Time zones were created in order to facilitate the railroad, so that schedules could be set and train arrivals and departures tracked. The division of the world into roughly 24 different time zones makes for some amusing incongruities, especially when the line gets shifted around to match geographical and political boundaries.
The introduction of Daylight Savings Time (Summer Time off in Europe and elsewhere) further complicated things, especially when it was not universally adopted (even within the US). Margie used to joke about when she was liviing in Indiana that part of the year she was on New York time, the rest of the year on Chicago time.
But at least it was a twice-a-year disconnect (with maybe a week or two between North America and Europe to be out of sync, as Margie and I discovered on a trip to the UK a few years back). But politicians keep screwing around with things, as is their wont, and the whole system is beginning to unravel in a way that everyone think will be handled neatly by computers — but will not be.
So now the US, for example is, arbitrarily changing its DST dates, despite the impact on other countries that try to stay in sync with us. Australia — well, some of Australia — delayed their DST by a week to accomodate the Commonwealth Games, which has led to computer calendar mishaps. And that same story mentions that next year, some Canadian provinces are changing their own DST cutover dates (apparently to stay in sync with the US), but not others.
Yeesh. Maybe we should just go to reckoning things based on where the sun is in the sky. Or else by what’s on TV.
Well, if you do have to live in a country that’s so big it has four time zones.
There was talk of Scotland having a different time zone to England – a lot of people in southern England would like to move from GMT to Central European Time. Which would mean that Greenwich wouldn’t actually be on Greenwich Mean Time any more…
Actually, the US (so far as states go) encompasses six different time zones (Alaska and Hawaii are in their own).
It would make sense for the UK to be on the same time schedule as the rest of Europe, I suppose. On the other hand, yes, the irony of Greenwich not being in GMT would be significant.
Oh, hey, look at this: Indiana’s tweaking their time zone again. Actually simplifies things, some. The whole state will observe DST this year; the counties on Central vs Eastern time will shift a bit, though. Yeesh.
Other fun, confusing time zone facts here. Jeez, if there were a sound argument for One World Government, this mess would be it.
Any chance this screwing around with time will open synchronization vulnerabilities in WANs? Something about transactions and networks makes me think there’s a field of unexplored possibilities for the nefarious investigator.
I’m sure there’s a plot hook for some caper film that can be exploited there …
I might go through the RISKS archive to look for that.
Wait…the good news is that the Energy department is going to study the effect of the change in the time change next year. If they don’t like what they find out, Congress might change it back in 2008. My date book will never be the same.
Grrr… do away with Daylight Savings Time. Really. All this screwing around is just going to open up more problems with patching computer programs and stuff like that.
I’ll bet it’s really a veiled Microsoft ploy to force you to buy Vista, just so your calendar is up-to-date with current DST regulastions.
DST makes so little sense, it’s not even funny.
Want to shift things around? Shift work shifts! Leave the freaking clocks alone. Say, “For the summer, office hours are 7:00 a.m. to 4 p.m.”
Or, better yet, just don’t worry about it.
Clocks should be persist, not screwed with.