September 2011 - tz - lists.iana.org

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. 25, 2011

Sept. 25, 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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