At 09:06 -0800 2001-01-10, Paul Eggert wrote:
1. Is there an "official list" of all the names or labels used to designated time zones
No, unfortunately. And in practice, the names are ambiguous. For example, "IST" means UTC+2 in Israel, but UTC+5:30 in India. Simiarly, "EST" has different meanings in the US and in Australia. Even if you limit yourself to Australia, "EST" can mean UTC+10 or UTC+11, depending on the time of year.
... and location! Right now, "EST" can mean both UTC+10 and UTC+11, as the state of Queensland does not observe daylight-saving time, whereas the other regions in the eastern time zone do (Victoria, Tasmania, and most of New South Wales). And it's not just because "S" stands for "standard" in the former case and "Summer" in the latter: it stands for "standard" in both cases! Sometimes I'm ashamed to be Australian. _______________ Alex LIVINGSTON IT, Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 Fax: +61 2 9931-9349 / Phone: +61 2 9931-9264 / Time: UTC + 10 or 11 hours At end of today, Thursday, January 11, time since epoch (1-1-1 at 00:00:00) = 730496 days = 2000.03011698 average Gregorian years time since 2nd millennium, 20th century, 200th decade, 2000th year = 11 days = .03011698 average Gregorian years
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:44:25 +1100 From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex@agsm.edu.au> Message-ID: <a04330100b68292dc0db1@[149.171.217.233]> | And it's not just because "S" | stands for "standard" in the former case and "Summer" in the latter: | it stands for "standard" in both cases! Sometimes I'm ashamed to be | Australian. In Victoria at least, the S that is current now is "Summer". It comes from the Summer Time act, which specifies that Eastern Summer Time is what it shall be called. It doesn't actually specify the abbreviation (acronym) but it is a pretty obvious step... The people who stick an "A" in the Aust time zone labels are just doing it to try and stay unambiguous with the US labels that are largely similar (except Aus has WST instead of PST, and we have no fourth M zone, being of a similar width but lower latitude). The A is no more correct than it would be to call -0500 NAEST (or USEST or something) - though in some uses doing so might save a lot of problems. kre
At 00:10 +0700 2001-01-12, Robert Elz wrote:
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 09:44:25 +1100 From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex@agsm.edu.au> Message-ID: <a04330100b68292dc0db1@[149.171.217.233]>
| And it's not just because "S" | stands for "standard" in the former case and "Summer" in the latter: | it stands for "standard" in both cases! Sometimes I'm ashamed to be | Australian.
In Victoria at least, the S that is current now is "Summer". It comes from the Summer Time act, which specifies that Eastern Summer Time is what it shall be called. It doesn't actually specify the abbreviation (acronym) but it is a pretty obvious step...
In NSW, even though it is "summer" time, it is still legally also "standard" time! See http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/sta1987137/s10.html Nowhere in the act containing this are abbreviations defined. --Alex PS: Robert, do you have any idea why your mail's time-stamp offset is given as "+0700"? Are you (or is your mail server) on Christmas Island? _______________ Alex LIVINGSTON IT, Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM), UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 Fax: +61 2 9931-9349 / Phone: +61 2 9931-9264 / Time: UTC + 10 or 11 hours At end of today, Monday, January 15, time since epoch (1-1-1 at 00:00:00) = 730500 days = 2000.04106861 average Gregorian years time since 2nd millennium, 20th century, 200th decade, 2000th year = 15 days = .04106861 average Gregorian years
Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 09:31:10 +1100 From: Alex LIVINGSTON <alex@agsm.edu.au> Message-ID: <a04330106b687d7ea0ad7@[149.171.217.233]> | In NSW, even though it is "summer" time, it is still legally also | "standard" time! That might be true in Vic as well (that's the cheap way of making everything defined to relate to standard time automatically update and apply to summer time). But the name of the Vic time zone is Eastern Summer Time (whether it is standard time or not...) | Nowhere in the act containing this are abbreviations defined. That's true in Vic as well. | PS: Robert, do you have any idea why your mail's time-stamp offset is | given as "+0700"? Are you (or is your mail server) on Christmas | Island? +0700 is correct, but no, it isn't Christmas Island... kre
participants (2)
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Alex LIVINGSTON -
Robert Elz