This also happened in Egypt in 2016, but it was only 3 days notice..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/06...
Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
161–170 of 174 posts
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're mixing up a few different causes and concepts. Wristwatches are generally accurate and can generally be relied upon. It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases. All clocks are approximations to some degree, because time and space are relative. This is true of all systems of measurement in science, in general. I…
"It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases." I essentially agree with this comment and most of what you've said. No doubt, in hindsight, I could have expressed the matter more clearly and succinctly. What I should have stressed is that there should be a greater emphasis placed on the formal aspects of the problem (as opposed…
"if say computer languages had declarative statements and underlying mechanisms to separate internal and external clocks"
Well, we actually do have those things. You're pretty much describing how the unix time APIs work today.
The internal unix clock is kept as a "time_t", "struct timeval", or "struct timespec", which is seconds, usec, or nsec since an epoch. This is largely insulated from the geopolitical nonsense -- though it is imperfect with respect to leap seconds and it should have been defined as TAI. This is specified in sys/time.h on linux . These are further separated into clocks like CLOCK_REALTIME and CLOCK_MONOTONIC, which track adjusted actual time (updated by ntp), and elapsed relative time respectively.
The "external clocks" as you call them are specified by the time.h functions like "ctime" or "localtime." These functions take the above internal clocks and apply timezone data to localize time to a specific area on earth.
"If one thinks about it this isn't as a preposterous idea as it may seem as the whole notion of relative time naturally falls out of Relativity/Spacetime."
Right, but we do this already. There's no such thing as a clock without a frame of reference though, so there will always be some special location in space/time which is the perspective of the system clock.
"Making computers and compter languages inherently aware of the fact would likely bring benefits. "
We already have reaped these benefits! The existing problems center around stuff like:
* Figuring out who's a correct relative authority for a given place on earth
* Communicating updates (and, correspondingly, guarding against bad updates)
* Figuring out how to keep various autonomous systems consistent
* Helping software developers understand these inherent complexities in timekeeping -- because I guarantee your average software developer is largely unaware that all these distinctions already exist.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a pedantic difference. While it's technically incorrect to say PST when it's currently PDT, it doesn't inhibit communication. Both parties will understand it to be that "we meeting at 9am, whenever that happens to be for our California staff" as opposed to "we are meeting at 9am PST, even though no one is currently on PST" Even my colleague in Arizona is able to follow this despite them not joining the daylight…
When someone sets up a meeting with me in a different time zone I'll google "what time is it in [timezone]?" then calculate the difference with my timezone and apply that the day of the meeting.
If they have a DST transition between when you google and the meeting, you'll be off by an hour with that technique.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a pedantic difference; if you calculate the time as PST when it's PDT or vice versa you'll be an hour off. Holding a meeting an hour early or attending it an hour late can have serious consequences.
One way to look at pedantry is that it's when someone emphasizes technical correctness, even when another person's actual intent is understood. If it's the middle of July, and someone in California sets up a meeting with someone in New York, but tells them "9am PST", it would be understood to actually mean "PT" or "PDT". I suspect only certain kinds of neurodivergent people would show up for the meeting an hour off.…
This is really the same kind of reasoning as "most people know how tall five feet is" or "most people know that 'wicked' is a compliment" or "most people know that 0.59¢ per minute really means 59¢ per minute". It's obnoxious, back-slapping ethnocentrism masquerading as common sense.
Most people don't know how tall five feet is, because they use the metric system, and they don't even speak English. Most people in California and New York know those things, and they're also likely to know that you don't really mean "PST" if you're talking about a date when California is on daylight time.
But most people don't know those things, and so if what you say is the opposite of what you mean, you can expect them to be confused when they look up the definition. If that's what you're shooting for, then by all means, go right ahead. But if you're trying for clear communication, you might want to get a little bit clearer about the kinds of things "most people" know and the kinds of things most people actually know.
Daylight savings time transitions cause me scheduling grief on a regular basis, not because I'm "neurodivergent" but just because I don't know what dates Belgium or California or Chile does their stupid clock changes, because I don't live there, and they all do them on separate dates.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#165Chilean here. Unfortunately our governments have had the bad habit of changing the date DST starts on every two-three years, and that wreaks havoc everywhere in the country. We are kind of used to having a couple of days where we assume everyone will run an hour late because of this. I just hosted some Peruvian friends this week and were amazed at the kind of power the government wields just by having the ability to…
> GMT-3 for DST So, for a few months every year clocks at Chile are synchronized with the the (almost) most Eastern parts of South America? (Except for some small islands.) That's insane. Does the Sun sets at 10PM?
> That's insane. Does the Sun sets at 10PM?
Umm, in Southern Europe, in summer, you get around 10 days or so where the sun sets at around 10 PM. It's great. I actually enjoy it.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#166Man, Algeria changed the weekend (from saturday+sunday to friday+saturday) on a two day notice.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zones are for interoperation. Seriously though, everyone having slightly different individual times could be real confusing. For example, two people, a couple of hundred miles/kilometres apart share a phone call, one of them asks: "What time is the game on?" Also, I am picturing the engineer who work on Google Maps crying at the time adjustments required for traveling east/west on the journey time/arrival time estima…
The differences in true solar time between people living in different parts of the city will be slight enough to simply ignore, no conversions needed. Other sources of error, like traffic, easily dominate the matter. If you're trying to meet up with somebody local, it works the same as it always has. For the google maps engineer, the matter is not so complicated. Given a geo coordinate and UTC time (within 1 second o…
You are not wrong about the differences being minor for most people in a city day to day and the solutions being achievable. And it is fun to think of the challenges and possibilities of doing it another way. :-)
While for many the google maps dilemma in a city won't matter, there are always "edge cases" that google people would have to cover. I occasionally ask google maps for a 8 hour day drive. In my case, most north-south so not an issue, but for other people it could be.
And maybe not using google maps: trains, planes, trucks - logistics in general - all want to be precisely on time while covering large distances. So I think this is not as easily waved aside as a societal problem if this "midday where you are" approach was taken.
This clearly would require a fundamental change in mindset for the whole populace - so not an option we'd see coming soon! But maybe fun for a sci-fi setting.
In the end though, if you accept the cost of the sun being not quite overhead at "midday", a time zone obviates the need for further solutions. Simpler all round.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
"It's not practical or reasonable to say they should be a "last ditch resort" simply because they do not handle legislative corner cases." I essentially agree with this comment and most of what you've said. No doubt, in hindsight, I could have expressed the matter more clearly and succinctly. What I should have stressed is that there should be a greater emphasis placed on the formal aspects of the problem (as opposed…
"if say computer languages had declarative statements and underlying mechanisms to separate internal and external clocks" Well, we actually do have those things. You're pretty much describing how the unix time APIs work today. The internal unix clock is kept as a "time_t", "struct timeval", or "struct timespec", which is seconds, usec, or nsec since an epoch. This is largely insulated from the geopolitical nonsense -…
Right, I'm not disagreeing with any of that except to say it's application is not ubiquitous and thus not universally applied despite the fact that it's part of a common O/S.
If it were then the DST problem would not have arisen or that it would have been much easier and qicker to solve. (That is, not every one understands the issue to the point where it's no longer the subject of debate - ipso facto, the fact that we're having this debate on HN demonstrates that lack of universality.)
A similar system with a niche application which also possesses truly advanced relativistic timekeeping features is the software for GPS satellites. However it too hasn't been universally applied (needless to say, it'd also likely require extensive modification if it were to be adapted for the use that we're discussing here, that said, no doubt the basic algorithms would be adaptable).
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
"if say computer languages had declarative statements and underlying mechanisms to separate internal and external clocks" Well, we actually do have those things. You're pretty much describing how the unix time APIs work today. The internal unix clock is kept as a "time_t", "struct timeval", or "struct timespec", which is seconds, usec, or nsec since an epoch. This is largely insulated from the geopolitical nonsense -…
Right, I'm not disagreeing with any of that except to say it's application is not ubiquitous and thus not universally applied despite the fact that it's part of a common O/S. If it were then the DST problem would not have arisen or that it would have been much easier and qicker to solve. (That is, not every one understands the issue to the point where it's no longer the subject of debate - ipso facto, the fact that w…
No, these systems are universally applied. You pretty much can't find software which doesn't use the abstractions I describe above. They're baked into every major framework.
The DST problem is due to the database that these interfaces use not being designed for rapid updates.
Re: Tell HN: Sudden Chile daylight savings time rules change causes chaos
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
But if not the government, then who? And what is their basis for that power? Do you want a separate election for just the people who decide timezones? I've got to admit, there's an organisation deciding the grammar rules of the Dutch language, and I frequently disagree with them. I wouldn't mind being able to vote for more sensible spelling rules.
Did you read my comment at all? You’re replying to a comment that quite specifically answers the question in your reply.
You're right, it was probably a too hasty reply from me. It's a good idea for governments to prevent themselves from springing disruptive changes on society.