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Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

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Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#401

Post by nine_k »

maratc wrote: post #366
delecti wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it feels like the year is born in the spring Then shouldn't the start of the year be when the year is "born"? Or alternatively, the end of the year when the year "dies"? January 1 is neither.

January 1 is so close to December 25 (when Jesus is believed to have been born) so if we wanted to count years since that -- and call it AD for "Anno Domini" (the Year of Our Lord) -- we could declare the year to begin on January 1st. Which is exactly what we did.

January 1st became the start of the year about half a century before Jesus was born.

25 of December is close to the winter solstice (around 22nd), and I suspect it was ascribed to that day for astrological reasons; there are a few other astrological clues around that episode, most prominently, the Bethlehem Star.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#402

Post by vinay427 »

layer8 wrote: post #386
ascorbic wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spain should take the opportunity to move to WET like Portugal

They have more economic relations with the rest of the CET countries combined, so it’s more beneficial to stay in the same time zone.

Is that not true for Portugal, or Finland in the other direction for example? I haven’t seen clear reasons for why a 1-hour offset would seriously affect economic relations particularly if it doesn’t affect when businesses are operating. Spain is already known (in stereotypes, so not sure if this holds up in reality) for later start/end times to the workday or other engagements than most western/central European countries, probably partly a figment of the time zone.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#403

Post by tharkun__ »

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.

The problem with "more logical" here is that it's completely subjective.

The beauty of the "English clock", which isn't English at all, is that it simply defines a way to refer to the same point in time with a number (never mind that Daylight savings" nonsense) and you can refer to it whether you are a farmer, a software developer, a waiter, you live Africa or the arctic circle all the same.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#404

Post by vinay427 »

SllX wrote: post #392
layer8 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They certainly could if they had started that way, but changing it now will disadvantage at least one of the countries (Spain for example), and those countries’ politicians don’t want to risk the ire of their voters for the greater good. And DST is regulated on the EU level, so can’t be changed by individual EU members without breaking EU law, like apparently individual US states can. It’s status quo bias and loss av…

> like apparently individual US states can. Nah, the States can’t. What we actually voted for, and I voted for this too, was that if Congress passed a law that enabled States to move to permanent DST, then the legislature is authorized to pass a law to move California to permanent DST. Congress hasn’t acted, and the main guy who was pushing for this isn’t in the legislature anymore, but basically the law did nothing…

States can opt-out of DST, as a few have done, but cannot choose permanent DST (assuming the relevant federal law would be deemed valid/constitutional).

https://www.kgw.com/article/news/nation-world/daylight-savin...

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#405

Post by tharkun__ »

quesera wrote: post #373
maratc wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

January 1 is so close to December 25 (when Jesus is believed to have been born) so if we wanted to count years since that -- and call it AD for "Anno Domini" (the Year of Our Lord) -- we could declare the year to begin on January 1st. Which is exactly what we did.

> December 25 (when Jesus is believed to have been born) I don't think anyone actually believes Jesus was born on Dec 25.

A lot of people believe a lot of things. I wonder why you don't believe that people believe this.

Now whether you yourself believe he was born then, another time or ever existed at all etc is another story.

I believe for example that everyone can believe whatever they want about those things as long as:

    They leave me alone when I tell them I don't believe that and I don't want to be convinced

    They don't try to kill me, enslave me, etc for being an infidel (yes that includes the Christian holy wars sort of thing but also current events)

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#406

Post by poincaredisk »

ianburrell wrote: post #290
Lance_ET_Compte wrote: post #273

A thousand years ago, every village had their own timekeeping and it worked. Our village is now earth. What if we just abandoned daylight-savings time and timezones and just went with GMT (or anything else) for everywhere on earth? There would be cultural effects as people in California now start work at 16:00, for example...

Everyone would create local time zones and use them. It is convenient to have the clock synchronized to the local day. Using UTC optimizes for long distances when people use local clocks much more often. How do you handle the date changing in the middle of the day? If I was on UTC, the date would change at 5pm. Is that still Wednesday or would it be Thursday? Also, it doesn't solve the problem since still need to fig…

>It is convenient to have the clock synchronized to the local day

Is it really, or are we just used to it? This seems to be busy a random reference frame.

I, for example, am an extreme night owl, and often go to sleep at 5am or later. So, to me, 12:00 is very far from the middle of the day (in fact, sometimes I'm still asleep at that time). This desync doesn't cause any problems for me.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#407

Post by poincaredisk »

troad wrote: post #398
Lance_ET_Compte wrote: post #273

A thousand years ago, every village had their own timekeeping and it worked. Our village is now earth. What if we just abandoned daylight-savings time and timezones and just went with GMT (or anything else) for everywhere on earth? There would be cultural effects as people in California now start work at 16:00, for example...

'Global time' is a perennial HN comment on articles to do with time handling, and a truly terrible idea. Try selling East Asia and Australia on the idea that they should wake up at 7pm, go to work on Friday, finish their workday on Saturday, and then go to bed at 11am -- for the benefit of people on the other side of the world who can't be bothered figuring out local time.[0] Will it fix software issues around time h…

>And how would Europeans react when the global majority vote to move the suddenly-meaningful Prime Meridian to much more populous and economically important regions than London, and it's now Europe that gets to experience that kind of day, for the benefit of Tokyo and Beijing?

I'm honestly fine with it. I already often go to sleep 5am my time and wake up 13:00 (my sleep schedule is not typical), so I'm not that far from your horror scenario. But anyway, what difference does it make it people wake up at 3:00, 14:00 or 22:00? This is just a random reference frame you got used to.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#408

Post by quesera »

tharkun__ wrote: post #405
quesera wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> December 25 (when Jesus is believed to have been born) I don't think anyone actually believes Jesus was born on Dec 25.

A lot of people believe a lot of things. I wonder why you don't believe that people believe this. Now whether you yourself believe he was born then, another time or ever existed at all etc is another story. I believe for example that everyone can believe whatever they want about those things as long as: They leave me alone when I tell them I don't believe that and I don't want to be convinced They don't try to kill m…

To restate more precisely: It is well-established that December 25 is a highly unlikely date for the birth of Jesus.

Children and people who have only a superficial knowledge of Christianity might very well believe otherwise. But they are poorly-informed.

Arguments against include:

a) Calendar dates are generally fuzzy from that period, particularly for events that are not formally documented. So the likelihood of anyone ever having known the correct date is very low.

b) The mythology around the birth does not match the seasonal expectations for late December (more likely springtime).

c) Dec 25 was chosen in 336 AD, by church decree. Prior to that, there was no holiday nor even a strong claim of any specific date.

d) Dec 25 was already a festival day for pagan celebrations of Saturn (Rome) and Mithra (Persia), which was likely a factor in the choice of date, to coincide with existing customs.

There are no substantial arguments in favor of December 25 being the accurate birth date of Jesus.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#409

Post by SllX »

vinay427 wrote: post #404
SllX wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> like apparently individual US states can. Nah, the States can’t. What we actually voted for, and I voted for this too, was that if Congress passed a law that enabled States to move to permanent DST, then the legislature is authorized to pass a law to move California to permanent DST. Congress hasn’t acted, and the main guy who was pushing for this isn’t in the legislature anymore, but basically the law did nothing…

States can opt-out of DST, as a few have done, but cannot choose permanent DST (assuming the relevant federal law would be deemed valid/constitutional). https://www.kgw.com/article/news/nation-world/daylight-savin...

Correct.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#410

Post by Tor3 »

Tor3 wrote: post #370
IgorPartola wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You got it exactly right up to the last sentence. Yes it is exactly the same amount of work to figure out how to make a long distance phone call or schedule a meeting. Except for most people it is almost never a problem because most people aren’t scheduling phone calls or meetings with unfamiliar locations. The benefit is obvious: things that happen at the same time have the same number associated with them. Just lik…

1) Daylight saving time has absolutely nothing to do with this, and in any case a lot of people, me included, are of the opinion that DST is a Bad Thing and should be abolished. 2) If you want to let everybody in the world know when something specific happens (e.g. the launch of the first manned Mars mission), then you specify the time in UTC. But.. that's what we do already. Or at least those with some sense. There'…

4) Argh, I meant 10pm or it doesn't make sense - I shouldn't try to use English time-units, I should stick to the 24-hour system I know. I always mess up that.
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