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Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

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Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#91

Post by listic »

madcaptenor wrote: post #71

You can generate a table of sunrises and sunsets from the US Naval Observatory, http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php . Unfortunately I don't see a way to link directly to the table; Moscow is 55 45 N, 37 36 E, and now four hours east of Greenwich. From their location, they're "naturally" around UTC+2:30 (37.6 degrees, divided by 15 degrees per hour). The table says that in late December the sun will rise…

Moscow time is used in the North-West region, there are 9 time zones in total: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Russia_-_Time_Zones...

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#92

Post by joeyh »

technomancy wrote: post #30
Vivtek wrote: post #13

Indiana just went to daylight savings a couple of years back. Pissed me off - the new Republican governor said it would attract jobs (which is the reason anybody ever does anything in Indianapolis), and the success of that was predictable.

I live in the Pacific time zone, and for a long time I've been tempted to reset my clock to Pitcairn Island time, which is just like Pacific time, but without observing daylight savings. Haven't made the jump yet, but it's only a matter of time before some stupid DST error fills me with enough rage.

I am not observing DST this winter. When living off the grid on solar power, messing with the time the sun is up is annoying. It's been working out well enough for me. Did a custom DST-less EST timezone. http://kitenet.net/~joey/blog/entry/howto_create_your_own_ti...

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#93

Post by daxelrod »

anonymous1234 wrote: post #79
[deleted] wrote: post #73

[deleted]

The US DST change in 2007 cost an estimated $500 million to $1 billion: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0307/p02s01-stct.html DST has cost me many hours spent debugging. I will be very happy if/when it is abolished in the US.

I have a clock from one of my former employers that's imprinted with "We survived the 2007 DST change!"

The clock is broken.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#95

Post by eru »

BrandonM wrote: post #61
zeteo wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well while we're at it, what's the fetish with 10? We should use powers of 2 for everything :)

I would prefer base-12; it has a lot of benefits. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal , especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Comparison_to_other_... Instead of changing our clocks, we could just change our numbering system. Having 50 (that's 5 x 12) seconds per minute, 50 minutes per hour, and 20 hours per day seems perfectly reasonable.

I'd like to use base-11. Prime numbered bases eliminate lots of special cases.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#96

Post by eru »

anigbrowl wrote: post #90
Groxx wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why stop there? Lets have base 1024, you can count to that on your fingers too! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finger_binary

No, you can represent it with your fingers but not count it. By 'count' I mean an ordinal traversal of the sort you teach kids.

Use gray code.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#97

Post by eru »

ecaron wrote: post #27
pkulak wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lousy farmers...

Actually the farmers in my family have to reprogram their clocks twice a year to avoid DST, since cows are incredibly sensitive to their milking schedule and the twice-a-year hourly shift really screws with the herd. I would go so far as to say that farmers hate DST more than programmers/sysadmins do.

Why do farmers bother they cows with DST, then? Can't they just get up at the same (real) time?

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#98

Post by eru »

antirez wrote: post #35

Hope that Berlusconi in one of his delirious of madness will do the same for Italy. But I want to stay always in DST, that in Italy means more daylight.

If you want to get up an hour earlier to have more light, then just get up an hour earlier.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#99

Post by eru »

zeteo wrote: post #83
baddox wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing a radix is a balance between the number of prime factors (and brevity) and the number of symbols to keep track of. I think twelve strikes a good balance as well.

But 12 only gains you one more factor that's not a power of 2, and is 30 times more difficult to implement (operation tables have 144 cells for base 12, compared to 4 cells for base 2).

That's why you should use the digits -n/2 to +n/2 for base n. That shrinks the tables by a factor of four.

Re: Update your timezone defs: Russia abolishes winter time (DST)

#100

Post by ars »

baddox wrote: post #80
BrandonM wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would prefer base-12; it has a lot of benefits. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal , especially http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duodecimal#Comparison_to_other_... Instead of changing our clocks, we could just change our numbering system. Having 50 (that's 5 x 12) seconds per minute, 50 minutes per hour, and 20 hours per day seems perfectly reasonable.

Choosing a radix is a balance between the number of prime factors (and brevity) and the number of symbols to keep track of. I think twelve strikes a good balance as well.

In that case 3 is your number. (Because it's the closest number to e, 2.71)

There is a currency based on it (with the provably least number of coins necessary to make any kind of change), ternary logic, balanced ternary is especially cool, etc.

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