[time-nuts] Time-zones and World time..

[Steve Rooke]

2008/10/31 Chuck Harris <cfharris at erols.com>:
> With the great ease of computers to make the transformations,
> there really isn't any point in removing local timezones.  It
> is just a table after all... it is nothing like the old days when
> every major town used Local Sidereal Time (eg. 12:00 is when the
> sun is at its highest).  That caused major problems for the
> railroads.

This assumes we are talking about electronic systems and means of
communications, what I was really thinking about was how this affects
people's ability to easily understand communication between countries.
This is not only affected by the plethora of local time-zones but with
ever changing daylight savings times. I communicate with the UK daily
and we have just gone through a period from being 11 hours ahead, then
12 and now 13 hours ahead as the DST changes are different in each
country. When I communicate with the US, I have to work out which
time-zone the place I'm talking to is in and correct for that. It's
probably not so much of a problem for someone in America  as you get
used to the time-zone differences but this adds complexity for an
outsider. I just wondered if it would add global communications and
buisiness to have a single World standard.

> The biggest problem with local timezones is all of the continuously
> changing variations on Daylight Savings Time.  That accounts for
> the majority of the changes in the unix tz functions.

Not so hard under Unix as the tz updates are easy to pick up but
Windows can be a problem if updates are not turned on, IE. some
service packs can break an application but you still need things like
the tz updates.

> It was recently reported that the onset of DST coincides with an
> increase in heart attacks, and the return to standard time coincides
> with a decrease in heart attacks.  Yet another reason to ditch
> Daylight Savings Time.

Hmmm... death by DST, how would that go down in an inquest. So is the
Government responsible for these deaths or the population for voting
for it...

73, Steve
-- 
Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV & G8KVD
Omnium finis imminet