November 2017 - tz - lists.iana.org

Earth rotation
by Arthur David Olson Nov. 19, 2017

Nov. 19, 2017

Seems there's a correlation between leap seconds and earthquakes. "Upsurge in big earthquakes predicted for 2018 as Earth rotation slows." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/18/2018-set-to-be-year-of-big-ea… @dashdashado

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IANA and Microsoft mentioned in Wired article
by Matt Johnson Nov. 15, 2017

Nov. 15, 2017

A college of mine from the Windows time zone servicing team was recently interviewed for Wired magazine. https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-time-lords/ I was happy to see the reporter included details about the critical contributions that the IANA TZDB brings to the table as well. Thanks everyone! Matt Johnson (Microsoft)

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Please include Montreal
by Sébastien Bouchard Nov. 14, 2017

Nov. 14, 2017

It would be nice if Montreal was included in your database. There are smaller cities that are listed. I am using the latest Linux Mint Mate (18.2) and i had to choose Toronto to get into the right timezone. Montreal is not there. It doesn't matter much to me but there are some people here who will find it strange. Toronto is like... in another country. It's about History and the French people in Canada... [1492899431935_logo3-rouge+gris-Sb=64px.png] <https://sites.google.com/view/sb-junior/> sites.google.com/ <https://sites.google.com/view/sb-junior/>view/sb-junior/<https://sites.google.com/view/sb-junior/><https://sites.google.com/view/sb-junior/><https://sites.google.com/view/sb-junior/>

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tzfile(5)
by Ken Murchison Nov. 13, 2017

Nov. 13, 2017

All, Is https://github.com/eggert/tz/blob/master/tzfile.5 the normative reference for the binary format of tzdata? I thinking about writing an I-D to register application/tzfile as a MIME type for use with TZDist <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7808> and I obviously need a reference to the file format. Or should I document the format in the draft? Does anyone want to suggest a different name for the format? -- Kenneth Murchison Cyrus Development Team FastMail Pty Ltd

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draft-murchison-tzdist-geolocate-01
by Ken Murchison Nov. 13, 2017

Nov. 13, 2017

All, I'd appreciate any and all comments on this updated draft. I have a working implementation that I can probably put on an externally facing server if folks are interested. https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-murchison-tzdist-geolocate-01 -- Kenneth Murchison Cyrus Development Team FastMail Pty Ltd

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[PROPOSED] * tz-link.htm: Improve citations to ISO standards.
by Paul Eggert Nov. 13, 2017

Nov. 13, 2017

--- tz-link.htm | 12 +++++++----- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/tz-link.htm b/tz-link.htm index 93bcbae..0684ed1 100644 --- a/tz-link.htm +++ b/tz-link.htm @@ -318,8 +318,11 @@ Database Parser</a> is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B">C++</a> parser and runtime library that is <a href="http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2017/p0355r4.html">moving -forward</a> for inclusion in the <a -href="https://isocpp.org/std/the-standard">ISO C++ standard</a>. +forward</a> for inclusion in the next iteration of <a +href="https://isocpp.org/std/the-standard"><em><abbr +title="International Organization for Standardization">ISO</abbr> +International Standard ISO/IEC 14882:2017(E) – Programming +Language C++</em></a>. It is freely available under the <abbr title="Massachusetts Institute of Technology">MIT</abbr> license.</li> <li><a id="ICU" href="http://site.icu-project.org">International Components for @@ -862,10 +865,9 @@ both <abbr title="Locale Data Markup Language">LDML</abbr> the international standard date and time notation</a> is a good summary of <a -href="https://www.iso.org/standard/40874.html"><abbr -title="International Organization for Standardization">ISO</abbr> +href="https://www.iso.org/standard/40874.html"><abbr><em>ISO</abbr> 8601:2004 – Data elements and interchange formats – Information -interchange – Representation of dates and times</a>.</li> +interchange – Representation of dates and times</em></a>.</li> <li> <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-2/#dateTime"><abbr>XML</abbr> Schema: Datatypes – dateTime</a> specifies a format inspired by -- 2.7.4

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Re: [tz] [PATCH] add attribute nonstring
by Paul Eggert Nov. 12, 2017

Nov. 12, 2017

Thanks for mentioning the problem with GCC 8. If the intent of __attribute__((__nonstring__)) is to consistently mark char arrays that are not necessarily null-terminated strings, then lots of data structures in the tzdb code would need to be marked with this attribute. For example, every member of tzfile.h's 'struct tzhead' would have the attribute, because they are all char arrays that might not be null-terminated. Looking at the proposed glibc patch, it seems its intent is more modest. All it's trying to do is to pacify GCC 8 so that GCC doesn't complain about calls to strncpy and strncat. In that case, a simpler and cleaner fix for tzdb is to stop using strncpy and strncat. (I suspect that the main reason tzdb uses strncpy is that its code is so old that it predates the widespread availability of memcpy.) So I installed the attached patch into tzdb's zic.c and it should be part of the next tzdb release. Perhaps you can this idea elsewhere in the rest of the glibc patch too. It would be a lot of work to consistently change glibc to use __attribute__((__nonstring__)) for its documented purpose. If glibc can avoid calling strncpy and strncat, it won't need __NONSTRING; if not, then I suggest changing this: /* Describes a char array that is not necessarily a NUL-terminated string. */ # define __NONSTRING __attribute__ ((__nonstring__)) to something more like this: /* Describes a char array whose address can safely be passed as the first argument to strncpy and strncat, as the char array is not necessarily a NUL-terminated string. */ # define __NONSTRING __attribute__ ((__nonstring__)) in sys/cdefs.h, so that the more-modest goal of the patch is clearer to the reader. I'll CC: this to tz(a)iana.org as a heads-up there.

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Was Azerbaijan the first government to cite tzdb?
by Paul Eggert Nov. 11, 2017

Nov. 11, 2017

When Azerbaijan's Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies said late last month that Azerbaijan would stay at +04, its announcement mentioned the TZ database. See: [Azerbaijan will not translate time] (in Russian). Sputnik. 2017-10-29. https://news.rambler.ru/caucasus/38277699-azerbaydzhan-ne-stanet-perevodit-… Initially I thought this was a first, but it turns out that the same ministry also mentioned tzdb (though not by name) in March 2016, here: Recommendations in connection with abolition of daylight saving time. http://www.mincom.gov.az/media-en/news-2/details/12011 (Azerbaijani and Russian translations are available.) Is the March 2016 announcement the first time a government has cited tzdb, or can readers come up with earlier examples?

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Time zones, daylight saving, and cancer risk
by Paul Eggert Nov. 11, 2017

Nov. 11, 2017

In 2011 Mikhail Borisenkov of the Komi Science Center in Syktyvkar, Russia reported that latitude and longitude can affect cancer rates. In particular he found that in Russia, position within a time zone explained 15% of the variability in female breast cancer mortality. Similar results have now been reported in the US. Neil Caporaso and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland recently found a significant association between time zone position and cancer incidence. They estimated that the risk of breast cancer is 12% higher at the western extreme of a US time zone compared to the eastern extreme. Other cancers show similar (but smaller) effects. A plausible explanation is that ill-timed light increases cancer risk by disrupting circadian rhythm. This effect has been known for some time in other respects: for example, blind women have a significantly lower risk for breast cancer, possibly because melatonin offers a protective effect and nocturnal exposure to visible light suppresses melatonin secretion. This is currently an active area of research: the 2017 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine went to circadian-rhythm researchers. Perhaps we should not take Ben Franklin's "early to bed and early to rise" advice to an extreme, as daylight saving time (or more generally, moving time zones eastward) can significantly increase cancer risk. ---- Stevens RG. Breast cancer risk higher in western parts of time zones; is electric light to blame? The Conversation. 2017-10-19. https://theconversation.com/breast-cancer-risk-higher-in-western-parts-of-t… Gu F, Xu S, Devesa SS et al. Longitude position in a time zone and cancer risk in the United States. Cancer Epidem Biomarkers Prev. 2017-08-01;26(8):1306-11 http://dx.doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-16-1029 Borisenkov MF. Latitude of residence and position in time zone are predictors of cancer incidence, cancer mortality, and life expectancy at birth. Chronobiology Int. 2011-01-13;28(2):155-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/07420528.2010.541312

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Fwd: Howard Hinnant's tz Library (was Beginner's help request)
by Bill Seymour Nov. 9, 2017

Nov. 9, 2017

Oops...meant this for the list, not just Daniel. --bs ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bill Seymour <stdbill.h(a)pobox.com> Date: Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 2:16 PM Subject: Howard Hinnant's tz Library (was Beginner's help request) To: Daniel Ford <dfnojunk(a)gmail.com> Yes, Howard's (exquisite in my opinion) library is specifically for C++, and is moving forward for inclusion in the ISO standard. (Indeed, a subgroup gave it unanimous consent just this morning.) >From http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2017/p0355r4.html: "The implementation has been ported to Windows, Linux, Android, macOS and iOS." I've BCCd Howard in case he has anything more to say about it (although I wouldn't be surprised if he already follows this list anyway). --Bill Seymour On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 12:38 AM, Daniel Ford <dfnojunk(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Oops, looks like I was mistaken. Howard's library appears to be not (specifically) for Arduino, but a C++ library for Windows (and maybe other) platforms. Maybe it will compile in the Arduino IDE, though I suspect it will be problematic, if possible at all. > > And I've so far found only one TZdb mirror that keeps a current copy of the data - very disappointing. It's a shame the whole TZdb scheme is so user-unfriendly. Quite discouraging. > > Regards, > Daniel > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Daniel Ford [mailto:dfnojunk@gmail.com] > Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2017 7:03 PM > To: 'Time zone mailing list' > Subject: RE: [tz] Beginner's help request > > Woohoo! I've discovered (and downloaded) an Arduino library, written by Howard E. Hinnant: > > "This timezone library is a complete parser of the IANA timezone database. It provides for an easy way to access all of the data in this database, using the types from "date.h" and <chrono>. The IANA database also includes data on leap seconds, and this library provides utilities to compute with that information as well." > > All I need to find now are established TZdb mirrors that keep their copy up-to-date, so I don't overload the master TZdb with queries. Can anyone point me to any, please? > > Regards, > Daniel > --------------- > Daniel Ford (Gerroa, Australia)

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