Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 19:06:53 -0800 From: Paul Eggert <eggert@twinsun.com> Message-ID: <199801080306.TAA01506@shade.twinsun.com> | The International Date Line isn't a fixed international standard; | it's just a cartographer's convenience. To amplify Paul's response - the only way the "date line" could run through land would be if some country, or countries with a common land border, decided to run their clocks 24 hours apart. This would cause such civil disruption (can you imagine if on one side of the street they were selling the Saturday newspapers, while on the other side they're selling Friday's ?? - and they're both current editions). People already complain when there's an hour difference as you cross the street (or river or whatever). Excluding that kind of absurdity (which is unavoidable in antartica, but there aren't enough people there to care - and I doubt the penguins know about date lines) any piece of land is all going to be running with timezones quite close together, and usually approximately related to solar time, with noon being when the sun is overhead. Out in the middle of the Pacific ocean, it is largely arbitrary which day an island is going to prefer to be in, and tends to relate more to which other countries they're more closely affiliated with (if in the Americas, they're likely to prefer being -1200, if with Asia/Australasia they're likely to prefer +1200). | I heard on the CBC that some islands moved it to intersect their | cities, is this true? | This is news to me. It would be truly ludicrous. | The Wall St Journal (1996-01-22, page 1) reported that Cuba is | considering jumping across the International Date Line, just so that | it's the first into the year 2000. So it's possible you'll have to | adjust your travel plans. Of course, if they do, some pacific island will simply move another 24 hours ahead, and get there even sooner. Why anyone would care though whether they're first or last to year 2000? This seems tobe so monumentally weird to me that its hard to understand. But if you're that keen, and have a boat that can go way out to sea, which it seems that you do, then I think in international waters you can decide for yourself what your local timezone is, so if you're that keen to be first, sail out next weekend, set your clocks forward 2 years worth of daylight saving, and you've achieved it. If you want to do it without "cheating" in any way, then being on a boat will probably not be what you want, you probably want to be in New Zealand, or one of the similar southern islands, their normal +1200, with an extra hour's summer time in summer (which it is in December/January) means that they run +1300, so they're going to be in 2000 a year ahead of anyone running a natural timezone. kre