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Re: [tz] temporary timezone database home ...
by Zefram Oct. 7, 2011

Oct. 7, 2011

If we're going the git route (which is a good idea), I suggest *not* using github. Github has terms of service that can change without notice in problematic ways. The tz collective is large enough that there should be no problem in hosting our own git server, such as the one that Yann Droneaud has provided as a prototype. Ideally we'd have a git server hosted at munnari. I think a single repository covering both code and data files would be better than separate code and data repositories. The two parts are too interconnected to work with separately. Btw, I was one of the unlucky sods (maybe the only unlucky sod?) who, having joined tz@elsie only a week ago, was omitted from the initial subscriber list for tz@iana. Good work getting things going so quickly. -zefram

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Fwd: temporary timezone database home ...
by Alex Mayorga Adame Oct. 7, 2011

Oct. 7, 2011

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Alex Mayorga Adame <alex.mayorga(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, 7 Oct 2011 00:48:50 -0500 Subject: Re: [tz] temporary timezone database home ... To: Robert Elz <kre(a)munnari.oz.au> Hope this nonsense won't grow into to much of a burden for "Olson et al" =( Thanks on your efforts Robert! Can this be made into a .torrent? I do not have permanent hosting other than DynDNS to my laptop in .mx but would gladly contribute some bandwidht if that would help in any way. Alex Mayorga Adame On 10/6/11, Robert Elz <kre(a)munnari.oz.au> wrote: > First, I am assuming this copy of the list is actually functioning, > (and I've just received jhawk's message which demonstrates that it is) > I don't believe it has been used for actual messages before that one, > but as ado has indicated that the list at elsie has been (for now > anyway) terminated - and given the plan was to migrate from it eventually > anyway, may never return, we can but hope this version of the list > is functional. > > Some of you who receive this message may have been removed from the > elsie version of the list recently, or altered your subscription details > - if that applies to you, use the iana.org message sent on the 1st of > this month to all subscribers to their list for instructions on how to > modify or delete your subscription. > > Don't send requests to me (or anyone else on the list) there's nothing I > (or we) can do about it - and most certainly, do not send requests to the > list itself asking to be removed. > > Unfortunately, there are probably a few people who were added to the elsie > list since it was cloned at iana.org but there's nothing much we can do > about that - if anyone is contacted by anyone who believes they should be > on the list, but is no longer receiving messages, direct them to the iana > website for list subscriptions. > > Next, while elsie's ftp server is shut down, munnari.oz.au isn't, and the > tz database & code remains available from here. Further, I will not > respond to requests from (almost) anyone to cease making those files > available (including Arthur and Paul - but by all means feel free to try > if you need to to satisfy some obligation to cease making the data > available - I'll ignore you, but you will at least have used every > reasonable > effort...) > > Second, regardless of this, the world's governments continue to adjust > their view of their local timezones & summer time adjustments, so we > need to continue updating the database (at least). There are several > updates that will be needed soon. > > For now, until someone else volunteers, I'm prepared to make the updates, > in much the same way that Arthur did, and then make new releases available > from munnari's ftp server. I suspect that it is unlikely that either Arthur > or Paul will be able to assist much with this in the coming months, so > I'm hoping that others will assist where possible. > > For now, I'm aware of changes needed for Armenia, Fiji, Bolivia, Brazil, > and of course, the changes that (might be) needed for Russia. If there's > anything else I missed, please let me know. > > Unfortunately, I don't have the sccs (or is it rcs or something these days) > master files, so I won't be able to do quite the same job that Arthur did, > but I can keep all versions so they can be checked into a version control > system later. > > It would be good if a few others, especially people in jurisdictions that > tend not to simply bow down to US court rulings, would keep copies of the > code and data, and make them publicly available via ftp or http (this > is not of huge public interest, the resources needed to provide this > service should not be very noticeable). > > All I know of the lawsuit is what jhawk's message indicated - eventually > I assume we'll find out what trademark or patent that someone believes is > being infringed (a little hard to believe either, but who knows...) > > The URL's of the current versions of the files from munnari.oz.au are ... > > ftp://munnari.oz.au/pub/tzcode2011i.tar.gz > ftp://munnari.oz.au/pub/tzdata2011k.tar.gz > > and of course, the historical files (most versions that were ever previously > released) are in ftp://munnari.oz.au/pub/oldtz/ > > kre > > > -- Enviado desde mi dispositivo móvil

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Fiji Daylight saving
by Sean Evans Oct. 5, 2011

Oct. 5, 2011

Fijidaylight saving time 2011/2012 has been announced: “Prepare to advance your clocks one hour ahead of the standard time, because Fiji’s daylight saving period is about to start from October 23. Minister for Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment, Mr Filipe Bole made the Daylight Saving Order saying this initiative in Fiji has benefitted both the private and public sector over the years. “People of Fiji are urged to take full advantage of the daylight saving period time because this allows more quality time for recreation and to be with family, while also increasing overall economic activity, work and agricultural productivity,” Mr Bole said. Members of the public are reminded to change their time to one hour in advance at 2am to 3am on October 23, 2011 and one hour back at 3am to 2am on February 26 next year. Ends…” Original news release: http://www.fiji.gov.fj/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4966:da… Best regards, Sean.

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Bolivia plan to implement DST
by Alexander Krivenyshev Oct. 4, 2011

Oct. 4, 2011

According to Bolivia Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy web site (hidrocarburos.gob.bo) and various media reports: http://www.la-razon.com/version.php?ArticleId=136181&EditionId=2630 Bolivia plan to implement DST "every year" between September and March (in the spring and summer) as an alternative savings and efficient use of electricity. http://www.worldtimezone.com/dst_news/dst_news_bolivia02.html Alexander Krivenyshev - World Time Zone http://www.worldtimezone.com

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State Bahia (Brazil) will return to Daylight savings time
by Alexander Krivenyshev Oct. 4, 2011

Oct. 4, 2011

State Bahia will return to Daylight savings time this year after 8 years off. The announcement was made by Governor Jaques Wagner in an interview to a television station in Salvador. Governor Jaques Wagner announces daylight savings time in Bahia (in Portuguese) http://g1.globo.com/bahia/noticia/2011/10/governador-jaques-wagner-confirma- horario-de-verao-na-bahia.html Bahia reverts to daylight saving time after eight years (in Portuguese) http://noticias.terra.com.br/brasil/noticias/0,,OI5390887-EI8139,00- Bahia+volta+a+ter+horario+de+verao+apos+oito+anos.html or http://www.worldtimezone.com/dst_news/dst_news_brazil09.html Alexander Krivenyshev, http://www.worldtimezone.com Guttenberg, New Jersey

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FW: Fiji DST 2011/12
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Oct. 4, 2011

Oct. 4, 2011

I'm forwarding this message from Ken Rylander, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the list, please direct replies appropriately. --ado -----Original Message----- From: Ken Rylander [mailto:ken.rylander@digicelgroup.com] Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 7:45 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Fiji DST 2011/12 Hi, Are there any updates about daylight savings for Fiji in 2011/12? Some websites (e.g. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/clockchange.html?n=82) say it will be introduced again on Sunday, Oct 23, 2011. Regards, /Ken Rylander

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Changes to TZ database
by Colin Grey Oct. 3, 2011

Oct. 3, 2011

Hello, I was wondering if someone with your organization could give me an estimate on how many times there have been changes to the TZ database because of countries moving their DST dates or other changes. (over any time period would be fine) I'm asking because I've been making a series of educational videos on youtube and am currently working on one on time zones. If you're interested you can see my videos here: www.youtube.com/user/CGPGrey Thank you very much for any assistance you can provide, -Grey -- C. G. P. Grey Time Management Coach & Public Speaker www.CGPGrey.com

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Russian time zones: (painfully slow) progress report
by Arthur David Olson Oct. 2, 2011

Oct. 2, 2011

I don't know Russian which will make the following more convoluted than need be; I apologize in advance. We have reports of Russian time zone changes in 2011, as well as issues identified by Tobias Conradi. Sanjeev Gupta provided this link... http://government.consultant.ru/page.aspx?1223966 ...to Russian Government Decree #23 of 1992-01-08; eight ".png" scan files are available. 1992 Decree sections have bold headings; the headings include (in sequence): "2-M 3-M" "3-M 4-M" "4-M 5-M" "5-M 6-M" "6-M 7-M" "7-M 8-M" "8-M 9-M" "9-M 10-M" "10-M 11-M" "11-M 12-M" The sections seem to cover time zones from west to east. "московское" ("Moscow") appears in the "2-M 3-M" section. "Магаданская" ("Magadan") appears in the "10-M 11-M" section. The difference of eight between "2" and "10" matches the difference in hours between Moscow time and Magadan time. So we should have these associations: "2-M 3-M" Moscow "3-M 4-M" Moscow+1 "4-M 5-M" Moscow+2 "5-M 6-M" Moscow+3 "6-M 7-M" Moscow+4 "7-M 8-M" Moscow+5 "8-M 9-M" Moscow+6 Asia/Yakutsk "9-M 10-M" Moscow+7 Asia/Vladivostok "10-M 11-M" Moscow+8 Asia/Magadan "11-M 12-M" Moscow+9 Alexander Krivenyshev provided this link... http://www.government.ru/gov/results/16355/print/ ...to Russian Government Decree #725 of 2011-08-23. "Усть-Майский" ("Ust-Maya" or "Ust-Maysky" or "Ust'-Majskij") appears in the "8-M 9-M" (Moscow+6, Asia/Yakutsk) section of 1992's Decree 23. This matches 2011's Decree 725. It does not match the commentary in tzdata2011k's "europe" file, which has the area in Moscow+7, Asia/Vladivostok. Counter comments should be added. "Булунский" ("Bulun" or "Bulunskij") appears in the "8-M 9-M" (Moscow+6, Asia/Yakutsk) section of 1992's Decree 23. This matches 2011's Decree 725. It does not match the commentary in tzdata2011k's "europe" file, which has the area in Moscow+7, Asia/Vladivostok. Counter comments should be added. "Томпонский" ("Tomponsky" or "Tomponskij") appears in the "9-M 10-M" (Moscow+7, Asia/Vladivostok) section of 1992's Decree 23. 2011's Decree 725 has it at Moscow+6, Asia/Yakutsk. tzdata2011k's "europe" file has it as part of Asia/Vladivostok. It must have shifted at some unknown instant between 1992 and 2011; we need a new zone (Asia/Khandyga) for Tomponsky. "Оймяконский" ("Oimkayon" or "Ojmyaknoskij") appears in the "9-M 10-M" (Moscow+7, Asia/Vladivostok) section of 1992's Decree 23. This matches 2011's Decree 725. It does not match the commentary in tzdata2011k's "europe" file, which has the area in Moscow+8, Asia/Magadan. Counter comments should be added. "Сахали" ("Sakhalin") appears in the "9-M 10-M" (Moscow+7, Asia/Vladivostok) section of 1992's Decree 23; I can't find any instance of "Курильский" or "Курильские" ("Kuril") in 1992's decree. 2011's Decree 725 has most of the Sakhalin Oblast (including the "South-Kuril region") at Moscow+7 and has the "North-Kuril region" at Moscow+8. tzdata2011k's "europe" file has an Asia/Sakhalin zone and no Kuril zones (but some Kuril comments). tzdata2011k's Asia/Sakhalin is Moscow+8 until 1997-03-20 02:00:00, Moscow+7 thereafter; Gwillim Law's IATA SSIM research led to the conclusion that Sakhalin (in particular, Yuzhno-Sakhalin) switched in 1997 (while all the Kurils remained at Moscow+8). We need a new zone (Asia/Severo-Kirilsk) for North-Kuril if that area was indeed Moscow+7 in 1992 and is Moscow+8 now. We need a new zone (Asia/Yuzhno-Kirilsk) for South-Kiril if that area did indeed begin to differ from Asia/Sakhalin in 1997. "Новосибирск" ("Novosibirsk") appears in the "5-M 6-M" (Moscow+3) section of 1992's Decree 23. 2011's Decree 725 also has Novosibirsk at Moscow+3. However, tzdata2011k's "europe" file claims that it was at Moscow+4 until 1993-05-23. "Томская" ("Tomsk") appears in the "5-M 6-M" (Moscow+3) section of 1992's Decree 23. 2011's Decree 725 also has Tomsk at Moscow+3. However... http://newsru.com/russia/01may2002/clock.html ...claims that it switched from Moscow+4 to Moscow+3 on 2002-05-01 (if translate.google.com is correct). We also have... # From Stanislaw A. Kuzikowski (1994-06-29): # But now it is some months since Novosibirsk is 3 hours ahead of Moscow! # I do not know why they have decided to make this change; # as far as I remember it was done exactly during winter->summer switching # so we (Novosibirsk) simply did not switch. # Tomsk is still 4 hours ahead of Moscow. ...which would indicate that Novosibirsk and Tomsk switched from Moscow+4 to Moscow+3 (and at different instants to boot). It looks as if we need an Asia/Tomsk zone (Tomsk being the most populous city in Tomsk Oblast). Since folks in Tomsk can use the Novosibirsk rules for current times, I'd hope to get better information on time history in Tomsk and Novobirsk (in particular if and when there were transitions from Moscow+4 to Moscow+3) before creating the new zone. --ado

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DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile for tz-link.htm
by Zefram Oct. 1, 2011

Oct. 1, 2011

(I sent this a week ago but it seems to have been lost.) Possible addition to the "Other tz binary file readers" part of tz-link.htm: <li> <a href="http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile">DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile</a> is a <code>tz</code> binary file reader written in Perl. It is freely available under the same terms as Perl (dual <abbr>GPL</abbr> and Artistic license). </li> You already have a note about DateTime::TimeZone in a different section. There's work underway to make DT:TZ use DT:TZ:Tzfile for its Olson needs, but currently they're essentially unrelated. -zefram

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America/Sitka LMT bug
by Zefram Oct. 1, 2011

Oct. 1, 2011

(I sent this a week ago but it seems to have been lost.) I noticed this recent addition to the database: |Zone America/Sitka -14:58:47 - LMT 1867 Oct 18 | -9:01:13 - LMT 1900 Aug 20 12:00 | -8:00 - PST 1942 ... For local mean time to jump by 5.6 hours, implying that the city jumped 89 degrees to the east, would be a neat trick. Obviously the first offset is meant to be +14:58:47, and the city jumped by 24 hours or 360 degrees, crossing the IDL. -zefram

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Armenia plan to abolish DST
by Alexander Krivenyshev Sept. 30, 2011

Sept. 30, 2011

Armenia plan to abolish DST. According to Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Economy and Development Garnik Badalyan, there is a government plan for "reform of the hour" which already was developed and ready for the approval. News from yerevan.ru (in Russian) http://yerevan.ru/2011/09/30/armeniya-otkazyvaetsya-ot-perexoda-na-letnee- vremya/ or http://www.worldtimezone.com/dst_news/dst_news_armenia01.html Alexander Krivenyshev, http://www.worldtimezone.com Guttenberg, New Jersey

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West Bank ended DST
by Steffen Thorsen Sept. 30, 2011

Sept. 30, 2011

West Bank did end Daylight Saving Time this morning/midnight (2011-09-30 00:00). So West Bank and Gaza now have the same time again. Many sources, including: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=424808 "BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Palestinian Authority announced late Thursday that clocks will be set back one hour on Friday at midnight, the official PA news agency Wafa reported." Our small summary: http://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/westbank-ends-dst-2011.html Best regards, Steffen Thorsen - timeanddate.com

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Re: Information wanted #1: time zone names in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine
by Barton Sept. 29, 2011

Sept. 29, 2011

Ukraine has resolution #8330 that was passed on 2011-09-20, where the wording is "the second time zone with the addition of one hour". http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb_n/webproc4_1?id=&pf3511=40036 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=auto&tl=en&u… The resolution also abrogates two prior resolutions. #15-12 (dated 1990) - the one establishing the year-round "second time zone without the addition of one hour": http://zakon.nau.ua/doc/?code=15-12 http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=U… and #2176-12 (dated 1992) - the one establishing daylight saving time: http://zakon.nau.ua/doc/?code=2176-12 http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=U…

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missing extension rules
by Zefram Sept. 28, 2011

Sept. 28, 2011

I've found a problem with the tzfiles for Africa/Cairo and America/Argentina/San_Luis. They both show a last known transition in the recent past, and surprisingly lack a POSIX-TZ-format rule for extending the zone into the future. My tzfile parser treats a zone with no extension rule as being undefined for any time following the last explicit transition, so for these two zones it reckons the zone is undefined for the present. In the source files they're each currently configured to observe a set of DST rules, and the ruleset has no transitions configured for the future. So for the present and foreseeable future, the zone is on a constant offset with no DST transitions. The tzfile reflects that by showing no transitions from the present up to 2038 (where zic always fills in a complete set of expected transitions). It should be trivial to also reflect that foreseen behaviour in a POSIX-TZ string that just gives a fixed offset and no DST rule. For example, Africa/Cairo should clearly have "EET-2". I could have a go at a zic patch to fix this, if the regular zic hackers would like to work that way. For America/Argentina/San_Luis there's an extra wrinkle: the last known transition is a transition *to* DST. Its fixed-offset foreseeable behaviour therefore has a fixed is_dst=1, which is moderately silly. It's arguable that in this case it would be incorrect to give a "WARST3" extension rule, because that doesn't accurately express the DST status. Since that DST transition was in 2009, it's also a good bet that they haven't stayed continuously on DST since then, of course. -zefram

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new links for time zone page on twinsun
by Steve Allen Sept. 28, 2011

Sept. 28, 2011

I suggest a few additions to the links on the twinsun time zone page http://www.twinsun.com/tz/tz-link.htm Starting last December the ITU-R has provided free online access to their recommendations. These are visible at http://www.itu.int/pub/R-REC It is a major change from the previous restrictions on ITU-R documents. This includes the time and frequency recommendations http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-TF/en some of which are now suppressed but which describe the history of the usage and nomenclature. In particular it has the current and two previous versions of ITU-R TF.460 which is the document that describes radio broadcast time signals and UTC. http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-TF.460/en The earlier versions document the connections between UTC and GMT. There are many other possibly relevant sources, but these have been deemed particularly important and they are the basis for the inputs that go to the zoneinfo database and code. -- Steve Allen <sla(a)ucolick.org> WGS-84 (GPS) UCO/Lick Observatory--ISB Natural Sciences II, Room 165 Lat +36.99855 1156 High Street Voice: +1 831 459 3046 Lng -122.06015 Santa Cruz, CA 95064 http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/ Hgt +250 m

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Changed zone settings in Ukraine
by Andrey Poleyaev Sept. 28, 2011

Sept. 28, 2011

Greetings, due to: http://portal.rada.gov.ua/rada/control/ru/publish/article/news_left?art_id=… <http://portal.rada.gov.ua/rada/control/ru/publish/article/news_left?art_id=…> Throughout Ukraine timezone changed to EEST. So it needs some changes in europe timezone source, example Kiev ### Zone Europe/Kiev 2:02:04 - LMT 1880 2:02:04 - KMT 1924 May 2 # Kiev Mean Time 2:00 - EET 1930 Jun 21 3:00 - MSK 1941 Sep 20 1:00 C-Eur CE%sT 1943 Nov 6 3:00 Russia MSK/MSD 1990 3:00 - MSK 1990 Jul 1 2:00 2:00 - EET 1992 2:00 E-Eur EE%sT 1995 2:00 EU EE%sT 2011 March 27 3:00 - EEST -- Andrey Poletaev Trifle Internet Service Provider +38 056 7319911 +38 067 5640890

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Information wanted #1: time zone names in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine
by Arthur David Olson Sept. 27, 2011

Sept. 27, 2011

I'm asking for information to use in specifying time zone abbreviations for Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. For all three I can use: 1. References to government documents that specify time zone names or abbreviations. 2. References to government documents that specify whether current time is considered to be "standard" time or "saving" time. 3. References indicating what time zone names or abbreviations are actually in use in the areas. 4. References indicating whether people in the areas consider themselves to be on "standard" or "saving" time. We do have this year's Decree #725... http://www.government.ru/gov/results/16355/print/ ...for Russia; if translate.google.com is correct, Moscow is on "Eastern Standard Time" with most other zones being "Eastern Standard Time plus n hours" and one zone being "Eastern Standard Time minus 1 hour." --ado

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Information wanted #2: Russian Decree #725 vs. tzdata2011k
by Arthur David Olson Sept. 27, 2011

Sept. 27, 2011

There are five places where this year's Russian Government Decree #725... http://www.government.ru/gov/results/16355/print/ ...and tzdata2011k differ on what current time is: Place Decree #725 tzdata2011k Notes Bulunskij MSK+6 MSK+7 covered by Asia/Vladivostok Tomponskij MSK+6 MSK+7 covered by Asia/Vladivostok Ust'-Majskij MSK+6 MSK+7 covered by Asia/Vladivostok Ojmyakonskij MSK+7 MSK+8 covered by Asia/Magadan Sakhalin MSK+8 MSK+7 already separate--Asia/Sakhalin Did a change occur in these areas in 2011 and, if so, when? Or is tzdata2011k wrong? Decree #725 indicates that it abrogates Decree #23 of January 8, 1992 (among other things abrogated); is the abrogated decree available online? Thanks for any help folks can provide. --ado

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RE: UTC as basis for time legislation
by Paul_Koning＠Dell.com Sept. 26, 2011

Sept. 26, 2011

>> ... But other than that, if you say GMT you mean the same time as if >> you say UTC. > >Uh... you like waving red flags in front of bulls, don't you? Or maybe >walking up to a bee hive and whacking it with a short stick is your >idea of a good time. :) Ouch. My apologies to the hornets. I did some reading and I think I now understand some of the subtleties involved. Let me restate the point I should have made and hopefully not disturb another beehive. The tzdata uses an approximation of the subtle details of timekeeping. With those approximations, GMT and UTC end up being described both as having a constant 0 offset. So if country A says its legal time is an hour ahead of GMT and B says they are an hour ahead of UTC, those are technically different statements. However, to the approximation of tzdata, the outcome is the same: both country A and B would be shown in the tzdata file as having an offset of 60 minutes. Is that correct? paul

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data2011k.tar.gz
by Arthur David Olson Sept. 26, 2011

Sept. 26, 2011

The file... ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2011k.tar.gz ...is now available; this reflects changes circulated last week on the time zone mailing list. I plan to send out two requests for information about Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine within a day. --ado

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IANA and the tz database - diverging from Theory
by Tobias Conradi Sept. 26, 2011

Sept. 26, 2011

The 2011-05-19 text by E. Lear and P. Eggert at http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-lear-iana-timezone-database-04 defines an update rule that is different to the ones in the Theory file, it reads: "3. Making Updates to the TZ Database New TZ names (e.g. locations) are only to be created when the scope of the region a name was envisioned to cover is no longer accurate." Also the Terminology section defines only three TZ specific terms, while the Theory file contains several more. Does anyone know why the rules of tz names are changed in the IANA tz text? -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/tobias_conradi

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Proposal for UTC offset coloring in maps based on 6 RGB colors
by Tobias Conradi Sept. 26, 2011

Sept. 26, 2011

This proposal is restricted to UTC offset zones, i.e. it does not propose anything for the tz zones. In the following text main zone will refer to any zone with an offset from UTC that is a multiple of 1 hour. ==Current situation== http://www.worldtimezone.com/ uses 3 colors, RGB, for main zones, as of today the map on the home page shows Kyrgysztan as +5 in the same color as neighboring China +8. repetition after 3 hours https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/maps/refmap_tim… uses 4 colors, 2 kinds of green, 1 brown, 1 yellow for the main zones. repetition after 4 hours http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/WorldMapBig.gif uses ca. 9 colors, main zones and zone with other offsets share colors. repetition: none, e.g. orange in America is preceded by grey, while in Asia it is preceded by cyan Wikimedia offers maps with several different schemes: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Worldwide_Time_Zones_(including_DST)… ca. 9 colors, includes coding for DST usage Even where the following files share offsets from UTC, the colors are not necessarily shared: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Russia_-_Time_Zones_(2009).svg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sakha_time_zones.png http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_Russia_-_Time_Zones_(April_20… http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Time_zones_of_Europe.svg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa-timezones.png ==Proposal== Use 6 colors that are easily distinguished for the main zones and order them so that mixing two colors from two zones that are 2 hours apart result in the color of the zone in between. The same mixing process shall be applied for zones with an offset of 30min from a main zone. The RGB space, if each color can only be on or off, gives 2*2*2=8 possibilities which include white and black. That means there are 6 colors (Level 1 colors) that can be used. One possibility, denoting colors in hexadecimal shorthand form (f = ff, 0 = 00): UTC = f0f magenta +1 = 00f blue +2 = 0ff cyan +3 = 0f0 green +4 = ff0 yellow +5 = f00 red The repetition starts with +6 = UTC = f0f. As middle position between x00 (0) and xff (255) use x80 (128) as listed at http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/#html4 The zones with a 15min offset from a main zone get to use 40 (64) or c0 (192) e.g. +5:45 = ff00c0 (used in Nepal) Even if the colors apart from the Level 1 colors are not desired because they are too difficult to distinguish, one can use the main colors. One can memorize: +1 = CET most parts of the EU = base color of the EU flag +3 = Arab Standard Time, Mecca lies in the +3 zone = green = base color of the flag of Saudi Arabia The one can derive that the color for the zone in between, namely +2, is cyan. Since colors repeat after 6 main zones, +8 will also be cyan. A matrix of colors and offsets can be found at: http://www.tango.info/wiki/UTC_offset_representation_by_6_base_colors If anyone can make a map of the UTC offsets using 6 base colors, not necessarily those that are used in the proposal, I would be happy to see it. Any suggestions for improving the system are welcome. -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com

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DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile for tz-link.htm
by Zefram Sept. 24, 2011

Sept. 24, 2011

Possible addition to the "Other tz binary file readers" part of tz-link.htm: <li> <a href="http://search.cpan.org/perldoc?DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile">DateTime::TimeZone::Tzfile</a> is a <code>tz</code> binary file reader written in Perl. It is freely available under the same terms as Perl (dual <abbr>GPL</abbr> and Artistic license). </li> You already have a note about DateTime::TimeZone in a different section. There's work underway to make DT:TZ use DT:TZ:Tzfile for its Olson needs, but currently they're essentially unrelated. -zefram

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Re coming Russian-Belarusian-Ukrainian timezone change
by Yury Tarasievich Sept. 24, 2011

Sept. 24, 2011

Hello, They say that for denoting the new timezone there's FET (further-eastern european time) proposal in the works, but this seems Very Bad and Confusing English to me. Please consider denoting the new timezone as EEFT (East European Forward Time) -> minimal changes in abbreviature and mnemonic, clear semantic. Better English, too. -Yury

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UTC as basis for time legislation
by Tobias Conradi Sept. 23, 2011

Sept. 23, 2011

On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 11:01 PM, Steve Allen <sla(a)ucolick.org> wrote: > On Fri 2011-09-23T22:53:10 +0200, Tobias Conradi hath writ: >> IIRC UTC and not GMT is the basis for most time legislation that is >> currently in place. > > It would be interesting to find reliable indicators about whether UTC > or GMT is the basis in any given region. Even recently I've seen > official decrees using the geographic terms "meridian" and "Greenwich". UTC used in EU law to define the start and end of summer-time: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2011:083:0006:01… Germany http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/me_einhg/__4.html "koordinierte Weltzeit" ~ coordinated Worldtime -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/tobias_conradi

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