I always suspected the Whattimeisitrightnow.com joke on Bojack was inspired by a Sys Admin and hollywood writer getting drunk together.
Nice blog post.
Timezone Bullshit
41–50 of 334 posts
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#42The only situation where our datetime instances deal with timezones is on a one way trip to a user's display, document or email. If you are playing around with parsing timezone strings, you are probably making a huge mistake unless you are parsing someone else's trash data. I feel the standard interchange format for datetimes really should be 64 bit Unix timestamps. These are trivial to store in any database as a nat…
> I feel the standard interchange format for datetimes really should be 64 bit Unix timestamps.
Several people have already replied pointing out that for scheduling events in the future, particularly recurring events, it's practically necessary to refer to time zones.
So I'll just mention the problem of leap seconds, which are announced six months in advance. If a one-second error could cause problems then probably you should use TAI rather than UTC. But you still need UTC for other purposes, so probably you need both and so you need to keep track of whether a particular timestamp is TAI or UTC.
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#43Another reason not to use EST/EDT is that they are overspecifying the time zone in most cases. If you ask for output in EDT, but the date is in December (which is not part of daylight savings time) then should the date output be UTC-4 or UTC-5? Technically you asked for EDT. Using EST as a shortcut isn’t a good idea, either - most software will “know what you mean” and use EST or EDT appropriately... except, both The…
On the topic of DST... can you explain why some countries use DST? Anytime I look for the reasoning of it, it says that DST helps "make better use of daytime" but how? The earth isn't gonna say "Damn! These people changed their clocks. I better change by rotation and give them more sun time." Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day.
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> toying with the idea of dropping daylight Europeans turn back clocks for daylight saving, perhaps for last time. source: https://www.dw.com/en/europeans-turn-back-clocks-for-dayligh...
The EU DST debacle has been such a shitshow that I have trouble believing the words "perhaps for last time". And now with COVID-19, I haven't seen anyone actually focus on implementing the damn thing.
What do you have to implement?
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#45Man, as a European this confuses the shit out of me. EST/CST and friends are nearly meaningless because I don't even know if the time I'm looking at is or supposed to be DST adjusted...
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#46Another reason not to use EST/EDT is that they are overspecifying the time zone in most cases. If you ask for output in EDT, but the date is in December (which is not part of daylight savings time) then should the date output be UTC-4 or UTC-5? Technically you asked for EDT. Using EST as a shortcut isn’t a good idea, either - most software will “know what you mean” and use EST or EDT appropriately... except, both The…
On the topic of DST... can you explain why some countries use DST? Anytime I look for the reasoning of it, it says that DST helps "make better use of daytime" but how? The earth isn't gonna say "Damn! These people changed their clocks. I better change by rotation and give them more sun time." Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day.
Just once I’d like to have a time zone discussion on HN that doesn’t devolve into pages of arguing about daylight saving time.
If you search HN you’ll find plenty on this topic.
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#47Another reason not to use EST/EDT is that they are overspecifying the time zone in most cases. If you ask for output in EDT, but the date is in December (which is not part of daylight savings time) then should the date output be UTC-4 or UTC-5? Technically you asked for EDT. Using EST as a shortcut isn’t a good idea, either - most software will “know what you mean” and use EST or EDT appropriately... except, both The…
On the topic of DST... can you explain why some countries use DST? Anytime I look for the reasoning of it, it says that DST helps "make better use of daytime" but how? The earth isn't gonna say "Damn! These people changed their clocks. I better change by rotation and give them more sun time." Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day.
Golf courses. Well, okay, this is my wonderful father's half serious answer that I love to retell.
The basic idea is that it's easier to convince everyone that is actually 5:00pm and time to leave work than it is to convince just your boss that you want to start work an hour earlier and leave and hour earlier.
This problem is then applied to politicians and other powerful people, who want to go golfing after work. If there's no DST, the sun will set "earlier" according to the clock, and you can't get in a full 18 holes.
So therefore, we change all the clocks so that powerful rich people can go golfing.
No other group of people sees any benefits to DST.
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#48Another reason not to use EST/EDT is that they are overspecifying the time zone in most cases. If you ask for output in EDT, but the date is in December (which is not part of daylight savings time) then should the date output be UTC-4 or UTC-5? Technically you asked for EDT. Using EST as a shortcut isn’t a good idea, either - most software will “know what you mean” and use EST or EDT appropriately... except, both The…
On the topic of DST... can you explain why some countries use DST? Anytime I look for the reasoning of it, it says that DST helps "make better use of daytime" but how? The earth isn't gonna say "Damn! These people changed their clocks. I better change by rotation and give them more sun time." Whether you have DST or not, you still have the same amount of time with sunlight in a day.
[deleted]
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#49FACEPALM
It's not "EST", it's EST5EDT because the string "EST" shows up in other time zone designations. Learn time zones, then come back.
Re: Timezone Bullshit
#50Another reason not to use EST/EDT is that they are overspecifying the time zone in most cases. If you ask for output in EDT, but the date is in December (which is not part of daylight savings time) then should the date output be UTC-4 or UTC-5? Technically you asked for EDT. Using EST as a shortcut isn’t a good idea, either - most software will “know what you mean” and use EST or EDT appropriately... except, both The…
> toying with the idea of dropping daylight Europeans turn back clocks for daylight saving, perhaps for last time. source: https://www.dw.com/en/europeans-turn-back-clocks-for-dayligh...
It will not happen. The science is overwhelming that having one timezone all year long is worse for people, and switching the clock back and forth twice a years is a minor nuisance at most.
The EU's "Ban DST" is the same populist bullshit as Trumps "inject Windex to cure COVID". Based on nothing and ignorant at best.
And the cherry on top is, if you ask the EU if they want to receive a no strings attached gift of €10.000.000.000.000 or €11.000.000.000.000, it would still take them 20 years to decide. No way they will ever reach consensus on DST.