"Permanent" DST

Joe Greco jgreco at ns.sol.net
Tue Mar 15 23:18:30 UTC 2022


On Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 02:06:50PM -0700, Brandon Svec via NANOG wrote:
> "..rational time worldwide"?  Like all of China in one timezone and Mumbai
> :30 off center? and Arizona?  and that one county in Idaho?


The word "rational" does not belong in a sentence discussing timezones or
even general time issues.

We're taught from a young age that you wake up at, well for the sake of
argument, let's agree on 7AM.  You learn that businesses are "9AM to 5PM",
etc.  These are basically all arbitrary choices, based off hysterical
raisins that have to do with the position of the sun at noon, in an era
where there weren't better ways to synchronize clocks.

We COULD all work in UTC and un-learn the weird system of hour offsets
and timezones.  This would be convenient for people at a distance, since
it would be simply a matter of stating availability hours, rather than
giving someone hours AND a timezone and making them do the math.  If I
say that I'm available for an hour at 22:00 UTC, that works out anywhere
on the globe.  But do you know what timezone "CDT" is?  When's "17:00 CDT"?

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way
through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that
democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"-Asimov


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