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There was a time in the early 2000's when Indiana had three or more different time zones in the summer. In the winter the state was on eastern standard time ex
by rmason 4y ago
There was a time in the early 2000's when Indiana had three or more different time zones in the summer. In the winter the state was on eastern standard time except for three or four counties in the northwest part of the state that were on central standard time to sync with Chicago.
But in the summer there were counties that went on daylight time and others that did not. I had an important meeting with my startup in the Indianapolis area to discuss a partnership. I checked Wikipedia to find that Indianapolis was on daylight savings time. Since this guy was five miles outside Indianapolis I assumed he would be on the same time as well.
The end result was we arrived an hour early for the meeting. The guy was not pleased at all. He wasn't able to understand how I wasn't aware that he was over a county line that made all the difference in the world what time he was on. After all everyone in Indianapolis could tell you which counties used daylight time and which did not.
But it wasn't on the web and he didn't make a point of telling me. The meeting ended up going well but I left wondering how often this happened. Eventually the level of confusion resulted in Indiana moving the entire state to daylight savings time.
Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Michigan voters rejected daylight savings time twice at the polls. The state legislators finally voted to move everyone over. When there was a ballot initiative to reject what the legislature did the legislators fought it. The result was the state supreme court kept it off the ballot. But to be fair never at any time was the state on more than a single time zone.
- bradgessler 4y agoI grew up in southern Indiana, across the bridge from Louisville, Kentucky. When I was a kid my parents would setup meetings with people and they’d ask if the time was in “fast time” or “slow time”. We’d also have to switch the times in our TV guides—ET in the summer, CT in the winter. Then Indiana decided to observe daylight savings times and we had to start running around and changing our clocks. I wish we’d just pass a federal law that does away with the time change.
- peckrob 4y agoSimilar story for me. I went to college at Auburn, which is located in eastern Alabama about 20 miles from the Eastern/Central timezone border. Half of our broadcast TV stations came from both Columbus, Georgia (Eastern) and the other half from Montgomery, Alabama (Central). You had to remember which station you were watching and where it was from whenever a time was listed.
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoYou don't need to be aware or guess time zones, just specify UTC offset and it becomes unambiguous to everyone around the globe.
- happymellon 4y agoWhy not just specify in Unixtime? Definitely no confusion then!