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Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

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Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#431

Post by svilen_dobrev »

kccqzy wrote: post #286

The most amusing tidbit about the tz database is that it contains an estimate of Big Bang, and it refuses to calculate timezone transitions occurring before the Big Bang. The commit message at https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/b22d459a367f4d01b10f6f6b... says: > For example, Glib computes Sao Paulo time stamps as if Brazil's circa-1913 rules were still in effect. (Thanks to Leonardo Chiquitto for reporting the bug.…

There used to be a long manpage about linux/unix `date` and what dates meant in the past - with examples of 15 century and so. Talking about some king who liked some week/month and decreed it must be repeated, and another who disliked some week and scratched it off the calendar.. It was very eye-opening reading.

But i can not find it anymore. Anyone has an idea ? Is it gone completely?

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#432

Post by wnoise »

astrange wrote: post #416
yyyfb wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the continental US can do it (and it looks like it might soon, with California voting for it) I'm not sure I buy that argument. Heck if China can survive on one timezone...

I think it's the changing times that people don't like, rather than standard time. I'd prefer California to stay on standard time instead of staying on DST, so noon will be aligned with solar noon. (It is, right? I never actually checked.)

Depends how far east or west you are...

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#433

Post by me-vs-cat »

eikenberry wrote: post #350
kccqzy wrote: post #286

The most amusing tidbit about the tz database is that it contains an estimate of Big Bang, and it refuses to calculate timezone transitions occurring before the Big Bang. The commit message at https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/b22d459a367f4d01b10f6f6b... says: > For example, Glib computes Sao Paulo time stamps as if Brazil's circa-1913 rules were still in effect. (Thanks to Leonardo Chiquitto for reporting the bug.…

That's a fun easter egg in the TZ database. I'd never heard of it, but how often do you need to calculate TZ data that old. Hopefully we'll be done with time zone's completely before the theory is outdated.

We'll never be done with timezones as long as we have biological ties to the Sun.

Even if you mandate that wallclocks agreed everywhere on Earth, everyone would need a replacement to know when someone is likely to respond: Is it too late to call Grandpa? and: When should I schedule this business meeting?

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#434

Post by quickthrowman »

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.

You forgot to precede your entire post with ‘Provided you live on the equator,’ which Kenya is.

If you live on the 45th parallel like I do, it isn’t logical at all since the length of a day is constantly shifting.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#436

Post by tharkun__ »

nerdponx wrote: post #413
kelnos wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone is arguing that December 25 is the birth date of Jesus (assuming he existed), the argument is just that there are people who believe it is. You seem to think only children and people who don't know much about Christianity would believe that, but I assure you there are lots of Christian adults who don't know the history you (correctly) laid out.

The point is that the "birth date of Jesus" being set on December 25 came 350 years after January 1 was chosen to start the new year.

No the point is that my parent said:

    I don't think anyone actually believes ...
when in fact, yes, people do actually believe this.

When this is pointed out, he explains why it can't be Dec 25th and that's all totally fine and correct but doesn't change the fact that yes indeed there are people that believe that, as well as lots of other things that can easily be disproved. It does not matter whether you can disprove it to us and others. These people that do believe it are in fact out there.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#437

Post by bena »

maratc wrote: post #331
bena wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you take a poll, or do you just have the feeling that that is the case? Not to mention, it's a bit weaselly. It offsets the burden of defending the position to "most people". And it doesn't even matter what "most people" think. "Most people" in this case, would be wrong. Even if it were "most people" and not "most people whose opinions you've happened to remember on the subject because they happen to align with y…

> And it's going to get darker earlier in winter. It's summer we're talking about when we talk about DST. There's no DST in the winter. > School kids waiting for the bus are safer, kids walking to school way safer. For several months in the summer, the schools are closed. Other months during DST, the schools start at 08h00 and the vast majority of the kids wake up about seven-ish, to leave their house at about 07h30.…

All the schools around where I live start between 7 and 8, which means kids are waiting for busses and walking between 6 and 7.

Sunrise will be at 7:12 tomorrow. Sunrise would be around 8am at the latest if we kept DST year-round.

There is less sun during the winter. That is how it works. Just in general.

Also, whenever we try "year-round DST" we go back to "spring-forward"/"fall-back" because it sucks. Everyone says they want it until they get it. Whereas Arizona has gotten rid of DST and we don't hear anything about them. They got rid of it in the 60s.

The nation should follow suit.

And all of this is outside the fact that time zones in general are more political than practical. Which is another reason people think they want year-round DST. It's because they're probably in the wrong time zone.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#438

Post by maratc »

bena wrote: post #437
maratc wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's going to get darker earlier in winter. It's summer we're talking about when we talk about DST. There's no DST in the winter. > School kids waiting for the bus are safer, kids walking to school way safer. For several months in the summer, the schools are closed. Other months during DST, the schools start at 08h00 and the vast majority of the kids wake up about seven-ish, to leave their house at about 07h30.…

All the schools around where I live start between 7 and 8, which means kids are waiting for busses and walking between 6 and 7. Sunrise will be at 7:12 tomorrow. Sunrise would be around 8am at the latest if we kept DST year-round. There is less sun during the winter. That is how it works. Just in general. Also, whenever we try "year-round DST" we go back to "spring-forward"/"fall-back" because it sucks. Everyone says…

I don't know if you follow my argument, which is:

   > DST actually makes most sense in 30-40 degrees of latitude.
I am not arguing for having "year-round DST", nor for not having any DST at all. All I'm saying is this: at 50th parallel, there's plenty of daylight in the summer, and so: people should just figure out what to do in the winter -- and stick with it all year round. At 25th parallel, there's not much variance between summer and winter, so again, people should just figure out what to do in the winter -- and stick with it all year round. It's in between -- or 30 to 40 -- that the summer daytime is both scarce and variable enough to make the twice-a-year change worthwhile.

Regarding your personal situation, I have no idea where you reside or what "the nation" is -- assuming US, I gather you have a "fall-back" change in three days, for a sunrise at 6:15am and up to 7am at the latest? If so, sounds like you've got it all figured out.

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#439

Post by WorldMaker »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #66
guidedlight wrote: post #18

Nah, the weirdest time zone is Africa/Addis_Ababa, which nobody in Ethiopia follows. Instead the locals offset the time by 6 hours. So the AM cycle starts at dawn (i.e. 6am), and the PM cycle starts at dusk (i.e. 6pm). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Ethiopia

That's very similar to how the romans conceived of time. Wonder if it's an old relic from when north africa was a bunch of provinces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_timekeeping

Possibly simpler to explain that it is just an artifact of using sun dials for timekeeping. Sun dials technically only can tell time accurately during daylight and base-12 is an easy division of a dial (circle).

Re: Australia/Lord_Howe is the weirdest timezone

#440

Post by WorldMaker »

VyseofArcadia wrote: post #225
gausswho wrote: post #121

Excellent read around the acrobatics of timezone software. It really is quite flexible. It leads me to wonder. If it's all just an automated and finite offset, there's no reason for daylight savings policies to hew to 60 minutes adjustments. Couldn't a nation decide to have a continuously changing offset throughout the year? It might make their offset lookup table substantially longer, but this could 'solve' daylight…

> but this could 'solve' daylight savings time This ignores the easiest solution to daylight savings time. Stop doing daylight savings time. My preferred solution would be permanent standard time rather than permanent DST, but I'll take what I can get as long as we stop changing the clocks twice a year.

Permanent standard versus permanent daylight standard is an interesting debate because some of your preference depends on which edge of the timezone you live on. It is possibly a warning that hour-wide timezones are maybe too wide and that a solution to abolishing DST may need to better account for 30-minute or 15-minute wide timezones. Right now the swing back and forth does help keep one edge or the other happier to be in the same wide timezone. Of course "switch to smaller timezones so that we can drop daylight saving time" would complicate the "simple" choice to drop DST.
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