[time-nuts] How can it be :05 in one place and :30 in another

Matthew Smith matt at smiffytech.com
Sun Oct 26 03:20:59 UTC 2008


Quoth Gretchen Baxter at 2008-10-26 13:43...
> So if a call is called for 10:00 in one part, it is really 10:30 in the
> other?

You get used to it.  I'm in South Australia but most of my clients are 
in the Eastern States - it's no more confusing than when I was living in 
England and dealing with people in Western Europe.

I think that the whole point of timezones is to get noon roughly in the 
middle of the day; if there is only half an hours difference in sunrise 
between one place and the next, is it not logical to make the difference 
30 minutes?

Your original subject line had me confused - :05 in one place and :30 in 
another - that sounds more like a software error ;-)

But if you really want to get confused, consider not the zone offsets 
but the fact that there is no global standardisation on when daylight 
saving starts and ends - or whether it happens at all.  (Queensland does 
not have daylight saving.)  Our daylight saving started a fortnight 
early this year, most people not being aware of it until there was a 
reminder on the television news the night before.


-- 
Matthew Smith
Smiffytech - Technology Consulting & Web Application Development
Business: http://www.smiffytech.com/
Personal: http://www.smiffysplace.com/
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