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RE: Quetico (and other places in NW Ontario)
by Jesper Norgaard Welen Nov. 7, 2006

Nov. 7, 2006

Chris, The map you sent of the Quetico park overview is more than sufficient for me to make a reasonable timezone. After all this is not rocket science, I'm intending to give an overview of the timezone for visual use, not for calculating if a specific latitude/longitude is inside the timezone or not. I'm using an ESRI shapefile map, you can check it out from downloading World Time Explorer beta version from http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/wt20beta.zip and unzip and install it. I can give you a free full license if you want, so you can generate map colors for a specific date between 1850 and today. Otherwise the shareware version will give you 30 days of playing around, and the colors should correspond until 2007, except for a possible (undecided) change in West Australia of course! And PS, I presume you have (access to) a Windows PC, otherwise it will not be of much use! Linux die-hards, sorry! I was wondering if my border between Rainy_River (on GMT-6) area and the rest of Ontario (on GMT-5) is wrong, supposedly it should divide around 90° while in reality it divides around -89.34. This is from another map source where I copied this border from, but perhaps for timezone use I should move the border. It would be nice if you could plot the points from Quetico park (100 points would be fine, perhaps even too much). I don't know if you have a possibility to output to an ESRI shapefile. If not, a collection of the pure latitude/longitudes would be fine (decimal please, not radix 60). I will consider your comments about America/Winnipeg being one hour off each year, but it seems that even tz database is correct in this case? It looks like this: # From Paul Eggert (2006-04-10): # Shanks & Pottenger say Manitoba switched at 02:00 (not 02:00s) # starting 1966. Since 02:00s is clearly correct for 1967 on, assume # it was also 02:00s in 1966. ... Rule Winn 1963 only - Sep 22 2:00 0 S Rule Winn 1966 1986 - Apr lastSun 2:00s 1:00 D Rule Winn 1966 2005 - Oct lastSun 2:00s 0 S Rule Winn 1987 2005 - Apr Sun>=1 2:00s 1:00 D # Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL] Zone America/Winnipeg -6:28:36 - LMT 1887 Jul 16 -6:00 Winn C%sT 2006 -6:00 Canada C%sT Since 2:00s standard time means 3:00 local time when leaving DST, we're OK? What would be the difference between the Kenora timezone and the others? Regards, - Jesper -----Original Message----- From: Chris Walton [mailto:Chris.Walton@telus.com] Sent: Domingo, 05 de Noviembre de 2006 1:24 To: jnorgard(a)prodigy.net.mx; tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov; Paul Eggert Subject: Quetico (and other places in NW Ontario) Jesper, It looks like the entire MNR site is down. It was working on Saturday morning (Toronto time). Hopefully it will come up soon! The maps on this site are actually scanned copies of paper maps; the idea being that you can view an image of the map before you fork out money for a paper copy. The resolution of the scanned images is terrible so the writing on the maps is virtually impossible to read. If you want a rough idea of the shape of the park have a peek at http://www.queticofoundation.org/maps/park_map.gif Let me know if you want me to generate a set of points or if you would prefer to do it yourself; I don't mind either way. I figure that the area could be roughly defined with about 100 points but to properly follow the park boundary would take around 2000 points. And now putting Quetico aside for a minute... you need to decide which zone to use for the "other" areas in Ontario west of 90°. According the TZ database, Fort Frances and Rainy River did not use daylight saving until 1974; this is why there is a dedicated zone called America/Rainy_River. So Rainy River and Fort Frances should use America/Rainy_River without question. Presumably the rest of the region west of 90° has used CST/CDT since WWII. According to the "zonetab" file, the region is supposed to use America/Winnipeg. America/Winnipeg results in incorrect times for one hour each year from 1966 through to 2005. This is because Manitoba "used" to change the clocks at 3:00a.m. every fall. The practice stopped this year. Ontario has always changed the clocks 2:00a.m. America/Rainy_River gives correct times for the entire region from 1974 onwards. Personally I think that America/Rainy_River is the better choice for the entire region because it provides correct rules for the last 32 years. Technically there should be another zone called America/Kenora but I doubt anybody wants to bother creating it. If it were up to me I would merge zones that have been the same for at least 25 years and create entries in the "backward" file for compatibility; but I know this would be against the official rules! -chris

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Tzcode2006o.tar.gz and tzdata2006o.tar.gz
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Nov. 6, 2006

Nov. 6, 2006

The files... ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzcode2006o.tar.gz ...and... ftp://elsie.nci.nih.gov/pub/tzdata2006o.tar.gz ...are now available; these incorporate the changes circulated by Paul Eggert last week on the time zone mailing list. --ado

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FW: Hello,Admin
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Nov. 6, 2006

Nov. 6, 2006

I'm forwarding this message from Jiania Hung, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the time zone mailing list should direct replies appropriately. Thanks! --ado ________________________________ From: Jiania Hung [mailto:jiania@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 8:22 PM To: tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov Subject: Fwd: Hello,Admin ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jiania Hung <jiania(a)gmail.com> Date: Nov 2, 2006 3:13 PM Subject: Hello,Admin To: peclweb(a)php.net, kingwez(a)gmail.com, pecl-dev(a)lists.php.net Hello In our site need to use timezonedb.dll,but php.net <http://php.net/> have no about timezonedb.dll document,can you help me ? tell me about this Dll code mothod? thankyou. -- If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at jiania(a)gmail.com Jiania Hung LL.D. CEO Jiania Corporation -- If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at jiania(a)gmail.com Jiania Hung LL.D. CEO Jiania Corporation

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RE: Quetico
by Jesper Norgaard Welen Nov. 5, 2006

Nov. 5, 2006

Chris, Unfortunately I'm getting this error when trying to access the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources: http://themnrstore.mnr.gov.on.ca Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80004005' [DBMSSOCN]General network error. Check your network documentation. //global.asa, line 181 I'm creating a world map, which doesn't have a huge accuracy, however, it is zoomable, so the simpler the jagged borders I make the more a curve in a (timezone or country) border looks wrong. There are no splines or other sophisticated map boundaries (fractals!?). I will be plotting the Quetico map with the least accurate technology, with a mouse click on each point in the boundary :-( That said, I would like to get as much accuracy as I can get, although it is also an issue not to have too many points for a boundary, because the size of the map data will blow up disproportionately. Many of the country borders I got from a pre-made map, and this map has more accuracy in some areas and less in others. I tend to want more accuracy with small islands or timezones, while less on bigger outlines, like Quebec or Ontario. I *do* understand that this practice is in contradiction with the current legislation, but then I want to document current practice when it has a tendency to be official, for instance official park personnel would use GMT-5 everywhere in the park when reporting something on the ground inside the park area, while park visitants might have a different time, as they please. Regards, - Jesper -----Original Message----- From: Chris Walton [mailto:Chris.Walton@telus.com] Sent: Sábado, 04 de Noviembre de 2006 8:42 To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov; jnorgard(a)prodigy.net.mx Subject: Quetico Jesper, Unfortunately Quetico Provincial Park is not a nice simple square. It has a perimeter that is roughly 300km long; it has a few straight sections but much of it follows lakes and rivers. Here is a sample map; this is part of the perimeter that is made of nice straight lines: http://themnrstore.mnr.gov.on.ca/english/map.asp?tid=0&zoom=5&map=2015650053 500&DisplayImage=True Here is another sample map; (look for the black dashed line where it follows the shore of Three Mile Lake and Quetico River... the line is not straight!): http://themnrstore.mnr.gov.on.ca/english/map.asp?tid=0&zoom=5&map=2015550053 600&DisplayImage=True Here is another sample map showing part of the perimeter that follows the Ontario/Minnesota (Canada/US) border: http://themnrstore.mnr.gov.on.ca/english/map.asp?tid=0&zoom=5&map=2015580053 400&DisplayImage=True If you are going to try and define time zone boundaries, the jagged international border needs to be dealt with regardless of whether you place Quetico in America/Atikokan or America/Rainy_River. The same border is part of the northern perimeter of America/Chicago. Obviously this is not the only part of the world where boundaries don't follow straight lines. How do you usually handle jagged borders? Do you approximate with a lot of single points or do you approximate with a series of mathematical splines? How much accuracy are you looking for? The scale of the map that is used to get the data makes a huge difference! Before we take this further... Here is a summary of time practices for Atikokan & Quetico... Nothing new but please read. I just want to make sure we are all on the same page. The Township of Atikokan and Quetico Provincial Park both lie west of 90° longitude. Based on Ontario Legislation, the time observed in this region should be CST/CDT (UTC-6 in winter and UTC-5 in summer). The local mining companies don't like the clocks moving forwards and backwards and pressured the Township of Atikokan to remain on UTC-5 year round. The tradition probably goes back to the end of World War II. The Township has never had any by-law or formal documentation in place to cover the practice. If there was such a by-law it would automatically be invalidated by the Ontario Time Act. Quetico Provincial Park is a relatively large wilderness park that is situated very close to Atikokan (the southeast corner of Atikokan township is actually located in the park). Total land area of the park is 4758 square km. For comparison, the park is just a little smaller than the province of Prince Edward Island. For people that like US comparisons, it is bigger than Rhode Island but smaller than Delaware. There are no roads in the park other than those at the main campground. The primary means of travel in the park (in summer months) is the canoe. The head office of Quetico Provincial Park is in the Township of Atikokan. The park staff (Ontario Ministry of Resources employees) use "Atikokan time" for official business year round. (I got confirmation of this back in July from the park superintendent.) Campers, canoeists, skiers, hikers, and those who prefer snow shoes can set their watches as they please without being shot (because we don't use guns in Canada). In the summer months a.k.a. the tourist season, America/Atikokan, America/Rainy_River, America/Winnipeg, and America/Chicago are on UTC-5 so most visitors to Quetico park would never know there is anything special about "Atikokan time". The hour difference between America/Atikokan and the other time zone regions only shows up in the winter when the tourists have gone home and there are presumably very few people using the park. The bottom line is that we are dealing with an area where visitors will use what ever time they please but any local record keeping will be done with UTC-5. For the purposes of defining time zone boundaries on paper (or computer), I am not claiming that Quetico "must" be placed in the America/Atikokan time zone... but I will try and support anybody that decides to do so. -chris

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RE: Nipigon and Atikokan
by Jesper Norgaard Welen Nov. 4, 2006

Nov. 4, 2006

Thanks, Chris >Nipigon Township: >Northern boundary: 49 degrees 02 minutes 20 seconds N >Eastern boundary: 88 degrees 14 minutes 0 seconds W >Southern boundary: 48 degrees 58 minutes 20 seconds N <--updated >Western boundary: 88 degrees 26 minutes 0 seconds W Thanks for the updated coordinates. I think I will include Quetico Provinicial Park in my Atikokan timezone. Do you happen to have the coordinates? I tried with the links you sent, but the PDF files load very slowly, and I don't see the coordinates clearly. >If you are making a time zone map you have to decide whether to lump Quetico >Provincial Park in with Atikokan. Quetico is a large wilderness park. At 4758 >square kilometres it is more than ten times the size of Atikokan itself. It is >mostly used by canoeists in the summer and cross country skiers in the winter. The >head office for Quetico is inside the town of Atikokan. The park staff uses >Atikokan time for official purposes. Campers, canoeists, skiers, etc. can use >what ever time they wish. >Also, if you are creating time zone maps for all of Canada, please be aware of >recent changes in Quebec time legislation. If I understand the new legislation, >the time zone boundary will no longer follow the 63rd meridian starting next year. >See my notes in: http://www3.sympatico.ca/c.walton/canada_dst.html I'm not quite sure what are the changes from previous *actual* time keeping in the regions and the new laws to be applied Jan 1, 2007. As far as I can see the laws are merely confirming the practice that was already used. One exception could be the Anticosti Island, where this is cut on 2 by the map on http://time5.nrc.ca/webclock_e.shtml while it seems that the permanent inhabitants, mostly situated on the west side of the island, always has used EST/EDT on the whole island, thus making the previous link wrong about the eastern part of the island. But as I understand it, the new law is now reflecting the current practice even in this case. Regards, - Jesper

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Fwd: Hello,Admin
by Jiania Hung Nov. 3, 2006

Nov. 3, 2006

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jiania Hung <jiania(a)gmail.com> Date: Nov 2, 2006 3:13 PM Subject: Hello,Admin To: peclweb(a)php.net, kingwez(a)gmail.com, pecl-dev(a)lists.php.net Hello In our site need to use timezonedb.dll,but php.net have no about timezonedb.dll document,can you help me ? tell me about this Dll code mothod? thankyou. -- If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at jiania(a)gmail.com Jiania Hung LL.D. CEO Jiania Corporation -- If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at jiania(a)gmail.com Jiania Hung LL.D. CEO Jiania Corporation

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Close to a 2006o?
by Stephen Colebourne Nov. 3, 2006

Nov. 3, 2006

Are we close to a version 2006o of the data? I am planning on releasing a new version of Joda-Time soon which includes the zone data. I know there have been a number of changes recently so I would like the release to include the up to date info if possible. On a more general note, is there a specific trigger for creating new releases of the tz database (eg. every month), or is it just created on demand? thanks for any info, Stephen http://joda-time.sourceforge.net

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FW: Corrections to latitudes/longitudes in zone.tab
by Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) [E] Nov. 1, 2006

Nov. 1, 2006

I'm forwarding this message from Andy McDonald, who is not on the time zone mailing list. Those of you who are on the list: please direct replies appropriately. Thanks! --ado -----Original Message----- From: Andy McDonald [mailto:andy@stemhaus.com] Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 12:29 AM To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Corrections to latitudes/longitudes in zone.tab Hi, I've run across a couple of inaccurate latitudes/longitudes in tz's zone.tab (2006n): Approx true lat/long zone.tab lat/long Europe/Jersey +4912-00207 +4912-00237 Europe/Podgorica +4227+01916 +4247+01928 Jersey perhaps looks like a typo.; Podgorica's latitude looks like a typo., but not the longitude. The corrected values come from playing with my Firefox time zone extension (http://www.stemhaus.com/firefox/foxclocks/) and Google Earth, and are of course entirely subjective. Regards, Andy McDonald

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Nipigon and Atikokan
by Chris Walton Nov. 1, 2006

Nov. 1, 2006

Jesper, I don't know how much accuracy you need. I used a combination of the maps I sent you plus Garmin's Topo Canada to come of with some coordinates that I think are pretty close. Atikokan Township: Northern boundary: 48 degrees 50 minutes 0 seconds N Eastern boundary: 91 degrees 30 minutes 0 seconds W Southern boundary: 48 degrees 40 minutes 0 seconds N Western boundary: 91 degrees 45 minutes 0 seconds W If you wish to include Quetico Provincial Park it gets more complicated because it is not square. Nipigon Township: Northern boundary: 49 degrees 02 minutes 20 seconds N Eastern boundary: 88 degrees 14 minutes 0 seconds W Southern boundary: 49 degrees 00 minutes 0 seconds N Western boundary: 88 degrees 26 minutes 0 seconds W Note: the Township of "Red Rock" lies immediately south of the Township of Nipigon. My guess is that Red Rock has probably always followed Nipigon time. I have no proof and I don't wish to start making up history. Unless anybody has information Red Rock's time practices prior to 1974 we should keep "America/Nipigon" confined to Nipigon Township. -chris -----Original Message----- From: Chris Walton Sent: October 31, 2006 12:30 AM To: 'tz(a)elsie.nci.nih.gov'; 'jnorgard(a)prodigy.net.mx' Subject: RE: Canada details Jesper, I understand your confusion in trying to draw time zone boundaries for Atikokan and Nipigon. The "Township of Atikokan" and the "Township of Nipigon" are municipalities in Northern Ontario. Both townships have official boundaries and are officially recognized as municipalities by the province. The "town" of Atikokan is the built up area (townsite) within the Township of Atikokan. The "town" of Nipigon is the built up area (townsite) within the township of Nipigon. Before reading further, please understand that there are both "geographical townships" and "municipal townships" in Ontario. A "geographic township" is an area of land (usually rectangular in shape) that was given a name by the land surveyors many years ago. A "municipal township" is a municipality with some local political structure and generally a small population. The municipality of the "Township of Nipigon" lies exactly within the boundaries of the Nipigon geographic township. Total area is 109.65 square km with a population density of 17.9 people per square km. The north half of municipality of the "Township of Atikokan" is comprised of the geographic townships of Schwenger and Freehorn. The south half of is comprised of an area that was not surveyed in the original Ontario land surveys. Total area of the municipality is 316.81 square km with a population density of 11.5 people per square km. Note: there isn't (and never was) a geographic township named "Atikokan". The time zone boundaries for both Atikokan and Nipigon should presumably follow the municipal township boundaries. The best way to get the boundaries would be from paper copies of the federal 1:50000 topographical maps. Here are some online maps that give a general idea of the areas involved: Atikokan: Look for the black square near the east end of the Rainy River district. http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/userfiles/page_attachments/Library/1/1652085_E_200… Here is a more detailed map with some latitude and longitude markings. The Township of Atikokan is the larger of the two black squares in the center of the map. http://crownlanduseatlas.mnr.gov.on.ca/tilemaps/pdfs/_920485.pdf Nipigon: Look for the black rectangle south of Lake Nipigon http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/userfiles/page_attachments/Library/1/3519577_E_200… Here is a more detailed map with some latitude and longitude markings. The Township of Nipigon is near the bottom of the map. http://crownlanduseatlas.mnr.gov.on.ca/tilemaps/pdfs/_890490.pdf If you are making a time zone map you have to decide whether to lump Quetico Provincial Park in with Atikokan. Quetico is a large wilderness park. At 4758 square kilometres it is more than ten times the size of Atikokan itself. It is mostly used by canoeists in the summer and cross country skiers in the winter. The head office for Quetico is inside the town of Atikokan. The park staff uses Atikokan time for official purposes. Campers, canoeists, skiers, etc. can use what ever time they wish. Also, if you are creating time zone maps for all of Canada, please be aware of recent changes in Quebec time legislation. If I understand the new legislation, the time zone boundary will no longer follow the 63rd meridian starting next year. See my notes in: http://www3.sympatico.ca/c.walton/canada_dst.html Let me know if you need any more info. If I come across any better maps I will let you know. -chris -----Original Message----- From: Oscar van Vlijmen [mailto:ovv@hetnet.nl] Sent: October 30, 2006 5:29 PM To: tz(a)lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Re: Canada details > From: Jesper Norgaard Welen > Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:43:39 -0600 > Subject: Strange historic timezone in Nigeria > As a side-question, I'm trying to determine a meaningful area for the > timezones Atikokan and Nipigon, it seems to me that they would be > small, like a US county for instance, but I can't find anything about > it. It seems they must be within the larger areas Rainy River district > and Thunder Bay district, but how would it look on a map? Chris Walton put a lot of effort in researching the Canada situation. <http://www3.sympatico.ca/c.walton/canada_dst.html> Very detailed! And then there is of course the Matthews-Vincent 1998 article everybody refers to. It is quite possible that there is simply no more detail available....

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West Australia DST pushing forward
by Jesper Norgaard Welen Nov. 1, 2006

Nov. 1, 2006

West Australia has made a step further to implementing DST, the lower house approved the DST bill, but to go ahead the bill must also be passed in the upper house. In the meantime rhetoric flies high, DST can save lives, the upper house should be abolished if the DST bill is not passed etc. : http://origin.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20682208-29277,00.html Also a sincere thanks to Chris Walton for the "Canada details", I will look into that, but it looks good at first sight, just what I needed. And an apology for the ill-thought-through question about Niger (not Nigeria!), I hadn't even seen the comment in the 'africa' file about the double use of WAT for GMT-1 and GMT+1, and besides I could have confirmed with astro.com that Shanks also agree about the GMT-1 for Niger in the period specified. Regards, Jesper Jesper Nørgaard Welen Email: jnorgard(a)Prodigy.Net.mx Project Leader (Líder de Proyecto) Software CIMMYT - Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo Dirección: CIMMYT Int. c/o Jesper Nørgaard Km. 45, Carretera México-Veracruz El Batán Texcoco, Edo. de México CP 56130 MEXICO Tel.: +52 (55) 58-04-20-04 ext. 1374 Fax: +52 (55) 58-04-75-58 Tel. Casa: 53-10-05-95 ó 53-10-97-78 Download the shareware program World Time Explorer, I made: http://www.worldtimeexplorer.com/index.html

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