New Year's Computer Stories...

[Charles Richmond]

Happy New Year!!!

It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.

Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.

Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.

Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

[Marco Moock]

Post by Charles Richmond
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some
way are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc.
etc.

I haven't experienced the millenium change, I was born in 2001,
although I have a fax machine/printer/copier that can only use 2-digit
year, but it doesn't create problems if It set it to 22. I haven't used
it in 2023, so I don't know if it still works with the year 23. :-)

Post by Charles Richmond
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.

Was that the "Media Player" (not WMP) or the later WMP?
I have read a similar story about Win 9x with about 40 days.

I have a network card (Broadcom PCI) that stopped working after a
certain amount of time or transferred data. If anybody is interested, I
can find out more.

The software "bmon" crashes after a certain amount of transmitted data
with a segfault. I assume a counter overflow, but I need to examine
that.

[Martin Kukac]

Hello everyone!

01 Jan 23 10:46, you wrote:

MM> I have read a similar story about Win 9x with about 40 days.

I used an old PC to act as a WiFi client and router in my parents house
around 2004 and as it was an old Pentium-class machine and Linux didn't
support my PCI WiFi card at first, I had Windows 98 running there. I can
confirm, that the memory management bug, that makes the system go out of
free RAM after about 40 days, was there. I was living about 200 km away
from my parents back then as I was on the university, and my mum had to go
every month to the attic and reset the machine.

I was really glad when ndiswrapper started to work with that PCI card and I
could migrate the machine to Linux :)

Martin


... All bugs encountered until reboot are features.

[TheAppleFox]

Post by Martin Kukac
Hello everyone!
MM> I have read a similar story about Win 9x with about 40 days.
I used an old PC to act as a WiFi client and router in my parents house
around 2004 and as it was an old Pentium-class machine and Linux didn't
support my PCI WiFi card at first, I had Windows 98 running there. I can
confirm, that the memory management bug, that makes the system go out of
free RAM after about 40 days, was there. I was living about 200 km away
from my parents back then as I was on the university, and my mum had to go
every month to the attic and reset the machine.
I was really glad when ndiswrapper started to work with that PCI card and I
could migrate the machine to Linux :)
Martin
... All bugs encountered until reboot are features.

Hi everybody, happy new year
I'm new here
:-) Can't believe Usenet still exists in 2023

[Leonard Blaisdell]

Post by TheAppleFox
Hi everybody, happy new year
I'm new here
:-) Can't believe Usenet still exists in 2023

Happy New Year! Most of us are waiting to turn off the lights and lock
the door. There's very little Apple discussion in this group, but I've
found the group fascinating for years. Since I'm an Apple guy, I post
here rarely. :)
Put on your armor and have fun on Usenet! It's completely uncensored.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On 3 Jan 2023 01:22:54 GMT

Post by Leonard Blaisdell

Post by TheAppleFox
Hi everybody, happy new year
I'm new here
:-) Can't believe Usenet still exists in 2023

Happy New Year! Most of us are waiting to turn off the lights and lock
the door. There's very little Apple discussion in this group, but I've
found the group fascinating for years. Since I'm an Apple guy, I post
here rarely. :)
Put on your armor and have fun on Usenet! It's completely uncensored.

Apple? that's just for *users*!

HNY likewise.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Sat, 31 Dec 2022 22:35:16 -0600

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.

Seems it was 23 years ago. Gosh.

Post by Charles Richmond
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.
Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.
Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!

Same to all of you and the user still using the usenet!

Post by Charles Richmond
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some
way are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or
etc. etc.
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.

Not entirely to the subject. But a few years ago I played with an
emulator running OS/2. The image I ran also included StarOffice, so I ran
the setup. But it was a 90 days (or so) trial version. And after starting
it told me it would be after December 31 1996, so I couldn't try it
out. What a shame! ;-)

[Dennis Boone]

Post by Charles Richmond
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.

I seem to recall a linux kernel bug involving a mis-handled leap second,
one NYE a decade+ back. Locked up the affected machines. One for which
I was responsible was ~80 miles away.

De

[TheAppleFox]

Post by Dennis Boone

Post by Charles Richmond
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.

I seem to recall a linux kernel bug involving a mis-handled leap second,
one NYE a decade+ back. Locked up the affected machines. One for which
I was responsible was ~80 miles away.
De

Talk about the devil. I recall once installing Gentoo, I finish compiling my manually compiled vmlinuz 9.6 MB, I had integrated everything into one big monolithical file (I wanted it to run as fast as possible) with NO initramfs.

Forgot to include the NVidia SATA device driver, spent the next 2 hours figuring out why the kernel panicked.

make menuconfig - fail!

[Rich Alderson]

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.
Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.
Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

We used to set the date on some of the systems at Living Computers: Museum+Labs
to 28 years earlier because there was no other way to get around the Y2K issue
on ancient operating systems. We had a note that after 31 December 2027 the
admins for those systems would need to subtract 56 from the date.

Sadly, we don't need to concern ourselves with that any longer.

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.
Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.
Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

I don't have one that I can recall. For most of my programming, time
has been either irrelevant or it has been the Unix time_t which
doesn't care. In 1999, my home computers ran Linux and people had
dealt with the Y2K bugs for me.

But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

A QDateTime is:
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone

and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

I suppose this type is a good fit when you need to format or parse a
time string, or need to do calculations on calendar time ("two days
ago") but the Qt framework encourages using it all the time[2], as a
replacement for time_t, struct timeval and friends.

/Jorgen

[1] https://doc.qt.io/qt-6/qdatetime.html
[2] Pun intended.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

Post by Jorgen Grahn
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

Then you cross a DST boundary and all the bugs come to the surface.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Jorgen Grahn
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

Then you cross a DST boundary and all the bugs come to the surface.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

Saskatchewan doesn't observe DST as well. Newfoundland and Labrador are
(is?) half an hour ahead of Halifax.

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Jorgen Grahn
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

Then you cross a DST boundary and all the bugs come to the surface.

I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

[greymaus]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Its bad enough having relatives mailing photos from the beach in
Australia at Christmas without that. (forgetting people swimming at the
40ft in Dublin). remember yesterday was Christmas day in Russia.

[Andreas Eder]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Yes, but that would be rational - so no chance.

'Andreas

[Peter Flass]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Yes, but that would be rational - so no chance.

It wouldn’t really solve any problems, since people would still schedule
their days around the sun. You’d still have the problem of call centers in
India working overnight to deal with people in the US, for whom it’s
daytime. I think it’s less confusing to have the clock time correspond,
more or less, to the local solar time. It’s really just DST that’s the
problem.

[Andreas Eder]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Yes, but that would be rational - so no chance.

It wouldn’t really solve any problems, since people would still schedule
their days around the sun.

What does this have to do with what the clock shows? The sun rises, no
matter wether the clock shows 2, 4, 18 or 24.

Post by Peter Flass
You’d still have the problem of call centers in
India working overnight to deal with people in the US, for whom it’s
daytime.

That hasn't got to do anything whith what the clock shows either.

'Andreas

[Peter Flass]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Yes, but that would be rational - so no chance.

It wouldn’t really solve any problems, since people would still schedule
their days around the sun.

What does this have to do with what the clock shows? The sun rises, no
matter wether the clock shows 2, 4, 18 or 24.

Post by Peter Flass
You’d still have the problem of call centers in
India working overnight to deal with people in the US, for whom it’s
daytime.

That hasn't got to do anything whith what the clock shows either.
'Andreas

Right. What would be the point of everyone changing to UTC, since it
wouldn’t affect anything except the clock time people,started and left
work. You’d still have the problem coordinating across the now-nonexistent
time zones. If I wanted to call someone from New York, it wouldn’t matter
what either clock read, the question still would be “is this working hours
for this person?”

[greymaus]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Yes, but that would be rational - so no chance.

It wouldn’t really solve any problems, since people would still schedule
their days around the sun.

What does this have to do with what the clock shows? The sun rises, no
matter wether the clock shows 2, 4, 18 or 24.

Post by Peter Flass
You’d still have the problem of call centers in
India working overnight to deal with people in the US, for whom it’s
daytime.

perhaps we should go back to using Paris as Prime meridian? Or L.A, so
we can join the nuts?.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by greymaus
perhaps we should go back to using Paris as Prime meridian? Or L.A, so
we can join the nuts?.

Paris is kind of Greenwich anyway.

I think the idea was to completely abandon time zones.

So that people from now EST go to bed at 4:00, as it would be 23:00 for them.

[John Levine]

Post by greymaus
perhaps we should go back to using Paris as Prime meridian? Or L.A, so
we can join the nuts?.

I dunno. Paris switched from GMT to Nazi time in 1940 and never switched back.

[greymaus]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Yes, but that would be rational - so no chance.

It wouldn’t really solve any problems, since people would still schedule
their days around the sun. You’d still have the problem of call centers in
India working overnight to deal with people in the US, for whom it’s
daytime. I think it’s less confusing to have the clock time correspond,
more or less, to the local solar time. It’s really just DST that’s the
problem.

Some years ago, a company on Merrion Sq would start up at an odd hour.
Passers by wondered where in the World was that the time of business
hours. It folded shortly fter

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Aviation already uses UTC, although anything that crosses time zones
would benefit.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Aviation already uses UTC, although anything that crosses time zones
would benefit.

IIRC, the railroads are the reason we have official timezones (and
a consistent national view of time) today.

[Vir Campestris]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Aviation already uses UTC, although anything that crosses time zones
would benefit.

IIRC, the railroads are the reason we have official timezones (and
a consistent national view of time) today.

My understanding is it was the railways. Pre-railway every town in the
UK had its own time.

It must have been fun for seamen who used the difference between local
time and clock time to work out how far west they were.

Andy

[greymaus]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Aviation already uses UTC, although anything that crosses time zones
would benefit.

IIRC, the railroads are the reason we have official timezones (and
a consistent national view of time) today.

+

Canals didn't need them, just float along, open a barrel, fill up again
with canal water from the seven springs, and the best stout in Europe.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 06:39:52 GMT

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

Aviation already uses UTC, although anything that crosses time zones
would benefit.

Military too. At least NATO.

When I served in Germany in the late 80s we had Zulu time. But otherwise
used Alpha (UTC+1) and Bravo (summer) time.

[Vir Campestris]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day I
would probably get really confused over what date it was.

Andy

[John Levine]

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day I
would probably get really confused over what date it was.

It's fortunate you're not an astronomer.

[Bob Eager]

Post by John Levine

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day I
would probably get really confused over what date it was.

It's fortunate you're not an astronomer.

It's so nice living near Greenwich.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by John Levine

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day I
would probably get really confused over what date it was.

It's fortunate you're not an astronomer.

Or a pilot.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day
I would probably get really confused over what date it was.

If we were used that midnight fell for some of us in the middle of the
day it would be normal. Some might then not call it "high noon" but "high
night" then, but apart from that...

[Peter Flass]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day
I would probably get really confused over what date it was.

If we were used that midnight fell for some of us in the middle of the
day it would be normal. Some might then not call it "high noon" but "high
night" then, but apart from that...

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Go the whole hog and switch to UTC worldwide and accept that people
work, eat, sleep etc. at different times.

If I was in an office where midnight UTC fell in the middle of the day
I would probably get really confused over what date it was.

If we were used that midnight fell for some of us in the middle of the
day it would be normal. Some might then not call it "high noon" but "high
night" then, but apart from that...

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

Yes, my input was absurd intentional. I wanted to say, that timezones
otherwise were a good idea.

[Vir Campestris]

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).

I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

Andy

[D.J.]

On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 12:23:22 +0000, Vir Campestris

Post by Vir Campestris

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.
Andy

Those are artificial anyway, created by the early LED clock makers. 12
PM is noon, and 12AM is midnight.

I've hear people do it redundantly.

"Its 12 PM Noon."

Which, is very silly.
--
Jim

[Christian Brunschen]

Post by D.J.
On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 12:23:22 +0000, Vir Campestris

Post by Vir Campestris

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.
Andy

Those are artificial anyway, created by the early LED clock makers. 12
PM is noon, and 12AM is midnight.

... except it turns out that there isn't really any standard on this issue.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/noon-12-am-or-12-pm reminds that
'am' means 'ante meridiem' and 'pm' 'post meridiem' - i.e., before and
after noon, respectively. noon is very much not 12 hours either before
or after itself, so neither '12 am' nor '12 pm' apply.

Wikipedia meanwhile at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock#Confusion_at_noon_and_midnight
documents some of the various ways in which 12 am and 12 pm are used in
opposite ways.

'noon' and 'midnight' seem to be the only safe ways to refer to, well,
noon and midnight in the context of a 12-hour clock.

// Christian

[Vir Campestris]

Post by Christian Brunschen
'noon' and 'midnight' seem to be the only safe ways to refer to, well,
noon and midnight in the context of a 12-hour clock.

Alternatively refer to 11:59 or 12:01, where it is clear and probably
close enough.

Andy

[D.J.]

Post by Christian Brunschen

Post by D.J.
On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 12:23:22 +0000, Vir Campestris

Post by Vir Campestris

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.
Andy

Those are artificial anyway, created by the early LED clock makers. 12
PM is noon, and 12AM is midnight.

... except it turns out that there isn't really any standard on this issue.
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/noon-12-am-or-12-pm reminds that
'am' means 'ante meridiem' and 'pm' 'post meridiem' - i.e., before and
after noon, respectively. noon is very much not 12 hours either before
or after itself, so neither '12 am' nor '12 pm' apply.
Wikipedia meanwhile at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock#Confusion_at_noon_and_midnight
documents some of the various ways in which 12 am and 12 pm are used in
opposite ways.
'noon' and 'midnight' seem to be the only safe ways to refer to, well,
noon and midnight in the context of a 12-hour clock.
// Christian

There ya go, bringing facts into the discussion...

Anyway, I was unaware of that. Thanks.
--
Jim

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Christian Brunschen

Post by D.J.
On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 12:23:22 +0000, Vir Campestris

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.
Andy

Those are artificial anyway, created by the early LED clock makers. 12
PM is noon, and 12AM is midnight.

... except it turns out that there isn't really any standard on this issue.
https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/noon-12-am-or-12-pm reminds that
'am' means 'ante meridiem' and 'pm' 'post meridiem' - i.e., before and
after noon, respectively. noon is very much not 12 hours either before
or after itself, so neither '12 am' nor '12 pm' apply.

But then you have to learn and memorize what "meridiem" [1] and "ante" means.

Post by Christian Brunschen
Wikipedia meanwhile at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12-hour_clock#Confusion_at_noon_and_midnight
documents some of the various ways in which 12 am and 12 pm are used in
opposite ways.
'noon' and 'midnight' seem to be the only safe ways to refer to, well,
noon and midnight in the context of a 12-hour clock.

My cheap-ish radio clock here only has two segments for the left most
part. It can display a 1 or if off. A little red dot comes on all 12
hours and is off the following 12.

My even cheaper microwave clock tries to be sneaky. It has four fully
equipped 7-segment units (I can set the timer to 88:88 if I wanted to
burn some stuff), but the clock is 12 only. It doesn't even bother
lighting up a small dot to indicate whether it's AM or PM.

If the 12 AM/PM and 24 hour fan boys want to come to an agreement what to
use in future it should be 24 in my opinion. Easier to learn for the
AM/PMers than the other way round. Plus military uses that since
"always", also NATO and US troops.

[1] Merriam-Webster says it means "midday". I rarely ran across the term
"midday" already.

[songbird]

D.J wrote:
...

Post by D.J.
I've hear people do it redundantly.
"Its 12 PM Noon."
Which, is very silly.

i keep my clocks on 24hr time if there's an option to do
that.


songbird

[Alfred Falk]

Post by Vir Campestris

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.
Andy

Consider that hours are counted modulo 12, so 12:00 is actually 00:00.
Then 00:00 am is followed by 00:01 am and 00:00 pm is fillowed by 00:01 pm.

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

If an airplane crashes right on the Canada/U.S. border,
where do they bury the survivors?

[D.J.]

On Mon, 16 Jan 2023 17:47:32 GMT, Charlie Gibbs

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Vir Campestris

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

If an airplane crashes right on the Canada/U.S. border,
where do they bury the survivors?

They send them to hospital, then home.
--
Jim

[Bob Eager]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

If an airplane crashes right on the Canada/U.S. border,
where do they bury the survivors?

Wherever they eventually die.

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

If an airplane crashes right on the Canada/U.S. border,
where do they bury the survivors?

A similar problem came up in the French-Canadian movie Bon Cop Bad Cop
from 2006, when a dead body hung over the road sign between Ontario and
Quebec. So two cops came from either province showed up. The cop of the
side the lower body hung said something like "His ass is ours". *g*

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Vir Campestris

I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

ante is latin for before
post is latin for after
peri is latin for now

Meridian is 'noon'.

Post meridian (pm) is after noon.
Ante Meridian (am) is before noon.

[songbird]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

ante is latin for before
post is latin for after
peri is latin for now
Meridian is 'noon'.
Post meridian (pm) is after noon.
Ante Meridian (am) is before noon.

right, we get that, but what is noon noon called
and why is it mislabeled all the time? :)

*tongue somewhat in cheek*

what it obviously should be is:

23:59:59pm -> 00:00:00sm -> 00:00:01am [ time goeth on ]

11:59:59am -> 12:00:00[n|m]m -> 12:00:01pm

satus (in latin) = start (english)

nunc (in latin) = now (english) or
middle (in latin) = medium (english)

i prefer the "n" version since it can't be confused
with "a", "p", "m" or "s"


songbird (noodling for fun...

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Vir Campestris

Post by Peter Flass
I still think this is the worst idea I’ve heard this year (so far)

The one I keep seeing that confuses me is references to 12:00am (or
12:00pm).
I have no clue which is noon and which is midnight.

Same here. And although that I am in an area since more than ten years
using the AM/PM thing.

[greymaus]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

Saskatchewan doesn't observe DST as well. Newfoundland and Labrador are
(is?) half an hour ahead of Halifax.

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Jorgen Grahn
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

Then you cross a DST boundary and all the bugs come to the surface.

I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

California has already _made_ such a decision. They're just waiting
on the US congress to make it possible.

[D.J.]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

California has already _made_ such a decision. They're just waiting
on the US congress to make it possible.

Someone will always g to school or work in the dark, or come hme in
the dark, regardeless of what is done with the clocks.

Its the US Naval Observatory i the US that decides.
--
Jim

[greymaus]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.

[1] Along with other bad things.

[D.J.]

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.

No idea when it started up again. We were told in the 1950s that it
was due to not all farmers having electricity, and when the Rural
elctrification Project was done, it would be stopped.

My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

The excuse to keep it going changes every few years.
--
Jim

[John Levine]

Post by D.J.

Post by greymaus
The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

That is my understanding, give or take gardening vs just having more
daylight while people are awake.

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.

He may wwll have talked about it, but DST doesn't even make sense until
you have time zones and they weren't invented until the late 1800s when
railroads imposed them on the country since schedules with each city in
its own solar time were impossible to comprehend.

[jtmpreno]

Post by John Levine

Post by D.J.

Post by greymaus
The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

That is my understanding, give or take gardening vs just having more
daylight while people are awake.

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.

He may wwll have talked about it, but DST doesn't even make sense until
you have time zones and they weren't invented until the late 1800s when
railroads imposed them on the country since schedules with each city in
its own solar time were impossible to comprehend.

Permanent DST is bad.

Permanent Standard Time is good.

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/03/28/why-permanent-daylight-saving-time-bad-idea

[Stefan Ram]

Post by jtmpreno
Permanent Standard Time is good.

... and you can start it today!

For several years for all my internal uses, I use permanent
standard time. My devices do not perform transitions to DST
anymore.

When exchanging times with other parties, I have to perform
a conversation now.

[Charles Richmond]

Post by Stefan Ram

Post by jtmpreno
Permanent Standard Time is good.

... and you can start it today!
For several years for all my internal uses, I use permanent
standard time. My devices do not perform transitions to DST
anymore.
When exchanging times with other parties, I have to perform
a conversation now.

Seem you live 90 degrees out on the Tau Axis... you can't get there from
here. (Here being our space-time dimension.) ;-)

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by jtmpreno

Post by John Levine

Post by D.J.

Post by greymaus
The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

That is my understanding, give or take gardening vs just having more
daylight while people are awake.

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.

He may wwll have talked about it, but DST doesn't even make sense until
you have time zones and they weren't invented until the late 1800s when
railroads imposed them on the country since schedules with each city in
its own solar time were impossible to comprehend.

Permanent DST is bad.
Permanent Standard Time is good.
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/03/28/why-permanent-daylight-saving-time-bad-idea

His arguments are not convincing and are specific to where he lives.

The time of sunset varies by an hour _within_ a timezone from east to west,
so any arguments about specific times are restricted to a single point
in the timezone.

Longer evenings win in my book. DST forever!

[John Levine]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by jtmpreno
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/03/28/why-permanent-daylight-saving-time-bad-idea

His arguments are not convincing and are specific to where he lives.
The time of sunset varies by an hour _within_ a timezone from east to west,
so any arguments about specific times are restricted to a single point
in the timezone.
Longer evenings win in my book. DST forever!

The anti-DST crowd is dominated by sad insomniacs who get up early in
the morning and imagine that is good, or worse, virtuous.

But we know they are wrong.

[greymaus]

Post by John Levine

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by jtmpreno
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/03/28/why-permanent-daylight-saving-time-bad-idea

His arguments are not convincing and are specific to where he lives.
The time of sunset varies by an hour _within_ a timezone from east to west,
so any arguments about specific times are restricted to a single point
in the timezone.
Longer evenings win in my book. DST forever!

The anti-DST crowd is dominated by sad insomniacs who get up early in
the morning and imagine that is good, or worse, virtuous.
But we know they are wrong.

less boring than lying in the bed.

[greymaus]

Post by jtmpreno

Post by John Levine

Post by D.J.

Post by greymaus
The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

That is my understanding, give or take gardening vs just having more
daylight while people are awake.

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.

He may wwll have talked about it, but DST doesn't even make sense until
you have time zones and they weren't invented until the late 1800s when
railroads imposed them on the country since schedules with each city in
its own solar time were impossible to comprehend.

Permanent DST is bad.
Permanent Standard Time is good.
https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/03/28/why-permanent-daylight-saving-time-bad-idea

There is the problem with satellite TV, we in .ie are at the extreme
edge of the area from which you have line-of-sight for direct satellite
access. Somewhere to the left of Spinions Hill. (Its been years since I
could adjust the dish)

[Joy Beeson]

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times.

Ben got a bum rap -- the letter to The Journal of Paris is obviously a
joke.

[Charles Richmond]

Post by Joy Beeson

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times.

Ben got a bum rap -- the letter to The Journal of Paris is obviously a
joke.

Benjie Franklin was a real joker alright. You can see a picture of him
laughing on the US hundred dollar bill. :-)

[greymaus]

Post by Joy Beeson

Post by D.J.
Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times.

Ben got a bum rap -- the letter to The Journal of Paris is obviously a
joke.

Ben, I think, liked a joke

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.

As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

[Andreas Eder]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

Why adjust them at all? It is not as they would look at the clock and
they surely won't mind it they are ,ilked at 4 or 5 o'clock as long as
it is the same time.

'Andreas

[maus]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

Why adjust them at all? It is not as they would look at the clock and
they surely won't mind it they are ,ilked at 4 or 5 o'clock as long as
it is the same time.
'Andreas

An elderly relative in New York would telephone us very early on
Christmas morning to wish HC. I don't like calls at odd hours.

[Andreas Eder]

Post by maus
An elderly relative in New York would telephone us very early on
Christmas morning to wish HC. I don't like calls at odd hours.

Well, early morning is early morning - no matter what the clock shows.

'Andreas

[Andreas Kohlbach]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

Why adjust them at all? It is not as they would look at the clock and
they surely won't mind it they are ,ilked at 4 or 5 o'clock as long as
it is the same time.

Suppose something with they just don't like to deviate from it. Like me
when I had a fixed schedule and had to get to work at the same time. So I
slept like from X hours to Y hours every day. If someone woke me up
earlier that might have disturbed my performance.

For cows it seems disturbing the 24 hour cycle would decrease the milk yield.

[Scott Lurndal]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.

They like to be milked twice a day[*]. It doesn't matter the exact time of day
so long as it is regular, nor do they recognize changes between daylight
savings and standard time.

[*] It can be uncomfortable for the cow if they're not milked on time.

[maus]

Post by Scott Lurndal

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle
tovs
get milked.

They like to be milked twice a day[*]. It doesn't matter the exact time of day
so long as it is regular, nor do they recognize changes between daylight
savings and standard time.
[*] It can be uncomfortable for the cow if they're not milked on

Very true, from someone who has worked at almost every job.

[greymaus]

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

A cow does not like her routine changed, and an angry cow is rapidly a
sick cow.

%s/cow/woman/g

[Andreas Eder]

Post by greymaus

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

A cow does not like her routine changed, and an angry cow is rapidly a
sick cow.

But that's just what I'm saying. Don't change the routine of the cow
and milk always at the same time no matter what the click shows.
That should not be so diffcult to di and understand.

'Andreas

[Charlie Gibbs]

Post by Andreas Eder

Post by greymaus

Post by Andreas Kohlbach

Post by D.J.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.

I think chickens don't care, but cows do. They like a 24 hour cycle to
get milked.
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

A cow does not like her routine changed, and an angry cow is rapidly a
sick cow.

But that's just what I'm saying. Don't change the routine of the cow
and milk always at the same time no matter what the click shows.
That should not be so diffcult to di and understand.

The tower at our local airport goes the opposite way.
Their hours are currently 15-07Z, but change to 14-06Z
when DST is in effect. In other words, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
local time all year round.

[Joy Beeson]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2023 23:32:08 -0500, Andreas Kohlbach

Post by Andreas Kohlbach
As far as I know when switching clocks farmers gradually do it a few
minutes earlier or later for some days to get cows adjusted.

The orchard I used to live near had a simpler solution. When the
clocks were meddled with, he changed the numbers on the open-hours
sign to say the same time with the new name.

[greymaus]

Post by D.J.

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.
No idea when it started up again. We were told in the 1950s that it
was due to not all farmers having electricity, and when the Rural
elctrification Project was done, it would be stopped.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.
The excuse to keep it going changes every few years.
--
Jim

I have great respect, from what I read anyway, for the late Mr.
Franklin, I wonder if he was taking the p*** sometimes, in things like
the electricity experiment, which must have killed a lot of the people
who trued it. The US was lucky to have had him at that time.

[Charles Richmond]

Post by greymaus

Post by D.J.

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

The whole thing was started, as far as I know, during WWI[1], so workers
could work their garden plots after coming home from the factories.
[1] Along with other bad things.

Benjamin Franklin started it back in colonial times. I think it was
eventually done away with.
No idea when it started up again. We were told in the 1950s that it
was due to not all farmers having electricity, and when the Rural
elctrification Project was done, it would be stopped.
My grandfather asked the farmers he knew what they thought about it.
The replied that the chickens and cows can't tell time. They lay eggs
and get milked when needed. Clocks had nothing to do with it.
The excuse to keep it going changes every few years.
--
Jim

I have great respect, from what I read anyway, for the late Mr.
Franklin, I wonder if he was taking the p*** sometimes, in things like
the electricity experiment, which must have killed a lot of the people
who trued it. The US was lucky to have had him at that time.

If *not* for Benjamin Franklin's influence at the US Constitutional
Convention, there would *not* be a United States. One big sticking
point was slavery. The southern states wanted slaves to count as people
for the purposes of representation in the House of Representatives, the
northern states did *not* want slaves counted at all. The compromise
was to count each slave as 3/5's of a person for purpose of Representation.

From what I heard on documentaries, Franklin did *not* like slavery,
but he realized that there would *not* be another constitutional
convention. He had to make this opportunity work, or there would *be*
*no* United
States.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by greymaus

Post by Charlie Gibbs
I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

But, But, that would mean making a decision

That's the frustrating part - the governments of British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, and California are considering making such a
decision. I mentioned it to a few people at the office and a lot
of them are in favour. They'd rather have a dark morning, I guess.

Let ‘em. At least it would avoid changing the time. I still have to figure
“let’s see,what time zone is this state in now?” “Dark morning” is similar
to the reason I heard Arizona doesn’t change time. We’d rather have the
“extra” hour in the evening, when it’s cooler.

[Peter Flass]

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

Saskatchewan doesn't observe DST as well. Newfoundland and Labrador are
(is?) half an hour ahead of Halifax.

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Jorgen Grahn
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

Then you cross a DST boundary and all the bugs come to the surface.

I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

If the areas were all contiguous, you could just rejigger the time zones.
They already jog around political boundaries. if they’re not, well, you
can’t have a patchwork. Here in AZ we son’t observe DST, and it makes
things a lot simpler, except when I have to deal with people from less
enlightened states, and have to count time zones on my fingers.

[Charles Richmond]

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Charlie Gibbs

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

Saskatchewan doesn't observe DST as well. Newfoundland and Labrador are
(is?) half an hour ahead of Halifax.

Post by Peter Flass

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot

Post by Jorgen Grahn
start messing with the time zone, you have to remember which function
preserves the time while shifting the time zone, and which function
instead preserves the date and time-of-day.

Then you cross a DST boundary and all the bugs come to the surface.

I think the best thing would be to eliminate DST entirely. No more
semi-annual clock changes, no subtle bugs, and fewer road accidents
due to people's circadian rhythm being disturbed. Unfortunately,
here on the west coast of North America, most people are pushing
to make DST permanent. So much for the sun being overhead at noon.

If the areas were all contiguous, you could just rejigger the time zones.
They already jog around political boundaries. if they’re not, well, you
can’t have a patchwork. Here in AZ we son’t observe DST, and it makes
things a lot simpler, except when I have to deal with people from less
enlightened states, and have to count time zones on my fingers.

Technically true. But if you look at a regular map of the state of
Arizona, you'll find a large chunk in the north to belong to the Navajo
Indian Reservation. The Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona *does*
observe Daylight Saving Time. Navajo Indian Reservation, Arizona is
within the Navajo Nation.

[greymaus]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

(over snipped)

Good luck with the sunburn. We in Ireland think we have
trouble with travellers :)

[johnson]

On 2023-01-10, greymaus <***@dmaus.org> wrote:
[...]

Post by greymaus
Good luck with the sunburn. We in Ireland think we have
trouble with travellers :)

oh? I thought you'd sent them all over to Britain

[maus]

Post by johnson
[...]

Post by greymaus
Good luck with the sunburn. We in Ireland think we have
trouble with travellers :)

oh? I thought you'd sent them all over to Britain

Sometimes they come back. Perhaps Nantucket next?

[D.J.]

Post by Ahem A Rivet's Shot
On 7 Jan 2023 09:52:57 GMT

Post by Jorgen Grahn
But recently I've had to use the Qt library's QDateTime[1] type, and
it occurred to me that this must be how people had to work before
someone (in the 1960s?) said "let's stop this nonsense and just count
seconds since some T=0".

Late 60s given that the unix epoch is in 1970 (just).

Post by Jorgen Grahn
- a date
- a time-of-day
- a time zone
and it's easy to get wrong. Not so much at New Year, but when you

It's impossible to get right - places like Ireland and the UK
switch timezone twice a year while most US timezones shift their offset from
UTC twice a year. Then there's the whole business of the missing/duplicated
hour as the clocks go forwards/backwards.

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

I was looking online at a time zone map a few years ago, and smaller
countries around Pakistan are a half hour ahead of the surrounding
countries. seems silly to me.

Can't find the one I saw years ago, but this page mentions some
countries are 30 and 45 minutes ahead of others nearby. Also
explanations of DST, etc.

https://www.timeanddate.com/time/current-number-time-zones.html
--
Jim

[johnson]

On 2023-01-08, D.J <***@gmnol.com> wrote:
[...]

Post by D.J.
I was looking online at a time zone map a few years ago, and smaller
countries around Pakistan are a half hour ahead of the surrounding
countries. seems silly to me.
Can't find the one I saw years ago, but this page mentions some
countries are 30 and 45 minutes ahead of others nearby. Also
explanations of DST, etc.

Nepal is UTC+05:45

[D.J.]

Post by johnson
[...]

Post by D.J.
I was looking online at a time zone map a few years ago, and smaller
countries around Pakistan are a half hour ahead of the surrounding
countries. seems silly to me.
Can't find the one I saw years ago, but this page mentions some
countries are 30 and 45 minutes ahead of others nearby. Also
explanations of DST, etc.

Nepal is UTC+05:45

I noticed, on that page I linked to, that parts of Australia are 45
minutes ahead in various places. I had no idea.
--
Jim

[Andy Burns]

Post by D.J.
I noticed, on that page I linked to, that parts of Australia are 45
minutes ahead in various places.

gov.au disagrees

<https://www.australia.gov.au/time-zones-and-daylight-saving>

[greymaus]

Post by D.J.

Post by johnson
[...]

Post by D.J.
I was looking online at a time zone map a few years ago, and smaller
countries around Pakistan are a half hour ahead of the surrounding
countries. seems silly to me.
Can't find the one I saw years ago, but this page mentions some
countries are 30 and 45 minutes ahead of others nearby. Also
explanations of DST, etc.

Nepal is UTC+05:45

I noticed, on that page I linked to, that parts of Australia are 45
minutes ahead in various places. I had no idea.

Oz is a big place. A friend had a row with his family, and threatened to
go there. I was watching a thing on utube at the time about the train
trip across the nullabour plain. Pensioners can do it free, AFAIK. Its
not Ireland. Shout-outs to all my relations there, and would they sign
my visa application? Ignore my age.

Post by D.J.
--
Jim

[Johnny Billquist]

Post by Peter Flass
I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

And then there is the Indian Reservation inside Arizona, which *do*
observe DST, except a small part inside that reservation which do not.

It's turtles all the way down...

But honestly, if a structure do have the TZ information separate, then
you would assume that the core time is always UTC, which already makes
it half usable. Then we're just down to figuring out how to present
local time, which is a smaller subset of a problem.

Johnny

[D.J.]

Post by Johnny Billquist

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

And then there is the Indian Reservation inside Arizona, which *do*
observe DST, except a small part inside that reservation which do not.

The part inside that doesn't is the Apache Reservation. The
reservation that does, are the Najaho.

--
Jim

[Peter Flass]

Post by D.J.

Post by Johnny Billquist

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn’t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there’s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

And then there is the Indian Reservation inside Arizona, which *do*
observe DST, except a small part inside that reservation which do not.

The part inside that doesn't is the Apache Reservation. The
reservation that does, are the Najaho.

Hopi, IIRC

Post by D.J.
--
Jim

[D.J.]

On Tue, 10 Jan 2023 12:16:32 -0700, Peter Flass

Post by Peter Flass

Post by D.J.

Post by Johnny Billquist

I think Indiana is, or was, split between two timezones; Arizona doesn?t
observe DST; based on what I saw New Years, it appears Puerto Rico is 1/2
hour ahead of New York,; China is all one timezone, and there?s lots more
of such F*ckishness.

And then there is the Indian Reservation inside Arizona, which *do*
observe DST, except a small part inside that reservation which do not.

The part inside that doesn't is the Apache Reservation. The
reservation that does, are the Najaho.

Hopi, IIRC

Okay, I disremembered then.
--
Jim

[Jorgen Grahn]

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.
Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.
Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

Not really computer-related, but before 2000 I tended to write down
dates as yy-mm-hh or yymmhh when I needed to date a letter or some
notes I'd taken on paper. So for example I'd write "990430".

For a few years /after/ 2000 I wrote year-1900 instead: "100-04-30",
"101-04-30" and so on. It didn't catch on, and I think I stopped
doing it in 2003 or so. I guess I decided I didn't need my own
personal date format.

/Jorgen

[Anders D. Nygaard]

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.
Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.
Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

Not so much a new year's issue, but I recall one system[1] which started
misbehaving increasingly erratically after a certain date.

After much head-scratching, the cause turned out to be that a certain
hard-coded table indexed by year ran out of entries, so the values used
for later years were random garbage.

[1] Name withheld to protect the guilty

/Anders, Denmark

[greymaus]

Post by Anders D. Nygaard

Post by Charles Richmond
Happy New Year!!!
It seems only right that readers of <a.f.c.> should post (or re-post)
computer screw-ups that involve the change to a new year, or in some way
are related to leap year or century or millennium changes or etc. etc.
Vaguely I seem to recall something about a Microsoft music player
hanging up (stopped working) after 1000 days because of a counter
wrapping around to zeroes.
Maybe we can also include stories involving a failure to "feed the
watchdog timer" quickly enough.
Two digit to four digit date conversion stories should be included...
don't you think???

Not so much a new year's issue, but I recall one system[1] which started
misbehaving increasingly erratically after a certain date.
After much head-scratching, the cause turned out to be that a certain
hard-coded table indexed by year ran out of entries, so the values used
for later years were random garbage.
[1] Name withheld to protect the guilty
/Anders, Denmark

I remember something about that as well. Do not publish the name of the
guilty, as he might appear when His name is spoken.