So, wondered this morning why the world needed to wake me up at 7 o'clock on a Sunday... Found out it was actually 8 o'clock...
Went around the house to set the clocks, do you know how many clocks you have :-)??? But I would have expected at least some to get the summer time right....
But no, _only my Canon camera_ got it right, and the Linux PC. Not even the cellphones, or the eeePC (also Linux), got it right.
Why not all move to UTC.. And just say: we start an hour earlier Monday. sigh. Madness.
Linux *should* get it right, if you've got the system clock set to UTC and the correct timezone file (/etc/localtime, usually a symlink), set. That way, file timestamps show as local time on a UNIX system wherever in the world you put them. I compiled new timezone files the year before DST was extended, and the whole thing went seamlessly. Move anywhere in the world, and all you need do is change one symlink.
My (Olympus) camera is permanently set to UTC. I never change it, anywhere in the world.
My cellphone is on UTC, and I just set a timezone (+/- so many hours) for wherever I am.
That'd be great for some of us, we'd have to get up at 2300 and go to bed at 1500 or so ;-)
Not to mention people who live in Arizona, and work in Nevada - same timezone but no DST in Arizona. Only the same half the year. They get used to it.
I don't think the Aussies would be too happy, either.
I guess it's easier to change people's clocks than their habits.
--
"Electricity is of two kinds, positive and negative. The difference
is, I presume, that one comes a little more expensive, but is more
durable; the other is a cheaper thing, but the moths get into it."
(Stephen Leacock)
If Linux got it wrong, either you haven't selected the correct timezone, or your timezone files are wrong (e.g. pre-date the latest changes to the DST rules), or the hardware clock uses local time (which is a bad idea unless you need to dual-boot Windows).
Linux' system clock is in UTC, as are filesystem timestamps. The hardware clock can be in either local time or UTC. The former is normally only used if you dual-boot Windows, which requires that the real-time clock keeps local time. The problem with using local time is that, if the system is switched off when DST changes, on the next boot the system doesn't know whether to interpret the hardware clock as daylight time or standard time, so you have to adjust it manually.
On a sunny day (Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:42:42 +0100) it happened Nobody wrote in :
Yes, that eeePC must come configured wrong (Xandros Linux), as I did not twiddle _that_ part, and also had to change my newsreader code as it also choked on its timezones...
My server does this every day at 10 minutes past nine, my crontab entry:
It's certainly frustrating, but saying that we all move to UTC, and start an hour earlier on Monday creates problems of its own.
For example, should we have to remember, during half of each year, to subtract an hour from timetables and schedules, times specified in laws, the time specified in your contract of employment as being the time you start work, etc.
At least with the system of putting the clocks back and forward, you only have to deal with the issue twice a year, and can forget about it for the rest of the time.
On a sunny day (Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:09:05 +1100) it happened Sylvia Else wrote in :
:-)???
That is all true, but there are advantages too. People no longer have to adjust millions of clocks in millions of devices twice each year. If you have to call somebody in Europe, say from the US, you can just agree on a time: 13:00, and it will be the right time, and not when they happen to be sleeping. When air travelling no need to adjust the watch or wonder what the local time is. No more problems with log files, if your computer clock goes one hour earlier in the middle of the night you get double log file entries. Maybe the problem originates from people associating 'noon' with 12 o'clock... We are moving to a global community, a global time would be the least thing to expect.
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