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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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Regarding tz changes
by utkal santra Sept. 23, 2011

Sept. 23, 2011

Hi, I wanted to know when is the next timzone update is happening.Currently I found fw data are missing. I would like to add the Russian (Moscow) timezone changes to that. Please let me know the next release. Thanks, Utkal

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