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Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

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Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#241

Post by ars »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #229
azernik wrote: post #73

The "Asia/Jerusalem" weirdness is because Daylight Savings Time is a big church-and-state issue. Religious people want the workday to be convenient for holidays that start at sunset. This led to decades (up to the mid-'00s) where Daylight Savings was the result of annual negotiations between religious and secular parties. It often caused problems when the decision wasn't made until juuuust before the transition date.…

There is no more exceptions, IDT got extended to last Sunday of October in 2013.

According to Wikipedia: "If the end of IDT falls on Rosh Hashana, then IDT will end on the first Monday after October 1."

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#242

Post by maratc »

bena wrote: post #230
maratc wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that DST actually makes most sense in 30-40 degrees of latitude. With about 13 hours of sunlight in the summer, split evenly around the mid-day, it comes down to 05h30 to 18h30 under light. There are many more people who would be out there to enjoy the sunlight between 18h30 and 19h30 than there are between 05h30 and 06h30.

I really dislike this argument of "I'd rather enjoy the sun in the evening than in the morning" ignoring all of the other problems it causes. Sunlight in the morning is useful . It's better for your sleep rhythms. It's safer for school children, etc. And to be completely fair, I don't see that many more people "enjoying the sunlight" during the weekend when they have the entire day to do so. Like, what is the sun goi…

  > I really dislike this argument of "I'd rather enjoy the sun in the evening than in the morning"
My argument is not "I'd rather enjoy the sun in the evening than in the morning", my argument is "From what I can observe, most people would prefer an hour of sunlight at the end of the day rather than in its beginning". This is not about what I think, it's about what most people think.

  > what is the sun going down at 6 really preventing you from doing
Again, my observation is that most people, given a choice of A. having sunlight between 5am and 6am; or B. having sunlight between 6pm and 7pm, would prefer option B, simply for the reason that more are awake during that time.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#243

Post by mywittyname »

Buttons840 wrote: post #191
PopAlongKid wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's all just an automated and finite offset, there's no reason for daylight savings policies to hew to 60 minutes adjustments. For as long as clock sync for electronic devices has been common, I have suggested to anyone who would listen that we should adjust forward 10 minutes on the first Sunday of each month for six months, and then back 10 minutes on the first Sunday of the other six months. A ten minute cha…

Moving up and down at a linear rate would result in a saw-tooth-like wave, but the length of days change in a sine wave. Why not have the clocks sync themselves to sunrise time based on their timezone and latitude? I don't think this would be much different, in practice, than changing times at a linear rate.

This would lead to a monumental amount of confusion.

The primary time keeping device in my house is the clock on my stove; I wear old school watches a lot; and most of my cars are old and have old clocks in them. I can't be the only one, so multiply this by at least a few million other people in America alone.

Sure, you can tell everyone they need to ditch dumb clocks and replace them with internet-enabled smart clocks. But I think that's a far more onerous undertaking than just dealing with the fact that solar time and clock time are mismatched.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#244

Post by kergonath »

hhdhdbdb wrote: post #120
hprotagonist wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethiopian time keeping is peculiar all over. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_calendar The Ethiopian calendar has twelve months, all thirty days long, and five or six epagomenal days, which form a thirteenth month.

That no odder than Gregorian

There are good reasons for the Gregorian calendar’s oddities, though. Any simple system stops being simple when you apply it to enough different situations. I am not sure programmers would like it better if each country had a different calendar for each season. Because a day that starts at 6 and ends at 18 would make sense 2 days each years here in Europe. Not even that if you go far enough North.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#245

Post by iggldiggl »

vander_elst wrote: post #84
sethammons wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some dates will change when at relatively strange times. For some, the date change will be two hours into the workday. That seems odd. And you lose some info too: if I want a 07:30 (am) meeting, is that during the working hours of my target location? With offsets, I can see that it is 12:30pm at my target location and know that I am scheduling over lunch very likely. With no timezones, how do I know what time of day…

> the date change will be two hours into the workday. That seems odd Seconds minutes and hours can change but the day cannot? > mental math each time Usually meetings are setup using an app and shared calendars should actually help here, a person can have meeting slots and out of office time, that should provide the same info. logistically I don't see that much of a difference from the current situation

> Seconds minutes and hours can change but the day cannot?

The calendar day being aligned to the sleep/wake cycle and changing when most of the population is either asleep or at least might not terribly care about the actual date does help quite a bit.

> Usually meetings are setup using an app and shared calendars should actually help here, a person can have meeting slots and out of office time, that should provide the same info. logistically I don't see that much of a difference from the current situation

It'd also wreck any time references in any kinds of stories that aren't consumed locally. So every time I read/watch/listen to a story that isn't set where I live, I'd first have to look up the local time to make sense of any time references.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#246

Post by mywittyname »

iggldiggl wrote: post #223
crazygringo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would make scheduling Zoom meetings or even just phone calls hell. Especially when everyone's half-hour blocks are misaligned with each other's so you can't even stack meetings efficiently.

And public transport timetables, which were the original reason timezones were introduced in the first place.

This is why I think we should entirely ditch the concept of timezones. Clock time, as we use it, is largely decoupled from solar time anyway, and all attempts to reconcile the two just lead to confusion.

We already have terms a few terms to tie events to solar time, for example, a park being open from dawn to dusk. And without time zones, we might come up with a few more.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#247

Post by gavindean90 »

Yossarrian22 wrote: post #169
fouronnes3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh that's a great point! We have achieved diff^5 at last! Now that I think of it, we could even stretch it one more level. In practice UTC is "realized" as a "best of" diff to atomic clocks in labs around the world, which are themselves diff against a fixed time point, as you pointed out. So that realization technically changes when the official UTC bulletin[1] is published by BIPM. So diff^6! [1] https://www.bipm.or…

Don’t forget using GPS to get the time and tell you if you’ve crossed time zones

So would that be diff ^ 10?

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#248

Post by perlgeek »

danielvaughn wrote: post #238

Just wait until we decide on a time zone for the moon, or Mars.

Mars days are longer than Earth days, so a time zone alone won't do.

I think I actually heard on a podcast that some Mars rover mission team had to operate in shifts that were synchronized with Mars days.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#249

Post by nerdponx »

nine_k wrote: post #202
wakahiu wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is common across East Africa, including Kenya where I’m from. The night ends at 6:00AM, with 7:00AM being saa moja (first hour) of the day. Similarly, the day ends at 6:00PM (thenashara). Intuitively, this clock makes much more sense than the English clock. There’s rarely confusion between times because it’s embedded in the language.

This is indeed a more logical clock, as it follows the natural cycle of activity. Equally, calendars that put the end of the year at the time after harvest ("autumn"), or at the start of agricultural work ("spring") are also more logical. Positioning the beginning of a new day at noon, and a new year t a solstice, is just a technical convenience, because these are easy to detect with very simple astronomy tools.

What makes it more logical? The wheel turns all the same no matter where you mark the beginning. In the Northern hemisphere, there's actually something nice about starting the year in the dead of winter: it feels like the year is born in the spring and then dies away the following winter, not unlike a lifetime.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#250

Post by QuercusMax »

nine_k wrote: post #202
wakahiu wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is common across East Africa, including Kenya where I’m from. The night ends at 6:00AM, with 7:00AM being saa moja (first hour) of the day. Similarly, the day ends at 6:00PM (thenashara). Intuitively, this clock makes much more sense than the English clock. There’s rarely confusion between times because it’s embedded in the language.

This is indeed a more logical clock, as it follows the natural cycle of activity. Equally, calendars that put the end of the year at the time after harvest ("autumn"), or at the start of agricultural work ("spring") are also more logical. Positioning the beginning of a new day at noon, and a new year t a solstice, is just a technical convenience, because these are easy to detect with very simple astronomy tools.

Positioning of the new year at the Equinox shouldn't be any harder than doing it at the solstice (since equinoxes are halfway between the solstices), and it makes much more sense IMO. First half of the year: more day than night. Second half of the year: more night than day.
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