On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 4:31 AM, Sergiusz Wolicki <sergiusz@wolicki.com> wrote:
## What level of discussion is this?
Actually, a funny
depends on the reader
and intelligent answer may depend on the intelligence of the reader
True vacuum has no atoms. As temperature is understood to be the measure of how much atoms move relative to each other (or similar), it makes little sense to talk about temperature where there are no atoms. The one who talks about it is you.
Similarly, a long discussion about a time zone for a place where there is nobody to look at a clock seems futile. Theory does not define that there needs to be someone to look at a clock.
Long discussions get shorter if people read Theory "The tz database attempts to record the history and predicted future of all computer-based clocks that track civil time."
Small groups of temporary visitors do not count, because they will observe whatever time they want to. Theory does not define a threshold for how small or big a group of "visitors" should be to change observed time.
They may, for example, decide to leave clocks at their home time zone, or set them as dictated by geographical time or whatever.
On the other hand, if a governmental organization defines a time zone for an area, like for HM or Siberia, then it makes sense to consider this time zone as applying to the area. The real question to answer is, if we want the tz database to have a time zone for each ISO territory code or not. Who is "we"? Some contributors to the tz mailing list already wrote they would like a zone for HM. Others talk about vacuum. Others try to make sense of the Theory file.
If not, then UTC+5 is good enough. Even if it is not set up for each ISO territory, UTC+5 is insufficient, as it violates tzcode2012b/Theory
"The tz database attempts to record the history and predicted future of all computer-based clocks that track civil time. To represent this data, the world is partitioned into regions whose clocks all agree about time stamps that occur after the somewhat-arbitrary cutoff point of the POSIX Epoch (1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC). For each such region, the database records all known clock transitions, and labels the region with a notable location." UTC+5 is not a location and can therefor not be a label for a region as defined above.
It is really waste of time to try to define history of observed time for a generally inhabited island. It can be considered waste of time to make the preceding statement.
Some of those that support a zone for HM do not "try to define history of observed time", but have a definition already. -- Tobias Conradi Rheinsberger Str. 18 10115 Berlin Germany http://tobiasconradi.com/