3 ms·

I arrived 1 hour late to an online meeting once in which I was scheduled to give a talk. The root cause was this: I (in Australia) was subscribed to the event c

I arrived 1 hour late to an online meeting once in which I was scheduled to give a talk. The root cause was this: I (in Australia) was subscribed to the event calendar. The event was actually a reoccurring event at the same time every month in UTC time. But day or so before the event happened, daylight savings changed in LA - which for some reason was the time zone the calendar was set to. As a result, the meeting in my local Australian time drifted by an hour. Unfortunately, only some people used the online calendar. So many people (including the organisers) showed up on time. Time zones are a curse on humanity.

delecti 2y ago
Time zones are totally fine. They're unreasonably hard to do math with (ahead/behind +/- just refuses to stick in my brain), but they massively simplify life most of time they come up. The thing that's a curse on humanity is daylight saving time.
- digging 2y ago
  > they massively simplify life most of time they come up. I have coworkers and friends in different timezones, and timezones do literally nothing but complicate coordination. Even if it's a small friction, they are 100% friction. As far as I can tell, the main benefit of timezones is that it allows people within the same timezone to converse as if timezones don't exist. Which would also be the case if timezones didn't exist.
  - delecti 2y ago
    Historically speaking, the alternative to time zones is not one unified time, it's thousands or millions of time bubbles for each town's solar noon.
    - digging 2y ago
      Yes, but we're not speaking historically.
- Akronymus 2y ago
  I really hate when someone writes a time + dst/pst/cet/whatever, rather than using utc, or even at least adding the utc time additionally.
  - skissane 2y ago
    Yeah, timezone abbreviations are problematic because how am I suppose to remember what time zone offset “EST” is? Here in Australia, we have “EST” too, but ours is UTC+10 not UTC-I forget
    - josephg 2y ago
      You can look it up. Or ask Google “time now in PST”. (“Pacific standard time” - which means San Francisco, obviously. It’s not like other people live near the Pacific Ocean). But there’s PT (pacific time), as well as PST and PDT (pacific standard and daylight savings time) if you need to be specific with whether or not daylight savings is happening. EST, according to Google, is the east coast of America when daylight savings is not happening. For Sydney and Melbourne, you want AEST / AEDT / AET depending on if you want to specify Australian east coast standard, daylight savings or current time (which changes depending on the date). It’s all hilariously exhausting to keep track of. Simple enough you think you can remember it, but complex enough you will miss your meeting even though you checked twice because the calendar was set to the wrong timezone and it didn’t matter until today. The relative time between Australia and California changes 4 times a year by 1 hour, depending on the local daylight savings time in both countries. I hate it.
      - skissane 2y ago
        > EST, according to Google, is the east coast of America when daylight savings is not happening. For Sydney and Melbourne, you want AEST / AEDT / AET Although AEST/AEDT are probably more common-in part to avoid confusion with American EST/EDT-people use EST/EDT for the Australian time zones too - random example: https://www.support.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/systemmaintenance.nsf/index/system_maintenance https://www.support.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/systemmaintenanc... Some computer systems (probably designed by Americans) want timezones to have abbreviations but insist they can only have three letters, so in those systems the Australian timezones have three letters. I definitely remember seeing EST meaning UTC+10 on Unix systems before
chasd00 2y ago
Are you saying the calendar was set the "DT" (daylight savings time) and not "ST" (standard time) so when it actually flipped the calendar adjusted 1 hour in the wrong direction? heh, yeah that would be very frustrating, glad it wasn't like a final exam (for students) or an oral presentation in front of a client (for consultants/professionals). edit: not trivializing missing the talk, i would be pissed.
- josephg 2y ago
  Yeah thats right. I was definitely pissed.
- skissane 2y ago
  DST is in opposite halves of the year in different hemispheres, and also the transition dates will be different in different DST-using countries even in the same hemisphere. So the timezone difference between US and Australia (or at least their DST using parts, since in both countries some states don’t observe DST) is 2 hours more in one half of the year than the other. And it changes four times. In January, Australia has DST and US doesn’t. Then in March US starts DST and moves one hour away. In April, Australia ends DST and moves another hour away (in the opposite direction). In October, Australia starts DST and moves an hour closer to US. In November, US ends DST and moves another hour closer to Australia.

delecti 2y ago

Time zones are totally fine. They're unreasonably hard to do math with (ahead/behind +/- just refuses to stick in my brain), but they massively simplify life most of time they come up. The thing that's a curse on humanity is daylight saving time.

digging 2y ago
> they massively simplify life most of time they come up. I have coworkers and friends in different timezones, and timezones do literally nothing but complicate coordination. Even if it's a small friction, they are 100% friction. As far as I can tell, the main benefit of timezones is that it allows people within the same timezone to converse as if timezones don't exist. Which would also be the case if timezones didn't exist.
- delecti 2y ago
  Historically speaking, the alternative to time zones is not one unified time, it's thousands or millions of time bubbles for each town's solar noon.
  - digging 2y ago
    Yes, but we're not speaking historically.
Akronymus 2y ago
I really hate when someone writes a time + dst/pst/cet/whatever, rather than using utc, or even at least adding the utc time additionally.
- skissane 2y ago
  Yeah, timezone abbreviations are problematic because how am I suppose to remember what time zone offset “EST” is? Here in Australia, we have “EST” too, but ours is UTC+10 not UTC-I forget
  - josephg 2y ago
    You can look it up. Or ask Google “time now in PST”. (“Pacific standard time” - which means San Francisco, obviously. It’s not like other people live near the Pacific Ocean). But there’s PT (pacific time), as well as PST and PDT (pacific standard and daylight savings time) if you need to be specific with whether or not daylight savings is happening. EST, according to Google, is the east coast of America when daylight savings is not happening. For Sydney and Melbourne, you want AEST / AEDT / AET depending on if you want to specify Australian east coast standard, daylight savings or current time (which changes depending on the date). It’s all hilariously exhausting to keep track of. Simple enough you think you can remember it, but complex enough you will miss your meeting even though you checked twice because the calendar was set to the wrong timezone and it didn’t matter until today. The relative time between Australia and California changes 4 times a year by 1 hour, depending on the local daylight savings time in both countries. I hate it.
    - skissane 2y ago
      > EST, according to Google, is the east coast of America when daylight savings is not happening. For Sydney and Melbourne, you want AEST / AEDT / AET Although AEST/AEDT are probably more common-in part to avoid confusion with American EST/EDT-people use EST/EDT for the Australian time zones too - random example: https://www.support.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/systemmaintenance.nsf/index/system_maintenance https://www.support.transport.qld.gov.au/qt/systemmaintenanc... Some computer systems (probably designed by Americans) want timezones to have abbreviations but insist they can only have three letters, so in those systems the Australian timezones have three letters. I definitely remember seeing EST meaning UTC+10 on Unix systems before

chasd00 2y ago

Are you saying the calendar was set the "DT" (daylight savings time) and not "ST" (standard time) so when it actually flipped the calendar adjusted 1 hour in the wrong direction? heh, yeah that would be very frustrating, glad it wasn't like a final exam (for students) or an oral presentation in front of a client (for consultants/professionals). edit: not trivializing missing the talk, i would be pissed.

josephg 2y ago
Yeah thats right. I was definitely pissed.
skissane 2y ago
DST is in opposite halves of the year in different hemispheres, and also the transition dates will be different in different DST-using countries even in the same hemisphere. So the timezone difference between US and Australia (or at least their DST using parts, since in both countries some states don’t observe DST) is 2 hours more in one half of the year than the other. And it changes four times. In January, Australia has DST and US doesn’t. Then in March US starts DST and moves one hour away. In April, Australia ends DST and moves another hour away (in the opposite direction). In October, Australia starts DST and moves an hour closer to US. In November, US ends DST and moves another hour closer to Australia.