> Basically I'm arguing that rounding for clocks would be more useful than flooring. This is especially apparent when you're trying to calculate "how much time until my next meeting?"
Yet a rounding clock provides no way at all for you to know whether the meeting has already started or not.
Not sure where I've heard this, but an idea that's been stuck in my head is this: We don't look at clocks to see what time it is, we do so to know what time it isn't yet:
Have I missed the bus yet? Can I already go home? Am I late for this meeting? Do I still have time to cancel this cronjob? All questions that a rounded clock cannot precisely answer.
Those are all questions no clock can answer though. They require state from the physical world over and above knowing the current time.
It’s a wild misconception to think that a flooring clock is somehow more late than a rounding clock and it’s if anything an even more crazy misconception to think that a clock can tell you whether something in the physical world has or hasn’t happened.
Yet a rounding clock provides no way at all for you to know whether the meeting has already started or not.
Not sure where I've heard this, but an idea that's been stuck in my head is this: We don't look at clocks to see what time it is, we do so to know what time it isn't yet:
Have I missed the bus yet? Can I already go home? Am I late for this meeting? Do I still have time to cancel this cronjob? All questions that a rounded clock cannot precisely answer.