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The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

muddy.jprs.me

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Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#31

Post by Freak_NL »

themafia wrote: post #2

> the Time Zone Database also contains a surprising amount of whimsy. Which I would find "cute" if the database contained an equal amount of reason. I am perennially irritated that "US/Pacific" which is an _official_ name of a time zone _as used_ by the relevant time keeping authority, is called "backwards." I still think we should move away from a tz database, a 1970s idea, and move to a .timezone TLD with tzinfo st…

You do touch upon something which causes a lot of confusion when people start messing with timezones. For tz database a name like 'US/Pacific' is just a label which points to a current and historical set of rules, but for actual people that is the name of their timezone. I tend to look at tz database's file structure as internal logic, and don't take where such labels are stored as having anything to do with what people should call a timezone.

In Europe the Dutch would configure their computers and servers with 'Europe/Amsterdam', but that name is in 'backwards' and it links to 'Europe/Brussels' because Belgium and the Netherlands have had the same timezone rules since 1970 at least. So, should you configure a computer in the Netherlands with 'Europe/Brussels'? Of course not. You, or your operating system, chooses 'Europe/Amsterdam', and if the Dutch government for whatever reason starts to offset their clock by a further 10 minutes then everything will just work.

That won't happen of course, and that raises the topic of standard time. For most Dutch, 'Europe/Amsterdam' is not something they deal with or see when dealing with timezones in real life (unless you are in IT). Instead, they deal with Central European Time (CET) and Central European Summer Time (CEST). Those are in tz database too, and they point to… 'Europe/Paris'. Again, that does not mean 'Europe/Paris' is the canonical name of this timezone which includes more regions than just metropolitan France; it just means that within tz database 'Europe/Paris' was chosen as the label for a large block of (parts of) countries where the same rules are presently observed.

People who take the place of such labels within tz database as prescriptive for what you should call the timezone or standard time they are presently in, are sorely mistaken and risk alienating people. Any piece of software which uses tz database and which claims 'US/Pacific' is a deprecated name is simply broken. Tz database does not mandate that kind of misuse.

> Give each country it's own NS in the TLD and give them the authority to update it.

Oh no. That will lead to a lot of broken things. Let's leave this one topic to this one hyper specific and competent project. Let countries make laws, and have tz database interpret and integrate them. That interface seems to work quite well.

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#32

Post by globular-toast »

russellbeattie wrote: post #27

Just last night some friends brought up the time change tonight and the news from British Columbia, and what the California government has or hasn't done about it currently and in the past and why we haven't just gotten rid of the system already to save us the trouble of adjusting clocks twice a year. And of course, there was instantly a heated debate about whether to permanently choose Standard Time or Daylight Savi…

The thing is, it doesn't matter. Everyone with an argument is wrong. All you're arguing about is when you start/finish work/school. But it it doesn't matter and you have to arbitrarily label the hours of the day with numbers, you'd obviously pick standard time and not randomly offset everything by an hour.

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#33

Post by rawling »

netsharc wrote: post #22

Amusing story of the chaos of timezones in Saudi Arabia and a man who made his own: https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/196902/dinner.at.when.... Linked from https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/main/asia#L3818

I enjoyed getting an instant rate limit screen trying to load that blob (and then the one linked from TFA).

I don't think I have anything on my network hammering GH...

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#34

Post by [deleted] »

globular-toast wrote: post #32
russellbeattie wrote: post #27

Just last night some friends brought up the time change tonight and the news from British Columbia, and what the California government has or hasn't done about it currently and in the past and why we haven't just gotten rid of the system already to save us the trouble of adjusting clocks twice a year. And of course, there was instantly a heated debate about whether to permanently choose Standard Time or Daylight Savi…

The thing is, it doesn't matter. Everyone with an argument is wrong. All you're arguing about is when you start/finish work/school. But it it doesn't matter and you have to arbitrarily label the hours of the day with numbers, you'd obviously pick standard time and not randomly offset everything by an hour.

[deleted]

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#35

Post by Mountain_Skies »

globular-toast wrote: post #32
russellbeattie wrote: post #27

Just last night some friends brought up the time change tonight and the news from British Columbia, and what the California government has or hasn't done about it currently and in the past and why we haven't just gotten rid of the system already to save us the trouble of adjusting clocks twice a year. And of course, there was instantly a heated debate about whether to permanently choose Standard Time or Daylight Savi…

The thing is, it doesn't matter. Everyone with an argument is wrong. All you're arguing about is when you start/finish work/school. But it it doesn't matter and you have to arbitrarily label the hours of the day with numbers, you'd obviously pick standard time and not randomly offset everything by an hour.

Though I'd prefer solar noon to be close to clock noon, I'd be fine with permanent DST if it meant we stop fiddling with the clocks twice a year. I can adjust the relationship between clock time and solar time for myself just fine, even if some aspects of society care more about clock time than solar time. It's the hour jump twice a year that annoys me.

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#36

Post by Mountain_Skies »

fzeindl wrote: post #20

I once digged into this database out of curiosity and found incredibly detailed research on many edge cases. Like time zones in Germany being temporarily aligned to Moscow during soviet occupancy after World War Two. One particular commenter stood out to me, so I looked him up because I was interested which kind of people spend so much time correcting timezone information. Turns out he was an astrologer and wanted hi…

On the other hand, it was also astrologers that made copyright claims on the database and caused it to become unavailable to the world for a short period of time.

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#37

Post by russellbeattie »

globular-toast wrote: post #32
russellbeattie wrote: post #27

Just last night some friends brought up the time change tonight and the news from British Columbia, and what the California government has or hasn't done about it currently and in the past and why we haven't just gotten rid of the system already to save us the trouble of adjusting clocks twice a year. And of course, there was instantly a heated debate about whether to permanently choose Standard Time or Daylight Savi…

The thing is, it doesn't matter. Everyone with an argument is wrong. All you're arguing about is when you start/finish work/school. But it it doesn't matter and you have to arbitrarily label the hours of the day with numbers, you'd obviously pick standard time and not randomly offset everything by an hour.

Agreed.

The problem is that so much of our culture is tied to specific hours on the clock (e.g. "9 to 5"), even though it doesn't need to be that way. China has one time zone and it works fine. Most of Spain is west of Greenwich, yet remains on European time. People there just adjust and don't insist that certain times of day have universal meanings.

Standard Time vs Daylight Saving Time is exactly the same as Big Endian vs Little Endian. Jonathan Swift is laughing at us from the beyond.

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#38

Post by somat »

themafia wrote: post #2

> the Time Zone Database also contains a surprising amount of whimsy. Which I would find "cute" if the database contained an equal amount of reason. I am perennially irritated that "US/Pacific" which is an _official_ name of a time zone _as used_ by the relevant time keeping authority, is called "backwards." I still think we should move away from a tz database, a 1970s idea, and move to a .timezone TLD with tzinfo st…

On the subject of "Things that should be in DNS" the public suffix list. Why on earth is data describing DNS trust boundaries not in the DNS? It's bizarre.

https://publicsuffix.org/

So here is my RFC to correct this deficit.

No public suffix records: suffixes are considered private trust them like you trust this domain. (I would like to invert this to suffixes default public and you mark them private but that conflicts with current practice)

TXT record 'v=PS1' suffixes under domain are considered public, treat as a trust boundary.

TXT record 'v=PS2 domain-fragment domain-fragment ...' suffixes under domain are considered public except for listed subdomains, those are private and under our control

and then let the ietf fight for a few years on why this does not work and how we need a huge recursive mess (cough SPF)

Re: The surprising whimsy of the Time Zone Database

#40

Post by pezezin »

> I’ve perused the tz repository before, and I always learn something interesting. For example, during WWII Britain adopted double summer time, adding two hours to the clock in the summer and one hour in the winter.

My country, Spain, did the same but never fixed it, so we are still in this "double summer time". It is one of the main reasons why Spanish people seemingly do everything later (breakfast, lunch, dinner) than other European countries.

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