other. You’ve changed time zones. You wake up exactly the same time as you used to. But it’s like different light. Right?
Georgie 15:29
Yeah, you’d be so fucked, man, the melatonin levels would be like... (laughs)
Geoff 15:33
Because you’re like in America, and you wake up 8am? World time.
Georgie 15:37
Yeah.
Geoff 15:38
It would be like, super dark. (laughs) It would be like midnight, right?
Georgie 15:44
Yeah.
Geoff 15:45
But then you jump into Australia. (laughs) And it would be pitch black.
Georgie 15:47
Yeah how long would it take? Like, half a day right?
Geoff 15:50
It stays like a whole day. (laughs) And then you wake up and and the next day, and it’s like—
Georgie 15:56
(laughs) But it’s fuck—
Geoff 15:56
But it’s bright ass.
Georgie 15:58
(laughs)
Geoff 16:00
So trippy.
Georgie 16:01
We’d be so tripped.
Geoff 16:03
I mean, I guess it’s kind of like, you know, I was in Glasgow, Glasgow is fairly far up.
Georgie 16:09
They don’t get, or they get light, like, almost all the time.
Geoff 16:11
Yeah they get like to like 11pm. So it would be kind of like that. Only way worse, I guess.
Georgie 16:22
(laughs)
Geoff 16:22
(laughs) Everybody on one half of the world is working through the night. And then like Zoom calling at the same time, like a 9am meeting? Would be like super dark.
Georgie 16:35
Why is this so funny? (laughs)
Geoff 16:36
I don’t know. (laughs) It shouldn’t be that funny.
Georgie 16:39
I feel like we’re laughing because we’re literally trying to imagine, like just turning the world upside down. Based on what we know now.
Geoff 16:47
It’d be mayhem.
Georgie 16:48
Like, can you imagine people be like, I know over there must be like, early morning, and they’re like no, same fucking time bro.
Geoff 16:56
Crops would crops would be so weird, right?
Georgie 17:00
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 17:01
Crops would be so weird, cuz like some people will be trying to harvest at certain times of the day. It would be like...
Georgie 17:10
Like I need to be sleeping now man.
Geoff 17:12
Like half the world is actually kind of sleeping. Actually I think it wouldn’t make sense? Because wouldn’t it be during the day, it would be it would technically be like light for half of the world. And the other half would be pitch dark, and then circadian rhythm would try and make them go to sleep. But actually, just half the world’s nocturnal.
Georgie 17:33
Yeah, I think that’s what’s going to happen. Imagine like, if we were able to adjust to that, half the world is going to be nocturnal. But then I was thinking is this actually, could it be advantageous, in some way. Because even though we’re on the same thing, but then the weird thing is, I was gonna say the bad thing is we would all be generally sleeping at the same time. If we all, by just just the definition of time slept, at example, like 9pm, we would all be asleep at the same time. But the light is different. So people who are nocturnal, would that be beneficial in terms of like, I don’t know, transporting goods or something like that? Or does that mean like if we all sleep at the same time—
Geoff 18:14
Nothing would happen.
Georgie 18:15
Nothing, yeah. Nothing would happen. No one is like doing your bloody Amazon overnight freight crap.
Geoff 18:21
I was just thinking about that. I was like—
Georgie 18:22
No one’s flying planes.
Geoff 18:24
No one’s shipping things while you sleep over on the other side of the world.
Georgie 18:29
And then meanwhile, in some countries, people are sleeping, but it’s bright ass day.
Geoff 18:33
Yeah. Although I think I think technology would have evolved differently, right? So if if like midnight is bloody bright on one side of the world, then you just get like more hardcore shade windows. Like—
Georgie 18:49
No actually you’re right. (laughs)
Geoff 18:50
Yeah, all the houses would just like flip. I think architecture would have taken a different turn.
Georgie 18:59
Yeah.
Geoff 19:00
Like no, no one, maybe north facing isn’t a good idea.
Georgie 19:04
Yeah like who cares anymore, because...
Geoff 19:08
And you everyone would have blackout shades by default on one side of the world.
Georgie 19:17
I reckon, from a health perspective, people might start to die. If they don’t get enough like sunlight. Maybe.
Geoff 19:25
Yeah, good point. Hey, because if you’re like sleeping during day times, then you wouldn’t get any sunlight.
Georgie 19:31
But like my dad actually worked night shift for like, pretty much my whole life until a couple of years ago, and then he changed to day shift, which I dunnom I think he makes it out to be easier than it was but I dunno, I feel like my dad’s a pretty resilient person, but he still, during the day when he worked night shift, he still was up and he’s maybe go for a walk, he’d still go out and stuff. But he just, yeah.
Geoff 19:57
I mean, I used to, I used to be up at like 2, 3am, sometimes I stayed up until like, the sun rose, and I’d sleep for maybe five hours and just continue on my day. Probably unhealthy, like you said, people probably start dying because of the lack of sunlight.
Georgie 20:20
Vitamin D I guess.
Geoff 20:21
Or, like, it’s not a natural circadian rhythm, I suppose. In which case, you know, it’s much easier, I think, to sleep with circadian rhythm rather than not.
Georgie 20:37
But there’s like an interesting video. I don’t know, I can’t remember who did it. But it was an interesting video that interviewed different people in the workplace, some of who describe themselves as a night owls. So they technically work better at night versus early birds. And some people were just sort of in the middle. And so it actually is biologically different per person, that some people just cannot wake up, like before 9am or something like that. Or there is like something called, I don’t know if this is like scientific but there’s something called like a prime time at which you are, you as individual like, focus better during.
Geoff 21:16
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 21:16
And we should all use that to our advantage. But not everyone is the same.
Geoff 21:20
Yeah, I mean, I switched. Used to be very nocturnal. Now. I can’t do it. But I guess that’s because I’ve been forced into work or the rhythms. But, yeah, I think—
Georgie 21:34
Could be an age thing as well.
Geoff 21:36
Calling me old?
Georgie 21:37
No, no, I’m saying that like, literally for like teenagers, they actually struggle to kind of get up early. And some old people in their, I think middle age, their, they kind of need to sleep early. But then they get a lot older, like, you know, 60s, 70s—
Geoff 21:53
Yeah, they wake up at like 4am or something.
Georgie 21:55
Yeah. And they’re just, or they don’t need that much sleep. So it changes throughout your life, life time.
Geoff 22:01
Like it’s funny, because one of my friends, they started talking about how it was a bit harder to get out of jetlag, they like love travelling, so they’re all over the place. And I was like, how old are you again, and they’re like, X age and I’m like, it’s because it’s because you’re getting old, and they’re like, don’t say that. Jetlag is just—
Georgie 22:27
So harder to like, recover from?
Geoff 22:30
Yeah, basically harder to switch timezones but actually, my timezone switching wasn’t too bad on the way back from Perth this time, although we took a 6am flight so we actually had to wake up 4am anyways so actually, I woke up at a regular time in Sydney, so and then like flew, and then arrived in Sydney at like a time and I took a nap and I’d slept and everything on the—did I sleep on the plane? I didn’t sleep on the plane. But yeah, that fixed my jetlag. But I think that was because it took a freakin 6am flight.
Georgie 23:08
Interesting because like, what I try to do and I change time zones is I try to adjust as soon as I can. Like I try to adjust to the local timezone.
Geoff 23:17
I adjust like days before. (laughs)
Georgie 23:19
Oh you do, do you do the thing where you like, either sleep early, or you sleep later. It’s because I’ve—
Geoff 23:23
No...
Georgie 23:24
...tried that too. I don’t actually know if it helps, as much, I’d rather, it’s kind of like I’d rather just like, like, hit the ground running when I get there. Instead of trying to prepare myself days before, because I feel like when I’ve tried to prepare myself days before by adjusting my sleep schedule, I feel like I was more tired.
Geoff 23:46
I, I tried to I tried to do it on the plane. Yeah, I definitely tried to do the switching on the plane. But yeah, I think as you age, it gets more and more difficult to switch to time zones.
Georgie 24:03
Which is why we should all have the same time around the world.
Geoff 24:06
Exactly. In which case, one world time. What time zone are you in? World Time. And then we won’t have to code all these bloody workarounds for time zones.
Georgie 24:16
Oh my god. No. Don’t even go there.
Geoff 24:19
Did you remember when something clicked over and we didn’t have enough bytes to cover the time? I can’t remember what it was called. There is this thing where...
Georgie 24:30
It’s not the y2k thing?
Geoff 24:32
I think it was the y2k thing.
Georgie 24:34
I think the y2k thing was like that we—was that something to do with I can’t remember what because I was a fucking kid. But people were freaking out about it, I remember reading it when I was like, a kid and I was like, I don’t really get this but people are freaking out because two digits for the year were like, you know, 99, 1999. And then they were freaking out that if it changed to 2000 which would be 00, it would kind of revert to like, one, 1900. Based on how things were coded.
Geoff 25:07
Yeah, yeah. So I never really understood this. I never understood what y2k was. And I’m gonna read it now. “The year 2000 problem refers to potential computer errors related to the formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in in and after the year 2000. Many programs represented four digit years with only the final two digits making the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. So computer systems inability to distinguish the debts correctly had the potential to bring down worldwide infrastructures and industries ranging from banking to air travel”. So yeah.
Georgie 25:47
I feel offended. I’m like, surely they had some faith in the software engineers at the time. To fucking fix it. Nah, nah, it’s not, it not that easy. I know it’s not.
Geoff 25:56
It’s interesting, because right now we use a timestamp. We use like a string of numbers, which—
Georgie 26:03
UTC? Like the whole?
Geoff 26:06
It’s like the, it’s like the second‚
Georgie 26:08
The epoch? Is it the time since epoch or something? Is that what it’s called?
Geoff 26:11
Yeah, it’s stored stored in seconds or something like that, seconds from whatever time we started doing this.
Georgie 26:17
Yeah.
Geoff 26:18
So I remember seeing this actually, in some banking software that they do. It’s just a string of seconds. And oh, my god, it’s such a comp, there’s a complicated, I don’t think it’s just seconds in there. There’s some other formatting information and numbers there. So we had this like, massive function to decrypt the string. And when I first saw the function, I’m like oh my god, like, I can’t, I can’t do like, it’s really difficult to do relative time, as everyone’s kind of really used to seeing it—minutes after, minutes before, or like, minutes ago.
Georgie 26:53
Holy shit I hate this stuff.
Geoff 26:55
Yeah.
Georgie 26:56
I hate doing this and software engineering. I’m just like, this is annoying, because you have to also have like a, what’s the word? Not a guideline, but like, how are you going to communicate that to the user? Like, at what point do you start deciding you’re going to say—
Geoff 27:14
Dates?
Georgie 27:14
Like, yeah.
Geoff 27:16
Yeah. So it’s like, for, like today. You posted it today, which is “right now”, and, or “now” posted.
Georgie 27:25
“Just now”?
Geoff 27:25
“Just now”. And then “a minute ago”? And then you put “five minutes ago”. And then you’re just like, when does it become an hour? Like when do you stop going like 6, 7, 8, 9, 10? All right, let’s just switch it to an hour. “Three hours ago”, “four hours ago”. Alright, so when does it—
Georgie 27:43
23!
Geoff 27:43
“23 hours ago”, “one day ago”? And then you—yeah, then you just put the date there.
Georgie 27:48
It’s more human readable? I think that’s what it is, like relative but also human readable at the same time. But then, for us, it depends on our customers, like what do they care to see, like what is, when is something that would be time sensitive like for us because we do like emails, it’s important in a scheduled campaign to be like, it’s gonna send in five minutes not just be like, “soon”. Because. (laughs)
Geoff 28:11
(laughs) Soon.
Georgie 28:12
If they wanna cancel that shit, yeah. That’s, so it really depends on like what—
Geoff 28:19
Soon. Your cam, your campaign that will decide the fate of your product is launching soon. And you’re like telling all your clients, “mm... it’s, it’s gonna be launched soon?”
Georgie 28:32
“How many minutes”? I don’t know.
Geoff 28:34
I don’t know, soon. It’s relative, just travel out into space and come back and you’ll you’ll find out.
Georgie 28:40
You’ll be here soon, you’ll be back soon.
Geoff 28:43
You’ll be back soon. You would have fast forwarded to the end of your life and everything will be fine. (laughs) But yeah, I saw the calculation for that like weird seconds thing. But yeah, I think like social media like everyone likes to see the the time for things. But time formatting is... yeah. I think we usually have problems with international stuff.
Georgie 29:14
Oh, yeah. Like, like, you mean like the time zones?
Geoff 29:17
Yeah. Do you store the ser—the time on the server into the database and then try and convert it in like different in different time zones? So for example, you buy something on amazon.com which is the States, the time at which you bought it is probably going to be stored as the United States time.
Georgie 29:42
Yeah. And then I think we convert it to...
Geoff 29:45
And then but you’re looking at it from Australia, so it should convert to Australian time.
Georgie 29:49
Yes. But then people like us have to write this shit I think.
Geoff 29:53
Yeah.
Georgie 29:53
I dunno, I’m lucky to have never had to do this too much in my work, but I have heard many conversations, even just walking past, it’s like, “timezone sending, ugh”, huge pain.
Geoff 30:05
What was the last thing that I did for this? I was thinking, I was just on that tangent, right? I was saying like, you kinda a store it a certain time, and then you kind of refactor it. Oh, yeah, so the most annoying thing is like doing calendar events with with people who are multiple time zones, right?
Georgie 30:25
Yes.
Geoff 30:25
Or even flights. Flights. When you get flights from a different time zone.
Georgie 30:31
Yeah.
Geoff 30:32
Google Calendar will read your email, the email from the flights from the flight company is correct, it will do the transfer, right? You leave at 3am, or 3pm.
Georgie 30:41
It tells you local time. So you’re like, that’s the time in the place where the plane is landing or departing.
Geoff 30:48
You leave 3am local time you arrive, you arrive through, 3, 2am local time, right? You’re like seriously, the flight doesn’t take an hour and you went backwards? So I don’t actually know. Is that possible to leave at 3am and arrive 2am?
Georgie 31:06
No no no, so when you go to the US right, you go to LA? It takes—you leave here Monday morning, you sit on the plane for 12 hours, you arrive on Monday morning!
Geoff 31:17
Yeah, but you arrive Monday morning maybe like an hour ahead of that right? 3am Monday morning would be maybe 4 or 5am?
Georgie 31:25
I can’t remember exactly, but yeah, I think it’s like—I don’t know if you—is it like you go back in time? It feels like you go back in time because you literally sat on a plane with half your Monday gone, and you’re arriving on the same day? No, I think it is maybe before you...
Geoff 31:42
I think it might be before.
Georgie 31:43
You need to do a comparison. But yeah, yeah.
Geoff 31:44
Anyways, so. But Google Calendar is the most annoying thing goes through your emails, reads the email and then creates an event in your calendar and my god does it screw up the times. I think it doesn’t do the local time. So it actually shows you local time Australia if you’re leaving from Australia and then like the time is like, and then local time Australia for when you when the event ends, is when you land.
Georgie 32:08
Wait so does it put it in the right time slot but it says the wrong...?
Geoff 32:15
No, maybe I can’t remember exactly.
Georgie 32:17
I think, I don’t know if it’s Google but there’s something that when I—because I mostly use the Apple built in calendar—for some events that are automatically created from an email, it, it does not show me in the in the local time. It says “GMT 8am”, but like for me is, for like here it’s like 10am or something, I’m like why did you change it, I get confused.
Geoff 32:38
Yeah, here you go. So it says like Perth local time was 6am when I when I flew but actually they, the calendar invite is 9am. So actually it’s like incorrect but correct. It’s like correct for if you were sitting in Perth, but incorrect if you’re—I mean it’s...
Georgie 32:55
But that’s because your calendar is set to Australian Eastern.
Geoff 32:59
Yeah.
Georgie 33:00
If you change, if you change it to wherever you are, or happen to be, like you’re in Perth then it would appear correct?
Geoff 33:06
Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But anyways, it’s during this conversion, it’s confused the hell out of me so, if I’m in Perth I would be like looking at this I’m like, oh my flights at 9am. Like that’s just it, you’re not, you’re not—
Georgie 33:18
If you’re in Perth, if you change your computer settings to be Perth and I think that would appear in the right—
Geoff 33:23
But I’m not going to do that every time I like travel somewhere.
Georgie 33:27
Wait, do you not do that? I do, every time I travel somewhere I change my timezone on my things.
Geoff 33:31
I mean my phone changes timezone but maybe that’s the what the good thing about having Apple calendar is that it knows the timezone of your phone, but like for Google just puts it in as as a static thing.
Georgie 33:43
Yeah.
Geoff 33:44
Like Google Calendar. I don’t know if it’s like it on your phone or not it like does the automatic timezone switch because I’ve honestly never used it for calendar thing. But I have everything connected to the Google Calendar, so things are picking up things on Google Calendar, and I’m like, I have no idea what the hell it’s, it’s on. Because yeah, I’d be in Perth and I look at this, and “oh, my flight’s at 9am”—no, it’s not. It’s at 6am, it’s 9am Sydney time.
Georgie 34:12
Yeah.
Geoff 34:13
Oh man. But I’ve never missed a flight.
Georgie 34:17
Ooh.
Geoff 34:17
I’m pretty sure. Never.
Georgie 34:19
I don’t think I’ve missed a flight, would have been an interesting story. Maybe we should miss one on purpose.
Geoff 34:26
Well, I almost missed the flight where we got flights to Japan. And they basically for the maybe the three weeks leading up, they changed the flight three times. So I was like thinking of the flight on the second change, not the final change. So we left and we arrived one hour before an international flight. So basically my timing was off by an hour. And we were the last people checked in onto the fight. This was before online check in, by the way, people, for anyone not old enough listening to have had to deal with this. But essentially we got to the front of the line. And after we had checked in, we noticed that the people behind us were also late for the same flight and they were turned away. They weren’t allowed to check in.
Georgie 35:27
Oh shit, right behind, people right behind you?
Geoff 35:28
Right behind me, the people right behind us.
Georgie 35:30
What did they, what did they say to them? Do you remember? Like?
Geoff 35:33
No, they just said sorry, like boarding is—like checkin is closed, and you can’t you can’t check in any more luggage. Because they have a hard cut off line for for luggage checkin obviously, so we were the last people allowed to check in luggage. And that was, and then we just like run, we bolted for the gate. It was just um, yeah, it was a little too close to call.
Georgie 35:56
But when you when you go to the gate, did they have, they finished like boarding?
Geoff 36:00
Oh, they, it was final board, final final boarding call type stuff here.
Georgie 36:06
“Geoff?”
Geoff 36:06
(laughs) They didn’t name us, they didn’t name us over the intercom. It’s like thankfully, escape that, that embarrassment. But yeah. And then it followed, followed up by we got to Japan. And then I just I just like, yeah, it’s fine. We’ll just walk into this carriage. It was the first cost carriage and you have to pay for the first class carriage.
Georgie 36:29
Oh, yeah.
Geoff 36:30
And I was like, that’s fine. We’ll sit down. They’re not going to check tickets. Of course, it’s Japan, they’ll check tickets. So they came up to us. And they were like, this is the wrong ticket, in Japanese. I can’t remember. And it’s just on the spot. They they charge you for the spot. They don’t fine you, they just charge you for the ticket.
Georgie 36:48
Oh, you just had to spend a whole—
Geoff 36:49
Seventy extra dollars for sitting in that seat. I’m like, my god.
Georgie 36:54
Was it worth it?
Geoff 36:55
No, I don’t think it was worth it. The whole train was empty. Like sitting in these—
Georgie 36:59
You should have been like—oh well.
Geoff 37:02
Yeah, anyways, I guess I could have like maybe said, “Oh, sumimasen, I will get away, get off the train and then walk over to the other side of the train and get back on”.
Georgie 37:11
Yeah, like why couldn’t you have done that?
Geoff 37:13
I don’t know. I was I was young and frivolous with my money.
Georgie 37:19
Aren’t you always young and frivolous with your money?
Geoff 37:24
No. That’s a topic for another podcast. But you’ve never had any close calls with your flights?
Georgie 37:31
No. But you know, the Eurostar that goes from London, London to Paris or Paris... I think it’s London to Paris. It’s the only way like fast speed train. We almost missed that. Like we were thinking should we get a Uber to the station or should we just get the tube. We were kind of running a little bit late. We could have gotten the tube and just had to rush. But we thought, let’s get an Uber, not thinking about traffic. And so we got stuck in some traffic. And we’re like, oh, shit. And then I think we went to the counter, we had to do like quick bit of like showing up paperwork. But we ended up having to like run, run through security rush through security, because they check your bags and whatnot, because you’re leaving, leaving the UK. And then we were in an elevator with two cops. And I think they were like rushing. I think I think there were other people. I think someone told them to hurry up because these two people need to get that train that’s like about to fucking leave. It was such a close call. But yeah, I think we were like literally the last people on the train. But I just think that was kind of funny. I maybe mis-remembering part of that. But definitely I think the cops were there. Like just being around and I think they were someone was saying hurry up. Let these people get on the train.
Geoff 38:46
That’s so nice. So nice. And who said that, you know, people in the UK aren’t nice.
Georgie 38:54
Well, I think they’re just really sarcastic.
Geoff 38:58
Yeah. All right. Well, on that note.
Georgie 39:03
We’re gonna fast forward to the end of this podcast. See how it turns out.
Geoff 39:07
Hit that fast forward button. And if you fast forwarded to the end of this podcast, here’s the end. Nothing’s changed. We’re still talking even though we said we’ll end the podcast. Oh, actually, one more story. One minute for another story. My niece who is like three or four years old. I can’t remember how old she is. But she said she had watched the first episode of this show. Oh no, the other niece. Seven years old. She had, she had watched the first episode of this show, and the last episode of the show, and one episode in the middle. And then we’re like, “Why did you do that?” And she’s like, “I don’t know. I wanted to see what happened at the end”.
Georgie 39:49
One thing I haven’t told you is if I don’t want to watch a movie up to the end, I just read the plot summary on Wikipedia.
Geoff 39:56
Oh plot summary, I mean, that’s okay, I guess. My god. Anyways, on that depressing note, the, new epis—no, not new episodes. You can find us on—no. You can follow us. You can follow us on Twitter?
Georgie 40:11
Yeah, @toastroastpod.
Geoff 40:13
No Mastodon yet, I’m so sorry. We’re not, we’re not that cool.
Georgie 40:17
Maybe maybe if we fast forward to the end of the—earth.
Geoff 40:20
Year.
Georgie 40:21
Yeah. Yeah, find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the big Universal Time, everybody.
Geoff 40:33
Yeah, that’s what UTC stands for Right Universal Time? Something?
Georgie 40:37
Continuum?
Geoff 40:38
Continuum. And new episodes every Monday. So see you next week.
Georgie 40:46
Bye.